St. John’s Lutheran Church
Albany, New York
1 November 2026 + All Saints Day
Matthew 5:1-12
The Rev. Josh Evans
For Yadriel and his family,
death isn’t just a part of life.
It’s their vocation.
On the grounds of the cemetery they call home,
the veil between the living and the dead is thin.
Yadriel is a brujo – or at least he’s trying to be,
trying to prove himself to his family after coming out as transgender,
trying to be taken seriously as himself,
so that he can be who his family has been for generations:
Brujos.
Who can see the spirits of the dead.
Who accompany them in their in-between state.
And who ultimately release them
from whatever it is that binds them to earth
so that they can be at peace.
In their young adult novel Cemetery Boys,
author Aiden Thomas tells Yadriel’s story –
his coming out and his coming into himself
and his calling as a brujo.
Set against the cultural backdrop of Día de Muertos,
Day of the Dead,
the novel also invites us to consider what it means to grieve.
When Yadriel’s cousin Miguel suddenly dies and no one can find him,
Yadriel watches Miguel’s mother, Claudia, at the dining table,
inconsolable, grief rolling off her in waves.
In the magical world of the novel,
Yadriel’s grandmother uses a bit of her own bruja magic
to comfort Claudia,
her sobs beginning to subside
and her pain fading, slowly, to a dull ache –
not gone, but just less severe.
“Yadriel’d once asked his mom
why they didn’t just take away all of someone’s pain
when they were sad.”
And he remembers:
“She had explained it was important
to let people feel grief
and mourn the loss of a loved one.” (21, emphasis mine)
Grief is honest –
and there’s no reason to pretend otherwise,
or to rush past it
as though it’s something to be “ashamed” of.
Grief is honest –
which is also why this day, this All Saints Day,
distinct from, but nonetheless intertwined with, Día de Muertos,
is one of my favorites,
right alongside Ash Wednesday at the other end of the liturgical year.
One of the precious few days we get
where we can be honest about death,
confront our own mortality,
and embrace grief.
“Blessed are those who mourn,”
Jesus begins in the well-known words of Matthew’s Beatitudes,
the opening statement of his Sermon on the Mount.
What a profound starting place:
“Blessed are those who mourn.”
Think about that.
Of all the things Jesus could’ve led with,
he starts with mourning.
Grief and weeping in the aftermath of loss.
The loss of our beloved dead,
the loss of what is familiar and comfortable,
the loss of certainty and what we have come to depend on and take for granted.
And when those people or things are gone,
what then?
“Blessed” is not exactly the first word
that comes to mind,
and yet it is Jesus’ starting place:
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
And he doesn’t stop there.
His Beatitudes are full of inversions,
ascribing “blessing” in the least expected of places:
The meek inherit the earth.
The hungry and thirsty are filled with righteousness.
The merciful receive mercy.
The pure in heart see God,
and the peacemakers are called God’s children.
The persecuted and the poor in spirit take their place in God’s kingdom.
Jesus’ declarations of “blessing”
go against every popular instinct and impulse,
which is exactly what makes them profound
and scandalous even:
Jesus pronounces “blessing”
to every person who is easily overlooked
or discounted –
“Blessed are those who mourn” –
and he speaks to them a word of promise –
“for they will be comforted.”
***
After Yadriel takes it upon himself
to perform the ritual that would make him a full-fledged brujo,
he’s determined to keep proving himself to his family
and help them find his missing – and presumably murdered – cousin Miguel.
As he works his new-found brujo magic
in an attempt to summon Miguel’s spirit
and get some answers,
it works…sort of…
as the boy that appears before him
is not his cousin
but his classmate Julian,
whom he barely knows…
except by reputation.
Now with two murder mysteries on their hands,
Yadriel and Julian make a deal:
If Yadriel helps Julian track down his friends
to make sure they’re okay first,
Julian will let Yadriel work his brujo magic to release him –
and maybe even help solve Miguel’s disappearance along the way.
Fast forward several chapters and shenanigans later,
the story comes to the inevitable:
Julian knows it’s time to go,
and he asks Yadriel to release him –
but Yadriel isn’t ready.
Turns out,
Yadriel has fallen for Julian.
(It is a YA romance novel, after all.)
And so when confronted by the very thing
he wanted to do as soon as he summoned Julian,
Yadriel tries to hold on:
“Why did the pain of that impending loss
hit him harder than anything else?” (249)
Suddenly grief becomes a lot more real for Yadriel –
no longer just an abstract,
no longer just a part of something his family does.
Yadriel is forced to grapple with his own feelings –
of love,
of impending loss,
of the certain grief that will follow.
***
“Blessed are those who mourn…”
Blessed are those for whom grief becomes real.
Of all the things Jesus could’ve led with,
he starts here:
with those for whom grief is real,
with those for whom the pain of loss is real,
with those for whom the experience
of being overlooked or discounted is real.
Blessed are you:
for you will be comforted,
for you will be filled,
for you will receive mercy,
for you, a beloved child of God, will see God,
for you will take your place in God’s kingdom.
Blessed are you:
in every tear,
in every loss,
in every worry and anxiety.
Blessed are you
because these things you feel are real –
but they are not the end.
The honesty of grief
is only one of the gifts of this All Saints Day.
As we remember our beloved dead
and speak their names aloud,
we are reminded of the blessing
of the communion of saints –
“the whole family of God,
the living and the dead” (BCP, p. 862) –
who surround us in this place,
reminding us that we do not grieve alone.
It is a blessing Yadriel knows well
every Día de Muertos,
and perhaps especially in the novel’s conclusion,
at last accepted for himself
as a full-fledged brujo,
with his loved ones all around him:
“We live in gratitude,”
Yadriel’s father says,
“for the guidance and acceptance we can share with one another.
We celebrate that we will move forward together
as a stronger community than ever before.” (340)
Grief is honest.
It’s not a character flaw or a weakness
to rush past or be ashamed of.
Nor is it the end of the story –
Yadriel’s or ours.
Grief is human.
And it is where God meets us –
around this table,
among this community.
And it is there Jesus promises us:
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
