A Sermon for the Feast of All Saints (Year C)
The Baptism of Ella Grace O’Neill
Sunday, November 2, 2025
Texts: Ephesians: 1:11-23 and Luke 6:20-31
Now, O Lord, take my lips, and speak through them. Take our minds, and think through them. Take our hearts, and set them on fire. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today is one of my favorite Sundays of the entire year—All Saints Sunday. It’s one of the Church’s high holy days, a day that shines with great joy and thanksgiving.
On this day, we give thanks for the lives of all the saints—not just the ones we know by name, or the ones etched in stained glass or included in the Church calendar—but for that great cloud of witnesses who’ve gone before us, and for those sitting right here among us.
And if that weren’t enough reason to celebrate, this morning we also get to baptize Ella Grace O’Neill—to mark her with the sign of the cross, to seal her as Christ’s own forever, and to welcome her into the communion of saints.
It doesn’t get much better than that.
When we think of saints, we often imagine holy people from long ago—the kind of people whose stories we read about in Scripture or church history books. People like St. Francis of Assisi, the one who preached to animals; or St. Mary, the mother of our Lord; or St. Peter, who was one of Jesus’ closest friends and trusted disciples.
But the saints aren’t just those who lived heroic lives of faith.
They’re the ones, as Frederick Buechner once wrote, “whose lives are windows through which the love of God shines.”
The saints are people who, in small and ordinary ways, make room for God’s grace to shine in the darkness—through acts of kindness, through courage, through compassion.
And sometimes, the saints are people who open their hearts to love in ways that are both costly and unexpected.
Some of you already know the story of how Ella—Hope and Willis’s niece—came to live with them last year, but in case you don’t, I want to share a little bit of that story with you.
I asked Hope earlier this week if I could tell part of their story, and she graciously said yes.
Last year around this time, Hope and Willis found themselves in a situation they never expected.
Ella’s mother had already asked if they’d be willing to take her in once she was born. So, they prayed about it, talked it over, and tried to imagine what that kind of change would mean for their family.
And then, suddenly, everything changed.
Ella was born a little earlier than expected, and because of the circumstances of her birth, Hope got a call—the kind of call that doesn’t give you much time to think, only to act.
Hope and her mother went to the hospital.
And when they learned that Ella needed someone to take her home soon—someone who could love her, protect her, and give her a safe place to live—Hope and Willis said yes.
It wasn’t an easy yes.
And yet, if you asked Hope today, she’d tell you there was really only one answer. She might even say that anyone would’ve done the same.
But, we all know that’s not true.
It takes courage—and a deep trust in God—to let love interrupt your life like that. To say yes when it would be so much easier to say, “No, that’s someone else’s responsibility.”
What Hope and Willis did was more than a decision; it was grace in action. It was love made real. It meant rearranging their home, their routines, and their plans for the future.
But that’s how love works sometimes.
It rarely follows our plans and often shows up in the most unexpected ways.
Hope and Willis didn’t say yes for recognition or praise. They said yes because they knew it was the right thing to do.
And because they said yes, Ella is thriving today. She just celebrated her first birthday last week.
She has a place where she belongs and a family who loves her and cares for her.
And I can’t think of a more beautiful image for All Saints Sunday than that—an act of love that embodies the very heart of the Gospel: opening your life so that someone else can have a place to belong.
In our Gospel lesson this morning, we hear Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. Jesus speaks a word of blessing—not to the rich or the powerful, but to the poor and the hungry, to those who mourn and weep.
“Blessed are you,” he says, “when you are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”
It’s one of those passages from Luke that turns everything upside down. Jesus shows us what the kingdom of God really looks like—a world where the last are first, the lowly are lifted up, and love is stronger than death.
And then he goes on to say something even more challenging:
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you…Give to everyone who begs from you…and do to others as you would have them do to you.”
In other words, love—even when it costs you something.
That’s the kind of love that defines the saints.
It’s not neat or simple. It’s the love that shows up, time and again—the love that sacrifices, forgives, and endures.
That’s the kind of love that’s been shown to Ella through Hope and Willis, through Willow and Rosemary, through their family and friends, and through this community of faith that now promises to help raise her in the knowledge and love of the Lord.
In just a few minutes, we’ll gather around the baptismal font and welcome Ella into the household of God.
We’ll pour water over her head and say the words that have been said for generations:
“I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Then we’ll make the sign of the cross and say, “Ella, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”
What that means is that she’ll never be alone.
No matter what happens in her life—no matter where she goes or what she faces—she will always belong to God.
That’s exactly what Paul reminds us in Ephesians: that in Christ “we have obtained an inheritance,” and that we “were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.”
Baptism is that seal—the outward and visible sign that we belong to God and share in that inheritance with all the saints.
Paul prays that we may know “the hope to which God has called us” and “the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.”
That hope, that inheritance, that love—it’s what we celebrate today in Ella’s baptism.
And that’s not just true for her. It’s true for all of us.
Baptism is God’s promise that we are loved, called, and claimed as Christ’s own—not because we earned it, but because we’re God’s beloved children.
Every one of us, by virtue of our baptism, belongs to the communion of saints—that great cloud of witnesses that stretches across time and space, earth and heaven.
When we talk about the communion of saints, it’s not something abstract or far away. It’s right here—in the people who pray for you, who show up when you’re sick, who cook meals, who sit with you in grief, and who laugh with you in joy.
It’s in people like you and me, like Hope and Willis—the ones who quietly say yes when love calls.
The saints are all around us—sometimes sitting right next to us, even if we don’t see it.
As we celebrate Ella’s baptism this morning, we’re reminded that sainthood isn’t reserved for the extraordinary few.
It’s the calling of every Christian—to live with love, mercy, and faithfulness, even when we stumble along the way.
The saints we remember today in our prayers were not perfect people. They were people who, in their own way, said yes to God’s call.
And so are we.
Each of us has the opportunity, every day, to be a saint in someone else’s life—to make room for others, to forgive, to serve, to listen, and to say yes to God.
Today, as we welcome Ella into this family of faith, we celebrate not only her baptism but the love that made it possible—the love of her family, the love of this church, and above all, the love of God that binds us all together.
On this All Saints Sunday, we remember that saints are not just those whose names fill our history books.
They’re ordinary people who said yes to love.
Today, we see that love in Hope and Willis and their family.
We celebrate that love in Ella Grace.
And we remember that this love is also our calling.
May the God who has claimed us in baptism give us grace to walk as saints—to make room where the world closes doors, to love even when it costs us something, and to shine with the light of Christ wherever we go.
Amen.
The Rev. Eric Mancil 