Now, and Forever...

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Luke 6:20-31

Grace to you and peace, from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

How do you learn best? I learn best by listening. We each have a primary learning path- auditory, experiential, visual… reading, doing, seeing, hearing, talking about it, some people say they get new insights while they’re talking. I doubt it, I just think they like to talk. I learn best by listening. I still know the words to a score of songs I only ever heard on the radio or records or tapes or cds.

When I went to college, I was lucky… Most of my beginning classes were large lectures. Attention turned sound into instruction. I took some notes, and read my assignments and listening worked well for me. We all use all the methods, but some work better for different folks. What's your favorite?

In the Gospel text you listened to today, in Luke… There is a large crowd of people. Listen… The verses that immediately precede what I read describe “a great multitude of people from all of Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.” And we are told of many healings and that all in the crowd were trying to touch him. You can imagine for yourself that hubbub… the murmuring and the exclamations and the silences. The noise of the breeze, perhaps a dog or two may have barked… and then, Jesus speaks, standing in the midst of the crowd, he speaks, and his is the only voice. He preaches to the disciples, and to the crowd, and as Luke and the Holy Spirit intended, now, centuries later, Jesus speaks to us… to us. Listen. Begin to sense what's happening in your life on this All Saints Sunday.

The Blesseds that Jesus speaks are filled with promises and the Woes are filled with warnings… they are almost inside-out versions of the Blesseds… as if five 8 year old children have just tumbled in from a very cold morning outside for their promised hot chocolate, and their jackets are tossed haphazardly on the floor… some, in the rush were actually thrown there inside-out, and you can see the stitches inside the sleeves. Later perhaps, they may all be hung up right-side out…

but probably not by those children…

You can feel, I hope, that even the woes are not just a passage of judgement, but rather an expansion, and a fully beautiful but completely inside out image of what love should look like… Luke enunciates Jesus’ values, to all disciples, and all who wish to be… injustice is to be made right, innocent suffering is to be eradicated. Eradicated by the gentle but sure intrusion of a powerful force. A force that can turn everything right side out.

God’s love… Compassion…

The Ethics of the Kingdom are proclaimed. Then Jesus says it… he takes a breath, and then he says it… Mothers repeat it in frustration. Friends say it in pleading. Enemies shout it in separation. Lovers say it in a whisper… It's a simple request… “Listen.” Spoken out loud, out of a desire to open up ears. And to move souls.  To communicate… “Listen.”

We all must grow into being able to listen. Some days I’m absolutely awful at it. Ask Ruth. The skill of listening needs space and time to develop. It is a skill we may never quite master but we can work on it...

When a breakthrough takes place and we do listen and hear someone or something for the first time, it can feel like we have just woken up.

When we hear something as if for the first time, even if it's an echo or a repeated phrase we have heard before… it can wake up our other senses… like taste, as well as smell, even our sense of touch. The awakening of one sense can sometimes nudge the others out of their own dormancy... and whatever is before us then has a completely new life. And we are, one might say, born again.

As our saints are… reborn into the kingdom of eternal life… we and they are transported into a new reality. We have been given grace to believe that this future, God’s future, proceeds from the past and is not captive to it or shaped by it anymore. Ever.

And it all starts, quite simply, as Jesus says to the disciples and to us…  BUT I SAY TO YOU THAT LISTEN…. To you that listen…

And then, Jesus concludes this sermon, by way of summary... “do to others as you would have them do to you." And they heard him. They listened.

Those echoes have come down to me through many decades… Mrs. Sauer, in my primary Sunday School class called it THE GOLDEN RULE, when I learned it… when I heard it… when I listened to it… for the very first time as a child… ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you…’

The Prayer of the Day that our Pastor read aloud as we prayed along by listening… also had a great image…did you hear it? “Lord… Grant us grace… to know the inexpressible joys you have prepared for those who love you.” Listen… there was even more hopefulness as the prayer concluded: “inexpressible joys… now, and forever…” What a glorious promise. “Now, and forever.”

It is a promise I believe has been fulfilled eternally for our saints; the names spoken, the people remembered in our hearts today in prayer… members of St. Matthew… friends, acquaintances, family members who have entered eternal life this past year… Ernie, Dan, Darrell, Dorothy, Pat, Jan, the full list is longer. For each and all the promise is the same… “Inexpressible joys… now, and forever.” Death will no longer rule.

You might include in your prayers, others only you know, or heard about... perhaps include them, in prayer in your heart, today. I shall…

One day, just doomscrolling; which is what many of us call just checking stories on google or instagram- it was a month or two ago, it was about Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Archbishop in Bologna.

He led a Prayer Vigil, where he, and members of his community, read aloud the names of every child killed in Gaza; in prayer, by way of remembrance.

It took seven hours… there were that many names... Imagine listening for that long. Imagine God listening then, as God will listen to us today… and tomorrow. Now, and forever.

I name people in my prayers each morning, I commend it to you… names… for hope, for healing, for help, for love, for forgiveness, for wholeness; now, and forever. In hard times, it’s the same assignment: Pray as if it’s a song you know by heart… Slow down. Listen, all the way through the names and requests… listen for the hope… resist the urge to skip to the chorus or the Amen… slow down, and listen for the hope of “now, and forever” in your own heart…

Even today, as we live our lives now, in the midst of our weaknesses, sorrows and worries. In a time in our nation when it feels as if saints are in short supply… as if Woes outnumber Blesseds… Yet right now, I say to you that listen: We are surrounded by hope… even in the midst of our anxieties… We believe, and we trust, in the power of Christ’s love. We are fed and sustained and strengthened by this feast, the bread and cup, his body and blood… Hope will give us enough sense to listen to the promises of our Savior. The blesseds and the woes, the ethics of the kingdom. The promise of eternal life…

May you continue to move forward in faith. Now. May God help us to listen. Now. Help us to indeed listen carefully, actively, constantly, for hope…. Now and forever. To listen …for as long as it takes…

Amen.

Pastor William Carter | November 2, 2025 | All Saints Sunday