All Saints Day: November 4, 2007.

Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18

Psalm 149

Ephesians 1:11-23

Luke 6:20-31

Rejoice in God's saints--and watch them closely! They know what the darkened minds of a calculating age cannot know. They see what is truly real in a time when human eyes fixate on appearances. They abide in hope when the world mocks them as naive. They hear the music of a world of mercy and grace and move to its rhythms before that new age fully appears. They are the face of Christ's holy future, and we give thanks for their witness that saves us, too.

Ephesians 1:11-23 holds no distrust for a spirituality in which visionary moments and ecstatic experiences sweep us into existential awareness of God's holy mystery and love active in the world. Listen: May "the eyes of your heart [be] enlightened ... [that] you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints" (1:18). May God grant us "a spirit of wisdom and revelation" (1:19).

Verses 3-14 lay out central themes that echo through the letter. Most notably, God has a plan, a "mystery" (vv. 8b-10), that has been active since the dawn of creation but is now revealed in Christ. The mystery is a plan to gather up all things into one thing, really into one person, Christ. God is gathering us and all creation into one harmonious unity in which all share in the divine life of Christ (v. 10).

This oneness with all things in Christ is our inheritance (v. 11) to be accomplished according to God's good pleasure (vv. 5,9). Knowing this, seeing it appear already in Christ's holy church (vv. 21-23), it is little wonder that we should praise God for this mystery, so hidden from human eyes except those who "hope on Christ" (v. 12) and are marked with the Holy Spirit (vv. 12-13). They know what will be fulfilled in God's good time "according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will" (v. 11).

The thanksgiving and intercession (vv. 15-19) connects with the nearly unspeakable prayer that comes at 3:14-19. There, the author prays that the church may know what cannot be known: the height and depth, length and breadth of the love of God in Christ, and to be "filled with all the fullness of God" (3:19)--surely among the most mystic statements of Christian Scripture.

For Ephesians, knowing and being filled by the unspeakable love of God is the very definition of what it means to have the "eyes of your heart enlightened [that] you may know the hope to which he has called you" (1:18). This enlightenment enables us to recognize God's power, working out the divine mystery, so decisively moved forward by Christ's resurrection (vv. 19-20). Christ has been granted authority over the oppressive forces that obscure and resist the fulfillment of God's mystery (vv. 21-22). His authority is evident in the church, which shares in the fullness of his future already, even as that fullness labors to fill all things (v. 23). God's saints sense and smell this future, experiencing it even now as they live in concert with the dawning of Christ's day of fulfillment.

The outlines of God's future find definition in Luke 6:20-31. Jesus' "Sermon on the Plain" (6:20-49) is a major statement of the shape of God's reign, which comes as good news for the poor (4:16-21). Jesus has been demonstrating that good news in word and deed throughout Galilee starting at Luke 4:14. The list of those blessed--the poor, hungry, hated, reviled, excluded, and defamed--startles normal human sensibilities. That's the point. Reality is not what we think. The present order of things with its normal values is profoundly out of sync with the enduring truth of God. What now appears real, relevant, and true will crumble, for it is not built on the foundation of God's ultimate purpose.

Jesus does not glorify poverty, suffering, or dishonor but points to the blessing, present and future, of those who have cast their lot with him and the reign of God he reveals. They have seen the future breaking into the present in his embrace of the outcast and forsaken. Jesus proclaims and enacts a kingdom where the least and the last are not lost to God's mercy (15:1-32), where arrogance and wealth are dangers to one's soul (12:13-34; 14:1-24; 16:19-31; 18:18-30).

The disciples of Jesus are blessed because they see, however dimly, the life that is life, the reality that is real because it is eternal; it is of God. Those who possess nothing and appear to have no future are blessed (6:20-23). They have already entered God's future, and their future is assured. They will dwell in deepening communion with the merciful God who loves and seeks the lowly, being filled with that which is eternal (1:48-53). But woe to those who, having all they need, assume that this reflects God's special blessing upon them (6:24-26). Their riches blind them to the new reality of the reign of God. They reject and persecute the harbingers of that holy future because it threatens their comfort and way of life (6:22-23, 26).

The rich choose a counterfeit way of living that is not life but merely reflects the convenient conscience of a shallow age that does not know how to seek what is just or eternal or what makes for peace. They overlook injustice and refuse to repent in light of the inbreaking age. The saints see this new age, while others are lost in the darkness. This, of course, makes saints difficult to live with, which is why they so often are hated.

The remainder of Jesus' sermon (6:27-31) lays out marks of those grasped by God's future. They strive to love in the face of hatred and to bless in the face of curses. They eschew the violence that the world declares is wisdom and seek to live generously. All of this marks them as "children of Most High," seeking to be "merciful, just as your Father is merciful (6:37-38).

The reading from Daniel reveals God as the ruler of history who will bring a universal reign of justice over all nations and peoples. Daniel was written during the intense persecution of Israel during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (165-164 B.C.E.). The author encourages the Jews to remain faithful even as a bloody purge sought to force them to abandon the law of Moses in favor of Greek paganism. The last half of the prophecy consists of a series of apocalyptic visions, all of which present past events as if they still lie in the future (7:1-12:13). This stirs confidence in the prophet's assurances that the kingdoms hostile to Israel will be overthrown and the reign of God and God's holy people realized.

In today's reading, the four beasts represent four successive empires that oppress Israel: the Babylonians, the Medes, the Persians, and the Greeks (7:1-14). They are stirred by the "four winds of heaven," reflecting God's control of great historical events (7:20). The winds, from the four compass points, reflect the universality of God's authority over the cosmic events that disturb the whole earth. Each of the four empires will rise (actually each had already done so) to trouble the people, but in the end "the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever--forever and ever" (7:18). The fourth kingdom, that of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, will speak against God and "wear out the holy ones of the Most High" (v. 25). But it, too, shall be consumed (v. 26), and "dominion ... shall be given to the people of the holy ones of the Most High" (v. 28).

God's mercy and justice will endure to the end against the assaults of the arrogant, Daniel says. The Most High will establish a universal and everlasting reign that reflects the holiness of God. The saints know this even when suffering cripples and hope appears foolish. DLM