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

(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