Saints Are Not Statues!

St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Gainesville FL
November 7, 2010

Year C: All Saints’ Sunday
Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18
Psalm 149
Ephesians 1:11-23
Luke 6:20-31

Saints Are Not Statues!

A week and a half ago I had the pleasure of leading my first chapel service for the children and teachers of our day school. I have to tell you it was a blast. The 62 children all clearly love being part of our school, where they are very much loved and cared for by their teachers.

Those of us who aren’t around here during the week can forget the school is even back there. But, I’ve discovered that the day school is a big part of why St. Michael’s is such a special place. In the coming months, my hope is that we can find ways to bring the church and our school even closer together. As I said to Kelly Pence, the head of school, “We’re in this together – we are you and you are us.”

Anyway, when I was planning the chapel service I thought I would talk about Halloween and how it’s connected to the following day, All Saints’ Day – you know, the day when we’ve already eaten all the candy we really like and now we’re starting to get to the bottom of the bag.

So, I began by asking the children if any of them could tell me what a saint is.

Most of them looked around or down at the floor, unsure and maybe a little nervous that I’d call on them and put them on the spot.

But two children raised their hands with what looked like some confidence.

I called on the first and he struggled to put his answer into words. Finally, he stretched out his arms and said, “They’re made out of stone and they stand like this.”

And then the other one chimed in, “Yeah, they’re statues!”

The teachers chuckled and the other kids looked confused and I wondered how to explain all of this to children ranging in age from three to six…

As I thought about this exchange later on, though, I realized that these kids were on to something. Even we adults think of the saints as statues. We think of them as these impossibly perfect figures who were and are forever frozen in positions of prayer and piety.

All too often we think of the saints as statues and not as flesh and blood human beings who faced many of the same challenges, obstacles, and temptations that we do.

All too often we think of the saints as statues and not as flesh and blood human beings whose lives were scarred by sin and whose hearts were broken by disappointment.

Dorothy Day, one of the founders of the Catholic Worker movement during the last century once said, “Don’t call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed so easily.”

All too often we think of the saints as statues – and dismiss them almost as if they weren’t quite real.

So, if the saints aren’t statues, what exactly are they?

Well, as the rector in my previous parish used to say, there are big S and small S saints.

The big S saints are famous Christians who’ve been formally honored. You’ll appreciate the irony that there is a movement underway to have Dorothy Day formally canonized as a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. Some people who revere her rightly worry that she’s on her way to being as easily dismissed as a statue!

On the other hand, the little S saints are people past and present that nobody’s ever heard of – the people whose faith is known to God alone. In the words of the charming hymn that I’m sure some of you know: These are the saints we can meet “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.”

The truth is there’s not much difference between the big S and small S saints. The saints are people who have glimpsed Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God. The saints are people who recognize that if we are to build the kingdom of God then, in the words of today’s reading from Ephesians, we need “to set our hope on Christ.”

In today’s gospel lesson we heard Luke’s account of the Beatitudes – Jesus’ clearest and most challenging expression of his vision of the kingdom of God.

Most scholars think that Luke’s very concrete, here and now version is closer to what Jesus actually said than Matthew who softens it a bit by making Jesus’ vision seem abstract, impersonal and spiritual.

In Matthew, Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

But in Luke’s more concrete, more economic and social, more here and now version Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.”

The saints, past and present, set their hope in Christ because it takes hope and faith in Christ to imagine how we can build the kingdom of God here and now – to build the kingdom for the poor, to build the kingdom where the hungry will be fed, to build the kingdom where the millions of people all around the world who weep from grief will laugh with joy.

It’s a big and tough job to build the kingdom of God right here and now. But, it’s a job for flawed human beings just like us – and definitely not a job for a statue. It’s a big and tough job to turn Jesus’ vision of the kingdom into a physical reality right here in Gainesville, right here in America, right here on earth.

To do that job first we need to set our hope on Christ. And then Jesus tells us very clearly how we can do this big and tough job of building the kingdom of God – though we may not like what he has to say.

To build the kingdom of God, right here and now Jesus says, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

Hmm. How does that sound? Do we still want to be saints?

To build the kingdom of God right here and now Jesus says, “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.”

Hmm. How does that sound? Do we still want to be saints?

To build the kingdom of God right here and now Jesus says, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

How does that sound? Do we still want to be saints?

Dorothy Day was born into a religiously indifferent Episcopalian family in the late 19th Century. As a young woman she was inspired and angered by the poverty and suffering that she saw all around her. She got involved in radical politics but thought Christianity was irrelevant nonsense.

And, like all of us, Dorothy was scarred by sin. In her case, she was haunted by an extramarital affair and a resulting abortion.

Yet, God was able to use this imperfect, flesh and blood human being to help build the kingdom. After several powerful experiences, including the birth of her daughter, Dorothy was able to glimpse Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God and work to make it a reality here on earth. After her conversion, she not only fed the poor but asked the uncomfortable question of why there was so much poverty in a country that’s so rich. She lived in voluntary poverty, wearing donated clothing and living in community in New York’s Lower East Side. She angered people by preaching and practicing total nonviolence.

Dorothy Day set her hope on Christ and then, with God’s help, went about building the kingdom of God right here on earth.
And, each in our own way, that’s the work you and I are called to. With God’s help, we are called to be saints – whether big S or small S is up to God.

Building the kingdom of God here on earth, right here in Gainesville, is a big job. It’s a job not for statues but for flawed and scarred flesh and blood human beings who set their hope on Christ. It’s a job, with God’s help, for people just like us.
Saints aren’t statues, so together we can say the words of the hymn, “The saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.”

Amen.