All Saints 2011

All saints Sunday

What is a saint?

We have examples in church of plaster cast images of saints, such as Ann, mother of BVM and in the east window currently being returned to its former glory are the figures of saints Peter and Paul flanking the image of Christ as the founders of the church on earth.

In our lectionary, the calander of readings and saints days we follow, we have an almost daily commemoration of people from the past, some well known and others obscure.

Some have very clear indications of the reasons for their continued place of honour, perhaps because they stood up against injustices or were martyred for their faith, something that doesn’t seem to be happening at the moment at St Paul’s Cathedral!

Perhaps they were writers of great note whose work has helped people in their own walk of faith.

Or perhaps they were just people who lived holy lives.

There’s a great variety in the kinds of people and the reasons for celebrating them.

But the one thing, other than their Christian faith, which all of these people we commemorate through the year have in common is that they are all dead!

But if we look at the new testament, the living people of the church are described as 'the saints' rather than those of the past, although it has to be said that there wasn't much past to go on at the time as the church was still emerging in those heady months and years following the resurrection of Christ.

But still, saints are part of the living community of today, not just honoured people of history commemorated in prayer or stained glass window.

There may be one or two people living today who we might think could be elevated to saintly status - the roman church is currently promoting the holiness of the late Pope John Paul II because of his charismatic leadership, his writings and his manner of living and dying.

But he's still dead, someone of the past.

But of those living we might think of Desmond Tutu, for example, who has just celebrated his 80th birthday.

His Godly life has been an inspiration and example to countless people.

But I'll bet he's a difficult person to live with, for all his saintliness!

I'll guarantee in his younger years he had hard choices to make and sometimes made a selfish choice.

He will have lost his temper at some time or other;

I would be surprised if he's always put God and the church first.

And I wouldn't mind betting that he's had his wayward moments in his youth, as most of us have.

In other words, although we might think that Desmond Tutu is a good example of living saintliness, he's just as flawed, just as human, as the rest of us.

He has no special powers or access to God, any more than you and I do.

But of course what he does demonstrate is an overwhelming love of God and all God's people - God's rainbow people - and an infectious enthusiasm which communicates that love so well.

But there has to be something more.

For if he was just a good person with a twinkle in his eye and an infectious laugh, then so are so many others.

And that something extra is demonstrated by the way he has lead his life.

Desmond Tutu has made the positive choice to follow Christ, to be an ambassador, a witness.

To make a difference.

And in making this positive choice he has, I think, discovered who he truly is.

He has discovered how to be true to himself.

Thomas Merton is a celebrated monk who wrote many books on spirituality and the Christian life, and in 1948 published a book called “Seeds of Contemplation”, where he writes about this search for the true self, and is quoted in this book I’m currently reading by the Abbot of Worth, Christopher Jamison.

Merton wrote that “Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints; they never succeed in being themselves. They never get round to being the particular poet or the particular monk that they are intended to be by God.”

And we could add – many people are not saints because they never get round to being the particular person God intended them to be.

In St. John’s vision of the future, he saw a great multitude of people, gathered from every part of the earth, praising God.

People who have come through the great ordeal and have remained true to God.

People who have discovered for themselves who God truly wants them to be and have remained true to themselves.

Or we might say they are people of integrity and they are people who are blessed.

The gospel today, in those words which are so familiar, teaches us how we can achieve this integrity, this blessedness, how we can discover who we really are in God’s eyes.

The beatitudes show us what a true disciple of Christ looks like; one who has accepted the demands of God’s kingdom, rather than those of the world, and the benefits, or rewards, are spelt out in the second half of each beatitude.

Many commentators suggest that the words ‘happy’ or ‘fortunate’ or ‘well off’ are better than blessed.

These are people who are to be congratulated, who have got it right.

People who follow these precepts for living are those we can call saints, people who are consciously striving to live in the light of Christ.

Or as Thomas Merton put it, people who have discovered that “in order to become myself I must cease to be what I always thought I wanted to be.”

Saintliness, then, is not simply something we confer on good people of the past, but something we should all strive for.

“See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.” Amen.

Holy Trinity Broadstairs

All Saints 2011