(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “A Very Nice Thing to Say”, originally shared on November 1, 2023. It was the 283rd video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
We are saints and
sinners. Today, we’re going to find out why that’s a very nice thing to say.
One of my cousins, Pat Metheny, played a
solo concert at Royce Hall at UCLA the other night. Pat has played for over 50
years, recorded 53 albums, and won 20 Grammys and numerous other awards and
honors. So, it’s not surprising that he has numerous appreciative fans. People
at what looked like a sold-out concert were yelling “Thank you!” after some of
his pieces, which is a very nice thing to say to a musician.
I was speaking with the mother of one of our
pre-school students at Back to School Night at the church I served in San Dimas
several years ago. It turned out that she was an obstetrical nurse in a large
hospital where one of our son’s best friend’s father served as an obstetrician.
I asked her if she knew him. She said, “He’s a good doctor”, paused, and then
said, “And a good man.” I was able to tell him that. That’s a very nice thing
to say about a doctor.
Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in
the Star Wars trilogy of trilogies, told of a conversation he had had while
visiting a boy who had had an arm amputated in a children’s hospital. He told
Mark that he wasn’t scared because Luke had had his arm cut off. That’s a very
nice thing to say to an actor about his impact.
Sally’s mom was in the hospital and had had
radium treatment for cancer. Her pastor had to put on a protective suit to
visit her. Her mom later told Sally, “He held my hand, and he wasn’t afraid.”
That’s a very nice thing to say about a pastor.
Jacob Collier is an English Grammy
Award-winning multi-faceted multi-instrumentalist musician with a four-octave
vocal range and a creative appreciation for music theory. He spent a residency
at MIT developing software with MIT engineers that could create complex
harmonies from a melody in real time. I watched a documentary about that
residency in which a professor at MIT said that Jacob Collier made him believe
that there is divinity in the world. That’s a very nice thing to say about any
person.
God
created everything out of nothing and in the crown of Creation, God created
human beings. And when he did that, he said, at the end of Genesis 1:26-31,
31 God saw
everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was
evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
That is a very nice thing to say about human
beings. It’s the way we were created to be.
And, in the reading from the Bible’s book of
the gospel according to Matthew that will be read all over the world this
coming Sunday on All Saints Sunday, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew
5:1-12 some very nice things about God’s people.
Of the poor in spirit he said, “theirs is
the kingdom of heaven.” To those who mourn he said, “they will be comforted.”
To the meek he said, “they will inherit the earth.” To those who hunger and
thirst for righteousness he said, “they will be filled.” To the merciful he
said, “they will receive mercy.” To the pure in heart he said, “they will see
God.” To the peacemakers he said, “they will be called children of God.”
To those who are persecuted for
righteousness’ sake he said, “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” To those who
are reviled and persecuted and spoken against with all kinds of evil falsely on
His account he said, “rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven,
for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. ‘
These are very nice things to say to those
who people their culture in their day, including the religious leaders, looked
down on. Jesus called them blessed.
But things have not changed much in some
ways.
I recently read an interview with an editor
of “Christianity Today” magazine who is a former church leader in the Baptist
denomination. He said that pastors are increasingly telling him that church
members are coming up to them, after even parenthetically mentioning the
Beatitudes (“Blessed are the…) section of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount”, in this
coming All Saints Sunday’s Gospel reading, Matthew 5:1-12, and
asking the pastors where they got those “liberal talking points”.
When the pastors would say that they were
literally quoting the words of Jesus Christ, the response was, “that doesn’t
work for me anymore. That’s weak.”
God does not see the world the way the world
sees itself, especially those who believe that they are in power. God values
the relationship with God for which we were created.
God values the transformed life that God
gives to all who receive it. He paid for it at the cross. It is those who know that
they are sinners, broken and in need, who have nowhere else to turn except to God
that are most likely to open their heart to receive the gift of reconciliation
given to them at the cross. The powerful think that they don’t need any help.
What is our ministry to them?
Popular wisdom was once, “If you can’t say
something nice about a person, don’t say anything at all.”
I like to think that that wisdom comes from
16th Century Church reformer Martin Luther’s explanation of The
Eighth Commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
He said, “What is this? (or What does this mean?)
We are to fear and love God, so that we do not tell lies about our neighbors,
betray or slander them, or destroy their reputations. Instead we are to come to
their defense, speak well of them, and interpret everything they do in the best
possible light.”
What if everyone spoke in this way? It would
make the world an almost unfathomably much better place, a much holier place
because it would reflect the grace of God in action.
Some people think that being a saint is
about our behavior.
Like in the story of two brothers who ran a
small town. They cheated, they stole, and they bullied their way into control,
and everybody hated them.
One day, one of the brothers died. The surviving brother, though nobody could
remember him ever being at all religious, went to the pastor of a church in
this town and made a proposition.
“My brother and I own this town and everyone in it. And now I own it by
myself,” he said. “I want my brother’s funeral to be in this church and I want
you to lead it. And I’ll give a big donation to your church but, in exchange, I
want you to say at the funeral, ‘He was a saint.’ What do you say?”
To everyone’s surprise the pastor said, “OK”.
On the day of the funeral, the brother directed everyone in town to attend.
When it came time for the pastor to speak, the pastor went to the casket and
said, “Everyone knew this man. He and his brother ran this town. He was a
bully, a thief, a coward, and a cheat. He thought that he could buy anyone and
anything. But, compared to his brother, ‘He was a saint!”
That’s pretty much not what it means
to be a saint, unless you know that being that kind of saint is only the result
of a transformed life lived in response to the gift of a living relationship
with the one true living God.
Some Christian denominations believe that
the term “saint” is an honorific title given to someone who has achieved
holiness. The term halo comes from the same root as hallowed, as in “hallowed
be thy name” in the Lord’s Prayer.
Martin Luther described the Christian life as that of being both a saint and a
sinner at the same time. We continue in Sin in a fallen world, so we are
sinners, but Jesus died on the cross to make us righteous before God, so we are
saints. All baptized and believing Christians have put on Christ and therefore
are saints. It is the term used to address Christians in the New Testament of
the Bible who are worshiping together at a particular place.
Sally and I were driving through LA the
other night after my cousin’s concert and saw an illuminated road sign that
said, “Welcome to Beverly Hills. Police drone in use.”
That was a new one for us. We used to see
signs that said, “Speed enforced by aircraft,” though I don’t think that I’ve
ever saw any aircraft. And, this time, I didn’t actually see a drone. Drones
would be cheaper and probably more effective than aircraft, though.
Maybe it was only a deterrent. A threat.
There is no threat in All Saints Day. Just
the opposite. God isn’t some buff guy up in the clouds, waiting for us to mess
up. God calls us his saints by the transformed life won at the cross for all
who receive the gift of the relationship with God for which we were created,
even when we mess up. All we “do” is to repent and receive God’s gift of love.
Human beings rebelled against God soon after
their creation, and evil entered the world. They earned only God’s
condemnation.
Jesus spoke of God’s actual disposition
towards human beings and their future in John 3:16,
16
'For God so loved the
world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not
perish but may have eternal life.
That is a very nice thing to say to human
beings. It reveals both our transformed life and everything about God.
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