All Saints’ Sunday

November 2, 2025

You may have seen the article in the State Journal earlier this week which described the mood at local food pantries in the days leading up to the cessation of SNAP benefits yesterday. Our own Pantry Director, Vikki Enright, was quoted among other pantry employees and volunteers across the county. As we have watched the dismantling of nearly 100 years of federal support for our nation’s residents, and witnessed the effects of those changes on ourselves and our neighbors, we are filled with trepidation as we await the impact of the end of support for millions of food-insecure Americans.

Another recent article strikes an ominous note for our community. As local governments and service providers scramble to secure funding for operations of the new men’s shelter on the east side, there are growing concerns that the shelter will be overwhelmed by the demand. The answer seems to be: “let’s reach out to the churches.” I’ve heard that remark second-hand from several people reporting on conversations they’ve overheard, but perhaps surprisingly, no one has reached out to us. And frankly, I’m not sure what I would say. After nearly 40 years hosting the men’s shelter, and struggling as we sought to provide adequate space and services while also advocating for the need for a new shelter, I’m not sure we at Grace have the capacity or energy to take on the responsibility of providing space to help unhoused people.

All this is taking place against a backdrop of ICE raids targeting vulnerable immigrant communities; the rampant growth of White Supremacy and Christian Nationalism, collapsing institutions, a society and culture in disarray—perhaps best symbolized by the images we’ve seen of the destruction of the East Wing of the White House to make way for a ballroom. The rubble shown there is a mirror of the rubble that engulfs us all.

Our exhaustion, fear, anger, despair bubble over, overwhelm, render us impotent, keep us awake at night and on edge during the day. As the chaos swirls around and in us, the Church, in all its magnificence, history, and foibles, directs our attention to our fellowship with all those who have come before us and served as models and inspirations, on this All Saints’ Sunday.

All Saints’ is an occasion for us to reflect on that larger communion of which we are a part, not just Grace Church, or the diocese of Wisconsin, or the Episcopal Church, or even the worldwide Anglican Communion, fractured though it may be. All Saints’ draws our attention to the communion of saints, our fellowship with all those who have gone before us in the faith, all those who still surround us as a great cloud of witnesses.

So what, who are the saints? And why All Saints? Today’s commemoration has its origins in the earliest centuries of Christianity. During the Great Persecution, many Christians were martyred for their faith. Of those, some were remembered. On the anniversaries of their martyrdoms, surviving family members and members of the local Christian communities would go out to the graves of the martyrs and have feasts, including Eucharist to commemorate their witness and faith. But the Church realized that there were many martyrs whose stories and names were unknown, so a commemoration of all of those unremembered but faithful saints was created and eventually was observed on November 1—All Saints’ Day. 

Over time, faithful Christians wanted to honor ordinary people as well as the saints, the heroes of the faith. They wanted to remember their loved ones who had passed on, to commemorate them, and beginning in the Middle Ages, to pray for their souls who were believed to be in Purgatory. And so, alongside All Saints’ developed the Feast of All Souls, traditionally observed on November 2, the commemoration of all the faithful departed. With the Protestant Reformation, and its attacks on many traditional forms of piety, The Feast of All Souls was removed when the Book of Common Prayer was published.

So on this day, we do both things. We rejoice in the communion of the saints and we remember the faithful departed. It is a powerful reminder that, whatever our particular concerns and worries at this moment, as individuals and as a congregation, we are part of a much larger whole, one that encompasses all Christians who are worshipping today throughout the world, and just as important, all those Christians who have come before us, and are worshipping before the heavenly throne, as well all those Christians who are yet to come.

In the gospel reading, we hear Luke’s version of the beatitudes. It’s rather different from Matthew’s much more direct and connected with the realities of daily life: blessed are you who are poor now; blessed are you who are hungry now, blessed are you who weep now. And he adds a corresponding set of woes—Woe to you who are rich now, woe to you who are full now, woe to you who are laughing.

This set of blessings and woes, not blessings and curses—It’s hard for us to understand just what Blessed and Woe mean in this context. One commentator suggest we think rather in terms of “satisfied” and “yikes, or watch out” It’s not that one group is “saved” and the other “damned” but that the hungry and the poor receive God’s favor, and the wealthy and well-fed need guard against losing God’s favor.

These are stark binaries; and it’s easy in our world and divided nation to think in terms of such stark binaries as well. But we in the church are a communion of saints, part of a new community, a new social reality called together by Jesus, a new community that crosses every boundary of socio-economic, racial, gender, and ethnic status. It is a community that even breaks down the boundary between the living and the dead. There are no binaries in the kingdom of God.

At a time when people on the margins are being vilified and attacked—just in the last few days we’ve seen numerous politicians scorning food-insecure people who are reliant on SNAP. At such a time, it is part of our witness to the communion of saints to embrace and support all people, no matter their immigration status, their socio-economic position, their race, ethnicity, or gender. The kingdom of God, the communion of saints bears witness to and embodies all of human diversity.

We come together to worship, to be community, to be in solidarity with those whose lives are very much unlike our own. Together, we gather around the Lord’s table; together, we eat and are Christ’s body. Together, we are the communion of saints. 

May we experience that community of all the saints, and may we walk together in mutual support and love, inviting others to join us as we experience Christ’s love.