ALL SAINTS’ SUNDAY
Pentecost XXII
November 6, 2022
“How to be a Saint”
Following directions is not my strong suit, not because I overconfidently think I know what to do without them, but because I often find the directions incomplete or confusing. I need the kind that assume I know absolutely nothing and use elementary-school level terminology.
Perhaps that’s why we celebrate All Saints’ Day as a time of remembrance, recalling those in our lives who taught and encouraged us, whose faithful presence and quiet example was the best lesson we could have. It’s a little more comfortable to put these people in a special category, as if they had some unique understanding of how to teach, understand, lead, or support others in the faith. But let’s be realistic and clear-eyed here — they were human, they made mistakes, they got angry, they messed up — they were real people!
This is how God has worked in the world throughout history — using ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things. A modest young couple were parents to God’s own son, uneducated, everyday fishermen were his disciples, and women of low reputation were included among the early believers. As they went about sharing the good news of Jesus’ teachings, the hearts of their listeners were opened, and lives were changed.
A Lutheran pastor and author, Nadia Bolz-Weber writes in “Accidental Saints”: . . . it has been my experience that what makes us the saints of God is not our ability to be saintly but rather God’s ability to work through sinners. The title “saint” is always conferred, never earned. Or as the good Saint Paul puts it, “For it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13)
Through baptism, we are brought into relationship with our heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Our sins are washed away and we are in a state of blessed forgiveness. However we may stumble and fall, that gift of forgiveness picks us back up and strengthens us to keep on keeping on. So, even though we feel it’s rather pretentious to be called saints, we can’t really escape it either. We are God’s people, he calls us, and it is he who gives us the will and the ability to work for his “good pleasure.” Through extensive study and scholarship, Martin Luther came to understand that Christians are simultaneously saints and sinners. In the Large Catechism, Luther further expressed his conviction that Scripture was lively and active, and that God would continue to use his Word to work among people. He wrote:“God’s word is the treasure that makes everything holy . . . At whatever time God’s Word is taught, preached, heard, read, or pondered, there the person, the day and the work is hallowed, not on account of the external work but on account of the Word that makes us all saints.”
As we gather with the saints in remembrance and in person, grateful for the blessings they have brought into our lives, we thank God as we sing . . . “For all the Saints”!
In loving remembrance of ordinary people,
Your friend in Christ,
Mary Rogers