Sermon November 1 2026 “Surrounded by Saints” by Rev. Katrina Ross Zezza

Sermon November 1, 2026 All Saints Day "Surrounded by Saints" by Rev. Katrina Ross Zezza

Pleasantville Presbyterian Church, Pleasantville NY

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 12:1-3, 1 John 3:1-3 

 

When my son was little, he would say the most profound things sometimes, especially at bedtime. I wrote down the things he said all the time, as I’ve mentioned before, because they blew me away. One time, we were lying in his bed, when he suddenly sat up and looked at me in the eyes, he took my face in his hands and said seriously with tears streaming down his cheeks, "I'm going to miss you so much mommy…” and I was like, “What do mean buddy?” He said “When I grow up, I’m going to miss you so much. You... just like you are right now. You’ll be old and I’ll be big. I will miss you now.” The light seemed to change in the room. He was always kind of precocious. But how did he know what it would feel like for this point in time to pass? He was only four years old, it’s not like he had a ton of experience with loss. I guess on some level he just knew. He hugged me and cried for a little while. And it kind of seemed like he was an old man coming back in time to be with his mom for one more moment.

 

I think this may have been the origin of Chris and my long-standing theory that we can create portals with our gratitude. Like if we stop and really take in a moment, we can have a way back to it. Sometimes we say to each other- I’m creating a portal right now. It means, I feel so grateful for this moment, and I want to hold onto it. I want to be able to come back, so I’m taking a mental snapshot. Every moment that we are alive, is unique, never to exist again in its exact form. The same can be said of each person in the world. 

Rev. Jason Elder was a great resource for me this week. He is the pastor at Freedom Plains United Presbyterian Church in Legrangeville, and he also has a wonderful blog dedicated to collecting liturgy and worship material. On his page about All Saints Day he had this quote for reflection from psychology educator, Heidi Priebe. She says, "As long as there is love, there will be grief. The grief of time passing, of life moving on half-finished, of empty spaces that were once bursting with the laughter and energy of people we loved. As long as there is love there will be grief because grief is love's natural continuation. It shows up in the aisles of stores we once frequented, in the half-finished bottle of wine we pour out, in the whiff of cologne we get two years after they've been gone. Grief is a giant neon sign, protruding through everything, pointing everywhere, broadcasting loudly, "Love was here." In the finer print, quietly, "Love still is." 

On All Saints Day we hold space for our loved ones who have died, but we can also hold space for other forms of grief. For example, if you have grief over the relationship you wish you had with a parent. Or if you’ve been weighed down by the lack of compassionate leadership in our world. Or if there are big changes happening that you feel overwhelmed by. I invite you to take some time to sit in stillness with these feelings too. 

 

I love the letters of Paul because in them, there is so much information about what the early church was like. In Hebrews, we learn that the early church faced persecution, and state sanctioned violence. They also faced extreme wealth inequality, and food insecurity, but in spite of these challenges, his letters tell us that the community banded together in solidarity. That’s what the early church was. It was a place for people to gather and take care of each other, as a way of being connected to God, in spite of their differences or their social status. And that’s where the true church is today. In these times, we need more places to get together and take care of each other. I think churches are supposed to be a place to do that. Jesus tells us in Matthew 25 that whenever we take care of each other we are encountering God. And maybe taking care of our community is the best way to love God.

 

And that’s how we enter this Stewardship season which we’re calling “Giving from the Heart”. The focus passage that our Stewardship team settled on was 2 Corinthians chapter 9 where Paul tells the early Christians in Corinth that they are called to give to the community what their heart calls them to give. He says basically, listen to your heart as you discern what to provide for the community. Don’t listen to those who might coerce or manipulate you, but to the connection that you have with God. And 2000 years later, as disciples, as part of the same family in faith, we’re also called to do what we can to further the mission of Christ in the world, to support the current ministries of our church and to dream about what we might do together in the future. To ask ourselves: What does it mean to nurture a real spiritual community?

 

Our Stewardship theme “Giving from the Heart” is perfect, because this is a church that does give from the heart, a place where the love of God is felt through one another. That’s what I’ve heard most over the last ten months- when I ask people what brought them here they say it’s the love that they feel here. The way you show up for each other in hard times. I think even when you’re a newcomer like me, the moment I walked in I could feel it. And the fact that so many of you have been coming here for more that 20 years, shows something. You’ve invested a big portion of your heart to this place. And you know this place best, so this year I’ve been trying just to get to know the people who have made this place what it is, but I’m hoping that this next year will be more about outreach to the community in new ways. Because we have more love to share. Church is supposed to be a refuge in troubling times, and no matter where we stand politically, the majority of us would agree that these are troubling times. 

 

At one point recently, I was feeling despair about the lack of compassion in our world, especially in leadership. And I was scrolling on social media, basically to try to find some hope. To find out how people that I trust were responding in that moment. And I came across a post that a friend of mine made. She does mutual aid organizing work. In light of a moment that many people were regarding as a political crisis she said, “Get ready to love people more than ever. Get ready to be more connected to your community than you ever thought possible.” I thought this was a powerful way to respond. Sometimes a crisis can bring us together in ways we didn’t see coming. As we read in these letters of Paul, people band together in hard times, and they start to provide for one another. In the early church as well as today, whenever there have been dark forces, there have always been those who chose love.

 

In our second reading today, the author of Hebrews was writing to a small community of new Christians who were suffering persecution and policy violence at the hands of Empire. In this letter to the Hebrews, it says, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us” I have always loved this imagery of a great cloud of witnesses who allow us to run a race. Through it, Paul tells the listeners to take courage, because they are surrounded by their ancestors, and they can draw strength from that cloud. In chapter 11, right before this passage, Paul points to various names in the history of their people, who were able to overcome hardships because of their faith. He says, “You are not alone in your struggle. Look to Abraham, to Moses, to David and Samuel and others so that, like them, you might rise to the current challenges that face you, and find strength” We may not always be able to comprehend how, but we are connected to this great cloud of witnesses, and the “sainthood of all believers" in ways seen and unseen. 

 

While some traditions understand saints to be only those who have been officially canonized by the institutional church, in Presbyterianism, we lean more toward an inclusive understanding of sainthood, where every believer is a "saint" with a unique call to serve God’s world. I came across an article on the PCUSA website that expanded my understanding of saints even further, to include the significance of our earthly home, and the creatures we have journeyed with. The author of the article wrote that with a mixture of seriousness and light-heartedness, one of their saints is the wild turkey, who faced extinction in recent years, but who has made a remarkable resurgence across the Northeast. They wrote, “As we commemorate All Saints' Day, it's a reminder that saints aren't just historical icons in stained glass windows but also the creatures that share this planet with us, teaching us valuable lessons in survival and adaptation to life on Earth.” 

 

My husband’s family had a house on Cape Cod that had been in their family for over 100 years. It was a magical place. There were wild bunnies everywhere, foxes who lived under the house, birds in the bushes, roses that grew up the shingles, the lawn was sprinkled with thyme growing through the grass, so we used to go pick some when we were cooking, there was different wallpaper in every room- my favorite had pirates. One time we held a funeral for a baby bunny that had died. The kids were sad and wanted to honor its life- so we set up chairs, and picked flowers, said prayers, and we held hands. wondering what life had been like for the bunny. Recognizing that its life mattered to us.

 

Although they did their best to hold onto it, my in-laws couldn’t afford the house anymore, so they had to sell it a few years ago. My husband wrote a song that made everyone cry. One of the lines says “the family that I’ve known, I met ‘em all here” Even though I joined the family when I was already grown up, this line resonates with me the most. That’s where we learned about what’s important. The last few months that we spent there were heart wrenching, and really saturated with meaning, because we all knew it wasn’t going to last. And likely the house would be torn down, which it was just a month after it was sold. One night I was taking out the trash and on my way back through the dark, I was struck by the warmth of the glow coming from the kitchen window, I stood there for a while just watching our family clean up, cousins aunts uncles grandparents. And I created a portal. It occurred to me that what really mattered about that place is something that can never be taken away. There’s grief in thinking that things have changed and will change more, but we are inextricably connected to the things we love. Another line in Chris’ song for the family about the house goes, “There’s a book written in time and space, printed on the universe in ink that cannot be erased.” Maybe we never really lose the people and places we have loved, because what is really essential about them is eternal, and we are connected through time and space with this cloud of witnesses.

 

Maya Angelou was giving a commencement speech (at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA 1992) many years ago. In it, she advised the graduates to bring their ancestors with them wherever they went. She said, “When you go into an office for instance, don’t go alone. Bring your people with you. Bring everyone who has loved you with you. Say great grandma let’s go, great grandpa you’ve been dead all this time, come on let’s go, come on Auntie, come on friends, let’s go.” Then she described how when you do this and you walk into a room, people won’t know what it is, but they can’t take their eyes off of you. They’ll say she has charisma, but what you really have is all those people around you. And she said, “So think of that any time you have anything to do. Bring everybody who has loved you, that you can think of, with you.” This was Maya Angelou’s advice for how to have a strong sense of self, and to draw on the strength of being loved. In this way, we can bring the great cloud of witnesses with us wherever we go.

 

On this All Saints Day, let’s remember to bring our ancestors with us. 

 

Now as a prayer, let us remember the saints who have gone before us. God of our ancestors, God of the wild turkey, and baby bunnies and all the saints

We offer prayers of thanksgiving for those who have blessed our lives, impacted us, gotten us through so much, helped us become who we are, who have loved us into being. Help us to know you are with us in our grief, and help us to remember that we are all connected in your love. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen