A Wonderful All Saints Sunday

 We had a great All Saints Sunday.  Much as people complain about the time change, every autumn when we turn the clocks back, I have a night of wonderful sleep.  This year was no exception.  Because of the time change, we were both up early, and we headed over the mountains to Bristol early.

It was wonderful to travel in the daylight, to see the trees in their full and fading autumnal glory.  This year, various trees are on their own schedule.  Some are still green.  Some have lost all their leaves.  There's every variety of in between.  It's not as full and blazingly beautiful as two or three years ago, but it's been a treat, especially considering last year.

I was glad for the extra time, because we had a lot to unload.  I knew that the confirmation class, and perhaps all the youth who arrived for Sunday school, would set up the space I envisioned for people to put photos and other mementos of loved ones who had died.  I brought all the supplies:  fabrics, fairy lights, candles (both traditional and electronic), candle holders, 2 yellow mums, and a small table.  I gathered 2 additional small tables from the sacristy.

The youth did a great job of working together to create the space.  They are two pairs of siblings, and the siblings are cousins, so we had a head start in working together.  They seem like the kind of cousins who are more like siblings, siblings who like each other and have fun together.  I was so impressed with what they created:

The congregation came through too--we had plenty of pictures, so many that we added two additional flat spaces (flipped boxes with white tablecloths to hide their identity).  

After church, we spent some time in the front, hearing stories of the loved ones whose pictures had graced our worship space.  I had made extra bread, and people ate bread or took some home.  It was delightful, a way of having a picnic with the ancestors.

My sermon went well, which is always a treat for me.  What I mean by well is not that everyone loved it, but that I felt good about my delivery (not too much reading, not getting tongue twisted).  If you want to view the recording, it's here on my YouTube channel.  If you want to read a version, head to this post on my theology blog.

We came home and relaxed, as we always do.  Sunday afternoons come after very full mornings, so we're not going to be doing much of substance.  We watched a great PBS show about a man who was taking a last trip on a buckboard wagon pulled by his 36 year old mule on their last trip in Hyde county, NC.  It was oddly compelling.  I did a bit of sewing on my quilt top and headed to bed.

Today I have two days of work, and the rest of the week is spent at Quilt Camp, just up the hill at Lutheridge.  I'll sleep in my house and spend the rest of my time at Quilt Camp.  I'm hoping to make progress on a variety of projects.

It sounds heavenly, and it will be, but first I have to do the prep work so that I can be gone from my full-time teaching job.  I am probably further along on that project than I think, but I feel a bit of anxiety.  At the same time, I'm sure it will all be fine.  It's nice to be at a school where I can rest easy in the knowledge that it will all be fine, even as I'm feeling a bit of anxiety.

Sermon for All Saints Sunday, November 2, 2025

November 2, 2025, All Saints Sunday

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott




Luke 6:20-31



What a strange Gospel reading to have chosen for All Saints Sunday. There’s no mention of the afterlife at all. There’s no mention of the saints that have come before us, at least not in the Gospel reading. We might wish we had a different Gospel reading.


It’s a strange time to be preaching a sermon for All Saints Sunday. In the weeks leading up to this day, politicians have declared their willingness to let SNAP benefits expire on their watch. Let’s be clear—the SNAP program gives food to poor people, and after the various welfare reforms of the past decades, it’s only the poorest of the poor who get this free food. In Bristol, you’re eligible for these benefits if you earn less than $21,150 dollars a year for a two person household; roughly 14% of the population of Bristol is eligible. Nationwide, 1 out of every 8 Americans gets SNAP benefits—that’s 42 million people, many of them children, the elderly, and the disabled. A government report “in 2020 found that about 70 percent of adult wage earners in the program worked full-time hours, most commonly in education and health services, hospitality and retail” (from this article in The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/upshot/snap-food-shutdown-trump.html) . They worked full-time hours, but still didn’t earn enough money to make them ineligible for SNAP benefits.


Once upon a time, politicians wouldn’t want to be seen as denying food to the poor. Those times are not these times.

And suddenly, just like that, the Gospel speaks to us across two thousand years:

“But woe to you who are rich,
  for you have received your consolation.
 25 “Woe to you who are full now,
  for you will be hungry.”



In the time of Jesus, religious authorities studied their texts and came up with the arithmetically correct way of making sure that widows and children got enough to eat. The politicians in charge, the Romans, studied the situation and figured out ways to squeeze even more money out of the people they conquered, which led to more hungry people who had been robbed of their land and resources.

Jesus comes along and reminds us of God’s arithmetic. But he does more than scold us. Jesus shows us the way that God wants us to behave. Jesus feeds people. He calls on us to do the same. As we know, Jesus also calls on us to do more. It’s not enough to feed the hungry. We need to change the systems that keep people hungry. Sadly, many systems are now colliding in ways that make people worse off, not better.


In terms of this current SNAP issue, make no mistake—the money is there. There have been several federal judges who have ordered the funds released, and some states are looking for ways to fill the gap, so hopefully, this crisis might have a temporary fix this week, although the fix won’t be uniform. The governor of Tennessee has said that he will not take steps to address the SNAP issue, for example. Sadly, I have no doubt that this crisis won’t be the last one. We have seen this story play out over and over again, across the decades, across the millenia, regardless of who is in charge.

Throughout the Bible, we see the same dynamic at work across the centuries: people who are in charge, people who have resources to distribute, and people who do not do the task. Today’s Gospel tells us what God thinks about it all. Jesus says, “Woe to those who behave badly” . . . and leaves us to decide whose side we are on.


Today’s Gospel gives us a clear choice. As he always does, Jesus calls us to be our better selves. He tells us—and spends his whole life showing us—how to behave to help bring the Kingdom of God into being. It’s all there, summed up in those 2 last verses: “Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.”


It’s not unfamiliar to us, is it? And let’s be honest—it’s not unique to Christianity. All major religions and many branches of Philosophy give us this type of golden rule. And the good news is that I have seen our community in action. We have given to all sorts of people in need in our community and beyond. We cook for our community and give the proceeds to the ministries that feed the poor. We create shoeboxes full of resources that will be shipped across the planet. We pray for those who are suffering. We visit the sick and send cards.


And we are surrounded by reminders of our ancestors who have done the same. Some of you know that my grandfather’s first call was to this very area in East Tennessee. He served five parishes, and two of them eventually merged to become Faith Evangelical Lutheran church. And the name Crumley is familiar outside of this area—Steven Crumley and I have a great uncle named Jim Crumley, who lived down the road from here. He was nourished in this faith community, and went on to be one of the nationwide bishops who would create the ELCA out of the earlier incarnations of the Lutheran faith in the U.S.


There are physical reminders of those ancestors all around us, from the plaque on the wall by the door, to the engraving around the offering plate. And of course, this very building and the land around the building—these are the biggest physical reminders of those past saints who invested in this congregation.


The writer of the letter of Ephesians reminds us that we have a physical inheritance, like this building, and a spiritual inheritance. The writer of Ephesians encourages us always to be looking for ways to nurture that inheritance, so that the ones coming along after us will be nourished. My hope, of course, is that future generations will give thanks to us the way that I am giving thanks for our spiritual ancestors today.


But here is the challenge of All Saints Sunday, and every day. It’s not enough to celebrate and give thanks. We must build on what we have been given. We must look for ways to use our inheritance for those who have not been born into circumstances as fortunate. We need to be bold in proclaiming that taking food from almost 4,000 people in Bristol alone is not acceptable.


Sadly, the challenge goes far beyond food insecurity or lack of affordable housing or the mess that is our healthcare system or any other area we might wish our leaders would solve. We need to be bold in our vision of a world committed to justice, not just for those who can afford it, but justice for ALL. And by now, hopefully you know that when I talk about justice, I’m not talking about our justice system that decides who broke the law and how they should be punished. I’m talking about a vision of justice that demands that people should not have to decide whether they can afford food or medicine or decent housing. People shouldn’t have to decide that they’ll cut back on food to be able to afford their medication—and it happens far too often.


We live in a time of a loss of belief in the greater good. Even if we believe in the greater good, many of us feel powerless to move in that direction. In so many ways, this situation is the existential crisis of our time. Our nation is beset by many perils, but this loss of care about those beyond ourselves may be the one most likely to destroy us, both individually and collectively.

Our world needs more than a charitable handout, although a week like this past one reminds us that so many still need that basic protection. However, charity is not enough, because the events of the past week remind us that we can’t count on charity to be there for us. We need a world built on the justice that prophets like Daniel demanded, that the Psalmist sang the hope of, that the arrival of Jesus ushered in.

Our spiritual inheritance has equipped us for such a time as this. We can join forces with others in the community, as our ancestors did before us, to create the world we want to live in. Let us join with all the saints to do unto others as we would have them do to us. Let us go beyond the borders of our families, the borders of this church wall. Let us transform the world in the way that Jesus and the prophets before him implored the people to do.

As we do the work of transforming the world, we must continue to dream of a day where we will sing for joy in our beds, as the Psalmist says, remembering the steps we took to build a world where people do not go hungry, where people do not have to make painful choices. That’s a spiritual inheritance that will make those who come after us sing for joy. When they put our names on plaques that will hang on the church wall of the future, let it be for the work that we did to make sure that oppressive systems have been bound so that they can no longer inflict suffering on the people. When they put our pictures on tables of the dear and departed, let them say a prayer of thanks for the work we did to make the world a place of justice for all.

Sermon for All Saints Sunday

Here is my sermon for All Saints--when I deliver it, I anticipate that the ending may be slightly different.  In other words, I'm still not happy with it, but I'm leaving room for the Holy Spirit.

 November 3, 2024, All Saints Sunday

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott

John 11:32-44

In today’s readings, we get a beautiful vision of a world being prepared for the saints, a life of the world that hasn’t yet been born.  Notice how much of the imagery is similar in both the book of Isaiah and the book of Revelation:  tears being wiped from every eye, death being banished, God coming to dwell with God’s people.

And then we get to the Gospel, which gives us a different view of being a saint.  It’s a curious story, both in light of our festival Sunday and in the book of John.  In the beginning of the 11th chapter, Lazarus is sick and the sisters have sent for Jesus.

What does Jesus do?  Does he rush right to the bedside of the one he loves?  No, he lingers where he is for a few days—and thus sparks centuries of debate about why he does this.  The easiest explanation is one that paints Jesus in a strange light:  he lets Lazarus die so that he can show how powerful he is.  But why would he need to prove his power this way?  He’s healed many people, he’s taught in multiple places,  he’s done miracles like multiplying food, and he’s answered question after question.  By now, people are going to believe or they won’t.  By now, he’s attracted the attention of the people in charge, and they are already plotting against him.

Unlike other stories where we see Mary and Martha, in this story they behave similarly—there’s a measure of reproach when they interact with him.  And who can blame them?  They must have questions about what has kept Jesus away.  Once Lazarus dies, they must know that the miracle they hoped for won’t be theirs.

I’ve come to think of these sisters as some of the pillars of the faith—our Christian foremothers, every bit as praiseworthy as the disciples, and frankly perhaps more deserving of praise.  And yet, they show themselves to be very human here in this story.  Mary says that if Jesus had gotten himself to them in time, her brother wouldn’t have died.  Martha is her typical Martha self, trying to micromanage Jesus, worrying about the social niceties like the neighbors smelling her dead brother.  

In a way, though, who can blame them? They’re not expecting Jesus to raise the dead—that seems outside of the realm of possibility.   Throughout the ages, people experience healing and other types of miracles, but it’s the rare person who believes that a person has been dead for 4 days can be brought back to life.  Mary and Martha must have wondered what on earth Jesus is thinking by rolling back the stone from the tomb. 

The Gospel today is a condensation of each of the Gospels, in microcosm, like seeing the story of an entire forest in a single pinecone, like a sonnet that sings a love song in just 14 lines of iambic pentameter.  In today’s Gospel, we see Jesus who is in relationship with humans, who walks beside them, who experiences their sorrows and  weeps with them.  In today’s Gospel reading, we see Jesus delivering the Good News that death will not have the final answer.

Today’s Gospel story is also a microcosm of the larger story of Creation, the story that is heading towards the vision depicted in Isaiah and Revelation:  tears wiped from every eye, and death has lost its sting.  But we’re certainly not there yet.

Like Mary and Martha, we don’t not fully understand why the world is set up the way it is.  We might see miracle after miracle, teaching after teaching, healing after healing and wonder why, if Jesus can do all of these great things, why let death have any power at all?  We might wish that the redemption that Jesus offers us would look different than it does.

Like Mary and Martha, we, too, might want to micromanage the miracles:  heal Lazarus while he’s sick and don’t expose us all to the smell of miracles at work.  But just imagine if Jesus had allowed himself to be controlled this way.  Mary and Martha have a vision, but it’s puny compared to the vision that our Triune God has for creation, a vision where death no longer has the ultimate say.  Why does God’s vision and hope for creation need to unfold in this way, a way that includes both miracles and sorrow?  I don’t know, but I’m sure that God does know.

Jesus promises us that death is not the final answer. We do not fully understand how Jesus will fulfill that promise. Some will argue that we go directly to Heaven, and some will tell us that we'll wait in a safe place until the final coming of Christ. And in the meantime, Jesus invites us to participate in the creation of the Kingdom, right here, right now. We don't have to wait until we're dead.

On this Sunday where we celebrate the saints, where we remember all who have come before us, let us also remember the ways that they showed us how the Kingdom of God isn’t here yet, but the Kingdom of God is breaking into our lives in new ways.  Let us remember the ways that they showed us how we can unbind ourselves from all the forces of death that have wrapped their clothes around us.  Let us remember all the ways that the community of God shows us a new way, a way out of all that holds us in a tomb.  

Along with all the saints, Jesus stands at the door of our tombs and calls to us.   I know that some days it may seem like too much—we might want to stay in the comfort of the graves that we know and understand.  But today and every day, I hope that we hear the call to a new life, one that can start right now.  Today and every day, I hope that we arise from whatever death holds us in its grips, that we leave the grave cloths behind, that we emerge from our gloomy places ready to experience new life.

Meditation on This Sunday's All Saints Gospel

 The All Saints Sunday readings for Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023:

First Reading: Revelation 7:9-17

Psalm: Psalm 34:1-10, 22

Second Reading: 1 John 3:1-3

Gospel: Matthew 5:1-12

This Sunday we celebrate All Saints Day. Most churches focus on loved ones of the congregation who have died; some churches give special emphasis to members who have died since the last All Saints Day. Some churches will be thinking about the larger collection of saints.

The Gospel reading for today at first seems jarringly out of place. Why are we back to the Sermon on the Mount? But after reading it, we see the connections. These are the behaviors of those whom we traditionally consider saints, people like Mother Theresa. They should be the behaviors of those of us still on earth who consider ourselves to be part of that saintly pantheon.

When we read Gospels like these, many of us might think that we do these things as our admission ticket for Heaven. But some of the more interesting books of theology that I've read lately remind us that Christ didn't come to take us to Heaven. In fact, the concept of Heaven with all our loved ones waiting for us there is relatively new to Christian thought. Christ came to announce that God's plan for redeeming the world had begun. That plan involves our pre-death world, which is not just a place where we wait around until it's our turn to go to Heaven. No, this world is the one that God wants to redeem. Christ comes to invite us to be part of the redemptive plan.

Jesus comes to give us instructions for how we can join together in the redemption of the world. Think of the Sermon on the Mount as a behavior manual. As you move through your days, view your actions and your thoughts through the lens of the Sermon on the Mount. Do your thoughts and actions support this vision of peace, justice, mercy, and comfort? If not, how can you change to be more in alignment with God's vision of redemption?

We could use this All Saints Day as a reminder that we need to jump start our efforts to act as saints in this world. If that behavior means that we also get to be saints in the next world, swell.

But the good news of Jesus is that we don't have to wait until we die to experience redemption. We're already saints. We just need to remember to be about the business of sainthood, and to avoid the behaviors that distract us from our mission.

All Saints Sermon

My pastor was away yesterday, so I preached the All Saints sermon.  I didn't go out on too much of a limb.  I talked about different ideas of the afterlife.  I made reference to the table where people had brought pictures of their loved ones who had died.  I made mention of the fact that at some point, we, too, will be pictures on that table.

I was most pleased with the end of my sermon.  I talked about Heaven, but I said that if we wait until we're dead, we miss out on so much.  Our scriptures tell us again and again that the Kingdom of God--God's community, God's creation, Heaven--is inbreaking.  It's right now.  We don't have to wait.  We're invited to be part of creating it right here, right now.

I knew what anthem the choir would be singing because I had heard my spouse practice it all week.  I encouraged people to listen to the upcoming All Saints lyrics set to a familiar Christmas tune ("Angels from the Realms of Glory").  I encouraged us to think about that thread holding All Saints and Christmas together, to think about the mystery of God's Kingdom made incarnate, through Jesus.  I encouraged us all to think about what we could do to make God's Kingdom incarnate.

The sermon seemed to be received well.  I worry that I'm basically preaching the same message each time I preach, but if it bothers people, no one lets me know.  After all, I'm not preaching every week.  And it's a message that bears repeating.

Triduum and the Hinge Moments of Autumn

 It is November 1, and I am sad to see October go.  I think of October as one of my favorite months, and it is, but it can also be a difficult month for me for all sorts of reasons that revolve around weather (hot, humid, why isn't it cool yet?) and memories.  

It feels like a sort of hinge moment, and the season of autumn is full of them.  Nov. 1 means that my favorite season, the one that I define as Sept. 15-Dec. 25, is well underway, and soon I will have the larger regret of all of my favorite season being in the rear view mirror.  Pre-emptive grieving--that's me, through and through.

We had some trick-or-treaters come by at 3:00 on Saturday, and then we ate a lot of the Halloween candy.  Yesterday, I went to get more candy.  We rarely get more than 1-5 trick-or-treaters, but I always buy candy as if it's 1975 in the suburbs, and we will get hordes of children.  So, of course, yesterday we got no trick-or-treaters.

I felt a bit of sadness last night--surely it was about more than our lack of trick-or-treaters.  This morning, the sadness lingers.  Will I be less sad about Halloween being over if I think about All Saints and All Souls? If I think about a triduum of days, instead of just one? If I think about the ancestors and the more recently gone and what haunts us all?

I am thinking of this terrific post where James Lumsden talks about the practice of a memory box, as a way to reconnect with one's ancestors and loved ones.  It can become an "All Hallows altar of personal icons."  And the good news is, it's not too late.

This article by Christine Valters Paintner reminds us that we are entering into an entire season of reconnecting with a deeper wisdom:  "As the earth prepares to enter winter, she sheds what she no longer needs and moves inward. We live in a world illuminated by artificial light and so we often forget the wisdom to be gained from being in darkness. With the busyness of our lives, we resist the call of winter to fallowness and to contemplate what mortality means for us."  She posits that this time can become a time of reconnection:  with the hopes and dreams of our ancestors and with our own hopes and dreams--and with a deeper sense of mystery and insight.

May all of our hinge moments swing us towards reconnection.

The Feast of All Saints: Call to Worship (Video)

If you are hoping for a more traditional approach to this Feast Day of All Saints, you've got lots of possibilities on this blog in terms of past posts.  This one is one of my standard meditations on the Feast of All Saints. 

Today I'm going to post the Call to Worship segment that I wrote and recorded for my church's pre-recorded service that will air at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.  Below the recording, I'll post the words to make access easier.

We worship here in the company of those who have gone before us: 

the ones whom we miss every day,

those who served in ways both big and small,

the ones who showed us what it means to live a life of faith,

the wones who showed us how to persevere in times of struggle and doubt.

We worship here, dimly burning wicks or blazing lanterns.

We worship here in the company of all the saints.

Spirit Stories

I have never been one of those Christians who disapproves of Halloween.  I have happy memories of Halloweens as a child.  That was back in the 70's before we could buy costumes, so my gang of childhood friends would spend weeks planning our costumes.

As I've gotten older, I've done a lot of thinking about costumes and what they mean.  I've watched lots of friends and colleagues dress up, and I've done my share of amateur psychoanalysis as I've seen what they create.

I've also been thinking about God, who knows our real selves underneath our costumes, who knows our essential selves that we so often lose track of or our essential selves we haven't ever had a chance to know and discover.  I'm thinking about God who delights in our creativity, whether or not it's when we create our costumes or tell our scary stories or bake some Halloween treats.

Some of us come out scary religious traditions, with a god who doesn't take much delight in us.  Some of us come out of religious traditions with a god who plays tricks on us, a god who judges us, a god who condemns us and banishes us.  Some of us grew up with scary stories of hell and other types of perdition, stories full of the kinds of details of tortures far more frightening than any we might see in scary movies.

God knows our essential selves--I tend to think of my essential self as my soul, although I realize that idea might not be theologically sound.  God knows our spirit.

Medieval people would have seen this 3 day period of Halloween, All Saints and All Souls, as a time when spirits got loose and roamed the earth.  Some of our customs come from that time.  People dressed differently to hide from roaming spirits.  People kept Halloween bonfires burning to keep the evil spirits away and to keep a vigil on the feast days of All Saints and All Souls.

My brain keeps coming back to the idea of spirits.  Does our view of spirits and ghosts affect our view of the Holy Spirit?

Creating Something Special (and Socially Distanced) for All Saints

How can we create something special for a worship community that can't gather in person?  I'm thinking specifically of All Saints Sunday, but this question seems essential to our time.

Disability activists would remind us that the question has always been essential but that many of us had the privilege of being able to avoid wrestling with it.

So, if we wanted to create something special for All Saints, what might we create?  If we wanted it to be participatory, what would we create?

I've thought of mailing something to all of our members, a care package of sorts.  I saw one person post about plans to send all the odds and ends of Christmas eve candles to members along with a liturgy of remembrance that could be done alone or with families/other pandemic pod members.  But the thought of addressing all those envelopes and getting everything mailed overwhelms me.  After all, there's not much time before All Saints Sunday on November 1.

Our church does drive through communion, and I've thought of having some sort of special package to hand out.  But that does eliminate the participation of those who can't get to drive through communion.

The other vision I've had involves setting up a meditative space on the church grounds.  In past years, we've had a table where people could bring pictures of lost loved ones.  I wouldn't think that people would want to do that.

I have a vision of a Day of the Dead type altar--we have an outdoor barbecue in the back.   It's made  out of cinderblocks and hasn't been used as a barbecue in years, if not decades.  Could that be transformed?

Here's a picture that I found by way of a Google search; It first appeared in this article in Los Angeles Magazine:

I could do the initial transformation by Friday, and then people could come during the week-end or send something that we'd add to the altar.  I could create some sort of video something that could be sent to members who can't get to the site.

Of course, the potential problem might be vandalism.  But I'd create it with cheap materials, and even if someone stole them, I wouldn't care.

In a different time, I'd invite people to bring a picnic and maybe we could start a different kind of All Saints tradition.  But that will not be this year.

Let me also wonder if I'm appropriating the traditions of a culture that's not mine.  Yes, in some ways, I am.  I'm a descendent of immigrants from northern Europe--this tradition is not mine.  Yet my hope would be that if we could do this in a respectful manner, that it might be meaningful, both for those of us who never had this experience and for those in the community who might be happy to have this opportunity, this temporary monument to memory.