What is a Saint?

Here is the text from the sermon I gave during today's All Saints Day Chapel at the school where I am a chaplain.


All Saints Day Sermon

The number one question that I get asked on All Saints Day is “Chaplain, did you bring any candy from Halloween?”

The number two question I get asked is “Who or what is a saint?” What's most amazing is that the answer is simple to learn but very difficult to accept.

The definition of a saint that I learned growing up was that a saint was a person who did two things. The first was that they admitted that they needed God, that they recognized their imperfections and their sinfulness. The second was that when God called them, they said yes.

Like I said, it sounds simple. But it's harder than we think.

When we look at the saints of history, the saints that are celebrated by the church they all have one thing in common: they were sinful and imperfect people. They were liars, thieves, cheaters, and sometimes worse. They weren't people who walked around with halos around the top of their heads. But they also had a moment when they felt God's presence. It could have been at a time when they feared for their lives, or just a moment when they hit rock bottom and they prayed for God to save them. No matter what it was, they felt God's presence in a special way and accepted his love. They allowed that love to transform them, to change them into people who were still sinners, but who were willing to try and live a good life that focused on helping people rather than hurting them.

That brings us to the second part of being a saint; saying yes when God called. For some saints it meant choosing to become a priest or other religious person. For others it meant traveling halfway around the world to bring the Good news about God and Jesus to people who had never heard it. For others it meant sacrificing their lives for what they believed in. But they said yes no matter the cost.

I think this ties in perfectly with today's Gospel. Jesus is giving this beautiful sermon to a group of people and utterly confusing them. He is saying, blessed are you who are poor, or blessed are you who are being hated. I don't know about you but being poor or hated doesn't sound very blessed to me. But you have to look at the second half of his statements. If you are poor, the kingdom of God is yours. And if you are being hated, rejoice because your reward is great in heaven. Jesus is saying that the choice to follow him, the choice to follow God isn't easy. You will encounter resistance. You will suffer. You will have times when you aren't accepted. But if you persist your rewards will be great.

Now here is where this gets interesting. The only difference between the saints of the past that we revere and all of us today? They are dead and we are alive. We are all sinners and we are all faced with the same choice that they were. So the challenge becomes: will we accept the invitation? Will we be willing to say yes when so many others around us say no? It can be as simple as choosing how you treat everyone around you.

It's easy to think of names like Mother Theresa and Saint Francis of Assissi. They give such great examples of holiness that have inspired millions of people around the world. People have written books about them. But it's harder to recognize the saints whose names we don't know, like the teacher who stays after school to work with a struggling student, or a parent who sits and reads a story to their child after a grueling day of work, or the student who encourages another student through a difficult time. They are all saints.

I like to think that the reason it's called All Saints day is because we are all saints, not just for a day though. We are all called to be saints throughout our lives, to say yes to a God who is inviting us.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus offers a parable which is one of my favorites. He tells the story of a man who is throwing a huge banquet. He sends his servants out to tell all his guests that everything is ready. But instead of coming, they all make excuses. They all have something better to do. So he sends his servants out again and brings in the poor, the lame, those who have nothing at all to offer in payment. My brothers and sisters. We are those poor, and lame who have been invited but can’t pay. The question is, will we offer excuses as to why we can’t go? Or will you accept the invitation?

End Sermon.

At first, writing this sermon didn't make me think too much about my own call by God to be a saint. It was only when I began to see the way that God had called me in my role as a chaplain for these students and indeed the whole school that I realized I had to reflect further. I had students come to me with their personal problems and I guided teachers through their own issues as well. I saw how the love of God worked through people, lay and ordained, and how that love is so abundant. Yet if we don't accept it, it can be in dangerously low supply. What is a saint? To me it is a person who is willing to lay down their live, spiritually or literally, for God. It means to say "Yes, I will accept this love and then immediately give it to others." If that is a saint then I want to be one.