You. Are. Saints.

 

Sermon, 31 October 2021

All Saints Sunday

Brothers and sisters, it is good to be back with you. We know each other. For the most part, we know each other. At least, I remember you. Not only that, I remember your priest-in-charge-soon-to-be-rector. Not only that, I remember his predecessor. Not only that, I have met his predecessor’s predecessor. And I have heard tell of other predecessors.

 

What this means is I have a fair sense of some of the themes you may have heard, over the years, on All Saints Sunday. I think one such theme may just be: you are saints. You. Are. Saints.

 

This is at least is how St Paul would see it. St Paul (previous preachers will have reminded you) typically addressed the churches he was writing to as “those called saints in” or “to the saints who are in” the place in question. Concretely, he or his disciple wrote to

·        “those called saints in Rome” [Rom 1.7];

·        “those called saints in Corinth” [1 Cor 1.2];

·        “the saints throughout Achaia” [2 Cor 1.1],

·        “the saints” in Ephesus [Eph 1.1];

·        “the saints in Christ Jesus in Philippi” [Phil 1.1];

·        “the saints” in Colossae [Col 1.1].

So, following St Paul, you, surely, are “the saints in Little Ilford”, or among the saints in Little Ilford.

We who are used to marking out our greatest heroes as Saints-with-a-capital-S sometimes struggle with the idea that we too are called to be saints / called saints / saints. Now, we don’t quite know what St Paul meant. He certainly wasn’t just flattering people. Paul doesn’t flatter; he tells it as it is. The idea may be this: if you are drawn to holiness, then the core of you already is holy. Your vocation in life is to get your behaviour to catch up with this truth.

 

If you are at all drawn to holiness, the core of you already is holy. Your vocation in life is to get your behaviour to catch up.

 

And, by the way, knowing you as I do, I will say you are doing pretty well.

 

Hagioi is the Greek for “saints”. Ayii in the modern pronunciation. It is also the Greek for “holy ones”. It’s an accident of history that in English we have two ways of expressing the one thing: sanctity or holiness, holiness or sanctity. The Hebrew is Kedoshim. That too means “holy ones”, but also “holy things”. In later Hebrew, you’d probably talk about a holy person as a “tzaddik”, more literally a “righteous person”. St Paul writes tois hagiois, to the saints, or “kletois hagiois”. The translation you and I use takes this to mean: “to those called to be saints”, implying that they might not quite be there yet. That’s a possible translation, but so is the simpler “to those called saints/called out as saints” – saints, already.

 

You might have guessed I would bring in a bit of the biblical languages into this reflection. It’s what I do. I did not want to disappoint you. Let me, then, play further to my stereotype. Let me bring some other things I was once known for. I am thinking of:

·        something from the Eastern Orthodox tradition;

·        something from the Jewish tradition;

·        and a failed attempt at a joke.

(You do remember me, isn’t it?)

From the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Within the principal liturgy is a phrase which is easily overlooked: “Christ amazing among the saints”. Christ is amazing among the saints, or amazing in the saints. Surely, we are meant to find the great array of saints amazing. Surely, that array of saints itself shows us Christ. (It doesn’t show us something about Christ; it shows us Christ.) The diversity - the sheer difference of saints - is part of what is amazing. Think about it. If we were to look for one personality type or even one core characteristic or trait that is true of every saint… we’d fail. We’d always fail.

From the activist campaigner to the contemplative hermit,

from the bishop or the statesperson to the holy fool in rags,

saints come in all shapes and sizes.

Staying in the Orthodox tradition,

·        there is Saint Silouan, who had a vision from Christ, who spoke and said to him: “Keep your mind in hell, and despair not”.

·        And we have our old friend (I hope he is still a mutual friend), St Seraphim, who greeted everyone, on every day of the year, with: “My joy, Christ is risen!”

There’s a universe of space between the most austere refusal to despair, and the exuberance of constant Easter joy and fellowship. There’s a space for you. (There is a space for me.)

 

This in turn leads to another truth: sainthood is not repeatable. 

No saint became a saint by rigidly imitating another saint. Not one.

You cannot be a Silouan; I cannot be a Seraphim.

You can only be the saint you are called to be.

Which is to say:

only you can be the saint you are called to be.

The diversity is meant to be, and meant to last.

Christ is amazing in all the saints.

 

And, by the way, knowing you as I do, I will say you are doing pretty well.    

 

From the Jewish tradition. 

From the Jewish tradition I bring you a saying from the Talmud:

“On the day of judgement, a person will be called to account

for every good thing which they might have enjoyed, but did not.”

I think that, too, may be hard for us to take fully on board. We might be called to account for every good thing we might have enjoyed and did not. 

When we think of the saints we record, know, and celebrate, then ascetics take up quite a lot of the list. Ascetics are those who go without, go without excesses and even normal amounts of food,  and even water and sleep,

·        the better to pray,

·        the better to be open to Gd

·        the better to be open to those Gd sends to them,

·        the better to see what happens when you know yourself totally dependent on Gd, cut off from comforts and status.

Well and good. A noble tradition. (I have no word to say against it.)

A tradition that we in the West may be in danger of losing, and that we may need to rediscover, in a way that works.

But!

But it’s not true that to be a saint, you have to be an ascetic.

I say again: saints come in all shapes and sizes; sainthood cannot be repeated. Another way of being a saint is to enjoy good things, truly to relish good things, to make your own good things while praising Gd, as a way of praising Gd. Here is then another invitation: why not become a saint by relishing good things?

 

By the way, knowing you as I do, I will say you are doing pretty well.

 

And so to the joke which fails. I am told the saying I am going to share began life as a joke. But the punchline has been lost. So, in truth, it is a joke no longer. It is now something serious, solemn, and I offer it as such. It’s a question and answer:

“What is the difference between a good person, and a holy person (a saint)?”

“In the presence of a good person, the rest of us feel worse about ourselves. In the presence of a holy person (a saint), the rest of us feel better about ourselves.”

Do you see what this is saying?

It is saying that whatever the (manifold) virtues of the saint, the holy person, the difference the holiness makes is that these don’t come across as competition, as threat, as rebuke, but are swallowed up, are swallowed up in the warmth of the saint, the love – the loving - of the saint, lost in the saints will to comfort, to console, to help, to encourage you.

Saints are always encouragers, never finger-waggers.

“In the presence of a good person, the rest of us feel worse about ourselves. In the presence of a holy person (a saint), the rest of us feel better about ourselves.”

 

Sisters and brothers, here, here too, knowing you as I do, I will say you are doing pretty well.

 

Keep on doing what you are doing.

In all the changes you are making,

in all the changes you are facing,

keep on doing what you are doing.

You, you who are called saints in Little Ilford,

you, you who are amazing in Christ,

you, you who are called to enjoy good things,

you, you who, by being who you are,

make the rest of us feel better about ourselves,

you, you who have been and still are my joys,

keep on!

My joys, Christ is risen!

Amen.

Sermon. Hope, Coping, Courage, Holiness

Sermon. Worcester College, Oxford. 5 November 2017

All Saints (transferred).

Isaiah 65.17-end

Hebrews 11.32-12.2

Do you have a favourite book title (just the title). I do, at least if we stay in the field of theology. It is this: What may we hope for, if hope we may? It’s by German theologian, Friedrich Marquardt. So it’s “Was duerfen wir hoffen, wenn wir hoffen duerften?”. German scholars will have noted - and here grammar pedants may have to close their ears - that it’s actually: “What may we hope for, if hope we might”. There is an extra degree of conditionality, of uncertainty. Now, I am not going to discuss the content of this work, for three reasons: (1) it is in German, (2) it’s three volumes long, and (3) I haven’t read them. If by the way, you thought you just now heard your chaplain mutter “that’s never stopped you before” you are probably right, and so is she. (We studied together some time ago.)

It’s the title itself that haunts me. What may we hope for, if hope we might? A strong case could be made for saying that this is the central theological question. We might say it is the human question. And let me add: it is a question which is always likely to be prominent in a university. Maybe not in the formal teaching, but still very much around, as you are promised so many glittering futures, sold with such force that it would be strange if there were not also anxieties about whether they can be realised. 

What may we hope for, if hope we might? Isaiah, today, gives us the clearest answer possible. We, the readers, are to hope for the very best. A new heaven and a new earth, so brilliant that all that came before will be forgotten. “Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy.” No premature death, but houses, vineyards, food for all. And not only peace between the nations, but even between formally hunting and hunted animals. This is good news indeed, This is the gospel according to Isaiah. 

Did he mean it? Perhaps we need to take a step back, and reflect upon the message of Isaiah as a whole. I will leave for another place the question of how many Isaiahs there were. All commentators would agree that from chapter 40 on, the focus is on the exile of the elite of Judah to Babylon, and their hope of return to the Land of Promise, and Jerusalem in particular. True, the exile drifts out of focus from chapter 56 on. But this still means that at least a lot of the prophecy of Isaiah refers to events which can be dated. 

Forgive me for quoting from Handel’s Messiah slightly out of season, but remember Isaiah says: “Every valley shall be exalted, and ever mountain and hill made low.” (Isa 40.4). In context, this isn’t a free-floating promise. It means that the desert country will be flattened out, so that a super highway can be built, and a highway not just anywhere, but taking people from Babylon to Jerusalem. It’s all about the return of the exiles. 

Now, that journey, from Bablyon to Jerusalem did happen. The exiled did return, in history, around 539 CE. But it was not miraculous in the way Isaiah hoped. The Jews could return home, and indeed could rebuild their Temple. But they had to make all kinds of compromises with diverse greater powers, and they still knew suffering, pain, poverty, death and loss. 

So we can - we must - say that the Hebrew Bible has an excess of hope. It has, in the prophets especially, a firm conviction that a time is coming when goodness will prevail. The People of Israel will flourish. And, as they are a small and insignificant people, if they flourish, it can only be because the wider world also knows the fulness of peace and justice. And/but that hope has to be projected into the future, which over time becomes the distant future, the final future, the end of the age, the messianic era. The Hebrew Bible does not really have a “job description” for the Messiah, but it does have hopes which are yet to be fulfilled, which become “messianic”.

What may we hope for, if hope we might? Following Isaiah, we hope for the very best. But we accept it may come in another age, unknown to us. We hope but we do not - let it be said - expect that superlative flourishing. As Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai taught: if you are planting a tree, and someone tells you Messiah has come, first plant your tree. 

What we may hope for, if hope we might, then, in spite of Isaiah’s beautiful words, is in truth the courage to live in a world still not put right. Which takes us to the heroes of Hebrews, our second reading. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews is clear that Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephtha, David, Samuel, and many others lived courageously. Lived courageously in a world not put right. Indeed in a very wrong world, where there are fires and wars and tortures and persecutions, destitution, affliction and torments. For this writer, though, the world has now, now been put right in Christ. How so? Because Christ “is set down at the right hand of God”. So we have a Great High Priest in heaven, who can and does pray for us. 

Gd shows Gdself utterly in solidarity with us. When we pray, it is not so much an effort on our part, as an entering into the prayer of Gd the Son to Gd the Father. Since we live in that intimacy, it must follow that the future is open, laden with hope. Gd is with us. 

This vision from Hebrews is - you will have noticed - not quite the same as Isaiah’s. It is not so much that the world is put right, but that we can have a dramatically new form of courage, courage to tackle the problems which are still there, because Gd is on our side. 

What may we hope for, if hope we might? Good things in the end, but maybe only courage for now? Can we live for that? I can’t tell you. But a great cloud of witnesses suggests yes. Hebrews has its heroes of holiness. You will have yours, those you know in reality, and those you know virtually. Hold on to these, these visions incarnate of human courage and divine solidarity. Saints, who know what it is to live in in-between times, where the world is still not put right, and who nevertheless get on with it.

Let me tell you of just one. Sister Eugenia. In her 60s she returned from Africa to her native Italy. In a pastoral drop-in she met a woman entangled in trafficking and prostitution, and so a culture utterly alien to the religious sister’s world. She knew nothing. She was ageing, and so was her order. But she felt herself converted by this woman and her plea. Now she runs networks of women between Europe and Africa to disrupt the trafficking. Her motto (I warn you, it contradicts management-speak): we need to look to our poverties, find others who also feel inadequate to the task and get on with it. “We combine our poverties and so they become riches.” Most saints, most of the time, thought what they were doing was “just getting on with it”. 

Somebody one asked: What is the difference between a good person and a holy person? In the presence of a good person, the rest of us feel worse about ourselves. In the presence of a holy person, the rest of us feel better about ourselves. Holiness is not repeatable. You can be holy only in the way you are called to be holy. But holiness is always contagious, encouraging, warm, and for you. What may we hope for, it hope we might? Quite simply, to be a saint among saints. 

Amen.