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.

 

[i] John 8:11b
[ii] Ephesians 2:8-10
[iii] Romans 6:1-11

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