What Makes Saints Saints

Ephesians 1:11-23; Luke 6:20-31

I think Paul is trying to encourage us.

 

Paul (or whoever on Team Paul actually wrote the letter, we’re not sure) is writing “to the saints” – to all the people who’ve come together to live in the Christian faith. He doesn’t know what’s happening in their lives, exactly, but he knows that being able to trust God, experience God’s love and power, and hold our community together is important, and that it can be hard for many of us to do those things – in the Mediterranean nineteen centuries ago, or here and now.

 

So he’s reminding us that we already have God’s promises – the “inheritance” of faith and resurrection and belonging; the presence of the Holy Spirit. And he’s telling us there’s still more:

The power of God working actively for us; active, immediate sharing in God’s glory; our taking part in the same resurrection and heavenly destiny as Jesus are so close, he tells us. So certain. He’s just praying God shows us how certain.

(It’s the first century equivalent of sending a link to the tracking app or site that shows that our long awaited delivery is “On the Way.”)

 

He doesn’t know what’s going on exactly in our lives, in our community. But he wants us to feel what he feels from the knowledge that the absolute love and glory and power of God are there for us: He wants us to feel the joy and confidence and wholeness and deep powerful trust.

 

Because whatever is going on in our lives, better and worse, that joy Paul’s trying to describe in this letter – that abiding, insistent wholeness and trust – is exactly what God wants for us. And Paul insists we will, must, experience it.

 

I was reminded in two separate conversations this week of how long it took me to start to believe that God calls us – commands us – to that joyful wholeness, not to misery or burnout or overwork. That joy and fulfillment – exuberant and forceful or quiet and slow – is what makes saints saints. What makes us holy. 

 

So if you listen to Jesus today, and loving your enemies, “turning the other cheek”, and giving to everyone who asks sounds stressful, and threatening, and miserable, then the one thing I’m sure of is that God doesn’t expect you to do it in the way you’re currently imagining it would work. 

 

If something about putting that enemy-loving, inexhaustible giving, subversively gentle teaching into practice sounds unnerving and uncertain, but kind of exciting, kind of freeing and empowering, well….yes, that particular thing might be exactly what God’s calling you to do.

 

Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, Paul himself – none of these people gave up everything they had and took up work that would scare most of us to death because they expected to earn holiness from God by doing the hardest, most miserable work possible.  They sold all their possessions, emptied the stinkiest of bedpans, preached on street corners because that’s what made them whole, joyful, complete, and strong.

I’m sure each of them also had their moments of weariness and grief, of everything going wrong, too.

Holy doesn’t guarantee easy. 

Joy doesn’t mean ignoring or denying what’s hard for us, or what’s wrong in the world.

 

Because sometimes – maybe even often – the monstrous or irritating, boring or nasty or rotten experiences of the world happen right along with, right around, our joy in God, our wholeness and hope and renewal.  

But what Jesus taught and lived for us, what God dreams for us, what Paul is praying for us, is that our joy-giving sense of being connected with God persists through it all.  

And that persistent connection of joy is what makes saints saints. What makes us holy.

 

What makes it possible for one of us to do one more thing in our daily lives to nurture and protect the earth, when so many news reports suggest we’re in a lot of climate trouble and what you or I do won’t solve it. 

What makes it possible for another of us to re-build every single personal habit of shopping, working, sleeping, speaking in order to bring justice to people who’ve been oppressed for generations, even though it’s obvious one person will never make enough difference. 

What makes it possible to be generous to that particular family member or co-worker who absolutely always tries to push your buttons – and even see the image of God in them, God’s love for them. 

What makes it possible to find genuine, renewing, delight in giving – and giving even more – no matter how frequent the requests for our time, how uncomfortable the close encounter with poverty or need, or how annoying the pledge drive may be.

 

Holiness – wholeness and fulfillment and love and joy – acts at a lot of different magnitudes. Some holiness is as inescapable as an earthquake. Some holiness – in your friends, family, neighbors or self – you might not actually notice, unless you’re looking. 

 

Today’s the Sunday on the calendar every year when we pause to think about saints. About people who are particularly good models of living in the hope and faith and trust and joy of God. Who have enough extra of that fulfillment and wholeness and love and elation that others can experience it through them. 

 

And we pay attention to those saints because God doesn’t want that wholeness and love and elation and power to be reserved for just some of us.  God wants to kindle and plant that in all of us. 

 

Paul insists that God wants you and me to experience that joyful sense of being blessed: being beloved and gifted and hope-filled and overflowing with fulfillment and wonder at God’s presence. That sense of blessing is what helps us notice and use our God-given power to love and pray for our enemies, to return peace for violence and generosity for greed, as Jesus teaches. That’s what makes saints saints. That’s what makes us holy.

 

I want that. 

And I find it here: that sense of blessing, of belovedness, hope, wonder and fulfillment. 

I’ve been overwhelmed by that sense of love and wholeness as I listen to members of our congregation count up our blessings while we think about our annual giving. Filled up enough with that sense of wholeness recently that nothing the assorted malfunctioning office software and exhausting to-do list and election-anxiety-pushing news media can do can wipe out my joy, even though I’m just as annoyed by those things as ever.

 

And I want to invest in that. I want to give to joy, everywhere and every time I can. I can’t buy happiness, but I can spend joy – invest both money and heart in this community that nurtures and shares blessings and hope and love. So I try to spend more joy each year.

And it’s working for me, too. Every single dollar and dime and thousand I pledge and give to the celebration of our wholeness and the sharing of our blessings returns twice as much in joy.

 

Paul’s writing to encourage us today. Encourage us to be confident in that unbreakable fulfillment and joy – no matter who we are, or when, or what’s going on around us. He’s praying that for us; and I’m praying that for you, today. That “with the eyes of our hearts enlightened,” you and I will share with Paul the confident hope, the rich fellowship, the power to transform the world and our own hearts, the absolute wholeness and love and quiet, strong, exuberant joy day after day after day that makes saints saints. That makes us holy.

Now and always.