The Festival of All Saints

October 31/November 1, 2009

“Eternal Rewards”

Matthew 5:1-12

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God our heavenly Father, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

We live in a world of instant gratification. Whatever it is we want, we want it right now. We want high-speed internet; pay at the pump when you put gas in the car, no time to walk inside to pay the cashier; forget about sending a letter through the mail, just send an email and it’s there in seconds; and fast food? I’m aggravated if I have to wait more than a minute or two for that burrito at Taco Bell. We eat in our cars, so we don’t have to slow down; we talk on the phone and conduct business in our cars so we don’t have to take the time to sit down with someone else face to face. We microwave our meals so they’re done in minutes, and we send packages that are absolutely positively guaranteed to get there overnight. The only thing we don’t have, it would seem, is patience. No patience, and no sense of anticipation; no desire to look forward toward things to come. Who needs to look forward to something, when we can have everything right now?

And then we come here, and we realize once again that the Church is not like the world. The Church is not about having it your way, or instant gratification. And that’s because the Christian faith is not about personal desires, or quick fixes. Take, for example, what we have on the Church calendar this weekend – the Festival of All Saints. All Saints’ Day leads us to confess exactly the opposite of what the world wants; that there is an eternal city, the City of God, an eternity of peace and joy before the heavenly throne. But we don’t have that yet; and we can’t have it right now. For now we walk by faith, not by sight, confessing the eternal joys of the life of the world to come even as we struggle in this sin-filled world of darkness.

One of the temptations we face as Christians in this life is the idea that we should live lives of prosperity and happiness; that God will bless us with material wealth and many other things because we are Christians. And there are plenty of spiritual snake-oil salesmen out there who promise exactly that. If you’re really a Christian, you won’t get sick. If you’re really a Christian, you won’t struggle to pay your bills. If you’re really a Christian, you won’t have problems in your marriage, or difficulties raising your children. It’s as if they want us to believe that all the peace and joy of heaven can and should be ours right now; some spiritual instant gratification. And then the problems come; the illnesses, the financial struggles, the family problems, finding ourselves far from God, unloving toward our neighbor, and we wonder where it all went wrong. What happened to our faith? We don’t feel very much like saints, and it’s because when we listen to the voices preaching the gospel of health and prosperity, we have turned away from the Word of God, and we have not heard what God has to say to us about our status as saints.

In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus describes our life of sainthood; He tells us what it looks like. He speaks the truth of what “real life” is like as a Christian, and at the same time, offers comfort to those who follow Him. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

All of these Beatitudes describe the life of saints in this world. And let’s be clear about saints. A saint is a holy person; that is, a person who has been made holy by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ, who died and rose again to give us His righteousness. Those who are in Christ through Holy Baptism, hearers of the Holy Word and fed at the Holy Supper, are saints. You are saints. When we celebrate All Saints’ Day, we do well to remember all those who have gone before us in the faith, but we also recognize that all of us are saints in God’s sight through Jesus Christ.

Now, it’s certainly true that the Beatitudes first and foremost describe Christ. After all, who is the One who was truly poor in spirit? Who had a poverty of everything and everybody? Was it not Christ? Who truly mourns over the sinfulness of humanity, makes peace, has mercy on those who hunger and thirst for righteousness? Is it not Christ, who did all things for us by living a perfect life without sin, dying on the cross, and rising again to win for us the blessings of forgiveness, life and salvation? So without a doubt, if we fail to see Christ described in the Beatitudes, we miss a very important truth of the divine Word.

My concern, however, is that all too often we stop at that point, and apply the Beatitudes only to Christ, and not also to ourselves. Perhaps we do that because it is all too easy for us to lapse into what is called “cheap grace” – the idea that since Christ did everything for us to win our salvation, our actions in response to that don’t matter. It’s all about Christ, so I can live however I want. But that is a dangerous idea. In his book, “The Cost of Discipleship,” the great 20^th century German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer concentrated heavily on the Beatitudes in the lives of Christians for understanding the incarnate and crucified Christ. He understood that as Jesus was describing Himself in this Sermon on the Mount, He was also describing the way He wishes His disciples to live. This is how Bonhoeffer explained the Beatitudes:

The “poor in spirit” are those who have accepted the loss of all things, including the loss of self, to follow Christ. Those who mourn are those who do without the peace and prosperity of this world. The meek are those who do not insist on their own rights, but submit to the will of Christ. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness renounce the expectation that humanity can transform this world into a paradise. The merciful are those devoted to the needs of others, helping the sick, the poor, the outcast. The pure in heart are not troubled by the call of this world, but give themselves to the call of Christ. The peacemakers reject the violence that is so often used to solve the problems of the world. And those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake are willing to suffer for the cause of Christ. For Bonhoeffer, the suffering of the Church is directly connected to the suffering of Christ. As Christ suffered for our redemption, so Christians suffer so the world sees through us that there is a way to bear the burdens of this world, and that way is through Jesus Christ alone.

So much for those who would have us believe that the path to God is paved with glory and prosperity and worldly success. Bonhoeffer was right; the Beatitudes describe Christ, who fulfilled them to perfection, but we also need to see ourselves in those words. And this leads us to understand that having Christ, we have everything; but some things have not been given to us just yet. Some things we just have to wait for, in great anticipation. This is what we confess in the Creed, even as we think of those loved ones who have departed in the faith: “I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” It’s coming, but it’s not here yet. We know it is ours in Christ, promised in Baptism and in His body and blood given to us, but it isn’t now. For now, we live in Christ, poor in spirit, mourning, hungering for righteousness. In this life, we hold forth Christ as the One who makes us saints and goes along with us as we walk by faith and not by sight. But in the life to come, we will see Him as He is, and will live forever in a world without fear, darkness, sin, and death. This is the joy of the saints who have gone before us, and it is the hope and future of all in this life who are called saints of God. It is your hope, and your future, because Christ has made you His own, and gives you His assurance again this day, that your sins are forgiven in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.