Inheritance Among the Saints

Maya was sure. She would be a princess. She announced her decision at breakfast that morning. She had already applied glitter to her hair and anointed herself rather liberally with her mother’s lipstick.

Maya’s four-year-old brother Joseph wasn’t so sure. He was vacillating between being a clown and being Spiderman. When he got up that morning he put on his Spiderman shirt, but when he saw how lovely Maya looked with glitter in her hair and lipstick on her lips, he broke out in tears. "I’ve changed my mind. I want to be a princess, too!"

I learned about this drama from Claudia, their mother. Later the same day I met Joseph and Maya. By then Maya’s lipstick and faded, and Joseph was wearing a hybrid costume composed of a Spiderman shirt, a clown’s hat, and a liberal dusting of princess glitter.

I was delighted to meet them, but I didn’t attempt to talk to Maya and Joseph. The fact is, I’m no good at conversational Hebrew. You see, Joseph and Maya live in the village of Magdala in northern Israel – about two miles from Lake Tiberias, otherwise known as the Sea of Galilee. I met them not on October 31^st, as you might have thought, but on March 1^st, in the closing days of the Jewish festival of Purim.

You can see some interesting sights in Galilee during Purim. In Tiberius I saw a man at a bus stop, dressed as a giant pink rabbit. I also saw several young women dressed as angels – wings and all. They didn’t look at all like the angels in my Child’s Illustrated Bible. They looked more like the angels in a Victoria’s Secret commercial.

Purim in modern Israel has little to do with the Jewish faith. It’s an occasion for dressing up and having fun. Mostly it’s for children, but adults can join in, too. It’s the same for Halloween in modern America. Most of what happens on Halloween is harmless fun, and very little of it has anything to do with the Christian faith.

Some Christians think the church should reclaim Halloween for Christ. I think that’s a lost cause. Far better to reclaim the Festival of All Saints.

On All Saints’ Day, which we observe this morning, we remember that the current generation of believers is not alone. We stand amidst of a great cloud of witnesses that extends beyond the boundaries of time and space. We are members of a community that did not begin with us, but rather with God’s call to Abraham and God’s promise to be faithful to God’s people from generation to generation. Today we pull out the family album and flip through its dusty pages, recalling the saints who have gone before us, and giving thanks for their presence with us at this Holy Table.

A saint, you might remember, is a person who has been made holy by God’s call. Not all saints are heavy hitters with sterling reputations. In fact every saint, being human, is also a sinner. We Protestants don’t make a big fuss about the title "Saint" because we believe that all those called by God in Jesus Christ are saints. All of us, having been made one with Christ in baptism, comprise the holy people of God. Saints and sinners at the same time – that’s who we are.

When you came through the door this morning, Saint Amanda offered you a bulletin and Saint Hank shook your hand.  Some of you passed the peace with Saint Abigail, Saint Meg, Saint Sarah, and Saint Daniel.  Saint Claire is back there in the choir this morning with Saint Lillian on the violin and Saint Michael at the organ.  Saint Kathleen baked the Communion bread, and Saint Cal will count the offering. 

The church has always been the "communion of saints," but sometimes we forget who we are. We quarrel and wrangle and call each other nasty names. We fight over the silliest things – the color of the carpet in the parlor, for instance, or the sexual orientation of the elders on the session – as if being gay or straight makes anybody less a saint or more a sinner.

There was a time, in fact, when ordinary Christians didn’t think of themselves as saints at all. Only the big names were considered saints – Paul and Timothy, for instance, Elizabeth and Mary, and the martyrs who died terrible deaths. By the Middle Ages, there were long lists of official saints approved by popes, but no lists of ordinary ones.

Then along came Martin Luther with his radical notion that the servant girl who milks the cow is a saint, too. So is the stable hand who mucks out the stalls. Are not both baptized? Are not both called to the service of a holy God? Are not both justified by grace through faith? If so, it doesn’t matter what the pope says, Martin Luther maintained. The Bible says they’re saints.

Today’s reading about saints comes from the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians. We don’t know a lot about the Ephesians, except that they were a mixed crowd of Jews and Gentiles, high class and low. Most likely the writer of this letter, who calls himself Paul, was in fact a protégé of the Apostle – someone who knew Paul’s mind so well that he felt authorized to write in Paul’s name.

The letter is addressed to "the saints in Ephesus," and the whole epistle is shot through with thanksgiving.

Give thanks, the writer says to the saints:

And while you’re at it, the writer says, consider that you saints have something in common. In the world’s eyes you Christians are a motley mix of races, religions, and social castes. You belong in categories, but you sure don’t belong together. The world sees those categories clearly when they look at you: Jews. Greeks. Slaves. Free. Women. Men. Rich. Poor. In the world’s eyes, you don’t have a thing in common.

But the world is missing something. You have eyes to see what the world can’t see. You look at each other "with the eyes of your heart enlightened." Therefore you can see your "inheritance among the saints."

You’ve got saintly sight, and that makes all the difference. With saintly sight you can see, along with the Galatians, that "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28). That’s your "inheritance among the saints." God’s grace in Christ Jesus has made you one – one holy people – one holy catholic church – one holy mess of saints who are at the same time sinners.

Two weeks ago, 700 or so marchers streamed passed this sanctuary on their way to a rally at the Federal Courthouse. They carried signs, shouted slogans, and demanded justice from a system that most of them don’t trust. Most of those marchers have black skin, and therefore good reasons to mistrust the justice system. They called for Federal charges to be brought against the drill instructors and the nurse who caused the death of Martin Lee Anderson. Martin was the fifteen-year-old boy who was beaten on his first day in the Bay County Boot Camp, and died the next day.

I’m not sure those marchers will get what they called for, but this much I know. When the speakers at that demonstration took the podium, they spoke "saint."

One invoked the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, whom the king threw into the fiery furnace. "We’ve been in the furnace before," he said, "but we ain’t burned up yet."

Another assumed the mantle of Amos and called for justice to "roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."

Another recalled God’s charge through the prophet Micah to "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God."

Speaker after speaker, they all used the language of scripture. What were they doing? They were recalling "their inheritance among the saints." They were invoking a shared Biblical memory. They were claiming their adoption as the children of God.

Something holy took place that afternoon. Of course the entire event was fraught with ambiguity and self-promotion, with hubris and sin. Any and every human effort is. We’re sinners as well as saints, remember?

Nevertheless, something saintly was happening that afternoon because God, who is righteous and holy, was given honor and praise. Officially, that was a rally of the NAACP. It sure sounded like church to me.

During the demonstration, Mary Vance and I stood in the mouth of the parking lot, as close as we could get to the Federal Building without leaving the church grounds. I felt we needed to do something to show the marchers that folks at First Presbyterian are Christians, too -- that we speak the same language. All I could think to do was to set up four five-gallon containers of ice water and hand out cups of water to those thirsty saints who had come marching in.

It wasn’t much, but it was something. And I tried to remember, every time a marcher said "Thank you" for a cup of cold water to say back, "You’re welcome, brother . . . You’re welcome, sister."

You see, what you and I have in common with those folks is the same thing the Ephesians had in common with each other. We share "our inheritance among the saints." We are, in truth, brothers and sisters in Christ.

It’s fun to dress up and pretend to be someone else. Everybody needs to do that at least one a year. It’s even more fun to remember who you really are, deep down, at the core, where there is no pretending, and no need to pretend.

Look in the mirror today. Look "with the eyes of your heart enlightened." What do you see? You and I are sinners. You and I are also saints. We share an inheritance that is a holy gift from the holy God of sovereign grace.