You are chosen for a purpose.

All Saints’ Sunday looks, feels and sounds like a retirement party. We traditionally sing hymn 287, as we have this morning, “For all the saints, who from their labors rest…” We think about the saints as those who have gone before, which is a very big deal in our tradition. We honor those great leaders of the faith, in scripture and across the ages, who have borne witness to God and to Jesus Christ, the men and women whose stories, writings and examples have spoken to the depth of our souls and inspired us. Many of them surround us in our stained glass because they are a really big deal. That glass was expensive to create. Now it is almost irreplaceable.

And our hearts turn to those much closer to home, family and friends, mentors and teachers who shaped and influenced us. Among them are those we remember in our memorial garden, whose names are cast in bronze along our chapel wall and those in our parish family whose remains were laid to rest elsewhere. Let us remember those who have died since last year’s All Saints’ Sunday. I share this list knowing the weight of grief that many of you continue to bear. Your church family is here to comfort you.

Belma Bieber, Bill Carson, Gary Grosz, Richard Huber, Paul Levick, Franklin Ota, Kurt Richels, Leila Roberts, Ralph Schamp, Jan Seitz, Pat Wallace, and Bob Wendin. And just yesterday, Richard Nathans.

Our hope and expectation is that those souls, sealed and marked in baptism as Christ’s own forever, are in God’s hand. He’s got them, such that they receive the “the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.”

And just like the saints in the glass, to the extent we knew them, they continue to affect us. We look to the very best of who they were as lights and examples. They, too, are saints.

“Saints” means “holy ones” or “set apart ones.” Our collect today refers to us as elect, which means chosen. There is great comfort in being chosen by God. Oh Lord, I want to be in that number, when the saints go marching in!

But it isn’t a merit badge or a status. There is also great challenge. It’s a responsibility. In some ways, it’s like a job. You’ve had an interview. Your phone rings. You’ve gotten the job! You’re on the team! You want to celebrate! You should! That’s quite an achievement. But what’s next? Get to work.

I said in some ways it’s like a job, in others it is more like a profession. Over time a profession – be it doctor or lawyer or citrus or cattle – shapes your identity and vision of life. But this is on a much larger scale than that.

Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “…so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.” To set our hope on Christ, that we might live. That, “you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.”

Our stained glass is not an end.  It is lifeless. But it points toward the eternal life to which we are called. When you were baptized, you were marked and sealed as Christ’s own forever. You got the job. More than a job, more than a profession, you received a “glorious inheritance”, “the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.”

And as we set our eyes, our hearts, our minds, our spirits on His promise, God transforms us day by day. Here’s how that looks:

Note that when Jesus met his disciples on the plain, Luke tells that he looked up at them, that he raised his eyes to them. We tend to look up to see him, to see God. (If you’re charismatic, your hands go up, too!) But now The Lord, through whom all things were created, the incarnation of the one true God, is raising his eyes to you. That’s how his love works: majestic and humble, leading and serving, all at once.

Then comes the transformation.

If you are poor, you are seeking, you have great need. Seek and you will find in Jesus that yours is the Kingdom of God.

If you are hungry, Jesus is gathering food and putting it into backpacks, he is gathering food for Thanksgiving baskets.  You will be filled.

If you weep now for the pain of separation that death brings, or for any physical, emotional or spiritual pain that will not go away, you will laugh because Jesus wins. He won that victory on the cross and it is for you.

And when people mock or dismiss you, if they exclude you or revile you or defame you because you believe in God and you believe in Jesus Christ, this is vitally important, especially for teenagers, form your identity in him then it doesn’t matter what anybody says because you know him. Look at the scriptures. Being chosen by God has never been easy. Look at the windows. All the saints testify.

The woes that follow are all rooted in the simple fact that material wealth, our bellies being full, the happiness we might carve out amidst the hardships of life and our reputations all create an illusion because they will pass away.  They can tragically distract us from the eternal hope and promise in Christ. This not our home. You know it to the very core of your being. People everywhere, all around the world in every culture and every walk of life know things can be better, and better still. Jesus is best. Compare him to anything and everything. He is best. And he is your destiny.

But having the confidence of the hope of our calling in Christ gives us the vision, the strength and the focus to do the impossible – to actually love our enemies, to do good even to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us and to pray for those who abuse us. He empowers us to turn the other cheek, to give sacrificially again and again and again.

To do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Jesus himself did all those things, he did all those things on the cross. Every one of them. We are his body. We are not there yet, but as we keep our eyes on him, he is transforming us and renewing us day by day.

AMEN!