All Saints’ Sunday -- Ecclesiasticus 44: 1–10, 13-14; Psalm 149; Revelation 7: 2–4, 9-17; Matthew 5: 1-12
A homily by Fr. Gene
Tucker, given at The
Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Springfield, Illinois on Sunday, November 2, 2014.
“OF SAINTS AND SAINTHOOD”
On this All
Saints’ Sunday, let’s consider the business of sainthood, and of becoming a
saint.
As we
undertake our consideration, let’s ask ourselves some questions:
1. Just who is a saint?
2. How does a saint become a saint?
3. How can we tell a saint is a saint?
4. And to make this quite personal: Am I a saint?
We might
begin with looking at the dictionary for an understanding of the meaning of the
word itself….In most dictionary definitions of the word “saint”, the word
“holy” often appears. From this
definition, we might expect saints to be holy people, that is, godly people who
show forth by the things they say and the things they do that they have come
into an encounter with the living, true and holy God. We might add that saints are often very
faithful people who follow after God, no matter what. So, the answer to our
first question might lie in this characterization of the word: Saints are holy, godly and faithful people.
Question
two. Sainthood has to begin
somewhere. It’s probably safe to say
that saints aren’t born, they’re created.
So how does a saint become a saint?
The obvious answer is that the road to sainthood begins with the
beginning of a journey with God. For
many saints, the beginning of that road is in baptism, for in baptism, as St.
Paul says in Romans, chapter six, “We are buried with Christ (in the waters of
baptism) in a death like his, and we are raised to a new life in a resurrection
like his.” As people own their baptisms
and take possession of the importance of dying to our old way of life and
rising to a new way of life, the process of sainthood begins. In this process, God must peel away the
sinful stuff that we are born with, and He must clothe us in the purity that
belongs to God alone.
Here an
important point about sainthood arises: If God is the holy God, then it stands to
reason that God cannot tolerate sin. But
the mystery of who God is also involves the reality that God is a loving
God. God’s love and God’s holiness go
hand-in-hand. If God were holy, but not
loving, then God would condemn all of us to live outside of his presence for
ever, because we could never measure up to His standard of holiness. On the other hand, if God were loving, but
not holy, then God would tolerate all sorts of un-holiness.
Saints are
those who have encountered God’s holiness and God’s love, taken together. Saints come to understand that God’s righteousness
stands in balance with God’s loving kindness.
Saints come to understand that,
despite their own un-holiness, God has chosen to be in relationship with them,
inviting them into a journey toward greater and greater holiness. That holiness can be characterized by the
values that are set before us this morning in our gospel reading. There, Jesus outlines the values of the
kingdom of God in what we know by the title The Beatitudes….“Blessed are the
pure in heart, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are those who hunger and
thirst for righteousness….”
In answer
to question three, above, we would do well to note that saints usually don’t
live in isolation. Put another way,
saints are those that others have noticed for their holiness, their godliness,
their thirst for God. Consider the great
saints that we honor. Take St. Peter or
St. Paul as examples: They were faithful
to God’s call on their lives, and sacrificed greatly (even to the point of
dying for their relationship to God) to follow that call and to encourage
others to obey it, as well. Were these
two saints entirely without sin? No, not
at all. St. Paul acknowledges his struggle
with sin in his Letter to the Romans, chapter seven. There, he says that “I find myself doing the
very things I know I should not do, and I do not do the things I know I should
do….wretched man that I am!” Both would
readily acknowledge that they continued to fall short of God’s high standard of
holiness until the last day of their lives.
But, by God’s grace, they had attained a significant measure of God’s
holiness, and they were faithful followers of God, and so for those reasons we
call them saints. So to summarize, we
can tell a saint is a saint by the fact that they show forth a significant
measure of holiness and godliness, and by their faithfulness to God’s call on
their lives.
Now, we
would do well to ask ourselves this question:
“Am I a saint?”
No one
confers sainthood upon themselves. This
reality brings us back to question three above, which acknowledges that others
must take notice of the qualities of sainthood that are found in another person
in order for sainthood to be seen.
Too often
it seems as though we concentrate on the major saints, the ones whose sainthood
is characterized by using a capital “S”, like St. Peter or St. Paul. And, of course, there are plenty of other
saints whose names are preceded by the word, like St. Athanasius, or St.
Theresa of Avila,
But there
are many other saints who have lived in ages past, and who are living today, as
our reading from Ecclesiasticus affirms.
Some are known to us, others are not, as this reading affirms. All – known and unknown – have lived within
God’s notice, and so they are, therefore, remembered forevermore. And, as our reading from the Book of
Revelation reminds us, this great company of the saints has come from every
nation, tribe and people and language, all of them standing before the throne
of God. What an awesome sight, what an
awesome thing to contemplate!
So, are you
a saint? Am I a saint?
The answer
might well be: Perhaps so. If we are on a journey with God, seeking
God’s righteousness and holiness, surrendering ourselves to God so that He can
remold and remake us, then perhaps we are on the road to sainthood. God will make the final determination of our
sainthood. But it will take others to
assist in determining if we are saints or not.
We can’t make that assessment for ourselves.
May the
Holy Spirit of God mold, shape and remake us into the holy image of God, that
we may faithfully show forth in our lives the love of God, moving toward
sainthood as others have done.
AMEN.
