---------------------------------------------------
John Maynard <maynard@sympac.com.au>
Bunyip, VIC 3815 Australia TEL: +61 356 295 355
---------------------------------------------------

Who are the Saints?

Ps. 24 / Romans 1:1-7 / Rev. 7:9-17
A Sermon by John Maynard

"The archbishop has gone home to his Lord."

With these words, Christians abroad were informed of the execution on
Wednesday, 16 February 1977, of Janani Luwum, Anglican Archbishop of
Uganda. He had incurred the wrath of former President Idi Amin, simply by
being what He was consecrated to be: a minister, a priest, a shepherd of
human life.

The executive committee of the World Council of Churches was at the time
meeting in Geneva. Discussion had ranged over ideas, policies, programs,
etc. etc. But then the word came through from Kampala. The atmosphere in
that meeting changed abruptly.

Rev. David Gill (of the Uniting Church in Australia) writes: "While we had
been discussing Christianity, a man had died for it. We came down to earth
with a jolt. Differences of nationality and denomination faded in the
background, all overridden by a torn grief, and an awed recognition that
God had given His church another Martyr.

"That evening a short memorial service was led by the Kenyan had of the
Presbyterian Church in East Africa. He began with the ancient words of
Lamentations: "See Lord what has happened to us; look at our disgrace …"

"Then we sang a hymn from Germany. Then prayers led by a man from one of
the African independent churches of Zaire, an Orthodox metropolitan from
India, a Methodist woman from England. Then -- slowly and quietly … an
affirmation of the Christian Faith in words learned from the United Church
of Christ in the USA.

"It was a glimpse, in microcosm, of the Holy Catholic Church - a foretaste
of what that church is called to be."

++++++++

What do we mean when we say in the Creed: "I believe in the Communion of
the Saints"? What does the "Communion of Saints" mean to you? Perhaps it
means many things. I hope, at least, that is means more than what a young
fellow reckoned, who thought it referred to the twelve apostles sitting
down to the Last Supper. It means that, yes, but it means much more: It
refers to ALL God’s people all around the world who sit, or kneel, or stand
around the Lord’s Table, who worship the Lord in a hundred different ways,
in a myriad of different voices, and express their solidarity with each other.

Who are the Saints?

Our first clue in answering the question is found in the opening verses of
Paul’s Letter to the Romans, where he describes himself as "a Servant of
Christ Jesus" chosen and called by God to preach His Good News." In just a
few short words (one sentence in the Greek) Paul sets forth his devotion to
his Lord, his call to be a minister of God’s Grace, an outline of the
Gospel, its relationship to the world, and then he gives three definitions
of those who whom the Gospel has come: "Called to belong to Jesus Christ
…" "All God’s beloved …" Called to be saints …" ("God’s own people" … as
the Good News Bible puts it.)

/Read from Romans 1:1-7/

"To you who are in Rome …" Paul writes. These weren’t perfect people to
whom Paul was writing. If they were, there would be no need to write the
Letter Paul wrote, which speaks of the essentials of the Christian Faith
they need to know and need to believe. Perfect people have it all together
already, but not these people! And yet, Paul calls them, "God’s beloved …
Called to be saints."

Now imagine with me, for the moment, these words falling on the ears of
small gatherings in the back rooms of back laneways and alleyways in
Rome: a hodgepodge of people - servant slaves and runaways, widows mums
and children, old men, and young soldiers in the ranks, shopkeepers,
sailors, orphans and teachers. In plain fact, these people were very much
like most of us with enough faith to make a beginning, enough of the call
of God to want to try to live according to His will. It’s to you I write,
writes Paul: "You who are called to belong to Jesus Christ ... God’s
beloved … called to be saints … called to be God’s own."

Unbelievable words for an unlikely lot of people … Yet for each of
them for each of us vitally true.

Someone once defined a saint as a person who "is cannonaded in life and
canonised in death!"

- a pretty apt description (isn’t it?) for the some who spent their lives
living and dying for the Lord: the heroes and the martyrs in God." Now
that’s a calling for you and for me: that in word, love and example, we
would make it easier for others to believe in the One whom we profess to
believe.

Most of us would shrink from the thought that we are saints. If we had to
choose between the labels "saints" and "sinners", most of us, I’d reckon,
would go for the latter as the better description of who we are. Sinners
we are yes! But we’ve got to remember: We are sinners redeemed! It is
Christ, not us, who makes us His saints and calls us to be His own for others.

Herbert Manning tells a story when he was a student pastor. It was about
a woman he used to visit, who was terribly crippled by arthritis. She had
come to this country from Sweden and had never learnt to speak English
without a heavy accent. She suffered a series of strokes that added to her
miseries. "But when I went to visit her," Manning writes, "Invariably the
conversation would go like this:

"'Hello, Mrs. Irelay, how are you?' - 'Oh, I’m better today.' And this
despite pain, and she said it right up to the time of her death. 'I’ve
been prayer.' - 'That’s good.' And then she would say to me, "Have you
seen so and so?" And she would name some prominent person in the town.

"Whether I’d seen the bloke lately or not, she would begin to tell me about
her Sunday School class of boys how mischievous they were! And she’d tell
me the things she tried to teach them.

"Now they had all grown up and gone out into the world with the things she
had taught, she hoped. But they were still her boys! I’d try to
compliment the old woman on the good job she had done, but when we got to
that place she always wanted to change the subject: 'I don’t know why they
let me teach them, but I’m glad they did.' Whenever I think of saints, I
think of people like Mrs. Irelay just plain, ordinary people (old ones and
young’uns) who belong to Christ Jesus, who are sure that God loves
them and want others to know that God loves them too!"

Fifty-seven times in the New Testament the word "Saints" is used. But
NEVER is it used in the Bible to designate any particular person. Always
the term is used to describe those who belong to Christ - saved
sinners. And always it is used in the plural. No specific person is ever
called a "saint" in the New Testament Greek, the reference is always to
the many: to the holy ones of God.

And so it should be: we are saints TOGETHER, never saints alone. We are
God’s dear one who need one another, who must lean upon each other, and who
are called by Him to share our life together.

I’ve heard the statement (and you’ve probably heard it too) from friends
and neighbours who say: "You don’t have to go to church to be a
Christian." Well, I suppose that when I get to heaven I’ll see a few
people like that "Secret Christians". But I reckon it won’t be the lot of
them. The whole idea of a private Christian goes against the grain of the
Gospel.

We are called to church to be in fellowship with the Lord and with each
other. God brings us here to sing praises to God together, to gather
around and hear God’s word together, to pray together, to commune at the
Lord’s table together, and to go out TOGETHER to serve the Lord and the
people God loves out there /... point outside…/ - TOGETHER.

And when God’s people God’s saints - God’s holy ones - do all these things
TOGETHER, they become what the Scriptures describe them to be: The Body of
Christ - bonded in Christ - by a common heart and will, which is His -
living and working together, as Christ Himself worked and lived and
died to the Glory of God.

Which brings me to my last thought about "The Communion of Saints" to which
we belong. It is not thwarted by so frail a fence as death. When we say
"I believe in the Communion of Saints" we speak of Christians alive, and of
Christians departed.

When I get to Heaven, I want to see my family and my friends, yes, who are
with me now. But I want to see those who are no longer with us in this
world, and yet, are still with us in the sense that our fellowship in the
Faith goes beyond the things that we see to the things that we don’t see

It includes the grandparents that I never got to know, and their parents,
too. It includes dear friends and family I’ve know and loved and lost. It
includes people like Archbishop Janini Luwum, of Uganda, and Father Oscar
Romero of San Salvador, and recent martyrs in the faith in East Timor and
Indonesia.

It includes the Martin Luthers, and John Calvins, and John Welsleys, who
preached the Good News of God’s love and the way of holiness all for the
sake of Christ and the Gospel. It includes the St. Francis’s of Assisi,
the Teresa’s of Avalon, who transformed the church in gentler ways. It
includes Saints Paul and Peter and John and Thomas - and the rest - who
took the gospel of Christ seriously and brought the church into being.

It includes all who lived and died as faithfully as they could, and some in
spite of their faith. It includes youn’uns and old ones. It includes all
who were called by God, who loved the Lord a little and wanted to love Him
more. It includes all who have gone before us, and all who will follow still.

Who are the saints?

You need not look too far from this place, or the world that we live
in. For it includes the likes of you and me - sinners redeemed - holy ones
of God - called to this Table and Sacrament called to believe - and called
to make it easier for others to believe in the Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world.

(In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit AMEN.)