Becoming Saints

Sermon preached at 11am Parish Eucharist at St Mary the Virgin, Lapworth on Sunday 31st October 2010. A shortened version of this sermon was also preached at the 8.30am Said Eucharist and at 9.45am Holy Communion (BCP) at St Michael’s, Baddesley Clinton.
All Saints’ Sunday – Year C
Readings: Ephesians 1: 11-23 Luke 6: 20-31


So today we are celebrating All Saints Day, transferred from Monday 1st November and on Tuesday 2nd November we shall be remembering All Souls Day. So today we remember people who have died and who are holy, close to God and who dwell joyfully in the fullness of God’s presence. Then on Tuesday we remember all other people who have died with good will towards God but who we hesitate to think of as Saints.
Let’s think about this more carefully using the metaphor of a journey. We think of the Christian life as a journey towards God. The journey ends (or better: reaches fulfilment) when we come to share in the life of the Trinity in heaven. Walking the journey towards heaven is therefore about drawing ever closer to God. Christ is both the “the way” we must follow, the road, and the shepherd who leads us along it. As we draw closer to God we understand him better. We learn his ways and we learn to move in harmony with them. It is about being freed from sin, so that we can stand in the presence of God. It is about becoming pure in heart, so that we can see God.
Or we can use the metaphor of healing. As humans we were created in the image of God, and made good. Yet, somehow, we have been diseased by sin and our humanity has been compromised. We are now in a process of recovery. Healing is about overcoming sin and developing truly and fully into the human being that God created us to be. Christ is the both the healer and the example of perfect humanity to which we aspire. We can think of the church as the hospital in which we are treated and in which we convalesce. As we listen to the doctor in hospital, so we listen to God in the bible. As we receive medicines in a hospital, so we receive sacraments in the church. As we might receive surgery in hospital, so God sometimes cuts open and reorders our earthly lives. As physiotherapy or occupational therapy might prepare us for life outside the hospital, so the situations we face in our earthly lives prepares us for the life of heaven.
Or we might use the metaphor of an apprenticeship or professional training. Earthly life is a training ground in which we learn the skills that we need to live the life of heaven. Qualification in the trade is like attaining to the norms of heaven. Christ is the teacher, our trainer, and we seek to become like him. As trainees read their manuals, so Christians study the bible. As trainees get day-release in college, so Christians come to church once a week. As trainees listen to and copy the expert, so Christians listen to Christ and copy him.
Whichever of these metaphors we use, it is important to see our earthly lives as process of becoming more Christ-like, more God-like. This process is God’s work in us. When we remember “All Saints” we are thinking of people who have died and in whom this work of God shows a certain completeness or fulfilment; people who are ready and fit to be good citizens of heaven. When we think of “All Souls” we think or people who have died for whom this process of becoming holy is still work in progress. And if we think of the people who we have known who have died, probably most of them are more holiness-in-progress rather than holiness-realised, and so we especially remember them on All Souls day.
Now I said that this process of becoming holy is “God’s work in us”. It is important that we remember that, because we can only progress by God’s grace. We can’t achieve holiness in our own strength! But we certainly do have a part to play. It is crucially important that we respond positively to God’s love for us. We need to co-operate with God’s grace in our lives. We need to want the things that God wants for us. The desire for holiness must grow within us. We need to pray for this. We need to order our daily lives, our days and our minutes, according to God’s will and purpose for us.
And this process of becoming holy, of becoming saints, is very important and often we don’t take it seriously enough. Do we think of ourselves as saints in the making? Do we think of ourselves as drawing ever closer to God? Do we think of ourselves as recovering from sin and becoming perfect, as our heavenly father is perfect? Do we think of ourselves saints in training? Well we can and should think of ourselves in this way. Ultimately we must go to heaven or hell; we are either with God or against him. It seems to me sensible to walk firmly and boldly towards God and towards the life of heaven!
And it has to be said that we Christians can often seem woefully negligent in this respect. We tend to drift along wanting to think of ourselves as “good people” but not as “holy people” or saints. I was interested to read something [“Finding Happiness” by Christopher Jamison, London: Weidenfield & Nicolson 2008] about the seven deadly sins. Apparently at one stage there were eight deadly sins. The one that somehow got lost is “acedia” which means spiritual carelessness or apathy. Certainly acedia seems a terrible problem for many Christians in these present times.
So let’s not suffer from this spiritual apathy of acedia. Let’s be attentive to God’s work in us. Let’s want it and pray for it. Let’s co-operate fully with it. Let’s thirst for the life of heaven. Let’s trust in its goodness and power. As Paul said in our reading today, “…may you know the hope to which [Christ] has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints”. In this way we can make progress on the journey, we can be healed and made whole, we can be trained up for the life heaven, and these are things of everlasting value. They are real riches. Let’s be keen to receive them!