[Sermon] You Are Not Forgotten
Deacon David Horton
November 1, 2026 + All Saints Sunday
This All Saints Sunday begins with honesty: church is not a showroom for people who have it all together, but a sanctuary for the weary and the grieving. Deacon David Horton names a year of deep loss and surprising growth in our community, held side by side. Anchored in baptism, he reminds us that we are saint and sinner at once, bound to a multigenerational family that God refuses to release. A guided meditation on the Beatitudes gives space to speak the names of those we carry. The Beatitudes are not rules to earn favor but a declaration of who God notices. The promise at the heart of the day is simple: you are not forgotten, and neither are they.
Sermon Transcript
From YouTube's automatic captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.
Grace and peace to you, especially if you walked in today poor in spirit, carrying a heart that feels bruised, exhausted, or quietly broken. If you are mourning today, Jesus calls you blessed, and we say Amen.
All Saints Sunday can often feel like a tough day to show up at church. If we aren’t careful, it can sound a lot like a day reserved for historical figures and people with halos and pristine lives, who seem light years away from our real, painful reality. And if you are actually feeling grief, watching the world move fast while your own life feels torn open, the last thing you need right now is an artificial moment.
So let’s be honest at the start. Church is not a showroom for people who have it all together. It is a sanctuary for the weary, the grieving, the heartbroken, and those just holding on. That isn’t just a sentiment for today. It is the truth, and we promise to remind you of it again and again whenever you walk through those doors.
But this particular year, our community has carried a profound amount of weight. We have experienced a lot of deep loss in this sanctuary: empty seats, quiet absences at our tables, and names we miss hearing in these walls. Yet right alongside that sorrow, we have also seen surprising growth: new faces, quiet acts of courage, deeper connections, and life pushing through the cracks. Grief and growth have lived in the very same house this year.
That is why we begin our worship today not with self-reliance, but with thanksgiving for baptism. Baptism is where God anchors us when everything else feels like it’s shifting under our feet. Thanksgiving is a word we have to hold tightly to this month, not as a forced emotion or a cheap platitude, but as that anchor. It is a daily practice we try to cultivate together in this community: acknowledging the pain, but refusing to let sorrow have the final word over the grace that holds us.
Martin Luther (we know that guy by now) used a simple, direct phrase for what it means to be human: simul justus et peccator. We are simultaneously saint and sinner. Not 50% saint on your good days and 50% sinner on your hard ones. It is 100% of both at the exact same time. We are divine creatures, capable of great beauty, and at the exact same time we are fragile humans who stumble, make mistakes, and get it wrong. Can I get an Amen?
But what binds us together in all of our complexity isn’t our moral perfection. Thank God, it is baptism. Baptism isn’t a badge of merit or an exclusive club. It is a shared drowning of our illusions and a shared rescue by grace. In those waters, God locks arms with us, for better or worse, joining us to a multigenerational family where nobody is abandoned and where God refuses to let go of anyone at the table. We carry the spiritual DNA of those who came before us: people who loved awkwardly, made mistakes, and wept through quiet nights. They built this community, and somehow they passed that torch down to you.
In the early centuries, All Saints Day began as a way to honor the martyrs. But over time, the church realized something crucial: grace covers the quiet, unnamed saints, too. So in our Lutheran tradition, we do not pray to the saints as if they were distant gatekeepers. We give thanks for them. We honor their memory. We feel their absence. And we claim our place in a story that stretches back to dust and forward to grace. In a culture that quickly moves on and forgets people once they’re gone, All Saints Day is a whisper of that radical truth: love is stronger than the grave. Can I get an Amen?
Scripture tells us that God knows every hair on our heads and calls each of us by name. Those words carry a lot of weight. When we speak the names of our saints aloud, we are doing something far deeper than nostalgia. We are practicing their resurrection. To speak a person’s name aloud is to breathe their memory back into the air of this room. It pulls them out of silence and testifies to the promise of everlasting life: that in Christ they are not erased, they are not forgotten, and they remain a part of our living body.
Which brings us to what we are going to do. Today is not a day for me to stand up here and lecture at you. Today is a day for us to let the liturgy, the work of the people, do the heavy lifting. This is your invitation to step out of the audience, set down the role of passive listener, and join in the sacred work of remembering together, simply as human beings sitting as one body. We are going to practice holding space: space for honest grief, space for deep gratitude, space for those who shaped us, those we miss until our chests ache, and those whose legacy still nurtures our growth. There’s no need for advice. There are no quick fixes. There are just simple names, offered as prayer.
In a moment, I’m going to read Matthew’s Beatitudes line by line, with pauses to settle into some silence and remember saints, known and unknown, famous and forgotten. If you are worshiping online, you are just as much a part of this room, so please participate fully, whether by speaking names aloud at home or typing them into the chat. This is our moment to lean into collective remembrance and call our saints back into life.
Remember, the Beatitudes are not a set of spiritual rules to earn God’s favor. They are a declaration of who God notices. God doesn’t start with the strong or the self-sufficient. God starts with the brokenhearted, the grieving, the meek, and the empty-handed.
So here’s how we’re going to do this. I’m going to read the beginning of each blessing, and then I’m going to pause. In that quiet moment, call out, or type, the names of saints across the full spectrum of human life. Bring family members and friends from this congregation who have passed away this year. Bring quiet neighbors, or famous world changers and justice seekers who inspired you. Bring the complicated ones, the people you really struggle to love and forgive, and those who had to extend that same grace to you. Call out anyone whose loss you carry, or whose legacy has helped shape who you are. All are welcome.
Don’t be shy. We Lutherans are notoriously good at being quiet in church, but this isn’t a moment to hold back. This is a joyous, defiant act of resurrection. Saying their names aloud, or typing them out, is how we pull them back into our assembly. Don’t worry about talking over people. Let the air be filled with holy chaos. When you speak their names, you resurrect their story among us. And if you prefer to stay silent, that’s okay. Simply hold their names tightly in the quiet of your heart. Let your tears fall. Let your big feelings wash over you. And remember: Jesus calls you blessed.
So let’s begin by getting acquainted with the room. Grief and gratitude and memory do not just live in our thoughts. They live right here in our bodies. Take a moment to become aware of everything around you. Feel the support of the pew. Feel your feet resting firmly on the floor. Let your shoulders drop. Bring awareness to your breath. Allow yourself to arrive fully in this sacred quiet, right here and right now.
[Beatitudes with pauses for names]
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.[silence]
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.[silence]
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.[silence]
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.[silence]
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.[silence]
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.[silence]
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.[silence]
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.[silence]
And blessed are those who are reviled or persecuted falsely on Jesus’s account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.
Look around the room, beloveds. All of those names spoken aloud, all of those quiet memories held in secret, represent the full, sacred spectrum of our shared life. Today holds our thanksgiving and our pain, our deep joy, our ongoing grief, our growth and loss. God can handle it. God welcomes it.
The gospel promise of All Saints Sunday is simply this: You are not forgotten. The people you learned from and the people you loved are not lost. Your life is not unfinished. It is complex, and it’s ordinary, and it’s beautiful, and it’s held securely in the eternal promise of Christ. By thanksgiving for our baptism, by the daily rhythm of loving one another, and by speaking these names today, we declare that death does not get the final word. They live in God. They live in us. And we are bound together forever in God’s resurrecting grace. And for that we can say Amen.
