For All The Saints (Even The Ones We Don’t Like)

Audio Recording of “For All The Saints…” recorded in worship (13:35)
All Saints Sunday C
Texts: Dan 7.1-3, 15-18; Eph 1.11-23; Lk 6.20-31

Periodically throughout the year, I like to call attention to the feast days of saints that fall on Sundays. I’ve been doing this because, even though Lutherans do not practice praying to them, I think that the stories of these saints—both the actual facts of their lives and the legends that have sprung up around them—are worth sharing. Their lives point us to the work of God in the world through history and encourage us in our own journeys of faith. That is what saints do: they point us to God and God’s kingdom and encourage us as we pray for that kingdom to come among us.

“Chinese Martyrs of 1307,” fresco from Chapel of the Martyrs of Nepi, Katowice, Poland. From Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.