November 5, 2023
All Saints’ Sunday Sermon
“A Great Multitude”
“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.”
I highlight this verse from our Revelation reading because it describes every preacher’s dream. We preachers love preaching to a great multitude. We like it when sanctuaries are filled.
No wonder the author of the Book of Revelation describes that great heavenly scene of worship as a “great multitude.” Crowd size is important to preachers.
Maybe this is how I will start responding to people when they ask me how many were at church on Sunday. I’ll just say, “there was a great multitude” and leave it at that.
All Saints’ Sunday is a day for us to remember that the worship attendance doesn’t just include the people who are in the pews. It also includes the great multitude that no one can count. As today’s scripture reading from the Book of Revelation reminds us, they are all crying out with a loud voice saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
This great multitude is not limited by those Sundays when it seems like every church member is on vacation. No, this crowd is one that goes beyond the pews of a sanctuary and includes all the company of heaven.
During the early part of the COVID pandemic when churches were asked to not meet in-person for worship, not once did I ever say that the church I was serving was closed. I would say that we just didn’t have in-person worship those Sundays. We were still open, just in a different way.
The word, “church” doesn’t refer to the building where we meet. The word, “church” refers to the assembly of God’s people which is not dependent on whether we have a building or not. Building or no building, we are always the church.
Now, it does help for a church to have a building where people can meet together face to face, but during those rare times when we’re not able to meet in-person, make no mistake about it, worship goes on. The church is never closed.
In theological language, the church is the communion of saints in which God’s people are knit together in a web of relationships that crosses the boundaries of life, death, time, and eternity. Boom! There’s the line for us to take from today’s sermon! So, let me say it again.
“The church is the communion of saints in which God’s people are knit together in a web of relationships that crosses the boundaries of life, death, time, and eternity.”
And especially on this Sunday each year, All Saints Sunday, we are reminded of this true perspective of what it means when we say that we are the church. We are God’s people who just so happen to meet in a building for worship.
There is a beautiful mystery within this definition of what it means to be the church. The church includes all the saints of God including those who are alive now and those who have gone before us and who are now singing their alleluias around the very throne of God in heaven.
The church is so much more than a building that sits along Winnsboro Road or Cedar Creek Road. The church is the people of God both past and present offering themselves as the visible expression of God’s healing love for our community and world. Boom! There’s another power statement that we can take with us from the sermon today. The preacher is on fire today!
I could preach about this more mystical definition of the church all day long, but I also want to focus on what this means for us in how we live out our faith on a daily basis. How can All Saints Sunday lead us to have a deeper faith? What does it mean for you and me to be part of the great multitude of saints?
To help us think about these questions, ask yourself who are the people in your life who have guided you in your faith? They may no longer be living, or maybe you haven’t seen them for the past several years, but their spiritual influence and guidance remain with you to this day. Who do you think about when you are struggling with an important decision in your life?
A couple of years ago, I was asked to do a funeral for a man who was a member of the church a long time ago before moving from the area. He had relocated out west several decades ago. At one point, he lived in Chicago.
And during the funeral service, I invited people to share a thought or a memory about him. One of the people who shared was from Chicago and he had traveled to Ohio to be at the service. He shared how he attended the adult Sunday School class where Louis taught while living in Chicago. He said how everyone who attended that class grew in their faith because of Louis teaching that Sunday School class.
Saints can be Sunday School teachers, people in your small group, a parent or grandparent, or that confirmation mentor who met with you when you were preparing to join the church.
I was reading about a white pastor in Virginia who has dedicated his life and ministry to speaking out against the sin of racism. He shares that the reason this is so important to him is because of his confirmation mentor when he was just a young teenager preparing to join the church.
His mentor’s name was Bertha Hamilton, who happened to be a person of color. During their conversations during the confirmation process, Bertha noticed that he had a habit of saying things that as a person of color she felt were insensitive.
She explained why some of the words and phrases he was using during their conversations, lacked a basic awareness of how that might be offensive, especially with people of color. Before he had met Bertha, nobody had ever pointed this out to him, because everyone talked like that.
During one of their conversations, Bertha said to him that to be a follower of Jesus means to allow God to reveal those things in our lives that are in need of transformation and that means being open to other people’s histories, backgrounds, and experiences.
He said that initially, he was taken aback by her willingness to challenge him about this, but she was the prophetic voice that he needed to hear. And he will always be thankful for Bertha, his confirmation mentor whose patient love and mentoring led him to later respond to a calling into the pastoral ministry. These are the saints who help us to be the people that God has called us to be; disciples of Jesus who are always growing, always learning, and always receptive to God’s transforming grace.
When I think of the saints in my life, I think of Ron Boyer who was my youth Sunday School teacher at the Stewartstown United Methodist Church, located in south central, Pennsylvania. During Sunday School one time, Ron shared his testimony with us about how early in his adult life, he got caught up with drinking too much and making really bad decisions in his life. But because of Jesus, he was now able to turn his life around. His life now had meaning and purpose.
Just by seeing Ron smile, anyone could easily see that Jesus was shining through him. I remember wanting to be like Ron and have that same joy that he had.
Almost exactly a year ago, I was back at my home church for a Sunday worship, and they asked me to share a few words with them. Now of course, the church has changed a lot since I attended there many years ago, but as I looked out on the congregation that Sunday morning, there were also still a lot of familiar faces like Ron, who were an important part of my faith journey and who helped me to recognize a calling from God to become a pastor.
And here’s what I shared with them, “Thank you for helping raise me in the faith.” And then I pointed to the baptism font that was near me and I said, “Back on Sunday, November 3rd, 1963, when I was only 9 months old, I was baptized at that baptism font by Rev. John Stamm.” And then I said, “Thank you for being such a loving church family for me.”
So, when we light these candles on All Saints Sunday, we are remembering these loved ones who have been examples of what it means to follow in the way of Jesus. The multitude of saints surround us at all times whether they are still with us in person or even if they are now surrounding God’s heavenly throne. They continue to remind us of who we are and who we are called to be.
This is what All Saints’ Sunday helps us to celebrate each year. Together, we are all part of God’s great big family.
So, yes, there are those rare occasions when a church building may need to be closed on a Sunday morning, but never the church, never the church. There might seem like there are only 20 to 30 people here on a Sunday morning, but you really can’t put a number on it. Let’s just say, that on any given Sunday, it’s a “great multitude.”
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