Sermon Illustrations for All Saints Day (2017)
Illustration
Revelation 7:9-17
What is the most incredible worship experience you’ve ever had? I’m not sure what might constitute an “incredible worship experience,” but I do recall one of the most moving and touching times I’ve had in worship. I was in Kansas City at Arrowhead Stadium, the stadium where the Kansas City Chiefs play football. The men’s group Promise Keepershad been around for just a few years, and lots of guys were going. I was with a group of men from our church in Kansas City. On a fall Saturday afternoon, during a time of singing, nearly 70,000 men joined in singing “Holy, Holy, Holy.” It is a moment that I won’t forget. The singular focus of 70,000 people on the holiness of Jesus Christ was powerful.
As we turn to the pages of Revelation, we find quite a few scenes that are hard to interpret. Scholars have explained these passages in different ways. Reading through Revelation, there are quite a few things that I’m unsure of, but there’s one thing I know. The Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, is worthy of blessing, glory, honor, wisdom, thanksgiving, and might. The worship described in this passage is astounding. As much as I’ve enjoyed worship here, I can’t wait to be there. How about you?
Bill T.
Revelation 7:9-17
Americans thought things were bad in our nation a year ago -- it is why Donald Trump got elected. We are still not that optimistic. When things are bad, like the people addressed in our lesson, you tend to dream of a better day ahead. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington is a great example. Looking to the future and its hope keeps us going.
John Calvin explained this dynamic well: “...the entire company of believers, so long as they dwell on earth... would therefore have been desperately unhappy unless, with mind intent on heaven, they had surmounted whatever is in this world... if, moreover, believers are troubled by the wickedness of these [greedy, arrogant] men... they will without difficulty bear up under such evils also” (Institutes of the Christian Religion [Westminster Press edition], p. 718).
Luther made a similar point about how the glorious vision of the end times and so of the saints helps us forget the tough times in life: “The forgetting should gradually come upon us even in this life. For although at the present time, while worms and rottenness are before our eyes, we cannot be unmindful of them, nevertheless there will be a time God will wipe away every tear” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 7, pp. 210-211).
Mark E.
Revelation 7:9-17
It came as a surprise to all the young monks of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter in Lincoln, Nebraska. But when they released an album of Gregorian chants on May 12, 2017, they never expected it to be a best-selling classical album on Amazon. The album Requiem has many of the 80 seminarians and Catholic priests singing a traditional Latin funeral Mass. What is even more astonishing is that the order was only established in 1988. Rev. Zachary Akers is the director of the seminary choir. He considers one of the reasons for the album’s success to be the many young voices in the choir. Rev. Akers also gave another reason for the success of an album of Gregorian chants, saying, “It’s hard to explain the timelessness and the universality of this music.”
Application: A central theme in this reading is worship.
Ron L.
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
All Saints Day leads many of us to think of life after death, or like in the case of David in this psalm, to hope for a better day. To this matter St. Augustine writes, advising us against simply yearning for better times here on earth (which we might achieve) because such hopes are a dead end: “What man is he that desireth life, and loveth to see good days? Let him not seek here good days. A good thing he seeketh but not in its right place doth he seek it. As, if thou shouldst seek some righteous man in a country, wherein he lived not, it would be said to thee, a good man thou seekest, a great man thou seekest, seek him still but not here; in vain thou seekest him here, thou wilt never find him” (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 8, p. 76).
Aware of our sinful condition that we can never overcome on our own, we can affirm what Martin Luther said about this psalm in describing Christian life: “Therefore the beginning of the psalm is full of the example of humility, for no one blesses the Lord except the one who is displeased with himself and curses himself to whom God alone is pleasing” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 10, p. 162).
When we live this awareness, the first Reformer claims, it leads to a life spent in praise, contemplating God, which in turn results in joy and celebration: “For it is sweet business to ponder and magnify your Creator and to say, ‘Behold, I am the creature of so great a Lord! How happy I am that my Creator is such a person, that such a person has given me such things and such great things! They are much more pleasing because so great a person gave them than if I had them of myself’ ” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 10, p. 163).
Life is better and more joyful when we realize that all we have, even holiness and faithfulness, are wonderful gifts of God.
Mark E.
1 John 3:1-3
To be called a child of God is a great honor. Yet each of us, as we proclaim our faith in God and express our faith through Jesus with the strengthening of the Holy Spirit, are given permission, no freedom, to proclaim our kinship with our creator. This is so different from many other faith expressions. We can approach the throne of God claiming God as Abba, as parent, as creator, and as family. We are inheritors of the grace and blessings imbued by God into all creation.
On this day when we remember the saints of the church, those canonized and those we proclaim for their great faith and deeds among us, it is important to acknowledge that they too are and were children of God -- and as such, as siblings with us. We are one family of God, children of the creator. We are no better or worse than any of God’s other children. We cannot proclaim our supremacy through our dogma or doctrine, through our tithes or our offering, through our ego or our achievement. We are given the gift of welcome into God’s family. We are called into inclusion, and so is every other faithful human being on the planet. It is an honor to be a child of God, but it is an honor we share.
Bonnie B.
1 John 3:1-3
There is no agreement about exactly when, how, and why the First Letter of John was written. One theory is that John was writing to Christians in Ephesus, where two radically different groups had two radically different beliefs about Jesus. These people were in one fellowship, and John was at pains to keep them together, if possible.
John is addressing the need for both a human and divine understanding of who Jesus is. One group, possibly influenced by community at Qumran (associated today with the Dead Sea Scrolls), preached and practiced radical obedience to the law of Moses. At the other end of the spectrum were the Gnostics, who practiced a mystery religion holding that this tension between a fully human Jesus and a fully divine Jesus could be resolved, John is stating, by radical obedience to the law of love, the commandments of Jesus. This is why, in his long discourse in John’s gospel, Jesus states that he gives his disciples only one new commandment. They should love each other. That is how they should be known. In writing about the difference between the children of light and the children of darkness, John says: “For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (1 John 3:11).
Frank R.
1 John 3:1-3
Did God make some of us fathers so we could know how it feels to have children? God gives us many experiences in life so we will know how he feels.
Did God create us to look like him? Does he have hands and feet, and eyes, ears, and a nose? Does he have that beard we always see on him in artist’s paintings of God? We know that after the crucifixion Jesus still had the marks of the nails in his hands. Does he still have them?
Others do not know us as we would like them to because they do not know Jesus, but if they know God will they recognize him in us? Is it just outward appearance that makes us like God, or is it the sense of his love in us? If we love others, will they see God in us and want to know him better?
Would Muslims come to know God because they see him working in us because of our love for them, even when they do things that we can’t approve of?
Our church is a nursery for God’s children. We can see God working in some fellow members. We see his love in others. We want to come to know God when we are church members and not just know about God. We are not saved by knowledge. We want others to see that we are God’s children.
When I was in clergy meetings in the communities I served, I could feel those who knew God -- and we bonded together regardless of which denomination we belonged to.
When I finally came to know God, I recognized that he had been in my parents and they helped form his love in me. Love one another as he has loved us.
Bob O.
Matthew 5:1-12
Sometimes things are not what they seem. Consider this...
In 2004 Victor Yushchenko ran for the presidency of the Ukraine. On the day of the election Yushchenko was comfortably in the lead. The ruling party, not to be denied, tampered with the results. The state-run television station reported: “Ladies and gentlemen, we announce that the challenger Victor Yushchenko has been decisively defeated.”
In the lower right-hand corner of the screen a woman by the name of Natalia Dmitruk was providing a translation service for the deaf community. As the news presenter presented the lies of the regime, Natalia Dmitruk refused to translate them. “I’m addressing all the deaf citizens of Ukraine,” she signed. “They are lying and I’m ashamed to translate those lies. Yushchenko is our president.”
The deaf community sprang into gear. They text-messaged their friends about the fraudulent result, and as news spread of Dmitruk’s act of defiance increasing numbers of journalists were inspired to likewise tell the truth. Over the coming weeks, the “Orange Revolution” occurred. Millions of people, wearing orange, made their way to the capital city of Kiev demanding a new election. The government was forced to meet their demands, a new election was held, and Victor Yushchenko became president.
Philip Yancey writes about this in his book What Good is God. His observation is spot-on. “Throughout history nations have always glorified winners, not losers. Then, like the sign language translator in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, along comes a person named Jesus who says in effect, don’t believe the big screen -- they’re lying. It’s the poor who are blessed, not the rich. Mourners are blessed too, as well as those who hunger and thirst, and the persecuted. Those who go through life thinking they’re on top end up on the bottom. And those who go through life feeling they’re on the bottom end up on the top. After all, what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and lose his soul?”
Bill T.
Matthew 5:1-12
Martin Luther has a great message for us on All Saints Day, reminding all Christians of our saintliness: “We are all saints, and cursed is he who does not want to call himself a saint. However, you do not owe this to yourself but to the will of God, who would be your Father. To call yourself a saint is, therefore, no presumption but an act of gratitude and a confession of God’s blessings” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 45, p. 128).
This is not to say it comes easy, Luther adds: “But if you want to have the gospel and Christ, then you must count on having trouble, conflict, and persecution wherever you go” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 21, p. 51).
The advice reflected in the Beatitudes helps point Christians to ways to resist these stumbling blocks. Jesus’ portrayal of blessedness amounts to advice to his followers not to lose their cool, to keep balance, and it will lead to a happier, more blessed life. Modern American Catholic writer Thomas Merton said it well: “Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm, and harmony.” Self-help author Brian Tracy offers similar wisdom: “Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.”
Mark E.
Matthew 5:1-12
In a diplomatic mission to Cairo in April 2017, Pope Francis called upon Egypt’s Muslim leaders to end the violence caused by Islamic militants. It was a strong message for a prophet to make in a foreign and hostile land. The pope spoke to the caliphs and said: “As religious leaders, we are called to unmask violence that masquerades as purported sanctity. Let us say once more a firm and clear ‘No’ to every form of violence, vengeance carried out in the name of religion or in the name of God.” With the strength of his message, his words were greeted with applause.
Application: Pope Francis understood that only the truths contained in the Beatitudes can bring peace and justice to the world.
Ron L.
What is the most incredible worship experience you’ve ever had? I’m not sure what might constitute an “incredible worship experience,” but I do recall one of the most moving and touching times I’ve had in worship. I was in Kansas City at Arrowhead Stadium, the stadium where the Kansas City Chiefs play football. The men’s group Promise Keepershad been around for just a few years, and lots of guys were going. I was with a group of men from our church in Kansas City. On a fall Saturday afternoon, during a time of singing, nearly 70,000 men joined in singing “Holy, Holy, Holy.” It is a moment that I won’t forget. The singular focus of 70,000 people on the holiness of Jesus Christ was powerful.
As we turn to the pages of Revelation, we find quite a few scenes that are hard to interpret. Scholars have explained these passages in different ways. Reading through Revelation, there are quite a few things that I’m unsure of, but there’s one thing I know. The Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, is worthy of blessing, glory, honor, wisdom, thanksgiving, and might. The worship described in this passage is astounding. As much as I’ve enjoyed worship here, I can’t wait to be there. How about you?
Bill T.
Revelation 7:9-17
Americans thought things were bad in our nation a year ago -- it is why Donald Trump got elected. We are still not that optimistic. When things are bad, like the people addressed in our lesson, you tend to dream of a better day ahead. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington is a great example. Looking to the future and its hope keeps us going.
John Calvin explained this dynamic well: “...the entire company of believers, so long as they dwell on earth... would therefore have been desperately unhappy unless, with mind intent on heaven, they had surmounted whatever is in this world... if, moreover, believers are troubled by the wickedness of these [greedy, arrogant] men... they will without difficulty bear up under such evils also” (Institutes of the Christian Religion [Westminster Press edition], p. 718).
Luther made a similar point about how the glorious vision of the end times and so of the saints helps us forget the tough times in life: “The forgetting should gradually come upon us even in this life. For although at the present time, while worms and rottenness are before our eyes, we cannot be unmindful of them, nevertheless there will be a time God will wipe away every tear” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 7, pp. 210-211).
Mark E.
Revelation 7:9-17
It came as a surprise to all the young monks of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter in Lincoln, Nebraska. But when they released an album of Gregorian chants on May 12, 2017, they never expected it to be a best-selling classical album on Amazon. The album Requiem has many of the 80 seminarians and Catholic priests singing a traditional Latin funeral Mass. What is even more astonishing is that the order was only established in 1988. Rev. Zachary Akers is the director of the seminary choir. He considers one of the reasons for the album’s success to be the many young voices in the choir. Rev. Akers also gave another reason for the success of an album of Gregorian chants, saying, “It’s hard to explain the timelessness and the universality of this music.”
Application: A central theme in this reading is worship.
Ron L.
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
All Saints Day leads many of us to think of life after death, or like in the case of David in this psalm, to hope for a better day. To this matter St. Augustine writes, advising us against simply yearning for better times here on earth (which we might achieve) because such hopes are a dead end: “What man is he that desireth life, and loveth to see good days? Let him not seek here good days. A good thing he seeketh but not in its right place doth he seek it. As, if thou shouldst seek some righteous man in a country, wherein he lived not, it would be said to thee, a good man thou seekest, a great man thou seekest, seek him still but not here; in vain thou seekest him here, thou wilt never find him” (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 8, p. 76).
Aware of our sinful condition that we can never overcome on our own, we can affirm what Martin Luther said about this psalm in describing Christian life: “Therefore the beginning of the psalm is full of the example of humility, for no one blesses the Lord except the one who is displeased with himself and curses himself to whom God alone is pleasing” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 10, p. 162).
When we live this awareness, the first Reformer claims, it leads to a life spent in praise, contemplating God, which in turn results in joy and celebration: “For it is sweet business to ponder and magnify your Creator and to say, ‘Behold, I am the creature of so great a Lord! How happy I am that my Creator is such a person, that such a person has given me such things and such great things! They are much more pleasing because so great a person gave them than if I had them of myself’ ” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 10, p. 163).
Life is better and more joyful when we realize that all we have, even holiness and faithfulness, are wonderful gifts of God.
Mark E.
1 John 3:1-3
To be called a child of God is a great honor. Yet each of us, as we proclaim our faith in God and express our faith through Jesus with the strengthening of the Holy Spirit, are given permission, no freedom, to proclaim our kinship with our creator. This is so different from many other faith expressions. We can approach the throne of God claiming God as Abba, as parent, as creator, and as family. We are inheritors of the grace and blessings imbued by God into all creation.
On this day when we remember the saints of the church, those canonized and those we proclaim for their great faith and deeds among us, it is important to acknowledge that they too are and were children of God -- and as such, as siblings with us. We are one family of God, children of the creator. We are no better or worse than any of God’s other children. We cannot proclaim our supremacy through our dogma or doctrine, through our tithes or our offering, through our ego or our achievement. We are given the gift of welcome into God’s family. We are called into inclusion, and so is every other faithful human being on the planet. It is an honor to be a child of God, but it is an honor we share.
Bonnie B.
1 John 3:1-3
There is no agreement about exactly when, how, and why the First Letter of John was written. One theory is that John was writing to Christians in Ephesus, where two radically different groups had two radically different beliefs about Jesus. These people were in one fellowship, and John was at pains to keep them together, if possible.
John is addressing the need for both a human and divine understanding of who Jesus is. One group, possibly influenced by community at Qumran (associated today with the Dead Sea Scrolls), preached and practiced radical obedience to the law of Moses. At the other end of the spectrum were the Gnostics, who practiced a mystery religion holding that this tension between a fully human Jesus and a fully divine Jesus could be resolved, John is stating, by radical obedience to the law of love, the commandments of Jesus. This is why, in his long discourse in John’s gospel, Jesus states that he gives his disciples only one new commandment. They should love each other. That is how they should be known. In writing about the difference between the children of light and the children of darkness, John says: “For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (1 John 3:11).
Frank R.
1 John 3:1-3
Did God make some of us fathers so we could know how it feels to have children? God gives us many experiences in life so we will know how he feels.
Did God create us to look like him? Does he have hands and feet, and eyes, ears, and a nose? Does he have that beard we always see on him in artist’s paintings of God? We know that after the crucifixion Jesus still had the marks of the nails in his hands. Does he still have them?
Others do not know us as we would like them to because they do not know Jesus, but if they know God will they recognize him in us? Is it just outward appearance that makes us like God, or is it the sense of his love in us? If we love others, will they see God in us and want to know him better?
Would Muslims come to know God because they see him working in us because of our love for them, even when they do things that we can’t approve of?
Our church is a nursery for God’s children. We can see God working in some fellow members. We see his love in others. We want to come to know God when we are church members and not just know about God. We are not saved by knowledge. We want others to see that we are God’s children.
When I was in clergy meetings in the communities I served, I could feel those who knew God -- and we bonded together regardless of which denomination we belonged to.
When I finally came to know God, I recognized that he had been in my parents and they helped form his love in me. Love one another as he has loved us.
Bob O.
Matthew 5:1-12
Sometimes things are not what they seem. Consider this...
In 2004 Victor Yushchenko ran for the presidency of the Ukraine. On the day of the election Yushchenko was comfortably in the lead. The ruling party, not to be denied, tampered with the results. The state-run television station reported: “Ladies and gentlemen, we announce that the challenger Victor Yushchenko has been decisively defeated.”
In the lower right-hand corner of the screen a woman by the name of Natalia Dmitruk was providing a translation service for the deaf community. As the news presenter presented the lies of the regime, Natalia Dmitruk refused to translate them. “I’m addressing all the deaf citizens of Ukraine,” she signed. “They are lying and I’m ashamed to translate those lies. Yushchenko is our president.”
The deaf community sprang into gear. They text-messaged their friends about the fraudulent result, and as news spread of Dmitruk’s act of defiance increasing numbers of journalists were inspired to likewise tell the truth. Over the coming weeks, the “Orange Revolution” occurred. Millions of people, wearing orange, made their way to the capital city of Kiev demanding a new election. The government was forced to meet their demands, a new election was held, and Victor Yushchenko became president.
Philip Yancey writes about this in his book What Good is God. His observation is spot-on. “Throughout history nations have always glorified winners, not losers. Then, like the sign language translator in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, along comes a person named Jesus who says in effect, don’t believe the big screen -- they’re lying. It’s the poor who are blessed, not the rich. Mourners are blessed too, as well as those who hunger and thirst, and the persecuted. Those who go through life thinking they’re on top end up on the bottom. And those who go through life feeling they’re on the bottom end up on the top. After all, what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and lose his soul?”
Bill T.
Matthew 5:1-12
Martin Luther has a great message for us on All Saints Day, reminding all Christians of our saintliness: “We are all saints, and cursed is he who does not want to call himself a saint. However, you do not owe this to yourself but to the will of God, who would be your Father. To call yourself a saint is, therefore, no presumption but an act of gratitude and a confession of God’s blessings” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 45, p. 128).
This is not to say it comes easy, Luther adds: “But if you want to have the gospel and Christ, then you must count on having trouble, conflict, and persecution wherever you go” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 21, p. 51).
The advice reflected in the Beatitudes helps point Christians to ways to resist these stumbling blocks. Jesus’ portrayal of blessedness amounts to advice to his followers not to lose their cool, to keep balance, and it will lead to a happier, more blessed life. Modern American Catholic writer Thomas Merton said it well: “Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm, and harmony.” Self-help author Brian Tracy offers similar wisdom: “Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.”
Mark E.
Matthew 5:1-12
In a diplomatic mission to Cairo in April 2017, Pope Francis called upon Egypt’s Muslim leaders to end the violence caused by Islamic militants. It was a strong message for a prophet to make in a foreign and hostile land. The pope spoke to the caliphs and said: “As religious leaders, we are called to unmask violence that masquerades as purported sanctity. Let us say once more a firm and clear ‘No’ to every form of violence, vengeance carried out in the name of religion or in the name of God.” With the strength of his message, his words were greeted with applause.
Application: Pope Francis understood that only the truths contained in the Beatitudes can bring peace and justice to the world.
Ron L.
