Who are the Saints? Sermon 11/3/2019

Lessons for All Saints' Day
Daniel 7:1-3,15-18Psalm 149Ephesians 1:11-23Luke 6:20-31

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote: “The saints are the sinners who keep on going.”

I like that image.  I like it because it is true.  In our humanity, we all fall short of perfection, and yet we get up every morning and try again to be the person deserving of God’s love.

Of course, how we each define perfection might play a role in how we recognize our level of saintliness. It also affects our expectations of the saintliness of others. Inevitably, we all will be disappointed because we,   --ourselves and others  --  don’t live up to or into our perception of what perfection looks like, or what might describe a saint. But, what does a saint look like?

Would you please open your blue hymnal to #293 and sing with me?

1 I sing a song of the saints of God, 
patient and brave and true, 
who toiled and fought and lived and 
died for the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen, 
and one was a shepherdess on the green: 
they were all of them saints of God, 
and I mean, God helping, to be one too.
2 They loved their Lord so dear, so dear, 
and God’s love made them strong;
and they followed the right, for Jesus’ sake, 
the whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest, 
and one was slain by a fierce wild beast:
and there’s not any reason, no, not the least, 
why I shouldn’t be one too.
3 They lived not only in ages past; 
there are hundreds of thousands still;
the world is bright with the joyous saints 
who love to do Jesus’ will.
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, 
or at sea, in church,
or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;
for the saints of God are just folk like me, 
and I mean to be one too.[1]

That’s what saints looks like.  People of every walk of life, living each day using their gifts and talents, doing everyday things, doing extraordinary things.  People who have jobs and roles like each of us.  Normal people, sinners, striving to follow what God commands of us:  to love God and love people. 

What I think I like best is that this song has an action plan at the end of each verse: 

“they were all of them saints of God and I mean, God helping, to be one too.”
“there’s not any reason, no not the least, why I shouldn’t be one too.”
“for the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.”

I mean to be one too.  But I want to be one who lives with all the complexities of being a human.  The sinner and the saint within me.  Because, like Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, we are both.

I’d like to invite you to consider that notion…that we are both…when you think about today’s Gospel, known at the Sermon on the Plain.  Jesus comes down from the mountain after prayers and walks among the people, healing and blessing and seeing them      before he gives us his message.

It is a message that reminds us that our life circumstances can range from poverty to wealth in any moment  --  that those circumstances can change in a moment [snap fingers]  --  and that we are to recognize that neither defines a sinner or a saint. 

What defines the sinner from the saint is how we treat one another, no matter our circumstances.  The final line in the Gospel, “Treat others just as you want to be treated” is our “Golden Rule” and is the most common expectation found in all the world religions.  It is imagining ourselves in a different circumstance and acting appropriately.  It is not expecting perfection, but hoping for compassion, dignity, respect and holy love from others and given to others.

This is a day when we remember people we have loved and who have loved us, who have died.  We will list just a few of the names of these people during our Prayers of the People.  You will be invited to say names not mentioned, aloud or in your hearts. 

Some of these remembrances will elicit tears at the memory of your loss.  Others might bring tears of joy or smiles at the memories of their lives.  This can be a somber or a joyful time, or some combination of emotions.  I invite you to experience them, allow the emotions to wash over you and let yourself be vulnerable to what wells up within you.  At the end of that time, we will sit with all our emotions before moving forward with our service.

The one thing I hope you will think about these people as you remember them is that they were both sinner and saint.  Not one or the other, but both. 

Both sinner and saint.  That is who we are.  Loved by God.

Let us pray. 
          God of mercy, compassion, justice, grace, and love give us eyes to see within ourselves the places where we have room to grow into our sainthood.  Help us to forgive within ourselves the moments where we have forgotten to love our neighbors as ourselves, forgotten to treat others in the ways we hope to be treated.  Teach us to see the humanity of others and to forgive them when they do not meet our expectations, when they do not treat us in the ways we would like to be treated.  Then, God, help us to be transformed by your command to love others as you have loved us. To behave as one of your saints. [sing] For the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.  Amen.



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