Scripture: Matthew 5:3-12; John 11:35 Series: 2020
An All Saints Day sermon on Matthew 5:3-12 arguing that sainthood is not superhero greatness but holiness, which anyone can receive by God’s grace rather than earn by birth or effort. Drawing on the etymology of ‘saint’ (sanctus/holy), Wesleyan history (the Holy Club, the 22 Questions, the origin of ‘Methodists,’ Wesley’s 1738 conviction of grace), and Rowan Williams’ definition of blessedness as ‘being where God would have you,’ the sermon reframes the Beatitudes. It closes by remembering five departed church members with altar candles, teaching that memory is central to Christian faith: the God who moved in the saints before us moves in us now, and death is not the end.
Illustrations: superheroes-captain-america, moses-burning-bush-holy-ground, holy-of-holies-temple, wesley-holy-club-22-questions, methodists-name-galen-doctors, wesley-1738-grace, ceb-happy-beatitudes, rowan-williams-blessed, jesus-wept-lazarus, all-saints-candles-five-members, all-saints-charlemagne, grief-mortgage-metaphor, great-chain-of-believers
November 1
Saints and Sinners
Matthew 5:3-12
Saint is a word with a lot of cultural baggage that I want us to let go of this morning. I want us all to take a deep breath, release it, and then I want us to talk about superheroes for a little bit.
Superheroes Avengers-X-Men
You and I cannot be in a comic book. There is this enormous gap of possibility between the X-men or the Avengers and us. If you or your kid said you wanted to be a doctor or engineer or even the President, there is path for that future. If you or your child said you wanted to be Captain America when you grow, sorry to break it to you, but that’s not happening.
Superheroes protect the innocent and fight the bad guys. They do what needs to be done but they don’t lose themselves in doing it. This is one of the most common plots in a superhero movie. How far will you go to protect the innocent? What are the lines you are willing to cross?
Okay, so we have the world of superheroes. Now, I want to get back to saints. Saint comes from the Latin word, sanctus, which means holy. Holiness is about being set apart for God. What is holy is different. When Moses encounters the burning bush and hears the voice that says, “Moses, take off your shoes, for the land you are standing on is holy ground.” In the Jerusalem temple, the central room is the Holy of the Holies. The place most set apart from the world where the High Priest only goes once a year.
Many of you grew up Catholic or Catholic adjacent. In the Catholic church, saint is an official category declared by the church. The Methodist church doesn’t have official saints. There is no canonization process. There are churches named after apostles called St. Lukes or St. Marks or St. John but there is no group that adds saints to a list.
But there is a lot of talk of holiness. Charles Wesley and some college friends started a Holy Club in Oxford in the 1720s and asked John to help them.
They came up with 22 questions to ask themselves daily. These are not easy questions. Here are a few. Actually, I want to read the whole list.
(22 Questions)
John and Charles and their friends were called Methodists as an insult. The Methodists was an ancient group of doctors that thought anybody could be a doctor. The followers of Galen thought only the best people from the best families could be doctors. John ended up embracing the name because he liked the idea that anyone can be holy. You are not born holy. You are made holy by the Holy Spirit. You are transformed. It doesn’t matter who you are, who your parents are, where you are from, what you do, you can be holy.
For Wesley, this opened up totally in 1738 when he became convicted about God’s grace. That it is not about what you do. You are loved fully and totally by God. And you can work with God to grow in holiness by doing the things of God.This is why there are methodists to begin with.
And so we come to the beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The beatitudes are often presented as this impossible ideal, kind of like waking up one day and turning into Captain America. It would be nice if it happened, but it isn’t going to happen.
Blessed or blessèd is a funny word, as well. ‘Bless your heart’ is not exactly a complement in the south. The word translated here as blessed is makarios, which can also be happy. The new, Common English Bible, translates the beatitudes in the following way and it can be quite jarring.
“Happy are people who are hopeless, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs. “Happy are people who grieve, because they will be made glad. “Happy are people who are humble, because they will inherit the earth. “Happy are people who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, because they will be fed until they are full.
Happy are the hopeless? Happy are those who grieve? What? What is going on here?
Holiness and blessedness in God is not about super strength or genetic superiority. It is about God being with you and setting you apart. As Rowan Williams said, “To be ‘blessed’ is simply to be where God would have you be.” (116). And God may have you be in places that look strange to the world. God may have you interact with people that don’t look like super heroes and for sure do not look like saints. What are we to do?
We are celebrating All Saints Day today, which is a tradition going back 1200 years to the time of Charlemagne. Today, we remember those in our church who have passed away over the last year. That is what these candles on the altar represent. There are many others who we have lost this last year that you can name in your hearts. As well, grief does not work like a mortgage that you can pay off and never have to think of again. We grieve because we love. If we didn’t love, we wouldn’t grieve. Jesus grieves Lazarus minutes before he raises him from the dead. Even though Jesus knows he will see him soon, the shortest verse of the bible still says: Jesus wept.
We remember saints in our lives. We remember holy people in our lives this day because we would not be here this day without them. We would not know faith or God without others who showed us how to live. Or even if we are new to faith or young in our faith, the folks who showed us were shown by others who came before them. The great chain of believers stretches from the life of Jesus and the apostles over the centuries right here to this very room and it stretches to the future, it stretches beyond us to the lives that we will impact.
You are not going to be Captain America or Wonder Woman, but you can be holy. Not because you were born that way, but because God is so good that God can transform even me. God can transform even you.
It is good to remember rightly. Memory is central to the Christian faith. Through the great chain of believers, we remember Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Through the memory of God’s actions in the world, God uses this memory to act in us. By remembering those whom we love who have passed away, God reveals the actions of the Holy Spirit in their life. And then (and this is the important part) we remember that the same God that moved in them is moving in us. The candles on the altar represent five members of this church who have passed away over the past year: Bob Bowen, Bill Kiely, Elzie Williams, Susan Williams and Dick Littleton. In lighting them, we remember. We remind ourselves that God moves in peoples’ lives and death is not the end of us.
Take the time to remember this day. Take the time to remember fully. Take the time to let God enter that memory in a way that transforms you and transforms us all. As I said earlier, “To be ‘blessed’ is simply to be where God would have you be.” To be a saint is not to be a superhero. To be a saint is to accept the love of God and to let go of the things that keep us from love. This does not happen by your strength. This does not happen by skill, but by grace. May you be blessed this day. May you be where God would have you. May you go where God will send you. May your remember how God has moved in the saints of your life. May you seek to show God’s love to others.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.