Are Saints A Thing of the Past - Ephesians 1:11-23
What or who do we think of when
we first hear the word “saint”? Some of
us may first think of the New Orleans football team. Some folks may think of the holidays of “St.
Patrick’s Day” or “St. Valentine’s Day.” Some may think of the gospel hymn,
“When the Saints Go Marching In.” Others
may think of the stories of Saint Peter standing at the pearly gates deciding
whether or not folks are able to enter heaven.
We may think of some of Jesus’s followers such as the authors of the
Gospels, St. Mathew, St. Luke, St. Mark, or St. John. We may think of other more well known saints
such as Saint Francis, Saint Christopher, or Saint Augustine. It may even cross our minds to think of folks
from our own lives who were godly, but have now passed from our lives to be
with God—that is very appropriate thinking, as we recognized earlier in the
service. However, how often do we think
in terms of “Saint Bessie,” “Saint Lloyd,” “Saint Delaney,” or “Saint Carl.”
“Whoa, wait a minute,
Preacher.” Some of you may be trying to
figure out how low you can sink in your seat to escape the attention that was
placed on you; some others may be thinking, “Wait a minute Preacher, you’re
calling me a saint;” or “Preacher, you want me to think of them as
saints?” Some of you may want to jump up
and waive your arms—and say, “Preacher, don’t count me among the saints, I’m
still among the living” (though we don’t see too much of that in Methodist
services...sometimes I think we need to sing “And Are We Yet Alive” each
week. Finally, some of us may want to
say, “I’m no saint, I’m just a sinner.”
It is here, with these last two, that we run into
trouble. The idea that saints are only
to be found among those who have died and the repeated chorus that I have heard
so many times over the last 19 years, “I’m just a sinner.”
The thought of only being
considered a saint after one has died is the easiest to discount. Paul, at the beginning of the letter to the
Ephesians, addresses it, “To the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in
Christ Jesus,” and in our reading this morning, Paul gives thanks for the folks
in Ephesus’ love of the saints. As a
matter of fact, in many of his letters, Paul addresses the members of a particular
congregation as “saints.” It is very
easy to see that Paul counted the saints, not only as those who had passed on
but also as those who were still alive and well, and trying to live as faithful
disciples of Christ. It would be the
living saints to whom Paul addressed this, and other, letters. The saints who have gone before us do not
need any letter or word of encouragement; they rest in the very arms of Christ. With that in mind, there can be, and should
be, living saints, even amongst us here at St. Paul’s
“But wait a minute
Preacher. How can we be saints, aren’t
we sinners?” Shouldn’t we all be
singing:
If you could see
what I once was
If you could go
with me
Back to where I
started from
Then I know you
would see
A miracle of love
that took me
In its sweet
embrace
And made me what
I am today
Just an old
sinner saved by grace
Yes, my brothers and sisters, you and I are
sinners. However, we are sinners who
have been saved by the grace of God through the birth, life, death, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. However,
we have not only been saved by the grace of God, but that same grace marks us and
calls us to be counted among the saints.
I heard another preacher in the
last year or so say that we need to stop claiming to be sinners, that we need
to claim to be saints. At first, I
balked at the idea, just as many of you may be doing now. My first reaction was that we have too many
people today who do not think they are sinning, that we need more folks
confessing that they are sinners, not less—we need more repentant lives, not
more excused behavior. However, the more
I listened and the more I thought about it, I realized just how right he was.
The truth of the matter is, the
time I most often hear, either from the mouth of others, or coming from my own
lips, “I’m just a sinner,” or “we’re not perfect, we’re sinners lime everyone
else,” it is not being used as a confession of sin, but most often as an excuse
for sin. “I know I shouldn’t gossip,” “I
known I shouldn’t get drunk,” “I know I shouldn’t lie,” “I know I shouldn’t
cheat,” “I know I shouldn’t cuss,” but I’m just a sinner. In many ways we call ourselves sinners as
means of trying to excuse behavior we know is wrong but continue to indulge. We seem to fall into the trap of wanting the
forgiveness of being just sinners without the accountability of a new life that
Jesus and God’s Word call us to live.
Remember the adulterous woman that was at the point of being stoned to
death for her sin—she was a sinner saved by the grace of a face-to-face
encounter with Jesus. Jesus, in offering
her grace, refused the opportunity to condemn her for her sin. However, those of us who want “just be
sinners” and continue to sin, forget the words of Jesus offered to the forgiven
woman, “Neither do I condemn you. Go on
your way, and from now own do not sin again.”[i]
Jesus told her to start living as a
saint.
My colleague that suggested we need to stop claiming to
be sinners and from this point forward claim to be saints offered the theory
that we as we claim to be saints, we will remember that we are called to be no longer
sinners, but to be saints—those striving not to make excuse for fallen lives,
but those striving to become more Christ-like in each and every aspect of our
lives.
Later in Ephesians, Paul reminds us that we are saved
for a purpose: “For by grace you have been saved through faith…it is the gift
of God…For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”[ii] We have been saved from being the sinners in
the long line of sinners descended from Adam and Eve, to be the saints that God
created humanity to be when He first formed us from the dust of the earth and a
rib bone—those who will live in complete harmony with him, one another, and all
of creation.
In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he puts it this way:
“What
are we to say? Should we continue in sin
in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin
go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized
into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been
buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from
the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly
be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self
was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might
no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin.
But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with
him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die
again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died
to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also
must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”[iii]
A claim to be a saint of God is not an arrogant claim
that we have achieved perfection, for arrogance and boasting, Paul tells us,
have no place among the followers of Christ.
The claim to be a saint is to say that we are those who were bound by
sin, but who have been freed from that enslavement by grace through the faith
of Christ. We claim that we are striving
to grow in our following of Christ that God may be glorified through the work
of the Holy Spirit filling our lives with the freeing, redeeming, and purifying
grace of God. It means we stop making
excuses and begin making full use of the grace that God freely pours into our
lives, that rather than making excuses for our bad behavior, we strive to live
for the glory of God…rather than make an excuse for participating in gossip, we
refuse to spread the gossip or listen to it…rather than make an excuse for
getting drunk, we observe moderation or even abstain from alcohol...rather than
make excuses for lying, we strive to speak the truth…rather than making excuses
for cheating, we seek to be fair…rather than making excuses for cussing, we
seek to offer the life giving words of Christ.
We don’t do any of this through our own strength or own our own, rather,
we allow Christ to live within us and through us…we surrender to that
redeeming, sanctifying—saint-creating grace!
My brothers and sisters, on this day in which we
remember the saints who have gone before us, and we join together in this meal
in which we are joined to the saints of the past and those of the future, let
us rekindle the fire within us to be counted among those saints. Let us remember saints are not only a thing of
the past, but also of the present. Let
us cherish the grace of God, “so that, with the eyes of our hearts enlightened,
we may know what is the hope to which he has called us, what are the riches of
his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable
greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his
great power.”
In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
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