The Saints, the Beasts, and the Bread

Texts: Daniel 7:1–3, 15–18 | Luke 6:20–31

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt

The World Daniel Saw—and We Still Live In

I have been having really vivid dreams lately, and sometimes my dreams have a divine tie. I dreamt of my uncle’s passing the night he died, for example. I was ten, and when my mom came in to tell me that morning, I already knew. The other night, I had a dream of a great flood that came in waves. I was standing at the top of my town where the flagpole is, and waves of water started coming, each larger than the last, until I realized I needed to run down the hill from safety to save whoever was in my house—though I somehow knew my kids were not there. I’m not sure exactly who I ran to, or if I was just running with the worst of the waves, on the safety of the sidewalk, knowing somehow my path was safe and protected. I wonder what that means now—will I stand idly by and watch waves destroy my community, or will I run the race and keep the faith, as 2 Timothy read last week? That’s the best interpretation of my dream I have right now, but I know it means something.

Daniel was a dreamer and in today’s text he dreams of four winds whipping the sea into chaos until beasts crawl out of the depths—each more violent, more arrogant, more devouring than the last. They represent kingdoms built on greed, exploitation, and pride. And when Daniel wakes, he says, “My spirit was troubled within me.” I know that feeling. This week, as I watched alert after alert from the camera on our little food-pantry box—families stopping by in the dark, elders in the rain, parents leading little ones by the hand—I felt that same trouble rise in my spirit. These beasts haven’t gone extinct. They’ve just learned to wear suits and logos. They trade on Wall Street, they lobby Congress, they live in algorithms that decide who is valuable and who is expendable. But even in that nightmare, Daniel hears a whisper from heaven: “The holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess it forever.” The beasts do not get the final word—God does. And that word is this: the kingdom belongs not to the ruthless but to the righteous, not to the powerful but to the faithful, not to the wealthy but to those who love.

The Arithmetic of Greed 

Let’s pause and see what we’re really talking about. If you earned $100 a day, it would take you 27 years to reach one million dollars. To reach one billion at that same rate? You’d have to work 27 thousand years—longer than all of recorded human history. Now picture that in stacks of cash. A million dollars in $100 bills would stack to about four feet high—roughly the height of a small child. You could stand beside it, look over it, maybe even stretch your arm across the top. But a billion dollars in $100 bills? That stack would rise nearly three thousand feet—almost as tall as the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. That’s the difference between a stack you could step over and one that scrapes the heavens. And that’s the point. To amass that kind of wealth isn’t work—it’s worship. It’s building a modern-day Tower of Babel, saying, “We will make a name for ourselves.” No one’s hands can labor enough hours to earn a billion. That kind of accumulation only exists through extraction—through taking what others have worked for. The higher that tower rises, the more it blocks out the light for everyone standing below. That’s what Daniel saw—kingdoms that consume people instead of serving them. And when we see it today, we should call it what it is. It’s not just empire anymore—it’s evil.

Poverty Makes Money Valuable

 Here’s the cruel truth: poverty is what makes money valuable. 

The system needs people in need so that wealth can have meaning. It needs scarcity to justify greed. It needs desperation to feed the machine. But in God’s creation, money has no meaning. When manna was hoarded in the wilderness, it rotted by morning. The economy of heaven runs on grace, not greed—on sharing, not scarcity. Yet we’ve built a world where wealth rises endlessly while food banks empty daily. A world where the government shuts down and children lose access to school meals, where medicine and rent compete with groceries, and the rich keep their tax breaks because, apparently, compassion doesn’t trickle down. Friends, this isn’t progress. It’s a moral famine. And poverty, the very thing Jesus came to lift, has been turned into someone else’s profit margin.

The Gospel According to the Mall

Rick has this habit of putting on Dawn of the Dead before bed—that or Kennywood Memories, both things he enjoys watching with his dad. Anyway, it’s a zombie movie, and what’s fitting is that it was saying something about our consumer culture in a zombie climate. But now the malls are falling. They want you to think it’s just because of internet shopping, but I believe it’s also because the middle class is being dissolved. It’s being consumed by the same machines that brought the rise of malls. That very mall will be torn down to feed the corporate giant—Walmart—even though it still has some vitality compared to other malls and a rich history. Walmart, remember, is owned by billionaires who benefit from underpaying their employees—people who work full-time jobs and rely on food stamps for support, support they are being denied today—while the Waltons have never made more money. Anyway, the movie is really a parable in many ways.

A handful of survivors take refuge in a shopping mall after the world collapses. They secure the building, settle in, and for a while, they live surrounded by everything the old world used to call treasure. Then they wander into a bank. The bills are piled high. They laugh, stuffing cash into bags “just in case.” But they know—it’s worthless now. The old economy is dead. That scene haunts me because that’s our world—clutching at currency while the spirit of humanity decays. Money only has meaning when we let it rule us. In the kingdom of God, it’s useless. You can’t buy grace. You can’t purchase resurrection. You can’t bribe your way into the heart of God. As one of my residents said this week while talking about a book that changed his view of suffering, “It’s not God who causes it—it’s the lack of God that causes it. The opposite of God is evil.” And he’s right. To hoard billions while others starve is not strength—it’s a spiritual sickness. It’s idolatry. It’s the attempt to be God instead of to serve God.

The Theology of Work 

Scripture makes the distinction clear: labor is holy; exploitation is sin. “You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be happy, and it shall go well with you.” — Psalm 128:2. “The worker deserves to be paid.” — Luke 10:7. “The wages of the laborers you kept back by fraud cry out to God.” — James 5:4. Work done with love, integrity, and purpose reflects the very image of the Creator who labored to form the world. But wealth accumulated without work—profit extracted from others’ pain—corrupts that image. It’s the sin Jeremiah condemned: “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing.” The saints—the real saints—understood this. They didn’t chase wealth; they created worth. They believed holiness was found not in status, but in service.

Jesus and the Level Ground 

And then comes Jesus. He stands on level ground—a place where no one is higher than anyone else—and says words that flip the world upside down: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be filled. Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” He’s not romanticizing poverty; He’s revealing injustice. He’s saying that God’s favor rests on those who depend, who share, who love—not those who exploit, exclude, and hoard. If Daniel exposed the beasts of empire, Jesus shows us the antidote: the kingdom of God, where there is enough for everyone, where blessedness is measured not by what we store, but by what we share. 

You and I, like most working people, give far more of our income—both in taxes and in generosity—than those earning seven figures or more. Studies show the top 1% often pay a lower effective tax rate than the middle class once payroll and sales taxes are counted. The wealthiest families in America pay around 8% on average, while ordinary households pay nearly double that. Yet it’s working families who also give the greatest share of their income to help others. And have you noticed all these corporations asking you to round up for charity? That gives them more tax cuts on our dime. Please don’t feel like you should be guilted into giving at checkout, even if it is to the local food bank or children’s hospital. Give here for us to give to the food bank or childrens, whoever. Keep it in our community. The thing is, We carry the weight of both the system and the suffering it creates.

And that’s why communion matters—because it’s not a ritual of comfort, but a holy act of rebellion against the greed of empire.

Communion as Rebellion 

And that brings us here—to Communion Sunday. Every first Sunday, we gather to bless bread and cup, and the food we’ll share with our neighbors through the pantry outside. But this week, I’ve wrestled with it. How do I eat this bread while others go hungry? How do I drink this cup while my phone keeps buzzing with alerts of people in need? Maybe that’s the point. Communion isn’t supposed to soothe us—it’s supposed to wake us. It’s not comfort food; it’s resistance food. When we bless this bread, we proclaim that grace is not scarce. When we share this cup, we declare that love cannot be privatized. When we bless the food for others, we push the table outward until it touches the street. As theologian Willie James Jennings said, “Communion is not a middle-class snack.” It’s a protest meal. It’s a protest meal—a declaration that Caesar doesn’t own creation and that love, not wealth, will shape the world to come.

The Saints Who Still Stand 

This is All Saints Day—a day not just to remember the holy dead, but to recognize the holy living. The saints before us mended, canned, built, served, and prayed through every storm. They knew what Daniel knew—that empires fall but God endures. They knew what Jesus taught—that blessedness isn’t found in wealth but in witness. And now it’s our turn. To be saints not in stained glass but in steel resolve. To keep loving when the world teaches apathy. To keep feeding when the system rewards hoarding. To keep believing that faith, not finance, will save us. You, church—you who stock the pantry, who pray for neighbors, who share what you can—you are the holy ones of the Most High. You are the saints Daniel saw in his vision. You are inheriting the kingdom even now.

The Final Word 

Daniel saw beasts rise from the sea, but he also saw the Ancient of Days take the throne and the saints receive the kingdom forever and ever. That’s still our story. The beasts will fall. The towers will crumble. The malls will close. And the true kingdom—God’s kingdom—will rise. So when you come to the table today, bring your hunger for justice and your grief for the world. Bring your weariness, your questions, your conviction. And come not in fear, but in faith—because this table is proof that love still multiplies. Take the bread—Christ’s body, still broken yet still rising. Drink the cup—Christ’s blood, poured out for a new creation. Then go and live like saints in a world that desperately needs them. For the beasts may roar, but the saints will inherit the kingdom. Forever and ever. Amen.

NOTE - This was a sermon that was prepared but not preached for November 2, 2025 by Reverend TJ Lucas, not realizing that Associate Minister Nicole would be preaching that day! Here message was delivered in worship and is another way to reflect upon the Scriptures assigned to this week from the Daily Lectionary, see our Facebook page before it expires.