Enlightened
A homily preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry United Methodist Church November 2, 2025, All Saints Sunday.
Texts: Ephesians 1:11–23; Luke 6:20–31
At certain times of day in this sanctuary the light hits the windows just right. The whole room fills with color—soft golds, deep blues, flashes of red—and for a moment you can almost feel the light moving through story and symbol.
I think that’s what Paul was praying for when he asked that “the eyes of our hearts might be enlightened”—that we might see the light of Christ shining through, refracting through the stories and lives that surround us. Stained glass, after all, is just colored fragments until the light shines through. Then suddenly, what was broken becomes radiant, purposeful, and full of meaning. And that’s not a bad description of the saints.
Saints, as we celebrate them today, are not perfect people—they are those through whom the light of God has shone. Like stained glass, they tell the stories of God’s faithfulness. Their lives become windows through which we glimpse grace, courage, forgiveness, and joy.
You’ve probably heard that old saying by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: “People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there’s a light from within.”
The saints are people who somehow let that inner light—the light of Christ—shine even when the world grew difficult and dim.
Paul’s prayer in Ephesians is that our hearts might be enlightened—that we might know “the hope to which God has called us,” “the riches of God’s glorious inheritance among the saints,” and “the immeasurable greatness of God’s power at work in us.” Not just in them—the saints of old—but in us.
All Saints’ is not only a day to remember a faraway group of holy superstars. It’s a day to look around and give thanks for those through whom God’s light has touched our lives: the grandmother who prayed without ceasing, the friend who listened without judgment, the teacher who saw potential in us before we did,
the partner, or mentor, or child who showed us what love looks like in the flesh.
Some of them lived lives of visible faith; others might not have used the language of religion at all. But the light shone through them just the same.
Our gospel today reminds us that this light does not always shine in comfort or ease. Jesus’ “blessings and woes” can sound like something God makes happen—if you’re this, you get that; if you’re that, you get this. But I don’t think Jesus meant these as formulas of reward or punishment. I think he meant them as encouragement—that any current suffering will not last forever—and as caution—not to take any present blessing for granted.
The saints we remember knew both sides of those lists. They weren’t immune to grief or failure or pride. But they kept turning toward the light. And somehow, in the midst of struggle, that light grew stronger—when faith met pain, when love refused to quit.
Then Jesus tells us how that light grows: “Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you.” This is not easy. It’s love that costs something. But it’s how love multiplies. It’s how saints are made—not by doing the easy thing, not by getting everything right, but by letting grace work its way through every imperfection in themselves and others until even the cracks begin to shine.
Anne Tyler’s character in Saint Maybe says, “Mess up! Fall flat on your face! Make every mistake you can think of! Use all the life you’ve got!” Maybe that’s the invitation of All Saints’—not to aim for flawless perfection, but to “use all the life we’ve got” for love. To trust that even our mistakes and heartbreaks can become places where God’s light gets in—and shines through.
Frederick Buechner once wrote that on All Saints’ Day, “we should remember not just the saints of the church, but all the foolish ones and wise ones, the shy ones and overbearing ones, the broken ones and whole ones… the despots and tosspots and crackpots of our lives… by whom we were helped to whatever little we may have of some kind of seedy sainthood of our own.” Isn’t that beautiful? “Some kind of seedy sainthood of our own.”
That’s the inheritance Paul speaks of—this luminous, imperfect communion of saints. A people through whom Christ’s light keeps shining—sometimes brightly, sometimes dimly, but always, somehow, enough.
So today, we give thanks:
for those whose love has landed in our hearts,
for those whose light helped us see the way,
for those whose lives, however ordinary or broken, revealed something holy.
And we pray:
that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened,
that the light of Christ might shine through us,
and that even our cracks and colors might become windows of grace through which others see the glory of God.
Amen.
