Electing saints?

Today, we celebrate our saints, those from our congregation, and those who have passed on in our personal lives, especially in the last year. For some of you, it may feel weird to call them saints because you grew up in a tradition where you were taught that saints are heroically virtuous, nearly perfect people who sacrificed much (perhaps their lives) to advance the faith and even perform miracles. One achieves sainthood sometime after death when church councils elect them for canonization. These are church councils; don’t look for anyone running for saint on your ballot on Tuesday. It’s hard enough to figure out which judge to vote for.

How the Bible defines saints.

But in our tradition, we use the term saint in a broader context. New Testament authors describe all believers as saints on more than sixty occasions. The word saint means holy or set apart. The idea is that believers are set apart for spreading God’s loving kindness to a mean-spirited world. So, it is proper to refer to those who have departed as saints. I look at the nine we honor today, and they spread loving-kindness in the world. And they performed their ordinary miracles in their ways. The way Traci Reitz made every person feel welcome, the way Jennie Vandermaarl made prayer blankets, the way Dick Landes offered quiet, steady leadership, Robert Flippin’s wise counsel, and Glen Moeller’s steady service of hospitality. All of them brought countless blessings to our lives and this church.

Despite whatever flaws they might have had, they are indeed saints. And so are you. There was a sainthood election, and your name found its way onto the ballot. And you got the vote of the only one who counts—your maker. You have faith that goodness and love are in the world trying to make things better, and you are trying to do your part.

Tell the person sitting next to you that they are a saint.

I wonder what would happen if, instead of focusing on people’s flaws, we started to look for and celebrate the holiness at the core of everyone we meet. Isn’t that what we should be about?

Treasure in earthen vessels

In our scripture lesson, the apostle Paul conveys a beautiful image when he says we have this treasure in earthen vessels. Earthen vessels are clay pots. They get chipped and dinged over time, but there is something beautiful within. He’s saying that despite the ways we’ve been damaged by our hurts, failures, mistakes, and disappointments when things didn’t work out, the people we’ve lost that we couldn’t afford to lose. Despite that, we still have the priceless treasure, the image of God within.

And there is power in that to handle the myriad ways life can damage us.

We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed,

Look for the holy in the imperfect. 

One of Vincent Van Gogh’s masterpieces is a painting called Potato Eaters. In some ways, it’s reminiscent of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. But here, instead of beautifully adorned disciples with flawless skin. It shows ordinary, hard-living peasants with leathery skin and beat-up hands. Looking closely, you will notice a faint trace of a halo around each figure. If you go to any art museum, you will see that the saints were always portrayed as flawless skinned, super-buff, perfect beings splashed with brilliant light and majesty. But here, Van Gogh shows holiness differently, a treasure-in-earthen vessel’s way. He reminded us not to look to the perfect people but to ordinary folks like you and me for holiness.

We have this treasure in earthen vessels. Can you see the treasure within the person who votes differently from you, the person who has a different lifestyle, and the person who is so broken they break others? Sometimes it takes a long time to find it, but once you stop believing it’s there to be found, you’ve missed the plot of this whole religion.

Kintsugi–what happens after breakage. 

In Japan, there is an art form called kintsugi. It takes broken pottery and repairs it with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. These once-broken vessels are repaired and become even more beautiful and stronger because of the gold that fills the cracks. The philosophy behind kintsugi is that the breakage and repair are part of the object’s history, not something to be hidden but something to be celebrated. The scars, the brokenness—they are what make the piece unique and even more precious. And those things in our lives make our lives more beautiful and stronger from what we’ve been through.

There is a beautiful scene in the movie Good Will Hunting where Robin Williams’ character talks about his deceased wife and how she used to pass gas in her sleep, sometimes waking up the dog. He said she’s been gone two years, and these things he misses most, the little idiosyncrasies only he knew about. That’s what made her his wife. She let him know hers, and he let her in to know his. The question, he says, isn’t if the other is perfect but if you are perfect for each other.

I believe your imperfections make you perfectly qualified to do some good in the world.

Wounded healers.

Fredrick Buechner spoke about this when he described Christians as “wounded healers.” We are all broken in some way—cracked vessels. But it is precisely through our wounds that God’s light shines the brightest. Our healing, hope, and capacity to bring hope to others come not from our perfection but from our shared humanity and vulnerability. When you have been through something, you are more empathetic and a better listener than those who go through it. The stuff you’ve been through prepares you to be the person who can give hope and comfort to someone who’s going through it now.

Your song.

Another way of thinking about the treasure within is to think of it as a song. There is a song in your most profound spirit that is yours and yours alone to sing. It is a song about the unbreakable, priceless love within you–that can get you through any hardship. Like Karen Carpenter sang, “Don’t worry if it’s not good enough for anyone else to hear. Just sing. Sing your song.” And if you should ever stumble over the lyrics or forget the words to your song, this community is here to sing them back to you and remind you of just how treasured you are. Amen.