Recorded Sermon

When Pope John Paul II died two years ago, over a million people filed past his plain cedar coffin to pay their respects. About four million flooded into Rome to attend his funeral or watch the service on giant video screens placed across the city. Around the world, hundreds of millions of people — maybe even billions of people — watched the funeral on television.

In Rome, a cry began to spread through the crowd, “Santo subito … santo subito.” The phrase also appeared on hand-painted signs help up by worshipers at the funeral.

Santo subito.

Translation: “Sainthood immediately.”

The fans of John Paul II want the Vatican to cut through its normal red tape and pronounce the pope a saint right away. He’s clearly a saint, they say. So let’s make it official.

According to Time magazine (April 3, 2007), the new pope, Benedict XVI, has moved about as quickly as possible to get his predecessor into the ranks of the holy ones. He started by waiving the normal five-year waiting period to begin the process, an exemption that had previously been granted to Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Although there are still a number of steps to take, it looks like John Paul II might make the fastest rise to sainthood in history.

The month of November, which begins with All Saints’ Day, is the month each year we give thanks for the saints of the church, those great role models for faithful discipleship who now enjoy everlasting life with God. Said Pope Benedict, very recently, “In the communion of saints, it seems we can hear the living voice of our beloved John Paul II.” He is convinced that John Paul is now communing with the saints in heaven, inspiring and guiding the church from his new location.

But why is it that people tend to focus on saints in heaven? Take a look at the Bible, and you see that the emphasis is on the saints that are living right here on earth.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes, “I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints” (1:15). Whenever Paul speaks of saints, he is talking about members of the church — people like you; people like me; people who have been chosen by God and set apart to do his work in the world. Saints are holy people, according to Paul, but their holiness does not come from achieving some kind of moral perfection. Thank goodness for that — I would never qualify. Instead, they have a holiness that comes from being marked as God’s people. God “chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world,” insists Paul, “to be holy and blameless before him in love” (v. 4).

God chose us and set us apart — this is such an important insight into saintliness. We know that the Lord God is holy because he is set apart from the world, and different from everything that he has created. Follow that logic, and you discover that we Christians are holy because God has set us apart from the world, and given us a mission that is different from other earthly assignments. To be holy is not necessarily to be better than other people. Just different. Paul says that we are saints because we are “in Christ Jesus,” with a mission to produce a “harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:1, 11)..

Santo subito … sainthood immediately. The challenge for us is to live a santo subito life, among saints who are at work in the church and the world. One of the keys to our Christian identity is that we are holy people, serving a holy Lord.

But what does such a life look like?

Paul gives us some clues in Ephesians, a letter that stresses the holiness of God’s people. “I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints,” he writes, “and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers” (v. 15).

Faith in the Lord Jesus. Love toward all the saints. These are the first two qualities that are present in a person who has been chosen by God and set apart to do his work in the world.

“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Paul continues, “the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power” (vv. 17-19).

A spirit of wisdom and revelation. That’s the third quality of sainthood — a quality we can enjoy right here, right now, immediately. This spirit of wisdom and revelation knows the hope to which God has called us, the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and the immeasurable greatness of his power. We don’t have to die and go to heaven before we can have this wisdom — we can have it in this world, santo subito. All we need is:

Faith in the Lord Jesus.

Love toward all the saints.

A spirit of wisdom and revelation.

These are the keys to a santo subito life.

So how do you achieve a santo subito life? The first step is to have faith in Jesus Christ. This means trusting that Jesus is the way to God, but at the same time taking seriously that this way to God is not a quick fix — instead, it is a lifetime journey. Researcher Diana Butler Bass reports that at Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church in Seattle, newcomers are invited to take part in a program called “The WAY,” a process that is not a quick membership class, but is instead a full year of mentoring and Christian formation. It is very similar to the mentoring program we have here at FPC for the teenagers going through our Confirmation Class. The goal is to help people come into a living relationship with Jesus that takes over the very center of their life. The Christian life is a life of “continuing invitation,” says Joan Henderson, a participant in The WAY — a life in which “Christ calls us to follow.” That’s what saints do, plain and simple — they follow Jesus on the way to God.

The second step in santo subito living is showing love toward all the saints. In the first days of the church, the saints were part of a community of love and concern, one in which love was demonstrated by acts of practical service. “Contribute to the needs of the saints,” wrote Paul to the Romans; “extend hospitality to strangers” (Romans 12:13). Widows in the Christian community were commended for showing hospitality, washing the feet of the saints, and helping the afflicted (1 Timothy 5:10). Paul spearheaded a collection for the church in Jerusalem, and described it as a special “ministry to the saints” (2 Corinthians 8:4). Today, as in the earliest days of the church, love needs to be more than a word, more than an emotion — it needs to be an act of practical service. We do this here at FPC when we fill Christmas stockings for needy children, and participate in the adopt-a-family program over the holidays.

Two of the saints of my childhood were Gladys and Paul Lewis, a couple of members of my home church who were teachers in the public school system. Gladys Lewis was my first-grade teacher, a kind and gentle woman who introduced me to the joys of reading. I’ll never forget a line from my first reading book — “The ram ran.” What fantastic literature.

Then, ten years later, I had Paul Lewis as my 11th-grade Math Analysis teacher. Paul was handicapped and confined to a wheelchair, but he was as smart as a whip and had a very dry sense of humor. As a result, he had authority in the classroom, with the respect of all his students. One of his favorite lines was, “It’s easy to earn an A plus. Just don’t make any mistakes.”

So why do I consider these two people to be saints? They showed love toward all the saints, as Paul says in his letter. They were devoted to serving me and my fellow students through acts of practical service, in the church, the school, and the community. Whenever I saw them, I knew that they were watching out for me; if I ever had a problem, they were there to help.

The third and final step in santo subito living involves gaining a spirit of wisdom and revelation. People who are saints in this life assume that God is always ahead of them, not stuck behind them, and they are constantly seeking to learn what God is revealing to them. A generation ago, entertainer Gracie Allen said, “Never put a period where God has placed a comma,” and this simple insight has become part of a recent advertising campaign by the United Church of Christ. There’s a lot of truth in it, because it reminds us that God is leading us into a future of new wisdom, new revelations, new understandings, new insights. Don’t put a period where God has placed a comma — saints take this seriously as they look for new revelations every day.

We should take this spirit of revelation with us as we look to the future of this church. God is always ahead of us, leading us into a future of new wisdom, new experiences, new understandings. God has great things in store for us in the year that lies ahead, and I hope you’ll make an investment in this future through your financial pledge for 2008, as well as through your commitments of time and talent. Never put a period where God has placed a comma — in the timeline of God, the best years of this church still lie ahead of us.

Faith in the Lord Jesus. Love toward all the saints. A spirit of wisdom and revelation. These are the steps involved in santo subito living. This is no pie in the sky when you die, but a life that we can experience right here, right now, immediately.

So let’s be the saints of God. Right here. Right now. Today, and in the year to come. Amen.

Sources:
Israely, Jeff, “John Paul II: How fast to sainthood?” Time magazine, April 3, 2007, www.time.com.
Bass, Diana Butler, Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006).