November 7 sermon

Text: Ephesians 1:11-23
Preached November 7, 2010 at Gol Lutheran Church in rural Kenyon, MN


Grace and peace to you from God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

What do you think of when people talk about “saints”? Chances are, you think of people like Saint Paul, who proclaimed God’s promises to us so beautifully in the words from Ephesians that we just heard. Or Mother Teresa, who tirelessly served some of the poorest people in the world—people no one else wanted to touch.

Or maybe you think of someone who is still living. I sometimes refer to my grandmother as a saint. She is one of the kindest, most caring people I have ever met and she never seems to have a bad word to say about anyone.

In his book Crazy Talk, Rolf Jacobson (and his team of writers) say this: “So you think you already know what a saint is? Let’s guess: someone who is…so admirable that if you died you’d want them to take care of your puppy…but with whom you wouldn’t want to go to an R-rated movie. And you certainly wouldn’t want to be one! As a t-shirt we saw on a little kid said, ‘I tried being good, but I got bored.’”

We tend to think of “real saints” as not at all like us. We want to see them as somehow super-spiritual, extra-holy, and elevated above the rest of us ordinary human beings with all of our flaws.

But when New Testament writers like Paul use the word “saints,” they aren’t just referring to people who live exemplary lives. In the New Testament, the word “saints” always refers to all Christians. This letter to the Ephesians, for example, is addressed “to the saints in Ephesus.” And Paul is not writing only to a select few, but to the entire community.

That’s why this festival called “All Saints” commemorates more than just people like Mother Theresa, Saint Paul, and the people we know who are particularly kind. This festival commemorates all those who have lived and died in Christ.

After all, if we understand saints only as those who have lived exemplary lives, how does God fit into the picture? If we define saints solely by their own good works, we leave no room for God’s grace.

Saints are not saints because of their own good works. In fact, being a saint is dependent solely on God’s work. Saints are saints because of what God has done for them in Christ. Saints are simply sinners claimed by Christ. All Christians are saints. We are saints.

In our baptism, we are forgiven and united with Christ. We are, as Paul says in our second reading, “marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.” He goes on to say that this is “the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people.” A pledge, in this sense, is like a down payment. The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is a down payment on the promises of God which are our future.

Now, this designation as “saints” shouldn’t go to our heads! Let me say again that our sainthood is all about what Christ has done for us, not about anything we do ourselves. I know, and you know, that we all continue to sin. All of us.

In fact, Nadia Bolz-Weber points out that “the journals of Mother Teresa…portrayed her as a doubting and cranky person, maybe a little like us.” And Saint Paul persecuted the church before he became Christian. Even after his conversion, he understood his own sinfulness better than anyone. He wrote in Romans, “For I know that nothing good dwells within me.…For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”

One of the mysterious realities of life in Christ is that we are, at the same time, fully saints and fully sinners. We are not half-saint and half-sinner. We are fully sinful, and yet, God makes us fully saints by forgiving our sin and claiming us as his own through Christ.¬¬¬

So what does it mean to be saints? It means that we live, as Paul says, in “the hope to which [God] has called us.”

The first reading from Daniel depicts a vision that initially leaves us with very little hope. “I, Daniel, saw in my vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another.” The verses omitted in our lectionary tell us these beasts were devouring whatever was in their path.

When Daniel asks about this vision, he is told that “four kings shall arise out of the earth.” So, for Daniel, these beasts represent four hostile and powerful kingdoms. What do they represent for us? What are the beasts we face?

I have friends battling the beast of cancer. I know you do too. I have friends facing many other health problems, beasts of all varieties. I know you do too. I have friends fighting beasts like depression, anxiety, isolation, addiction, and despair. I know you do too. All over the world, God’s people are being crushed by the beasts of poverty, hunger, violence, and injustice.

This is the reality of our broken world. Pain, despair, death.

But these beasts, though they are very real, do not have the final word. Daniel’s vision continues: “the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever.”

This is the truth that has been passed down to us through the church. Paul calls it “the Word of truth, the gospel of our salvation,” and we have heard it from the prophets and apostles and faithful witnesses in every age. We know the end of the story. We who live in Christ live in “the hope to which [God] has called us.”

And what is this hope?

This hope is described in our gospel reading: “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. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you…on account of the Son of Man…for surely your reward is great in heaven.”

The hope to which God calls us is a kingdom where the ways of the world are turned upside-down, where justice prevails, and where everything is set right. This is a kingdom breaking into our world even now, when we know God is present in the brokenness, and the hopeless are blessed. And this is a kingdom which, someday, “the holy ones of the Most High shall…possess…forever and ever.”

This hope is also described in our second reading: “God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead….And he has put all things under his feet….” What God has put under Christ’s feet are the beasts we face in our brokenness—suffering, despair, and death.

Death will not have the final word, for it has been put under Christ’s feet. Listen to the words of John from Revelation: “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them…he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more….‘See, I am making all things new.’”

Death and pain will be no more. In Christ, these beasts are defeated. This is God’s great promise. This is the hope to which God has called us. This is the rest of the story which is our future. All things will be made new.

So how do we live as saints? How do we live as those who have been claimed by Christ, and who know the final outcome of our future?

We come to worship to hear these promises over and over again, lest we forget them. It’s easy to do, you know, since they are almost unbelievable.

We gather at the Lord’s table, where we both receive and enact this future God has promised us.

We go in peace to love and serve those around us, working toward glimpses of God’s kingdom, where the hungry are filled and those who weep can laugh instead.

And we claim and proclaim God’s great promise that death, as final as it seems now, will not have the last word, and that, at the end of the story, all things will be made new.

This is the hope to which we are called. And in Christ, this hope is certain. Thanks be to God! Amen.