The Sermon by Rev. Graham Crawford for Sunday 01 November 2015:

Today is All Saints’ Day.

It is a day that has been underplayed in the Presbyterian church over the centuries because of our desire to downplay canonisation and sainthood.

However, in our desire to downplay that aspect, we have swung the pendulum too far the other way. We have forgotten that the real reason to celebrate this day is to recognise the efforts of our predecessors to live lives of effective discipleship and thus to pass the faith on to the generations that followed them.

I suspect that if I were to ask you about Saints in this church you would mention folks like Joe Edwards, Greta Flett, my predecessor, George Cordiner, and others.

None of them are canonised. You will not find them listed in the Book of Saints. None of them were perfect, either. But they were all faithful stewards of the Gospel, disciples of Jesus Christ and saints of this church.

Today, in the lectionary passages that are suggested, we are being encouraged to ask the question: “What makes a person a saint?”

What makes a person a saint?

What made these people different to their next door neighbour or even one of their relatives? What did they believe? What did they do which separated them from the rest?

To answer that question we need to examine the scripture passages set for this morning, beginning with the one from Hebrews.

Start with the letter to the Hebrews

I really like when Hebrews shows up in the lectionary. It is an incredible book full of incredible theology that, for the most part, gets overlooked. This is partly, I suspect, because of an emphasis on Paul and the fact that this is one of the few letters of the New Testament not written by him.

In fact very little is known about the book, which is why, in the first four centuries, there was some dubiety about including it among the scriptures. However, the latest research I could discover this week is that it was probably written around AD 80 to a scholarly group, possibly in Rome.

The best arguments for who wrote it suggest either:

• Barnabas, who accompanied Paul,
• Apollos, who is mentioned in Paul’s letters or
• (intriguingly, one commentator suggests that) Priscilla and Aquila might have penned it between them – making this the only New Testament book written by a woman.

Whoever wrote it, however, not only had a fine grasp of Greek philosophy and Old Testament knowledge but was the finest writer of all the New testament authors, as it is written in the best Greek of any New testament book. So let us hear what this amazing scholar has to say.

The Blood of Christ
11 But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation.12 He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. 13 The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. 14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death,+

so that we may serve the living God!

Many of the clues about the authorship of Hebrews are present in this short passage.

In the reference to the perfect tabernacle, the writer is referring to the Greek philosophical idea that everything on earth is an imperfect copy of things in heaven and, by talking about the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer, the author is showing a very complete understanding of Jewish sacrificial law.

Even in these few verses, we can see that the author has a very good understanding of both worldviews.

The author also understands that all of religion is about access to God and that, because we are sinners and do not obey the will of God, sacrifice has to be made. Purity is a costly thing, something that we do not like to consider in the 21st century.

Yet, access to God demands purity. Somehow our sin must be atoned for. We must be cleansed. In the past that was done by animal sacrifice. However, according to this author, there is a better way – for these two reasons:

1. The first was that, while the ancient sacrifices cleansed your body from ritual uncleanliness, Jesus’ sacrifice cleanses the soul. In theory, all sacrifices cleansed from the transgressions of ritual law but it did not cleanse from “sins of a presumptuous heart and a high hand”, as one commentator put it. In other words, only Jesus’ sacrifice could take away the load of guilt from our conscience because: it was voluntary, unlike an animal; it was spontaneous, being the product of love; and it was rational.
2. A second point is that Jesus’ sacrifice was once and for all. It brought eternal redemption. That is why what we have in our church is a communion table and not an altar. We do not sacrifice Jesus, week in and week out. He paid the price for our sin on the cross so that we are now free from sin. This enables us to leave the deeds of death and become servants of the living God. Jesus did not just free us from sin: he enables us to go forward, living a godly life.

So, in asking the question, on this All Saints’ Day, “what makes a person a saint?”, the first answer is that they believe in the effectiveness of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

We believe he paid the price for our sin. We believe he brought us eternal redemption. And we believe that he set us free, to live our lives in response to his love.

That belief, that faith is what separates us from so many people who do not have that faith.

Like a speaker, at a conference a few years back, they have no concept of purity and what it takes to become pure. That speaker said: “I don’t think we need a theory of atonement at all. I think Jesus came for life and (to show us) how to live together, what life was all about. I don’t think we need folks hanging on crosses, and blood dripping, and weird stuff.”

For these people, it is all about how we treat each other, with no reference to God at all, no attempt to commune with the divine.

Jesus’ teaching on the saintly life

In contrast to that let us listen to what Jesus said about the life of a saint:

The Greatest Commandment
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
32 “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

When people, like the speaker at the conference, distil the faith down to “how we treat each other”, they are essentially cutting the two great commandments down to one.

They are saying: “Love thy neighbour as thyself and that is all you need to do”.

How can you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, if you have not been purified to allow you into his community of love? The essence of a saint is to live both of the great commandments: to believe in Jesus Christ as your Saviour and then live with him as your Lord. In other words, letting his love for God and for your neighbour be your rule for living.

It is how we respond to the offer, through Jesus’ sacrifice, and how we then go on to live our faith that is the mark of a saint.

You cannot divorce the two. You cannot love God through Christ in the Spirit but ignore your neighbour and be a saint. Nor can you pour out all your love on your neighbour, without loving God through Christ, in the Spirit, and be a saint.

So, on this All Saints Day, as we remember the many saints of the church – saints who kept the faith and so influenced us that we maintain the faith – let us commit ourselves afresh to being the saints of the church, in the future.

Let us commit to loving God through Christ, believing in his once-and-for-all sacrifice for our sins.

Let us commit to loving our neighbour, to growing in Christ, to following the narrow path of discipleship.

Let us echo the words of Ruth to Naomi as we affirm the place of the saints in our lives by saying: “Your people will be my people and your God will be our God.”

Thanks be to that God.

Amen.

Image by Aaron Burden via Unsplash.