All Saints Sunday, November 2, 2014

Matthew 5:1-12

Today we celebrate All Saints Sunday. This is a time when we remember and thank God for those people who have died in the faith. And we look to these people as models for our faith life.

"Saint" means a sanctified person, someone made holy and pure or someone set apart from this sinful world. In the Bible something or someone is holy, not because of what it is or what it is made of; but something or someone is holy because it belongs to God who is holy. For example, in my house there are some candle holders, but they are regular, ordinary candle holders, not at all holy. But the candle holders on the church altar are holy, not because of their design, but because they are used in the service of God. There is an ordinary kitchen table cloth in my house, but the cloth on the altar is holy because it is used in the service of God: the sacrament is placed on it, our prayer book is placed on it. The Bible is called the "Holy Bible" or “Holy Scripture” because it is God's Book, God’s Word. People are holy saints when they are in the service of God. When we sing hymns or say prayers, our lips are doing holy things. When our hands receive the Body of Christ in Communion, they are doing something holy and so our hands become holy. When we live our lives for Christ, our lives are holy. Then we are saints. We are saints because we are connected with Jesus Christ, and it is the work of the Holy Spirit to make us holy. And this happens when we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior and receive his forgiveness of sins.

There are some really wonderful, good people who devote their lives to Jesus and do God’s work in society. Like Mother Teresa. Some people would have called her a “living saint.”

But the thing that bothers me is that when I think of Mother Teresa, I see that she was just so very, very good. Much better than I could ever hope to be. Because I know that rather than being a saint, too much of my life is contrary to the will of God. So much of my life is being a sinner, rather than being a saint. Rather than dedicating my life in service to God or to others, often it seems dedicated to serving myself. As we confess at the beginning of the worship service, "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves." It is the human situation that we are naturally sinners. Even baptized, born-again, filled-with-the-Holy Spirit, confirmed, communed, blessed, come-to-church-every-Sunday Christians are still in the human condition called "sin." The trouble with sin is that it comes between things. Sin comes in-between people and we envy, fight, hurt each other and make life unpleasant. Sin comes in-between us and God and we want to rebel and to be selfish. We are neither like a saint in the eyes of others or of God. And that is why God sent Jesus and the Holy Spirit. He sent Jesus to forgive our sin by his death on the cross. He sent the Holy Spirit to create faith in our hearts that will accept that forgiveness.

And so we Christians are going through life like Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde. In that story, Dr. Jeckle is a meek, mild mannered scientist who in the evening drinks a potion and becomes the violent, crazy person of Mr. Hyde. He is like a schizophrenic with a split personality. Sometimes we are a gross sinner, sometimes a forgiven, perfect saint. Sometimes we praise God for our eternal salvation, and sometimes we fear eternal death. We are at the same time saint and sinner, or as Martin Luther said in Latin, "Simul Justus et Peccator." In ethics, things are either right or wrong, good or bad, black or white. But a lot of people want to live in the gray area, because it is comfortable not to have to decide to completely throw away the bad. People say, "God loves me just the way I am, warts and all." But that is not true. God does not love our sin. If he did, he would not have had to send Jesus to die on the cross to forgive the sin that God hates. We are not living in gray areas, but in checked areas. There are only black and white, sin and holy.

This is the dynamic of our lives. We are at the same time saint and sinner, “Simul Justus et Peccator.” It is a very realistic understanding of our Christian lives. It is a contradiction, saying that we are saved and damned at the same time. But it is the powerful dynamic of God's love in our lives. The love that will wipe away our sins, that will wipe away our sorrows, that will wipe away our fears. In the midst of our deep sin and anxiety, there is the shocking, amazing, radical, awesome love and grace of God.

Today we rejoice and remember all those who have experienced this wonderful, amazing grace of God. We remember the saints of old and the saints of today. And we thank God that we are in their number.

Amen.

Michael Nearhood, Pastor
Okinawa Lutheran Church

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