“The Lowly” Colchester Federated Church, November 5, 2023, (Matthew 23:1-12) All Saints Sunday

In our Gospel lesson from the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus is feisty again.  For those of you keeping track, we are still hearing Jesus teaching on the Tuesday of Holy Week.  He understandably had a lot to say.  As Chapter 23 begins, Jesus is speaking to the crowds and his disciples.  He’s questioning the actions of the legal experts and Pharisees.  In a way, he’s challenging hypocrisy and that age-old mentality of “do as I say, but not as I do.”  To effectively get his point across, Jesus paints a picture: “For they tie together heavy packs that are impossible to carry.  They put them on the shoulders of others, but are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.  Everything they do, they do to be noticed by others.  They make extra-wide prayer bands for their arms and long tassels for their clothes.  They love to sit in places of honor at banquets and in the synagogues.  They love to be greeted with honor in the markets and to be addressed as ‘Rabbi.’”[1] 

This situation could be summed up with the phrase: power corrupts.  Many of us have seen this play out in real life.  Someone can get even just a little bit of power and it goes to their heads.  Instead of using their power and position to lift others up, they bully or belittle and treat others disrespectfully.  Jesus called on his followers to embrace another way of being in the world, to challenge how people might even naturally respond to power.  Jesus taught, “But the one who is greatest among you will be your servant.  All who lift themselves up will be brought low.  But all who make themselves low will be lifted up.”[2]  Or as Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”[3]  Humility remains an underrated virtue.

We can remember Jesus’ words about humility considering today being All Saints Sunday.  Here’s how this all breaks down—the First of November is All Saints Day, and in Protestant churches we often commemorate All Saints on the first Sunday in November.  So today we are celebrating All Saints Sunday.  Historically there were traditions that developed in the Roman Catholic Church so that all canonized saints are commemorated on November 1 and all the faithful who have died are commemorated on November 2 (All Souls Day.)[4]  Moreover, we may or may not be familiar with Mexican traditions for The Day of the Dead, traditions that are often celebrated on November 1 and 2.  All Saints.  All Souls.  Dia de los Muertos.  There are unique traditions associated with how people remember those we have loved and lost at this time of year specifically, in early November.

Which brings us to worship here at CFC this morning.  Protestants combined All Saints and All Souls because on All Saints Sunday, we don’t just remember famous figures in the history of the faith.  We tend to focus on people we have personally known, and we pray for people in our congregation and for our family and friends outside our congregation who have died in the past year.  We often make our loved ones the center of attention, remembering those souls we have commended to God.

Though All Saints Sunday revolves around giving God thanks for any person who has been influential in our spiritual formation and growth, people who are still living among us and people who have gone home to God before us.  Because the truth is that every single person can have a positive impact on another’s life.  Jesus said, “All who lift themselves up will be brought low.  But all who make themselves low will be lifted up.”[5]  We have more power to be the light for others than we may realize.  Let that thought give us hope on the hard days.  We can ask ourselves how we can help lift others up.

Nicole shared a beautiful definition of a saint this morning—that saints are those who God’s light shines through.  When we wrote names on our hearts, most of us probably wrote down names of people we knew and loved.  Saints don’t have to be famous or officially canonized is the point.  And if saints are those who God’s light shines through, saints can be all around us.  Saints can still be living!  In much the same way that people talk about earth angels and heavenly angels.  It’s good to know that there are people who have our backs, especially when the going gets rough.  

Sometimes we label someone as a “saint” in a rather comedic way.  When a person is viewed as being difficult, we may say that their spouse is a saint or their parent is a saint.  I grew up hearing people talk about saints in this way all the time.  “Midwest Nice” is a whole thing and Midwesterners are known to avoid speaking about someone in a perceived negative way.  So this is how it goes: “Oh, that’s Kevin’s wife, Kelly.”  “Well, I didn’t realize that Kevin was married.”  “I know.  Kelly’s a saint, right?”  We are not going to say what we really think about Kevin, and instead we will lift up the sainthood of his sweet wife.  Though perhaps there is something to this funny usage of the term.  If Kevin truly is a difficult person (not that any of us know anyone who is difficult or not that any of us are ever difficult ourselves) and let’s say that Kelly really is unfailingly kind, well, perhaps God’s light shines through her.  And therefore she is deservedly labeled a “saint.”

It reminds me of the hymn, “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God.”  We’re not singing this hymn today because it seemed difficult to sing all together.  You would not have spoken about St. Kim or St. Lauren after attempting to sing this hymn.  But the lyrics are wonderful: “I sing a song of the saints of God, Patient and brave and true, Who toiled and fought and lived and died For the Lord they loved and knew.  And one was a doctor, and one was a queen, And one was a shepherdess on the green: They were all of them saints of God, and I mean, God helping, to be one too.”[6]  We can all be saints—doctors, queens, a shepherdess on the green.  It’s not as if sainthood is only reserved for canonized saints.  We view saints in a more democratic manner on the Protestant side of Christianity, and that’s what is so beautiful about All Saints Sunday. 

Let’s remember as we go about this week ahead that we can lift up the lowly just as Jesus taught.  We can be the light for one another.  For as “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God” ends: “They lived not only in ages past, There are hundreds of thousands still; The world is bright with the joyous saints Who love to do Jesus’ will.  You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea, In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea; For the saints of God are just folk like me, And I mean to be one too.”[7]  May it be so with us, and thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] Matthew 23:4-7, CEB.
[2] Matthew 23:12, CEB.
[3] Matthew 5:5, NRSV.
[4] Laurence Hull Stookey, Calendar: Christ’s Time for the Church, 147-148.
[5] Matthew 23:12, CEB.
[6] Lesbia Scott, Verse 1 of “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God” as found in Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs, #364.
[7] Lesbia Scott, Verse 3 of “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God” as found in Hymns, Psalms, and Spiritual Songs, #364.

Photo by Marcus Dall Col on Unsplash