[Special Release] A Sermon for the Feast of All Saints by Fr. David Petersen

The Gottesdienst Crowd

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.)

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. This salvation belongs to him but it is given to us as a gift without cost apart from works of the law.

It is given to all those who believe in him from every nation, tribe, people, and tongue. Christ undoes the divisions without destroying the distinctions. He removes Babel's curse but retains the diversity of tongues.

In a miracle akin to the Holy Trinity himself, he creates a joyful unity from separated continents and ages where all are arrayed the same in white with palm branches and all singing together the same song. But what was discordant, confusing, and ugly becomes harmonious, clear, and beautiful though unified. This vision calls to our age like no other for we live in wicked days of unrest, discontent, and division.

Tuesday's election looms ominous. Fathers abandon their children. Children despise their parents.

Neighbors fear one another. Our world is marked by isolation. Differences of opinion result in demonization.

Advertisers and media seek to exploit us for profit, keeping us discontent, squeezing us into echo chambers even as beauty is cast aside for sensual banality and the puerile desires of men are celebrated as though they were virtues. Men everywhere are desperate to save their institutions for the sake of retaining power and glory even if they be without function. The government only gets bigger.

Laws ever increase both in number and complexity. Taxes and the price index only rise. Perhaps there is no greater indicator of our troubled times than the fact that the topics that matter most, religion and politics, are banned from the dinner table and polite conversation.

Even within our families we cannot be expected to discuss things that matter with rationality and kindness. There is almost no respect for dissenting opinions and the claim to be open-minded is almost always nothing more than a veiled insult against all who disagree with you. Conformity is demanded while morality is mocked and pragmatism rules with an iron fist.

Kyrie eleison. We were too weak for that. Solomon says there is nothing new under the sonnani's right.

Our current situation has existed ever since Cain murdered Abel. But it is getting worse. Biblical prophecy is unfolding before our eyes.

Things are escalating as the eschaton approaches. The chief signs of the end are apostasy and idolatry, immorality and blasphemy. Well these are the very hallmarks of our society.

Wars and rumors of war only increase. America was never perfect. There was never a golden age of the church in the past.

But it has been better than it is now. We remember those better days and we long for them. And so it is that all saints as a festival has risen among us that is nearly as popular as both Christmas and Easter.

This was not always so in the history of the church or for our forefathers. Other feasts were more important to them than they are to us. In the United States, Lutherans of yore loved the reformation more than all saints.

The Scandinavians loved St. Lucy and the like. But for us, for us it is all saints. And I think that this is because we feel the divisions of sectarianism, heresy and propaganda in the church and state more deeply than any age before us.

Because it is in fact worse. And that this has caused us to desire the unity of the church and of our families as promised by Christ more deeply. We hear the prophet's words about the hearts of the fathers turning again to their children and the children to their fathers and our hearts cry out, please God make it so.

Bring our children back. Restore us to our neighbors. Give peace in our time.

All saints is not meant to be a pining for the past. It is the hope for the future. In the end, it is nothing less than divine intervention on a cosmic scale that can satisfy our breaking hearts.

We need more than reform. The boat has sunk. Sharks are circling.

It cannot be put back together again and we are dying. But we can be rescued, delivered. Salvation belongs to our God.

That is what we need. Oh God, remove the restraint from the four angels with their destructive winds. Set them loose.

Come Lord Jesus, come quickly. Relieve us at last. Fulfill your word.

Bring us out of this veil of sorrows. Make good on your promise. Make us one.

We know that he will. Salvation belongs to him. It is his by right, but he has also purchased it with his own blood, which he pours out upon us in the sacrament even now.

And there we are joined together to one another in a mystical union, also with the saints who have gone before us. But when this good work will be brought to completion, we do not know. Our task these days is to repent and believe, to work and to pray, to read the Bible to our children, to study his word, to come to confession and to church to evangelize the world.

You do not put on muscle by going to the gym only once a week for 30 minutes. That's better than nothing to be sure, but it's not enough for actual gain, for growth. If you want to put on muscle, you have to engage in daily activity by working your body every day.

So if you want your children to believe, it is not enough to only bring them to church once a week. Read the Bible to them every day. If you want to spend eternity with your wife, read the Bible and pray with her out loud every day.

If you want to have unity in the church, study the catechism and learn to recite it. If you want the world to be Christian, cultivate an ability to talk about Jesus and look for opportunities to tell your neighbors and your friends and even your family about him every day. Invite them not only to church but also into your home.

Suffer the embarrassment, take the risk, do the work. These are the things that have been given us to do while we wait. These are the works of the persecuted saints in the church militant in the last day, the works of those who love all saints.

But they are more than simply work. In so far as we are engaged with the word of God, they are also a comfort and the distant triumph song is not so distant as it once was. And the word of God moves us out of ourselves and the ugliness of our age and into God's presence, away from obsession with our current troubles and dissatisfactions to the peace that passes all understanding.

They reorder our hearts and minds, reframe our reference points. The word of God shifts our trust away from princes or political candidates to what is sure and certain even to Jesus himself. And on top of that, there are a couple of other things that you can and probably should do in these difficult, uncertain, and painful days.

The first is to lower your expectations. Our country, our families, and our church are all filled with weak and fallible leaders and members who fail often and yet God uses them for our good. They are not perfect but they are good and they are working out his will whether they mean it or not.

And if you insist that your children or your spouse or your friends or your country or your church be perfect and focus constantly on their sins and weaknesses, you will destroy them and your family and your relationships. They need law and gospel, discipline and encouragement. We live by grace.

Jesus was compassionate and affectionate and we need to be the same. We need to show some of this also to our neighbors and to our leaders even if we do not like their policies or the way that they live their lives. And we also need to stop exaggerating what is at stake.

God is in his heavens. He is working everything together for our good including our crosses, injustices, disappointments, and the like. And if the coming days are anything like the past, then it will hardly matter who wins on Tuesday.

If your candidate wins, he will not simply turn things around. He will be too constrained by the bureaucrats who do not change, by his desire for popularity or pressure from the lobbyists, and things will most likely stay about the same. And in the same way, if the opposition wins, he will not likely ruin everything.

He will also be constrained whether he wants to be or not and things will stay mostly the same. Now I do not mean by this that we should be passive or that we should give up. I do not mean that policies and character do not matter.

You should vote for the candidate that you think will be the best or at least the least harmful in accordance with your faith. There is no separation of church and state in the individual Christian. Your faith drives your vote.

And your vote does matter. And who wins or who rules does matter. It just doesn't matter that much.

It is not, not even near, everything or the most important of things. We must put it into perspective. We trust God.

We pray and we work, but we do not despair. We do not trust in princes, nor do we fear men who can only kill the body. Nor do we think that what matters most is prosperity or winning.

And even if it does all fall apart and we're all murdered or imprisoned, or if it vastly improves and your candidate wins and fulfills every one of his promises and ushers in a new paradise on earth, it will not matter if we do not have faith in Jesus Christ. And it will not matter if our children do not have faith. This world will not last.

God is taking care of his church and his creation. He is taking care of you. Time is moving on.

The end is coming. The church is already one in Christ Jesus. Soon that will be obvious to all and it will be good.

Jesus lives and your day is coming. No matter what happens between now and then or how long it is until that day, this is what matters and what endures. Salvation belongs to our God and he gives it to us as a gift.

And now may the peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.)