Hi everyone,

Welcome to worship for this All Saints Sunday, which lands on November 2, 2025.

The bulletin for this service can be found here. In it, you’ll find the order and words for worship as well as the full sermon manuscript. You can use the bulletin to follow along with the service, but alternatively all the words you need to know will appear on your screen, and the sermon is also included on this page below the video.

Because it’s All Saints Sunday, to enhance your worship experience online you can light multiple candles in your space, to represent anyone that you’ve loved and lost that you wish to honour and to welcome their presence with you. You are also welcome to participate in communion if you are comfortable, by having something small prepared for consumption at the appropriate time. Further instruction will be given then.

May God’s eternal blessing of love and community be apparent to you, especially this day but also for all time.

May your Spirit, O God, be poured out onto us, that the eyes of our hearts be enlightened by your Word and love, driving us to live in hope and peace, through Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

*long sigh….

So… this has been a tough week.  Which came from a difficult couple of weeks for me and a few others of you from what I’ve heard.  Which honestly came from a difficult few months for a lot more of us from what I’ve gathered and experiences with you.  Which also came from… well let’s face it… a difficult year, at least since last All Saint’s Sunday and perhaps beyond.

For me at least, this week started kind of rough for various reasons.  But as the week progressed I started to get a handle on things and was feeling a bit better.  I had a few things going on this week so I tried hard to get a jump on my sermon.  I was able to get a decent one going like Wednesday morning and I was progressing really well, and I was even looking forward to being done early and perhaps get a proper weekend to finally catch up on stuff… namely sleep.

But then about three quarters of the way into the sermon, I get the news.  Our very own Raj Prasad passed away.  Shock.  Disbelief.  Pain… so much pain. 

Of course, I’m not blaming Raj or anything for the timing, but now I felt like I needed to rewrite my sermon completely.  To what, I had no idea, but I wanted to better honour our friend, and this very day when we specifically remember those that we’ve loved and lost, than with what I had going by that point.  But honestly I didn’t have it in me to start over.  So I finished that goofy sermon that had a guest appearance from Tharson, if you remember that guy who was actually me from a couple of sermons ago.

I finished writing and went into the editing process, but it just didn’t feel right.  Normally when I work remotely I have headphones on and listen to my sweet playlist of mostly 90s music, and what song pops up?  “One Sweet Day” by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men.  If you don’t know the song, it’s about those that have gone before us, how we miss their presence, their smile, everything about them, and how they continue to shine down on us from heaven. 

Ok Raj, got it, I’ll rewrite the sermon.

But I think you all understand my need to say something about these feelings and emotions we have had over these difficult times, especially on this All Saints Sunday.  It’s times like these when we need a word of healing.  We need to be reminded of the grace we’ve been given.  We need to see God present with us and around us when we’re down, distressed, and distraught like many of us are now.

I mean, we’ve all felt that pain of losing someone, haven’t we?  We’ve all gone through that sorrow in saying goodbye.  We’ve all, in one way or another at some point in our lives, like maybe this past Wednesday, have dealt with the sting of death.

And I tell ya, death sucks.

It’s just so final.  While we have our beliefs around an afterlife, we cannot deny a real transition in our lives when someone passes.  Sure, we can be very affected by it differently, especially when it’s someone we don’t know or maybe even don’t like, but when it’s someone we know or know well?  Someone we respect and appreciate?  Someone we love?

That’s where the pain comes in.  That’s when we hurt.  That’s why we feel quite literally broken because that person has become such a big part of us that them no longer with us is like being incomplete, no longer whole, left with a “them-shaped” hole in our hearts and lives.

I know I know, there’s a saying that goes “it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.”  Yeah yeah, that’s true and all but that doesn’t make the loss any easier.  It doesn’t really make us feel better.  It doesn’t take away that pain.

And maybe that’s ok.  Not that I wish this pain on anyone, especially not those who have recently lost loved ones, but as we just established, we will go through it.  We will feel it.  We will break under the weight of death.  All of us.  Individually… and together.

I think Jesus knew this.  Actually I know he knew this because, you know, being God and all.  But I think this time around, more than ever for me, these Beatitudes that we get out of Luke truly speak to that.

I mean, the ones we get out of Matthew are great and all and arguably more popular, but I’ve always liked Luke’s more for a few reasons.  On the most part they’re pretty much the same except Matthew has Jesus preaching from a mount, which roughly translates to be a slight hill.  Matthew lists pretty much the same “blessed are those’s” as Luke, but has a few more and goes into a bit more detail.  And Matthew’s take on Jesus’ sermon is more about proper and moral conduct in community and relationship.

Luke, however, has a sermon from Jesus that talks a lot more about the complex nature of individuals, how we all don’t fit the same shoes, we can’t be put in the same box.  In Luke, the Beatitudes are paired with a list of woes, which seem to be the anti-blessings.  And in Luke, Jesus doesn’t preach down from an elevated position at the people, but rather Jesus walks onto a plain, level ground, where he can be eye-to-eye and face-to-face with his listeners… as equals.

Not equals in that all of those who were there were also the Saviour and Messiah of the world, but in that they were equally human, equally susceptible to the blessings and woes that he was describing, and ultimately equally subject to death. 

See this is the human experience.  These are just the ups and downs that life brings.  We face these blessings and woes and woes and blessings that litter our limited time on this planet, and we go through it all together.  As equals.

Because we are not alone in our pain, nor are we alone in our strength.  We are not alone in our brokenness, nor are we alone in our wholeness.  We are not alone in our losses, nor are we alone throughout all of life.

Not just with those physically here with us in our community or virtually online, but the whole host of saints of all times and places that live on in us through the examples they’ve set, the lessons they’ve taught, and the legacy they leave in our hearts.  While many of them aren’t with us, they continue to be with us.  Because we are all connected by this human experience, through our struggles and woes, through our joys and blessings.

If these candles up here are any indication whatsoever, we also see that our love for these people didn’t end with them.  But rather it carries on even after they’re gone.  And that is what keeps them alive, keeps them in our hearts, and keeps them with us in our memories and in who we are.  So you see, death isn’t final.  It doesn’t have the last say.  It’s a transition, yes, but we, they, our relationship and community continues on with each generation for all time.

This is the gift of All Saints Day, that we be reminded that while we all have lost, we also all have love.  While we all break, we also all will be made whole.  While we all face death, we all are given the life that truly is life by the God who gathers us and joins us together in the eternal arms of welcome and relationship.  And while some of these wounds are still fresh, while we continue to miss those that have gone before us, while we feel that pain and loss, we can be filled with the peace in knowing that even in suffering there is healing, even in loneliness there is community, even in woe there is blessing.

So then on this All Saints Sunday, as we bask in the glow of these candles that represent how our congregation is and continues to be, may we always remember, honour, and lift up the contributions of these folk in our lives, in our hearts, and in who we are, that we may see how they live on in all they are and all they were and all they will always be for us, around us, and throughout the world.  All thanks and praise be to God for the presence of all these saints that we continue to love, for the saints here in this community, for all the saints around the world of God’s own redeeming who are declared as beloved.  Peace be with you all. Amen.