Matthew 5:1-12

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

 ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

 ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

 ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

 ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

 ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

 ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

 ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 ‘Blessed are you when people 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 in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Revelation 7:9-17

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ 
And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, singing,
‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honour
and power and might
be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’

 Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?’ I said to him, ‘Sir, you are the one that knows.’ Then he said to me, ‘These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 
For this reason they are before the throne of God,
   and worship him day and night within his temple,
   and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. 
They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
   the sun will not strike them,
   nor any scorching heat; 
for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd,
   and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’

If you were to pick your number one favourite hymn, traditional hymn, what would it be? Amazing Grace? How Great Thou Art? Great Is Thy Faithfulness? Lift High The Cross?

I have a few, but among the top contenders would be O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing. If it’s sung well, by a lot of people, in four-part harmony, woo mama it’s a spiritual experience! The final verse that Charles Wesley wrote for that hymn goes like this:

“Glory to God and praise and love / be now and ever given / by saints below and saints above, / the Church in earth and heaven.”

It’s a powerful image, isn’t it? The vision of saints robed in white, genuflecting and joining together in a chorus of praise around a heavenly throne is as powerful as it is alluring.

Let’s be honest people: the book of Revelation is super weird, so most of us shy away from reading and studying it. But the apocalyptic vision of its writer John of Patmos helps us develop a vision for what “glorious company of the Saints in light” might look like, on this, All Saints Sunday. We’re told that angels are gathered around the throne with four living creatures, falling on their faces worshipping God day and night, singing a song of praise. We’re told that they hunger and thirst no more, and that sun and heat will not strike them because the Lamb is their shepherd, guiding them to the springs of the water of life, as God wipes away every tear from their eyes.

And yet, as idyllic and unspoiled as this image is, it’s incomplete.

John’s description doesn’t stop there. He goes on to write that the “great multitude” gathered around the throne are those “who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Although literal readings of Revelation that condone violence are theologically problematic at best and downright dangerous at worst, we cannot deny that those who enjoy the place of honour in John’s apocalyptic vision have gone through suffering, and given the tone of apocalyptic literature in general and Revelation in particular, we can surmise that some have even endured physical violence.

What might this mean for us, for a church that commits itself to striving for justice, freedom and peace? Or perhaps a more pressing question as we celebrate All Saints’ Day is, what might it mean for John’s “great multitude,” complete with their blood-stained robes, to be identified in the storied history of the church as saints?

The quick, albeit half-hearted answer is to do as countless others have done, and re-shelve Revelation as an indecipherable apocalyptic dream sequence written by an unknown disciple of the fledgling first-century Jesus movement. Like crazy Uncle Jim, we just let Revelation be, smile and nod, and walk away.

But as wars rage on with ever-increasing frequency, as diseases and disasters continue to strike with indiscriminate and unrelenting cruelty, and as the unreliability of the global economy continues to provoke fear and anxiety, we might actually know more than we think about these “great ordeals” and blood-stained robes that John identifies so provocatively. And on this day in particular, perhaps the Spirit is calling the church to reconsider John’s apocalyptic witness – complete with all its harshness and unanswered questions.

In the midst of the violent imagery lays this powerful word of hope: after all is said and done, after the plagues of war and famine and disaster have done their worst, salvation belongs, not to the generals and the politicos and the dictators and the power mongers of this world, but to God alone.

This is the great and enduring truth of the gospel, and it comes alive on this All Saints’ Day, reminding the faithful that the powers and principalities of this world will not have the last word. In fact, not only is this Good News, we hear from the lips of Jesus himself that it is a blessing.

In a dramatic reversal of the customs of this world, Jesus foretells the truth of the Kingdom of God:

Unsure of your direction in life? You’re blessed.

Caught under the weight of grief and loss? Joy comes in the morning.

Undervalued and not heard by those around you? God hears you.

Groaning with hunger pangs and longing for a moment of respite? The comforter has come.

Sojourning for peace and righteousness, only to be trampled down by war and revilement, and those spreading lies to discredit you? God is travailing right alongside you.

The saints, Jesus reminds us, aren’t simply those who seem to have it all figured out, whose prayer life is perfect, whose service to church and community alike are irreproachable, and who have left a legacy that the rest of us will spend a lifetime aspiring to realize for ourselves. Most famous saints, in the Roman Catholic sense of the word, were fairly messed up. Legend has it that St Francis of Assisi rolled naked in the snow to defend himself against thoughts of lust. Saint Christopher was on his way to work for the devil when a hermit recruited him for God instead. St Mary of Egypt was a prostitute for seventeen years before she became a desert mother for the next fifty. Saint Bernard was one of the organisers of the second crusade, which killed so many.

No, on the contrary: The saints, Jesus tells us and John reminds us, are those who have suffered greatly – and some who suffer still, even in our midst – and yet praise God all the more. The saints are those who have known the pain of grief and the sting of death, and still manage to find a way to sing, “Alleluia!” The saints are those who have been excluded and ignored by every corner of society and yet still find ways to seek and serve Christ, loving their neighbour as themselves.

And so when we commemorate all saints, we commemorate all the saints, not just the dead ones, not just the seemingly perfect ones, but all the saints. We commemorate our Sunday School teachers and our Christian mentors and our families and friends. We commemorate those worshipping around us who are suffering silently. We commemorate all the unsung heroes of our church and world. And then we gather at this table, a foretaste of the heavenly feast around which so many saints are already gathered. We give thanks that at this table we are bound to the whole communion of saints, united with everyone who has ever received bread and wine and told it was Jesus and it was for them.

This is why I chose to preach on All Saints today – because our worship today bears both the potential for difficult news that is hard to hear, as well as the great and powerful news of a gospel that continually confounds even our best efforts to contain it. Because if we approach this day, looking to the saints as nothing more than long-gone models of moral perfection, the witness of Jesus in the Matthew’s gospel and of John’s Revelation falls flat and bears little possibility for transformation. And what’s the point of a sermon, or church in general, if you’re not transformed by it?

But if we allow the Spirit to move in our midst, then we might be surprised by what we see when we look across the aisle of our church or down the street or into the parts of town like Kings Cross or Mt Druitt that have a chequered reputation. We might be surprised to find saints there who, even in the most unimaginable circumstances, find ways to lift up their hearts in prayer and praise to God.

And when we hear those soft, but faithful notes of “Alleluia!” emanating from deep within the souls of the saints among us, we will know that salvation does indeed belong to our God, who is seated upon the throne, now and for evermore.

Let’s take a moment now to reflect: who are your saints? Who has shaped your life, faith and world? And what kind of saint is God calling you to be? In this time of reflection, I invite you if you wish, to come forward and light a candle in memory of a saint in your life, living or deceased, as an act of thanksgiving.