So, what do you want to be anyway? Sermon for The Sunday after All Saints

The Sunday after All Saints November 2, 2014 I don’t usually title my sermons, but today is a special day, this Sunday after All Saints—one of the 7 major feasts days in our Episcopal Church calendar. Today, you actually get a title: “So, what do you want to be, anyway?” I want to share with you a story. It is written by Thomas Merton in his book The Seven Story Mountain, and interestingly enough, while not considered to be a saint in his own Roman Catholic tradition, Merton is commemorated in our new calendar for lesser feasts called Holy Women Holy Men. We remember Thomas Merton as a saint on December 10th. Merton writes, I forget what we were arguing about, but in the end Lax suddenly turned around and asked me the question: “What do you want to be, anyway?” I could not say, “I want to be Thomas Merton the well-known writer of all those book reviews in the back pages of the Times Book Review,” or “Thomas Merton the assistant instructor of Freshman English at the New Life Social Institute for Progress and Culture,” so I put the thing on the spiritual plane, where I knew it belonged and said: “I don’t know; I guess what I want is to be a good Catholic.” “What do you mean, you want to be a good Catholic?” The explanation I gave was lame enough, and expressed my confusion, and betrayed how little I had really thought about it at all. Lax did not accept it. “What you should say” – he told me – “what you should say is that you want to be a saint.” A saint! The thought struck me as a little weird. I said: “How do you expect me to become a saint?” “By wanting to,” said Lax simply. “I can’t be a saint,” I said, “I can’t be a saint.” And my mind darkened with a confusion of realities and unrealities: the knowledge of my own sins, and the false humility which makes men say that they cannot do the things that they must do, cannot reach the level that they must reach: the cowardice that says: “I am satisfied to save my soul, to keep out of mortal sin,” but which means, by those words: “I do not want to give up my sins and my attachments.” So, what do you want to be, anyway? On this Sunday after All Saints, we have a relatively new tradition that we uphold. (It’s now a tradition because we did it this way last year…) After the homily today, you will be invited to come forward, if you desire, to light a candle. While you light this candle, I ask that you remember by name, either silently before God or as a whisper, the people who have been the saints in your life—all those who have come before you in the faith, those who showed us how to walk the way of Jesus in deliberately giving up our sins and attachments. As we do this, we will quietly sing many peoples’ favorite All Saints’ song—I sing a song of the saints of God(293), and we are mindful that at the end of each stanza, each of us will proclaim our intent that “I mean to be one too.” So let’s just say that’s what we want: we want to be a saint. How on earth do we do that? What does it mean or look like to follow what Merton says that in being a saint, we must live our lives in a way that means we are intentionally trying to give up our sins and attachments? The life of a saint is actually a life of paradox. That’s what Jesus is hinting at in the gospel reading for today as we listen to the Beatitudes from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Did you know that the word that is translated as “blessed” can also be translated as happy? “Happy are those who mourn, for they will be comforted….” The life of faith that Jesus proclaims is a paradox. And here’s the thing about paradox. Truly giving up our sins and attachments doesn’t happen when we try harder, (much to the dismay of this first-born, over-achiever who secretly believes anything can be attained if I just work a little harder—even sainthood). The life of the saint is actually achieved in and through surrender to God. Only then do we relinquish our sins and our attachments. So, how do we do that? How do we more fully live into that paradox? This past week, a friend told me about a sociological study that she had encountered. The report of the study is called The Paradox of Generosity. I didn’t have time to read the results of the whole study, but I did read the executive summary which hits the high points. This book is interesting because it looks at the science of generosity. It is written about the findings of a national study of two thousand Americans in 2010. The researchers examining the data then analyzed it through four-hour interview sessions with forty carefully chosen households. The book begins by defining generosity as “the virtue of giving good things to others freely and abundantly.” They continue that generosity is “a learned trait that involves attitudes and actions…[and ] is ultimately an expression of love.” I was struck by that because it is the overwhelming impression that I have of the lives of all those I consider to be saints—this attitude of giving generously as an expression of love. The study uses five measures of well-being to answer the main question: Is greater generosity, measured in various ways, positively associated with well-being? The five measures of well-being are happiness, bodily health, purpose in living, avoidance of depression, and interest in personal growth. The study also looks at various areas for generosity: voluntary financial giving, volunteering, relational generosity, and neighborly generosity. The study found that those who would self-identify as very happy people are also people who are very generous (according to the criteria set by the study); the study pointed out that the happiest people are those who give away 10% of their income; and conversely those who consider themselves to be somewhat or very unhappy do not have regular practices of generosity. It’s an interesting study and you can read much more about it and the findings, but in the essence of time, I’m going to share with you one of the concluding paragraphs: “‘The message of this book is simple, but we think also profound and important. Generosity is paradoxical. Those who give their resources away, receive back in turn. In offering our time, money, and energy in service of others’ well-being, we enhance our own being as well.’ This paradox, wisdom of the ages [which echoes much of Jesus’s essential teachings—in giving away our lives, we find them…], is now supported by quantitative and qualitative evidence. Practicing generosity leads to a general sense of well-being, while a tight grip on things and resources diminishes this sense of well-being.” So, what do you want to be, anyway? The beginning step on the journey toward living into your calling as the saints of God is a close as walking forward and giving thanks for those who have been shining lights of generosity in your own lives and in this world. It is as close as filling out a pledge card today for the first time or increasing your giving just enough so that you feel it. So what do you want to be, anyway? May God give us each the courage to live into the beloved words that we sing this day: “I sing a song of the saints of God….and I mean to be one too.”