God’s vision for the world, God’s values, are radically different from much of the world, but in them you find you are blessed and you are a blessing to others.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
All Saints Day
Texts: Matthew 5:1-12; 1 John 3:1-3

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Do you sometimes feel poor in spirit?

Is faith that God is in the world and doing anything really hard to find sometimes? Are doubts that God loves you or the world piling up and anxiety twisting your gut?

That’s hard to be in this world. So many seem completely confident in their views, never wavering, and even people of faith can say that if you just tried harder to believe, you’d never doubt. Being poor in spirit can feel very lonely.

Well, good news. God’s values are radically different than this world. Jesus, the face of the Triune God, tells you today that when you are poor in spirit you are in the middle of God’s reign. That God’s way is found through losing, not winning, and those who struggle to see and believe find God because of that struggle, not by never doubting. When you are poor in spirit, you are blessed, because then you are with God.

Are you mourning right now?

On this All Saints Day we all remember and grieve those we love who have gone. But maybe grief doesn’t wait just for today for you. Are there moments, even whole days, where grief bursts your control and boils overwhelmingly into your entire life? It might have been ten years, or ten days, since your loss, but you still find yourself mourning?

That’s hard to be in this world. Our culture is uncomfortable with grief, people urge you to move on, get over it. So you either try to hide your grief or suppress it. Mourning can feel very lonely.

Well, good news. God’s values are radically different than this world. Jesus, the face of the Triune God, tells you today that in your mourning, God is there. And you will be comforted. You are blessed in your grief, because you are not alone, and God’s love and embrace will hold you through the worst of it and give you peace.

Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness?

Long for a world where your neighbors aren’t crushed by an unjust system because of the color of their skin or their economic class? Do you hunger for a world where all can earn enough to live and be housed and all can have the health care they need? Do you ache inside for this, and more, and despair it may never happen?

That’s hard to be in this world. Many say everyone should take care of themselves, and we don’t have a responsibility to help others. There’s an unprecedented level of hatred and disdain and abuse in our society for those who struggle, even from our leaders, and a lack of compassion threatens to dominate our culture. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness and justice can feel very lonely.

Well, good news. God’s values are radically different than this world. Jesus, the face of the Triune God, tells you today that your hunger and thirst will be filled, all of ours will. It may be hard to see, but there’s evidence in yard signs and social media and protests and neighbors helping neighbors that God is working to fill all who hunger for righteousness and justice. You are blessed, for all will be filled.

Do you aspire to be gentle and kind in a world of bullies, a peacemaker in a world of violence and hatred?

You may not always feel gentle or peaceable, but do you long for God to help you become that? To follow Christ’s example and be someone who brings gentleness and peace into this world? It seems much of our world doesn’t value such things.

Well, good news. God’s values are radically different than this world. Jesus, the face of the Triune God, tells you today that God will do what you long for. In your gentleness, you will experience all that God intends for the world. In your peacemaking, you will live into your identity as a child of God. You will be a blessed, and a sign of God’s blessing for this whole world.

Do you desire to learn to be merciful in this cruel world? To have your heart purified of that which would harm you and others?

You may not always feel merciful, especially to those who are cruel and hateful, and your heart might not always have pure motives and be centered in love. But do you long for God to help you find these things? To follow Christ’s example and be God’s mercy and God’s heart in this world? It seems much of our world doesn’t value such things.

Well, good news. God’s values are radically different than this world. Jesus, the face of the Triune God, tells you today that God will do what you long for. When you learn mercy from God, you will find that you are receiving God’s mercy at the same time. When your heart is purified of those things that pull you toward hate and away from love, you will actually see God. You’ll have God’s heart in you. You will be blessed, and a blessing to all you meet.

These are the first words Jesus teaches in Matthew, and they shape all his teaching afterward.

Jesus tells us what God blesses, what God values. God’s vision of how the world is and can be.

And we need these words today. We’re on the edge of an election in the midst of some of the worst public behavior many of us have ever seen, amidst the collapse of decency and civility in our public discourse. So many things in our society seem to be falling apart, injustice seems to reign, and so many things need to be rebuilt for the good of all people. We’re afraid and anxious, tired of all the anger, and fearful nothing will change.

Today Jesus gently offers a different vision. If you can learn to see as God sees, value what God values, you will see a path open that is abundant and hopeful, even in a world of grief and doubt and chaos and fear and struggle. You might suffer for this path, Jesus says today. But Jesus’ promise stands: God is always walking beside you, and you are blessed on this path, no matter what happens.

You can pray for this on this All Saints Day.

You can ask the Holy Spirit to help you to trust and take hope that God has called you blessed. God’s precious child. Beloved. So you can know that whatever you struggle with, grieve over, hunger for, God is always with you in love, filling, comforting, blessing.

And you can ask the Holy Spirit to help you become what God already sees in you. The elder in 1 John says today that we know we are God’s children, but we can’t yet see what we will be. But you can pray for that transformation. That you become the child of God God already sees: gentle, merciful, pure in heart, a maker of peace.

You can pray that God’s sense of what is valuable, what is blessed, might change you, change me, change all God’s children, until it spreads throughout the world, and all the world knows it is truly blessed and loved and lives that blessing for all.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

Remaining rooted in the steadfast Word of God, we can be still and know that God is here.

Vicar Andrea Bonneville
Reformation Sunday
Texts: Psalm 46, Jeremiah 36:31-34, John 8: 31-36

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. These are the words of Psalm 46, which we heard paraphrased in “A Mighty Fortress is our God.“

Be still and know—
Though the waters pour, the fires burn, the wind rages, and the temperatures rise;

Be still and know—
Though the virus spreads, the community is scattered, and people are ill;

Be still and know—
Though the election is just days away and injustice cries all around us;  

Be still and know—
Though we are filled with anxiety, fear, and despair;

Be still and know—

Two actions that seem practically impossible as the chaos of the world spins around us. How are we supposed to be still when we are filled with so many emotions? How are we supposed to know when so many voices seek our attention?

Telling ourselves to be still is almost as foolish as telling a tree to stop swaying in the wind. When the wind blows, we can’t help but move with it.

We are swayed by social media, the news, even the lies we tell ourselves about our worthiness. In a time that is difficult to trust and in the midst of such powerful winds, where on earth do we find the respite of stillness?

Are we waiting for the eye of the storm? Just a brief respite from the wind gives us a chance to pull the hair back from our eyes, to see what’s around us. Or. Are we searching for our grounding, seeking to grow roots deep within the soil—a tether to hold us?

There are many valid responses to chaos.

Right now, it’s hard to be still and know.

It is hard to remain in the word of God as we usually have. Our rituals of gathering in community, feasting together, and communal song are not available to ground us.

When we’re uprooted from all of these things that teach us how to remain in God’s word, we must root ourselves in the proclamation we hear through John’s Gospel.

Jesus literally says, remain in me, and remain in my Word.

Continue in me, Continue in my Word
Hold onto me, hold onto my Word
Live in me, live in my Word

To be still and know is to remain in God. God with us tells us to remain in me.  That sounds easy, but we know that finding rest in the midst of chaos is never easy.

We hear from the prophet Jeremiah that God writes on our hearts.

When God writes on hearts, our connection to God is no longer simply about belief, understanding, or knowledge. When God writes on our hearts, God makes a promise to forever be in relationship with us.

So, when Christ says to remain in me and remain in my word, God has already promised through the prophet of Jeremiah to do the heavy lifting in this two way relationship.

God writes that we are loved; beloved, claimed by God sealed with the Spirit forever. This is our baptismal promise. A promise that our entire identity is rooted in the steadfast love of the Triune God.

The promise of God’s steadfast love is engraved on our hearts; a promise that flows through our veins, a promise that reaches the tops of our heads and the tips of our toes; a promise that continues to flow throughout our entire body with each beat of our heart.

Beloved, God has made a permanent mark on your heart. And God is here and God is always with you. Each of us is an embodiment of God’s love in this world.

So when you can’t seem to calm yourself down, place a hand on your heart. Feels God’s presence within you.

Be still and know—
a centering, a deep breath that fills our lungs

Be still and know—
Letting ourselves be held by the community of Christ that surrounds us.

Be still and know—
Digging in our feet and rooting ourselves in God in the midst of chaos.

Be still and know—

It isn’t necessarily this far off thing that we have to achieve through physical stillness, meditation, or emptying our minds.

In these times, whenever you feel a sense of calm, identify it as God.

Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and remain in God.

Remain in the presence of God. Remain in the people of God. When we remain in the Word of God, we grow deep roots of rest.

Theses roots entangle with the roots of our neighbor and with all of creation. Tethering us to the rich soil and to each other. The deeper and more enmeshed our roots grow, the further we can stretch ourselves out to witness to the injustices of our world and the needs of our neighbor.

Be still and know does not mean being complacent, but it allows us to let go of some of the burden of today because of our connectedness God and all of creation. It’s the kind of rest that comes from the confidence and certainty that God is here. We are not called to reform the world by ourselves

Be still and know is to continue in the work of Christ. To continue speaking truth to power. Showing empathy to all of God’s beloved. And holding each other as the wind blows.

We may rest in the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ Jesus. Because the good news for today is that in the midst of the chaos, God lives in us and the Holy Spirit moves through our veins. For we know that we are no longer captive to sin but we are freed by what Christ has done for us. Free to Grow, free to Proclaim, and free to rest.

Thanks be to God who engraves steadfast love on our hearts; God who in the midst of chaos whispers, be still, my beloved, be still and know that I am your God and you are my mine.

Amen.