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All sinners, all saints

Christian Century, Oct 22, 1997 by Peter Gomes, J.

Deuteronomy 6:1-9; Psalms 119:1-8; Hebrews 9:11-14; Mark 12:28-34

Tradition, G. K. Chesterton once said, is the "democracy of the dead," by which he meant to remind the living that while we may be the Church Visible and Militant, we are also the church on earth, and in the minority. It is easy to forget that fact as we go about our business being the Church Busy; indeed, the present-centeredness of the church may be its most consistent heresy. On All Saints' Day, the faithful living are invited to recall the faithful departed, and are reminded of the Christian character and virtues and, as in the case of martyrs, the exemplary deaths of believers.

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In New Testament usage, saints are those who aspire to the holiness of the Holy God whom they serve. Because the Holy Spirit dwells within them, they too are made holy. A saint, therefore, is one who reflects the sanctity of the God he or she serves: to be a saint in this sense is a sign not of perfection, but of fidelity.

Particular saints have days given over to their commemoration, but on November 1 all saints, famous and anonymous, are commemorated. A theme of the day is the saints in bliss, those who "from their labors rest" and who enjoy the felicity of God beyond the realm of time and space. These saints have fought the good fight, and we remember them, even those whose names are unknown to us.

There is another dimension to this notion of sainthood, one that prefers to emphasize the living identity of saints as fellow believers present and all around us--"everyday saints" who exist neither in stained glass nor in heaven but in the rough-and-tumble of our daily lives. This is the sentiment of the children's song for All Saints' Day, whose final verse reads:

They lived not only in ages past,

There are hundreds of thousands

still;

The world is bright with the joyous

saints

Who love to do Jesus' will.

You can meet them in school, or in

lanes, or at sea,

In church, or in trains, or in shops,

or at tea,

For the saints of God began just

like me,

And I mean to be one too.

Of all the Christian holidays, I find this one, in all of its senses, to be the most reassuring. I like the idea of the great and heroic ones who have gone on before: their names remind us that great lives were called to do great things for God. I like thinking of the saints beyond, not simply resting, but waiting for us to join them: they assure us of a future. And I like thinking of saints as ordinary people like ourselves, seeking to be faithful and holy here and now.

But that may be too easy. At least two of the texts under consideration remind us that there is a content to holiness, and that saints in any sense of the word are those who take that content seriously. Deuteronomy 6 offers a summary of what is expected of the faithful, a summary that every faithful Jew says to this day: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." It is the obligation of the creature to love the creator, and this is done not only by keeping the statutes and commandments of God, but by passing those statutes and commandments along to generations to come so that the mind and the continuity of the community remain unbroken. To love God is to obey, and to obey is to perpetuate the love and commandments of God from generation to generation.

It is the immortality of the community of faith--not of the individual believer--that is to be celebrated and to remain as a living witness to God. Fidelity is a corporate, communal act by which the community of faith is preserved. We understand this in the rabbinic response to the question, "Why does the Jew keep the law?" "It is not the Jew who keeps the law, it is the law which keeps the Jew." The faithful are those who understand this and perpetuate their understanding to posterity.

Jesus knew Deuteronomy 6, and St. Mark has Jesus affirm an ethical dimension to the fundamental law of Deuteronomy 6. When an interlocutor asks what is the greatest commandment, Jesus replies, The Lord our God is one, and you are to worship him with heart, soul, mind and strength. And you are to love your neighbor as yourself. "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matt. 22:40).

In its smallest and most succinct form, this summary of the law is expressed as love of God and love of neighbor, and the two are not to be separated. Thus one cannot simply sit in humble adoration of the divine at the expense of the human. Nor can one be filled, indeed even obsessed with feel-good good works and at the same time neglect the duty and reverence owed to God.

The saints in all senses know this and struggle with it. They know that the ultimate sacrifice of Christ enables their own efforts at holiness, and they know that this takes work (Heb. 9). Thus when the psalmist asks that God "Let me not wander from thy commandments!" and prays, "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law," he is asking for assistance in the daily hard work of holiness, the daily grind of sainthood. It is reassuring to know that those saints who went before us were aided by the very God whom they loved and served, and that this great cloud of witnesses is rooting for us now.

All sinners, all saints

Christian Century, Oct 22, 1997 by Peter Gomes, J.

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