All Saints '07

The Romanian Pastor, Richard Wurmbrand, spent 14 years in prison under the Communist regime just for being a Christian. 4 of those years were spent underground where he was kept in a box. When he was eventually released his son asked him what he’d learned during his time in prison. His reply was that in all that time he’d almost forgotten a lot of the Bible, but he knew 3 things for certain; that there is a God, that Jesus is his Son and that love is the best way.

Today in the Church Calendar we commemorate All Saints Day, and for many Richard Wurmbrand would be the epitomy of a modern Saint. And as we celebrate All Saints Day one of the challenges must be to ask ourselves what a Saint is. This is the day when we remember and give thanks for the family of the Church united under God, and remember especially those that have given so much in the service of God and his Church through the centuries. It’s a day to look back with thanks at those who’ve done so much to shape the Church, but it’s a day also to look at the present and the future.

St Francis of Assisi was pretty good at offering some challenging comments. 2 of these thoughts were, ‘It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look’. And he also said, ‘While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.’

There are many definitions of a Saint, and few would be prepared to call themselves a Saint – I often do to Helen, but she rarely believes me ! But today we are called to be Saints within God’s Church, and I think in those 2 statements we are challenged to consider our calling again.

As we’ve thought about many times before, there is a perception, often a very wrong one, that the Church is a pretty miserable place, full of sour faced, judgemental people always ready to condemn, and another perception, equally misguided at times, is that it is full of hypocrites – people who say one thing but do something totally different.

And so as we commemorate All Saints Day, we do so fully aware that there are very few of us who meet the perceived expectations of what a Saint actually is. And there we are rather fortunate to realise that a Saint isn’t any of those things which many people would automatically think – a wonderful, kind person, always doing things for others, completely selfless, generous, encouraging, a person who never does anything wrong, a person who’s absolutely perfect and so on…

So what is a saint? Well briefly the definition of a Saint has changed through the history of the Church. In the first 300 years of church history, a saint was someone who literally got killed for Christ. There was no other qualification for sainthood.

Then, in 313AD things changed. Constantine became the Roman Emperor and he made a law that everybody had to be a Christian. He saw Christianity as the glue that would hold the Empire together and with the power of the Roman Catholic Church assured, some of the appointed Saints became famous and rather rich people who left great fortunes to the Church. It should also be said though that many more worthy people were also canonised during this time as well, but there was little doubt that the system of creating saints, in line with much of what the Church was doing became man-made rather than God led !

Then came the Reformation, and the idea of Sainthood was transformed surely to a closer version of what God would hope. As well as leading witnesses for Christ, Saints referred to loved ones and friends, and fellow Church members, in fact anyone who allowed the light of Christ to shine through them and out of them.

And then there are further definitions of a saint. A saint is a person who lives and puts up with a really unbearable person, someone who does all kinds of work to help those in need… or perhaps a player for Cardiff Blues…

In short a Saint is not a perfect person, but a person who allows God to work in them and through them. A person who is willing to accept their faults and failures and seek God’s help to put them right – in even blunter terms a Saint can be you…

It really means ‘God’s holy ones’, and we are God’s holy people. And we are called holy, not because we ourselves are holy or because we’ve done anything to deserve it, but because God is holy and we are associated with Him. God’s holiness becomes our holiness.

And so as we celebrate this day in God’s love we recognise Saints all around us – people through whom the light of God shines. There is the story of the child who was being shown around a Church one day, and she looked at 4 stained glass widows. The first stained window was really red, the next window blue, the next window green, and the final window was yellow. The sun had come up in the south and wonderful light was coming through these four windows. As this girl admired the windows she was told by the minister that each of the windows represented one of the gospel writers, St Matthew, St Mark, St Luke and St John.

After she was told this she told the minister she knew what a Saint was – she proudly announced, “A saint is somebody that the light shines through.” That is what we as Saints are called to do – not to let OUR lights shine, but to let the light of God shine through our lives.

The Saints of today are people who inspire us and lift us up to be better people. They don’t, like Constantine, force people to be Christians, but they inspire and they encourage, and they point people to the light of Christ.

There is a famous example of this from the lives of Dr. David Livingston and Henry Stanley. Dr. Livingston was a famous missionary in Africa and he had been there in the heart of Africa and had disappeared into the jungles. Henry Stanley went in search of Dr. Livingston after he had long disappeared, and finally, after a lengthy search, he found him and gave us that famous line from history. “Dr. Livingston, I presume?” The two men lived together for three months and some time after that Henry Stanley wrote his memoirs and he said: “Dr. Livingston made me a Christian and he didn’t even know he was doing it.” He inspired me and didn’t even try to.

Saints inspire us to live a life of holiness. They can be quiet and common, plain and ordinary, but they are windows through whom the light of God shines.

So what is a saint? A saint is a person who got killed for Christ in the first three centuries. What is a saint? Those people who were religious heroes of the church, had chapels and churches built in honour of them. What is a saint? Perhaps our grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, friends…

What is a saint? You ! You are the living saints of God. You are God’s holy people. And as the saints of today we must take into account the warnings of St Francis of Assisi, not to be gloomy in God’s service, but filled with his love, and not to preach peace whilst not feeling peace towards others in our own hearts.

In short we are challenged to live out the recognition of the words of Richard Wurmbrand – there is a God, Jesus is his Son, and love is the best way…

God, however surprising it may seem, takes enormous pleasure in our company… Our lives must be an inspiration to one another, and we must seek to let the light of God shine through us to others. AMEN