Father Peter F. Hansen

Sermon for the 22 nd Sunday after Trinity - November 4, 2007

Unto the Glory and Praise of God

“… that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ… And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; that ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God. ”

The saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too. It seems too much to say. We know who we are. We know our faults, our limitations, our weaknesses, our many failures. A man who says, “I'm no saint or anything,” is our idea of a realist, a humble soul without any pretensions. The Feast of All Saints seems often to be about somebody else.

      It isn't.

      The Feast of All Saints extends the celebration of the lives of apostles, martyrs, great heroes of the faith of long ago, authors of great spiritual classics, virgins who died in the Roman Coliseum, men who sang hymns as gladiators used them for target practice, servants who stood up to kings, kings who stood up to bishops, to all the other saints we cannot name. The halls of fame in heaven are replete with great lives and legacies we only stand in awe of. The legends are huge. The legends are too big. Take another look.

      Our most recent world-renowned saint was Mother Theresa of Calcutta. People knew from decades before her death they were living in the time of a great saint of God. Her life of sacrifice on behalf of the poor inspired many who wrote about the strength of her faith and power of love she displayed while ministering in the shadow of a Hindu temple to the monstrous goddess Kali. We look at this diminutive woman in her Christianized sari and think, “This is a very special person,” meaning, I am not such a saint as she.

      Recently examined letters and memoirs from Theresa have emerged to show what painful doubts and empty prayer times she suffered for the same decades when we were so sure of her sainthood. Certainly the enemy of all our souls was particularly keen on destroying the faith of the world's most famous living saint. Certainly the depressing task she laid her hand to daily, ministering to the dying poorest of the poor, had to wear on her. Certainly God, who tests the best of us to our breaking point, pulled back His grace from her so to let her believe, if she would, that this was all her doing and not His. Certainly—we believe—she wasn't made of the same stuff as we are. But she was. She was just folk like me.

      She took her religious name, Theresa, after another humble servant of God, Theresa of Lisieux, a French nun of the late 19 th century. She was nicknamed the Little Flower, and did no astounding works, but lived a very brief life of great devotion to God. Mother Theresa would regularly acknowledge her own and our inabilities to do great things. She said, “I n this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.” This was her secret. Great love. And the doing of small things, too. It was a small thing to rescue a dying Hindu from the garbage piles of Calcutta and simply minister comfort, food and hygiene to him, praying for him, and loving him as she would love Jesus. In this simple way, she became the saint of the poorest of the poor.

      Twenty-six years ago I was sent to plant a church in Woodland by Bishop Morse. Among my first families was a mid-aged couple from Davis, Jack and Elaine Holt, with two boys living at home, one in the Army. I've known the Holt family now all these years, and we just laid Elaine to rest last month. At her memorial, her son Jim told a wonderful story about her faith, and explained why the guests had all been giving gold-colored forks with ribbons tied to them.

      It seems that when she was a very young woman, Elaine had polio. The disease had claimed many lives back then, and she herself was about to die. Her priest had been preparing her for her departure, and she made an odd request of him. “Put a fork in my hands before you close my casket,” she asked, sweetly. When he asked why on earth she wanted that, she answered: “At any wonderful dinner, when the plates and glasses are being cleared from the table, if the host tells you to Keep your fork , it always means that something else will be served, even after all these good things have been eaten. It's something to look forward to, something sweet, something special, the best part of all.” Tearfully, the priest agreed to leave a fork in her casket with her.

      But Elaine did not die. She went on to be a wife, a mother, and a welcoming host to a long line of surrogate children, besides her own three sons. Young kids kicked out of their parents' lives found a home and family where Elaine was. There were no miracles. She lived as long as people do. She died of cancer like so many. She didn't do great things: she did small things with great love.

      Jesus taught love in many forms with His own new commandment. The scope of this love was unlimited, for He instructed us, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven… Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:43-48 It's a high standard, but it isn't really out of reach of the least likely of us as saints. Just love. And think: this simple thing is equivalent to being perfect, godly.

      To love even your enemy is to forgive everybody. In the Gospel today St. Peter asks how often he needs to forgive, and Jesus tells him essentially forever. Christ went on to tell a parable illustrating forgiveness, the story of a king who forgave his servant a debt that amounted to a large fortune. The same servant went out and persecuted a fellow servant for a relatively small sum. The king rescinded his amnesty, seeing that his example of love didn't make an impression on his unrighteous servant, and so threw him into prison, making him liable for his debt once more. Jesus concludes, “ So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.” Mt 18:35

      What makes a saint? Is it walking on water? Turning water to wine? Raising the dead? Doing great things? Jesus did great things, and He was the Son of God. Some of His disciples have been given great things to do, but the greatest of these has always been doing small things with great love, in faith, to the glory and praise of God. It need not get in the papers. No papal commission need bother itself examining your life for a determination of its sanctity, or the authenticity of miracles attending you. If you are raised to eternal life on the last day, it is miracle enough.

      You are a saint.

      It's not too high a calling for any of us to aspire to. It is, after all, the only alternative to utter damnation, eternal fire, exile from God, everlasting torment in the dark—the fate we all so richly deserve. If you don't want that, then you want to be a saint. Believe me.

      St. Paul remembered Philippi. He had crossed the Bosporus from Asia to Europe and landed at this Macedonian city, where he got into trouble over the deliverance of a demonized slave girl. He just prayed that she be set free and she was. But she had been useful and profitable for her master as a fortune telling medium. Paul was imprisoned and beaten for this, but was set free after an earthquake, baptizing the jailer and his family. He later wrote the church he planted there, saying, “ I thank my God … For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ… And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.” Philip. 1:3-11

      To God is due all praise and glory. We were created to reflect back His glory, give Him His due praise, love Him with the love He gives us first, and show how wonderful He is by letting Him employ these otherwise useless lives for His divine purposes. This gives glory to Him. It causes others to recognize His existence, see His goodness, feel His mercy, know His forbearance because God Almighty would stoop to using just such a wretch as I to do great things. He does great things through us and in us as we do small things with great love.

      And what else is there in this life? What other cause could we pursue that might compare? Christ said, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.” Matthew 16:26-27

      We don't seek glory. We don't dream about being praised: crowds cheering us, mobs trying to get a look at us. Adolescents may watch their favorite stars and wonder what it would be like… but no. That's not the goal of our lives.

      The other night I was giving an invocation prayer over our police force about to face the night of Halloween when darkness is elevated and evil stalks the earth in the form of youth dressed in disguises and drunk in public by the thousands. I told them a group of local law enforcement supporters were outside the city council building waiting to cheer them on. I encouraged them to go out and let themselves be bathed in a moment of appreciation. I said, “It's okay if you don't think this appropriate or in proportion to what you face this evening. Go out there and bask in it anyway for a moment. Receive it for all the times you did your job and weren't thanked.”

      God has glory and praise at the end of all things, glory and praise for us. It isn't why we do it—it would ruin it were we to seek such things. But God is not a black hole, devouring all that comes to Him. He wants to share everything He has with us, even His own glory, praise, honor, eternal life, love, joy, miracles, along with the power to forgive. The saints of God are wondrous, but they are just folk like me, like you, like Elaine Holt. Doing small things with great love, unto the glory and praise of God.

             PFH+