“The Beatitudes in the Time of Election Season” - Sermon for All Saints' Day 11-1-26

“Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” 

† “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.”

These are, in other words, the Saints of the Church Triumphant; the Saints who worship before the throne of God; the Saints who are eternally sheltered and forever nourished, their tears of anguish wiped away, never to return.

These are the Saints – the upper-case Saints, the All Saints – that we the lower-case saints of the Church on Earth, the Church Militant, celebrate today.

We members of the Church Militant are the occasionally sheltered, the sometimes nourished, and the often anguished. We remain within the great ordeal of this present age, denying ourselves, as Jesus commanded, and taking up our cross and following Christ the Lamb. Following the Lamb in a death like his in the hope of a resurrection like his. Our baptismal robe, now stained by sin and struggle, restored to its intended brilliance for all eternity.

In the midst of our great ordeal, we take time to remember the heroes of the faith who have gone on to glory before us.

In our great ordeal of yet another election cycle with all of its uncertainties; our great ordeal of much of the world at or threatening war with itself; our great ordeal of social, economic and environmental inequality; our great ordeal of God’s own people divided against and among ourselves. We pause this day, this All Saints’ Day, to give a beatitude of blessing to the Saints who have come out of their great ordeal – the Saints who were poor in spirit and in purse; the Saints who were mournful and merciful and meek; the Saints who were peacemakers, hungry and thirsty for justice; the Saints who were slandered and persecuted on account the Word made flesh in Jesus.

All Saints’ Day rightly is a day to celebrate. A day to remember and give thanks and emulate these heroes of the Church whose feasts populate our calendars; whose names identify our cities and our parishes; whose sanctity shines in stained-glass-windows and statues and icons; and whose affirming stories of successes and failures are retold both in scholarly volumes and in illustrated books meant for, but not limited to, young readers.

We might recall the great ordeal of Jesus’s missionary followers, carrying his good news around the globe. Or the great ordeal of the martyrs, witnessing to the transforming power of Jesus’s mercy and justice. Or the great ordeal of the theologians, seeking both clear orthodoxy and new ways to understand and talk about God. Or the great ordeal of the reformers, setting the Church back on a more faithful course. And, in every instance, the great ordeal of women and of marginalized peoples, whose worth and work were seen as something less-than by their dominant-culture counterparts.

All Saints’ is a feast day of celebration. All Saints’ Day is also a feast of hope. Hope that our own great ordeal will come to a holy end. Hope that the heavenly city, the eternally-new Jerusalem, as John-the-Revelator saw it, is populated with YIMBYs, happy to make room for even more uncountable multitudes of migrants from every nation and tribe and people and language, with still room enough for you and for me. Hope that God’s will be done on earth by people like us, committed to conversion of life.

And hope for this congregation, this parish church named All Saints’ in the City of Saint Francis, hope that the God who loves us without condition, at the same time trusts us to minister in his Holy Name as if our salvation depended on it. By being generous in our giving. By being ardent in our prayer and worship. By being consistent in our commitments. By being compassionate in our relationships. By being merciful in our judgments. By being just in our politics.

All Saints’ Parish carries the lives and the legacies of all the saints, their ideals and their identities. This is a lot to live up to. But remember – those very same saints are praying for us right now, praying to the One who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb. They want us to be faithful. And so does God, the †                        

Father Daniel S.J. Scheid, SCP

All Saints’ Day, Sunday, November 1, 2026

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Francisco

“The Beatitudes in the Time of Election Season”