The Cathedral Close

Sermon Notes for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Trinity-2010
(Given at Saint Alban’s, Richmond, Virginia)

We beseech Thee, therefore, to help Thy servants whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy Precious Blood. Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints in everlasting glory.
–Te Deum Laudamus

Our sermon hymn, 243-“I Sing a Song of the Saints of God” is one of my favorites. It is at once a commentary on the nature of sainthood, a promise and a prayer. The hymn begins with the essential qualities of a saint-patient, brave and devoted to the Lord they loved and knew. Then we have the promise-saints aren’t just long-ago figures. There is the possibility of sainthood open to each of us:

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.

And, finally, there is the hope and the prayer:

there’s not any reason, no, not the least,
why I shouldn’t be one too.
And I mean to be one too.

We don’t hear this prayer—this aspiration much anymore. Today the average Christian and the average church member would never permit himself to be classed among the saints. We think of the saints as those who have attained a supreme degree of Christian perfection—a state we can’t attain to. As for the rest of us, how often do we hear, “Well, I’m no saint!”

But, you know, it is the privilege and the obligation of every Christian to make the saintly life their watchword. In the more robust words of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress:

There’s no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent
To be a pilgrim.

This conception, this desire to be like the saints, extends to every Christian to measure his living by “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” (Eph. 4:13)  So this morning, let’s think on the nature of sainthood, the qualities of the saints and see whether we “aim to be one too.”

First, the path of the saints on earth is never easy—it is hard and difficult. They follow e saints on earth is never easy—it is hard and difficult. They follow the path Christ Jesus pointed out to them with these words: “any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24) They followed Jesus along a narrow way—one that does not ground itself in the worldly.  It is mapped out in Psalm 66:

10: For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.
11: Thou broughtest us into the net; thou laidst affliction upon our loins.
12: Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.

How does a saint have the patience and bravery to live this life? First, there is a single minded love of Christ—the living Jesus that saints truly know.

On the eve of his martyrdom, St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote a letter to the Roman Christians. “He said No earthly pleasures, no kingdoms of this world can benefit me in any way. I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sakes is my one desire.” My one desire! My one desire…That is single-minded love of Christ.

The Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians then gives us a second aand very central aspect of the saintly life-prayer-prayer and thanksgiving. St. Paul says to the Colossian Christians, “We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you…”

 Give thanks to God no matter what the situation and prayer for others-that is the pattern of a saint. You know, the attitude of thanksgiving is a great deal more than a nice thing to do. The spirit of thanksgiving reveals the dominant attitude of our own lives toward others.

Nothing could so effectively evoke in St. Paul’s hearers the faith, hope, and love to which he longs to win them as a convincing demonstration of the same great qualities inis own bearing toward them. Nothing can help convert our like our own examples of prayer and thanksgiving to God, even in times of adversity.

And here is a key word in the passage-“always.” It is one thing to see the value of thanksgiving simply as a technique of persuasion and to take pains to use it when one wants to make a good impression. St. Paul was a pretty fine rhetorician, and these were skills open to him if he simply wanted to exercise rhetorical agility. It is quite another to express thanksgiving and appreciation as a sincere and spontaneous attitude, out of apassion for the souls of others.  “We always thank God … when we pray for you.” It is the expression of an habitual attitude-the attitude of a saint.

As St. Augustine pointed out, prayer, particularly prayer for others and prayers of thanksgiving lead to perseverance-another quality of the life of a saint. Indeed St. Augustine frequently reminded his readers that, “We are not sufficient to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God.” As St. Ambrose ventures to say, “For our heart is not in our own power, nor are our thoughts.” And says Augustine everybody who is humbly and truly pious knows this to be “most true”.

It is the humility to admit fully that our sufficiency is from God that draws us to prayer. It is from the well-spring of prayer that we gain “patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.”

And finally, in verses 4-5, we hear the saintly triad-Faith, Love, the Hope. “… your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints, for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven…”

In a temporal sense, faith is directed to Christ–a reference to what has been done in the past, the “finished work” of salvation; love is directed to our brothers and sisters in Christ—our life in the present; and hope is directed to the eternal spiritual destiny which awaits those who are in Christ–anticipation of the future.

In I Cor. 13:13, the three are set in he order of spiritual value. Faith leads into a life of hope, and both undergird a life of love, which is the supreme mark of the Christian. I Thessalonians stresses the practical effects-the outworking in a saintly life. Faith inspires service, loveenergizes it, hope perpetuates it. In I Thess. 5:8 they are portrayed as the armor of the saints-theChristian’s armament for spiritual defense against the attacks of cynicism, unbelief, and the insidious, unceasing pressure to conform to the ways of the world; faith and love become a breastplate, and the hope of salvation a protecting helmet for the fight.

This is the Christian world outlook-this is what the saints knew and lived and made habit of life. Faith in Christ binds the Christian to the eternal world in face of all the trials, temptations, and compromises which this world thrusts upon us. Love emerges as the necessary and only true expression of the new life in Christ. And hope? That underlies both faith and love.

Christian hope-the hope of the saints-is not man-made, but God-given. It is not the product of a resolute spirit, nor of a naturally happy and buoyant disposition. It rests on what God is eternally, on what he has done in Christ, and on what he will do when “the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11:15).

And here is a particular part for us-the “I want to be one too” line. We hear “the word of the truth of the Gospel; which is come unto you, as it is in all the world.”  “In all  World.” Here is the grand sweep of the Gospel. “God so loved the world … that the world through him might be saved: (John 3:16-17); “that the world may believe that thou hast sent  me” (John 17:21); “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (II Cor. 5:19); “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations” (Matthew 28:19). The saint lives a life committed to bringing Christ to others and helping them strengthen their faith.

The Colossian church did not just grow out of nothing. The Holy Spirit did not by-pass human agents in establishing the church in Colossae. Having thanked God for this community of believers, St. Paul mentions the man who brought the gospel to them. Epaphras was used of God to bring into being a new Christian community.  Epaphras was a Colossian—“one of yourselves” (4:12). Whether he was a presbyter, deacon, or layman we don’t know, but he was clearly the original evangelist of Colossae, possibly also of Laodicea and Hierapolis, which were close by (1:7-8; 4:12-13).

This beloved fellow servant of St, Paul, and faithful minister of Christ, was a true pastor and shepherd of his flock (4:12-13), constantly exercising a deep concern for them. Possibly his Christian witness there had got him into trouble. Paul calls him a “fellow prisoner” (Philem. 23:1), though this may simply have been a voluntary decision to remain and support Paul in his trials.

And this is the part of the service of all those saints, known or unknown without whom the “spiritual giants” could not have reached or maintained their prominence. The faithful life of Epaphras-his
steadfast witness led to the great affirmations of the letters to the Colossians and the Ephesians, which are now sacred scripture, to the permanent enrichment of Christendom.

God uses His saints not because of the prominence of their lives or situations, but because of the faithfulness of their lives. Being a faithful minister of Christ, Epaphras fulfilled his God-given destiny–Colossae may be no more, but the Epistle to the Colossians remains. Epaphras, I should say St. Epaphras for he is one, had his part in that.

St. Ignatius wrote a coda to his life on earth and a joyful greeting to his entry into the larger life. In a last letter to St. Polycarp of Smyrna, he summed up the saintly life.

“I entreat you, by the grace with which you are clothed, to press forward in your course, and to exhort all that they may be saved. Maintain your position with all care, both in the flesh and spirit.….Bear with all, even as the Lord does with you. Support all in love, as also you doest. Give yourself to prayer without ceasing…. Be watchful, possessing a sleepless spirit.….Bear the infirmities of all, as being a perfect athlete [in the Christian life]: where the labour is great, the gain is all the more.

In the end, these pieces—these building blocks of the great Christian life, and the lives of great Christians-the saints-form that walk “worthy of the Lord”. (10) A life so rooted “in all spiritual wisdom and understanding”, a life spent in prayer (vs. 9) progressively unfolds—“bearing fruit … and increasing, … strengthened with all power,. .. for all endurance and patience, … giving thanks to the Father” (vss. 10-12). Amen.