At the start of the month on the first we celebrate All Saints. A festival to celebrate all the saints, not just the named, the ones we know but also the ones we do not know or are obscured for one reason or not. Paul addresses his letter to the saints in Ephesus but what were their names? Who are these saints that we celebrate at the beginning of November each year? The forgotten ones the ones that we neither know of nor learn about. The everyday people who believed in Christ living in Ephesus, Rome, Corowa and every other place that has a Christian church. We celebrate ourselves. Yet, is it really enough to state this truth or is there actually more to our celebration than this simplicity?
In celebrating ourselves aren't we being a bit vain rather than celebrating what being a saint really means to our daily lives? I cannot really consider myself a saint, I believe, unless that something more is the truth within my life. Paul writing to the Ephesians is very particular in his terminology (1:13-14) by using words such as truth, believed, marked and redemption. We can perhaps all say that these things apply to us especially if we have been baptised and are worshipping in the here and now but I am troubled if this is all there is to it, much as Daniel was after his visions (Dan 7). Daniel's visions describe the ages of man and the various ME conquests during his period and foreseeing the Roman occupation. This is really meaningless for us to a certain extent other than to be a reminder of the disquiet that such visions bring when we look to the future of the world, if we do not change ourselves and become one with the saints of this and every other age.
It is on us to conform to the words of Paul and discover the pattern towards being a saint in truth, word and deed. Our starting place is in the words of Christ to his disciples seen in the words of the Sermon on the plain (Lk. 6.20-31) (or in Matthew the Sermon on the Mount). These words have been dissected over time by numerous theologians for numerous directions and understandings. Perhaps, first and foremost is to understand that these are words said not to theologians but to ordinary people and thus are likely to have ordinary meanings in their lives. Interpreting them for a theological purpose perhaps defeats the object of the exercise whilst acknowledging that however we look at them we have our own view point that influences what we understand. If this is the case then we as normal people, non-theologians, need to understand these words and sentences in terms of our day to day lives and not necessarily as theological conundrums that can only be given by scholars in their ivory seeming towers.
The crux of the conversation that Christ has with those that follow him are in the final passage of Luke's rendition of the scene (6.27-30). It is in these phrases that we glimpse the truth of our way of acting and living within society. A way that is contrary to every society that humanity has delivered in the history of humanity on earth. It is no wonder that we know so little about the saints for they live lives that are contrary to the society in which they live and will not be found on the pages of history unless as a sub-story that is neglected and left in the cobwebs at the back of the shelf. This is the way of love which is perhaps the hardest way to live in any society in the world as it contravenes all the accepted norms of modernity that proclaims the selfishness of the self over the other. The no nonsense statements, known as the Beatitudes in Matthew, let us know how this is achieved and in Luke sets up the opposites so that there can be no escape from the meaning laid down.
We can only strive towards the achievement of these requirements as we constantly fail each and everyday. It is in the striving and attempting that we fulfil what Paul suggests in that we are marked as being different. If we do not strive to be counter to the current social pressures then we are not true to our calling in Christ as such a calling is to the truth of life in God which is a life that is situated in love rather than in the acceptance of what society tells us. Only then can we count ourselves as being among the saints as we celebrate the truth of life today.
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