Rev. David Boyd

This is one of my favourite days of the church year. It's because of all the associations that come with All Saints Day or All Hallows Eve or the old Celtic New Year or Halloween—although, the Halloween part I don't particularly care about. And, to use a Celtic phrase, this is a thin time of the year. It is the time when the fall gives way to winter and all that this means metaphorically; it's the time when the days are short and nights long. It's the time when we're preparing for the long winter by doing a little cocooning, which means being more introspective and more thoughtful. But it is also a thin time of year because it is a mystical time, it is a kairos moment, it is a time when the veil between the spiritual and the material is thinner for whatever reason.

I have to confess that part of the reason that this festival of the church year is important is because I had some kind of a vision of my father 3 months after he died, back in 1985. I've told this story before: I was on retreat at Westminster Abbey in Mission with a friend. We ate with the monks and participated in the worship life of the Abbey. I had just started my theological education that fall and I was still grieving my father's death. During one of our last worship service there, I was sitting quietly with my friend during the communion part—we weren't allowed to partake—and I entered into a deep meditation. I had a sense of the communion of saints swirling around us, almost like a whirlwind, and out of this swirl, my father came, dressed in a green robe, and stood beside me. He didn't say a word and then, after a few moments, he slipped back into the whirlwind and I came back into the conscious world. The church was dark except for the lights where I was seated and one or two monks were still cleaning up after the service. My friend had long left me as he said I was in such a deep meditation that he didn't want to wake me. It was a powerful moment and important in my own grieving.

And I have to say that this experience, more than anything else, has given me new insight into what makes a saint. My father was no "saint"Ñhe was a workaholic who burned out at a young age. He grew up in a very dysfunctional family and had nothing more to do with his family when he was in his late teen years. Dad didn't really no how to relate to us children. But after that weekend at Westminster Abbey, my dad became a saint to me and I could begin to relate to him in a very different way.

Thomas Merton, in his book, The Seven Story Mountain, raises the question of sainthood; he tells of walking to Greenwich Village in New York with a friend one day before he became a Roman Catholic Trappist monk. His friend, Lax by name, asked Merton, "What do you want to do?" Merton replied, rather vaguely, that he wanted to be a good Catholic, whatever that meant. Merton's friend replied to this rather lame answer, "what you should say is that you want to be a saint." Merton was horrified, "I can't be a saint." Lax said that you become a saint by wanting to. Merton went on to think that he really didn't want to give up his mortal sins or his attachments—I can't be a saint!¹

I used to think like Merton, in his early years, until that experience of my father. I now think of my father as a saint. And my mother and my grandparents on my mother's side, and many other people I've come to know who have had a positive influence on me. I have to admit, though, that I can't bring myself to think of me as a saint, but that's a whole other topic!

Ron sent me an email of the Charlie Schultz Philosophy last week that comes closest to Merton's assertion that we can all aspire to be saints. Schultz is the Charlie Brown–Peanuts cartoonist and many books have been written about his philosophy in life. This is how it goes:

(You don't have to actually answer the questions.
Just ponder on them.
Just read the e-mail straight through and you'll get the point.
[I've adapted this for a Canadian audience.]

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Lady Byng trophy winners in the NHL.
3. Name the quarterbacks of the last five winners of the Grey Cup in the CFL.
4 Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.

The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday.
These are no second-rate achievers.
They are the best in their fields.
But the applause dies.
Awards tarnish.
Achievements are forgotten.
Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special!!
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

Easier?

The lesson: The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials...
the most money...or the most awards.
They simply are the ones who care the most.

Maybe they are also the ones who turn our worlds upside in love and compassion.

As I've said before, Jesus was good at turning people's worlds upside down. To the wealthy, he challenged people to see the world from the other side of wealth and privilege. To the poor and the disenfranchised, to the outcast and broken-hearted, Jesus welcomed people into God's Commonwealth of love and compassion. God's shalom is for all, Jesus said. And more than that, Jesus said that God has honoured you, especially you whom the world deems without honour, without status, without recourse to community, to health care, to love. In an honour/shame society, people would have easily understood Jesus' reference in the Beatitudes. Because Jesus was speaking to a mixed audience of poor and wealthy, I imagine in the Sermon the Mount, both would have been quite shocked that those deemed unclean or those who had lost honourÑand this is part and parcel of an honour/shame society—were said to be honoured by God and accepted, complete with our imperfections. Jesus turned the honour/shame world upside down and, to use today's language, he re-imagined what it means to be a saint. Richard Rohrbaugh has suggested that a better translation of blessed in the Beatitudes is honoured.

Unfortunately, we have this vision of saints as perfect people, who perfectly expressed or lived out the love of God or the love of Jesus in some special and unique way, or at least our perception is that they are perfect. And then we say, I can't live that out. But that's really not fair because we set ourselves up to fail when we expect perfection.

To be a saint isn't to be perfect, and we oughtn't to aspire to perfection. To be a saint is to seek to live a life of influence and love with those around us. To be a saint is to practice the meaning of forgiveness and intentional living. To be a saint is to be authentic and true to our humanity in all its wholeness, not aspire to live beyond it on a spiritual plane only. To be a saint, is to hold in our hearts the vision of honour and blessing that Jesus proclaimed and live in that vision. And we can only do that in the give-and-take community with others. As John Wesley and other "saints" of the church have said, "you practice salvation until you live it. You practice being a saint, until the gift is yours. You work at blessedness until the vision is fully lived." And it's a dance: off to the side, backwards, forwards, always listening for the music and the beat, ready to pick up the dance again when we lose a step. That's what it means to be a saint, to live fully our giftedness and the vision of love and compassion that honour all life!

Have a blessed All Saints Day! Amen.

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¹ My recollection of this part of Thomas Merton's Book, The Seven Story Mountain, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1948.
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