C Cycle – Feast of All Saints 25

1 John 3:1-3

I have always found the Epistles of Paul to be interesting, challenging, and inspiring.  His letters referred to the body of believers as the “saints” knowing how easily human nature is prone to serve self and lacks trust in God.  I also have found it interesting how many saints were great sinners before they were saints.  Yes, we have many who lived their lives in a “saintly” manner, and we hold them up as examples of what could be if we embraced God early in our lives.  But it is the lives of the Agustina’s, Francis’s and the men like Paul who give us hope we too are destined for sainthood.

Pau’s words encourage us to believe in our destiny because we “have been justified by faith and have peace with God because of Jesus Christ” (Rom.5:1).  Yet, we seem to be uncertain our relationship with God is as secures as Paul writes and the saints believed.  We seem to hope more than believe.  Hope as a verb is definitive wishing for something we desire but uncertain we will ever receive or enjoy.  We hope we are pleasing to God, but our uncertainty drives us to strive for holiness by our actions. Instead of acting on our faith in Jesus’s sacrifice and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

We hope for mercy more than we trust in God’s goodness.  The original sin of Adam still plagues us because we fail to trust God’s promises.  Jesus said, “if you believe, we will have eternal life.” Each week as we recite the creed, we are acknowledging our belief in Christ’s sacrifice. But believe demands action not words recited by memory.  But internally, we hope more than believe.

So, the real issue is how do we move from hope to an absolute belief and trust in God’s mercy.  Yes, mercy because the mercy of God needs to be experienced by each of us. It is the catalyst of changing our hearts so we can live our lives knowing not hoping.  

Paul understood that mercy because he experienced it. Agustine understood that mercy because he experienced it.  Francis understood that mercy because he experienced it. Every saint lived their lives as examples because they experienced God’s mercy. God longs to have each of us to experience His mercy.  To feel Hi embrace and forgiveness to wash over us and change hope into faith. 

Faith! Not blind faith that believes the sun will come up each morning. Not blind faith that the vacation we booked one year ago will happen.  No faith is much more than a belief in mother nature or other people.  Faith is an absolute belief that od’s mercy is ours because God desires us to know we were created for holiness.  To understand how our own inability to forgive taints how we believe God will treat us. 

Have we learned nothing from the words and actions of Jesus?  His parable of the prodigal son is Jesus telling us what will happen to us if we could just get past our sins and go to God.  Jesus’s encounter with the woman at the will is Jesus telling us He is waiting for us to respond to His invitation to “give us what we need to be whole.” 

Come to me, and I will give you rest not condemnation.  Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones is the promise of God that the Holy Spirit will do if we allow it to wash over us.  It can take what is lifeless, inactive, wasting away and make it come alive and thrive. 

The saints the church has acknowledged are just a small fraction of the saints that responded to Paul’s preaching.  Let us celebrate those we know lived a “saintly” life. But also let us look inward and acknowledge what God has done for us to become faithful witnesses of the gospel.  To go forth and live lives worthy of what we have received, acknowledging we are today’s disciples.  

Our destiny is to be Christ like. To be like Him for we experience Him.  “Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure” (1 Jn.3:3).