The Risk of Saints - All Saints Sunday 2025

Luke 6:20-31

Then Jesus looked up at his disciples and said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,

    for yours is the kingdom of God.

 “Blessed are you who are hungry now,

    for you will be filled.

“Blessed are you who weep now,

    for you will laugh.

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

“But woe to you who are rich,

    for you have received your consolation.

 “Woe to you who are full now,

    for you will be hungry.

“Woe to you who are laughing now,

    for you will mourn and weep.

“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

“But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

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There is a patron saint for almost anything. If you have a fear of caterpillars, meet St. Magnus - the Patron Saint for Protection against those creepy crawlers. Work at a gas station? St. Eligius is your saint. He was the patron saint of horses and blacksmiths, until cars came along and someone decided he should cover gas stations too. 

If you are a beer lover, Arnold is your saint. The tradition goes, some thirsty people prayed to him to give them what they lacked and a pot of beer appeared. And if the morning after gets rough, there’s even St. Bibiana,  the patron saint of hangovers. I’m not making that up. 

Then, there’s Drogo, patron saint of unattractive people, not that any of you need to pray to him. I think you get the point. There is a saint for nearly every situation. 

One of my favorite saints, and the one I think we need inspiration from today, is Saint Aelred of Rievaulx, the patron saint of friendships. You’ve probably never heard of him, which is part of why I love him. Aelred wasn’t known for miracles or dramatic conversions, but for the way he understood and practiced friendship as a path to God.

He was born in northern England, the son of a married priest before that became outlawed, and he was well-educated and well-liked from an early age.In his twenties, he served in the Scottish court under King David I: respected for his intelligence, diplomacy, and trustworthiness. 

But at age twenty-four, he walked away from what was surely a promising career and entered the monastery at Rievaulx in Yorkshire. I’m sure his parents were thrilled since monking makes such good money. 

He quickly became known for his warmth and wisdom. He eventually rose through the ranks and became the abbot of the whole monastery, overseeing more than 600 monks. But he didn’t lead the way we usually imagine leaders do—commanding, strict, or heavy-handed.Aelred was gentle and empathetic, rarely a harsh disciplinarian, and always attentive to the spiritual and emotional needs of the people entrusted to him.

He’s best known for his writing and preaching on friendship. Aelred had a gift for befriending the people others overlooked, those who were weak, temperamental, or thought to be less than holy. In his most famous work, Spiritual Friendship, he describes a true friend as:

“the guardian of my very soul” the one who  protects all the secrets of my spirit in loyal silence, the one who bears and endures anything wicked they see in my soul. For a friend will rejoice with my soul rejoicing, grieve with its grieving, and feel that everything that belongs to a friend belongs to themself”. 

That kind of definition might make us rethink who we call a friend.  Aelred’s idea of friendship isn’t casual or convenient; it sounds more like the love of a spouse, a parent, a sibling, or that one person who walked with us through the best and the worst. And for many of us, that’s the person we remember today on All Saints Sunday.

Today is unusual in the church year. Instead of primarily giving thanks to the God we know in Jesus Christ, this Sunday is set apart to remember the people we have known and loved in Christ, the ones who have gone before us and now rest in him.

And whether we realize it or not, we’re also honoring the love shared between us: the risk of loving and being loved, or as Aelred might say, the holy work of friendship.

On All Saints Sunday, we remember not just the people we loved, but the risk it took to love them  and the risk they took in loving us. Every real relationship carries the possibility, maybe even the certainty, of hurting and being hurt.

And that’s true of the saints we remember today. Some of them were anything but saintly. Some were difficult. Some were wounded, and some were wounding. Even the best of them didn’t consistently love their enemies, pray for those who hurt them, or give generously all the time.

But in the Lutheran tradition, that’s not what makes a saint. A saint isn’t someone who got it right. A saint is someone who tried, failed, and is forgiven by God. That is what makes a saint: a forgiven sinner.

Which means this loving and being loved is risky business, no matter who it is. C.S. Lewis puts it this way:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe and dark, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

To love is to be vulnerable.”

Is there anyone who knows this risk — this vulnerability — more than the God we know in Jesus Christ? He left heaven, only to be betrayed by his own people, abandoned by his friends, and to have his heart beaten and broken until it stopped on the cross. And he did it so that we might be made into saints — forgiven sinners. Truly, there is no greater love than that.

This morning we don’t just remember the saints in our lives, we remember the love it took to be in relationship with them, and the risk that love always requires. Saint Aelred reminds us that to love is to risk. And to follow Jesus is simply to keep risking love again and again. Which means this life of faith is never without risk.

Today is not only All Saints Sunday; it’s also the launch of our capital campaign. You’ve seen the plans, the pictures, and you’ve given feedback along the way. And today we want to show you where all of that has led us.Because at the heart of this campaign is not just more seats in a sanctuary, or a bigger building. At the heart of it is more relationships. Buildings don’t make a church. Relationships do.

But buildings can give us the space where those vulnerable, holy friendships can take root. That’s what we’re after: a sanctuary that makes room for more people to experience the grace of Jesus Christ, and one that finally allows everyone to enter, serve, and participate fully in worship. And a Community Hub: a space where neighbors can connect, where learning and conversation can happen, where kids can play and grow, where anyone can meet, make, or find a friend.

Does this involve risk? Absolutely. Not just financial risk, though that’s part of it. The deeper risk is opening ourselves to the people around us.

We risk people coming into our space simply to use it — and nothing more. We risk people learning what we believe about God’s grace and deciding they want nothing to do with it.

And we risk forming new friendships that will stretch our hearts and our community to make room for the people God sends our way. We could get really attached to these people. We could give our hearts to them. And that requires vulnerability.

But that’s the life Jesus calls us to — a life of risk, of friendship, of love.

And if that is not at the heart of why we’re doing this — if all we want is a bigger building with more empty chairs and tables — then this campaign can be damned. But if we are willing to take the risk — to open ourselves, to make the kind of friends Aelred made, the ones others overlook and dismissed, and to share the love of Jesus with a community who needs to see it, hear it, and feel it — then we are truly rooted in grace and growing in mission.

Since there’s a saint for nearly every situation, let Aelred be our saint for this moment. 

Not because he built anything, but because he loved people others ignored. Because he believed friendship was holy work. Because he knew the work of grace was making room for the overlooked and the imperfect.

This campaign is not about numbers or square footage. It is about making more room for that kind of love: the kind that turns strangers into friends, and friends into saints.

Because as Aelred wrote, “True friendship draws us right up to the edge of what it means to know God and experience God.”

Amen

God the Persistent Widow

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Luke 18:1-8

Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.

He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my accuser.’ For a while he refused, but later he said to himself,

‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’”

And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?

Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.

And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

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“We don’t take no for an answer.” That was the motto of Sisters of Mercy JoAnn Persch and Pat Murphy — the two women I affectionately call my nuns. I’ve talked about these holy troublemakers before, you may remember, but with today’s story of a persistent widow, I can’t help returning to the two most persistent people I’ve ever met.

In 2007, on a cold, rainy Friday — the day buses rolled out of the Broadview Deportation Center bound for the airport — the sisters stood on the sidewalk and prayed. They prayed for the men being deported and the families left behind, for the judges who signed the orders, the ICE agents who carried them out, and the lawmakers who wrote the policies. Then they went home.

But the next Friday, they came back. And the next. Rain or shine, they kept showing up. When they asked to go inside and accompany the families as they said goodbye, the answer was no. When they asked again, the answer was still no.

Finally, the top ICE official in Chicago — who knew them by name at this point — said, “You can’t come in here. But you might try McHenry County Jail. They could use some pastoral care.” So they called. Again the answer was no.

So they lobbied, wrote letters, met with legislators — and got a new law passed that allowed spiritual care in detention centers. Eventually they were even permitted to board the buses and offer a final blessing as they pulled away.

Sister Pat used to tell me:

“You see, Cogan, we get told no all the time. People, especially those in power, underestimate us because of how old we are and what we look like. But we don’t get discouraged. We work peacefully and persistently. We do what needs doing. And we don’t take no for an answer.”

The sisters remind me that we’ve had the wrong image of widows all along: in Scripture and in this parable. When we hear the word widow, all the old stereotypes rush in: a poor, frail, vulnerable woman begging for help. But that’s not the picture the Bible paints, and it’s not the woman Jesus describes today.

Think of Tamar, who risked everything to secure justice when others denied it to her.

Or Ruth, who crossed borders and broke norms to provide for herself and Naomi. The widow of Zarephath, who spoke truth to the prophet and demanded that God make good on divine promises. The widow of Nain, whose grief moved Jesus to act and whose life was restored along with her son’s.

As one scholar put it, Biblical widows aren’t weak. “They move mountains; they’re expected to be poor, but prove savvy stewards; expected to be exploited, they take advantage where they find it.” Truth be told, most churches today run not because of pastors but because of faithful women, on the front lines and behind the scenes, who keep showing up, praying, organizing, and holding it all together.

Most of us have heard this parable preached the same way: if even an unjust judge will finally give in to a widow’s cry, how much more will God hear and answer when we cry out? In that reading, God is the opposite of the judge — fair, responsive, merciful. And that’s a good and faithful way to read it.

But lately I’ve wondered: what if the story turns the other way? What if God isn’t the opposite of the unjust judge, but rather the persistent, justice-demanding widow herself? What if we are the ones sitting in the judge’s seat, reluctant, distracted, slow to listen, until finally, through prayer, through people, through grace, we give in?

Because that’s how I’ve come to recognize God’s work in Scripture and in my own life. God calls, nudges, insists, pushes people to do what God wants done — until we finally yield.

Think of Abraham and Moses, Jonah and Jeremiah, Paul and even Pharaoh. God persists, sometimes pesters, always prevails.

In this moment, I think we look a lot more like the judge. With all the division and distrust around us, it’s easy to say, I’ve lost all respect for those people. I’ve lost respect for those who vote differently than me. For those protesting and for those who don’t.

For Democrats. For Republicans.For anyone who dares to enjoy the Super Bowl halftime show.

We laugh, but it’s true. Like the judge, we’ve grown tired and cynical. We’ve lost trust — not only in one another, but sometimes in God’s work and timing in the world. And I don’t say that to shame anyone. I understand it. Things feel difficult, dangerous, and disheartening. War still rages in Ukraine. A ceasefire hangs by a thread in Gaza. Inequality deepens across the globe.

And closer to home, many of us are still waiting: for healing that doesn’t come, for a relationship to mend, for a prayer to be answered but only seems to echo in the abyss.

After enough of that, you start praying less, not because you’ve stopped believing, but because you’re tired of being disappointed. Eventually, no prayer feels safer than another unanswered one. And before long, like the judge, you stop looking for God altogether. You decide it’s up to you to figure it out.

Maybe that’s how the judge became who he was — not heartless, but hardened. Not evil, just exhausted.

But the story doesn’t end there, because, like my nuns, God doesn’t give up that easily.

When we least expect it, God, like the widow, starts pursuing us. And that’s what happens in prayer. Often we think prayer is us pursuing God. But what if it’s the opposite.

What if prayer isn’t just our words reaching to heaven; it’s God reaching toward us. In the quiet moments of our days, in the stillness when we try to rest, God is there: tugging at our hearts, stirring us awake, urging us not to give up hope, to forgive and seek forgiveness, to hold on to the relationships that matter, to see the dignity and humanity in every person.

As the great Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard once said, “Prayer does not change God, but it changes the one who offers it.”

The judge finally relents, but not out of compassion. The text says he does it “so she won’t bother me.” That’s the polite, cleaned-up translation. A truer rendering of the Greek is something like, “so she doesn’t give me a black eye,” or, as one commentator puts it, “so she doesn’t slap me in the face.” Now that’s a granny with some grit!

And before we get too quick to dismiss that image, the idea that God might wrestle or wear us down, remember Jacob. He wrestled with God all night long until daybreak, refusing to let go until he received a blessing. He didn’t walk away untouched; he limped for the rest of his life.

Because that’s what real encounters with God do, they leave a mark.

Richard Foster once wrote, “Our prayer efforts are a genuine give-and-take, a true dialogue with God, and a true struggle.”

Prayer, at its deepest, isn’t about soothing words or easy answers. It’s a holy struggle; one that leaves us changed: sometimes limping, sometimes bruised, but always blessed and better because of it.

Pat Murphy passed away this past July at the young age of ninety-six. At her bedside, the last thing JoAnn said to her was, “Pat, remember, we don’t take no for an answer. When you get to heaven, you go to God, and you don’t take no for an answer. We need help down here — help for our immigrants, help for our country.”

Prayer is the process by which God makes us less like the judge and more like Sister Pat:

one whose whole life is a prayer, offering respect for all people, trusting that God is at work in the world and through her, and demanding justice and peace in a world that needs so much of both.

So, in the words of Jesus, pray always. Don’t lose heart. And, in the words of the Nuns, don’t take no for an answer.

If we do that, God will indeed find faith: the faith of a widow.

Amen.