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You need to be a saint…
Devotional Thought of the Day:
14 Be obedient to God, and do not allow your lives to be shaped by those desires you had when you were still ignorant. 15 Instead, be holy in all that you do, just as God who called you is holy. 16 The scripture says, “Be holy because I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:14-16 (TEV)
250 I listened in silence as you said to me, “Yes, I want to be a saint”—although generally I have little respect for such a broad and vague assertion.
In Juan Carlos Ortiz’s classic book “Disciple”, he tells a story of a man who wanted to be God’s, who was in shock as God revealed to him what that meant, as God stripped him of everything, step by step.
His car, his home, his belonging, even his clothes, and well himself.
If he was to be God’s, fully sold out to him, then that is what is what God would give him. Eventually, the man’s vision had God entrust all back to him, to help him realize that all the man had been blessed with, he was accountable to God to use for the ministry God has entrusted to us.
Just as Jesus used all He was, to care for us.
I think that is what St. Josemaria is getting at, in the quote in blue above.
Being a saint, being holy isn’t a vague description, It can’t be determined by a broad overview of our life. Taking our 50 or 70 or 90 years as a quick glimpse, and recalling just the good things we have did.
Being a saint is seen in the small things, in the thoughts and words that betray what we do. In the moments when no one is watching, and in the moments when our hearts and souls are stretched tightly, ready to snap.
It is at that moment that sainthood is revealed, as we turn to God and cry out for mercy, as we cry out for help. It is then when we realize that faith isn’t just about the doctrines we believe, but the trust and dependence that God will see us through the time of trial. A cry that happens without thought, an automatic response to the oppression. A response of trusting God, no matter what happens.
But that doesn’t happen if we talk about being holy, about becoming a saint without seeing God touching every part of life, without knowing His love, and realizing it is beyond all that we could ever expect. It comes from realizing that love, about receiving in regularly in word and sacrament, in letting the Holy Spirit transform us, as we see Jesus, as we explore the dimension of His love.
We become holy, even as we confess our sins ( yeah – even that one!) and believe they are forgiven because Jesus for joy bore the cross for us. For confession happens when we trust God to love us, to be merciful and faithful to us.
Be holy my friends, cry out to the Lord for mercy… and as you receive it, as you relish and rejoice in being made clean, as you rejoice in being His, you will find, He has declared you to be, and made you into a saint.
AMEN!
Escriva, Josemaria. The Way (Kindle Locations 668-670). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
The Most Precious Preaching Lesson…I have ever learned
Devotional THoguht of the Day:
20 But dear friends, use your most holy faith to build yourselves up, praying in the Holy Spirit. 21 Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the Lord Jesus Christ with his mercy to give you life forever.
22 Show mercy to some people who have doubts. 23 Take others out of the fire, and save them. Show mercy mixed with fear to others, hating even their clothes which are dirty from sin. Jude 20-22 NCV
“I noticed,” Pastor Crabtree told me, “that as I told the story of God’s identification with us, of the pain God himself experienced in the death of his son, that the weeping stopped, that people, including Rebecca’s mother and father and fourteen-year-old brother leaned forward in their seats and listened intently. God’s story was touching them where they hurt most and giving them hope.
“Many people in this small town were deeply touched by the story of God. A high school history teacher, for example, said to me, ‘What I took home from that funeral message was this: this world is turned upside down, and Jesus is the only one who can fix it.’
“ ‘You got it,’ I said, and he answered, ‘Yes I did!’ ”
What can I say? There is no story in this world that is more profound than the story of God’s embrace. My dinner companions heard the gospel in a new way. And each of them, in their own way, is growing in the life-changing embrace of God, as I am and I trust you are too. For there is no story but God’s; no God but the Father, Son and Spirit; and no life but the baptized life.
As I looked on FB this morning, to see who I should add to my prayer list, it revealed ot me that this is a special anniversary, the day I took my then 7-year-old son home for the first time. Not home as in the place we live, but home as in the place that I consider my home. Not a house, nor a place where the family gathered, but the place I want to be more often than not. Not even a church, but a simple road.
It is the place where we could be still, or walk slowly, and just rest in God’s peace.
I mentioned it in a sermon once, a sermon delivered before other pastors, a sermon that was to be critiqued, and shredded, but there were tears instead. You can read about that time here: https://asimplechristian.org/2014/10/21/walking-with-god/
The reading from Dr. Weeber this morning also reminded me of this. My job as a preacher, as a shepherd is not to dazzle people with my theological acumen, or grind them into the ground with guilt, only to let them up at the last second. It isn’t to make statements about politics or drive them to give and support just causes.
That will happen, as I disciple, as I teach and counsel, as people realize what I am here to tell them.
That God’s story is their story, that their story completely involves God. We don’t walk on deserted stretches of road alone, nor do we drive the freeways of Southern California unaccompanied. Whether it is at the beach, or a party, or crying alone in a park, or even on our deathbed, He is here…. with us.
That’s what our people need to know, that God doesn’t leave us alone, and in order to be here, He does what is necessary, forgiving us, cleansing us, healing us, loving us, comforting us, welcoming us to share in His glory and peace.
He is here…in our story, we in His. He is our God, we are His people…..
That’s what we need to tell them…and that is what we preachers need to hear. AMEN!
Webber, Robert E. The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006. Print. Ancient-Future Series.
Walking with God…..
Devotional Thought of the Day:
22 They came to Bethsaida, where some people brought a blind man to Jesus and begged him to touch him. 23 Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. After spitting on the man’s eyes, Jesus placed his hands on him and asked him, “Can you see anything?” 24 The man looked up and said, “Yes, I can see people, but they look like trees walking around.” 25 Jesus again placed his hands on the man’s eyes. This time the man looked intently, his eyesight returned, and he saw everything clearly. Mark 8:22-25 (TEV)
212 Let us marvel at the lovable paradox of our Christian condition: it is our own wretchedness which leads us to seek refuge in God, to become “like unto God”. With him we can do all things. (1)
15 years ago this month, I was a young pastor, at my first church a little over a year. I was starting to crumble when a query about a church conference turned into an opportunity that changed my ministry career. I was offered the chance to replace a pastor that had dropped out of an exclusive preaching program at what was called the Fuqua School of Christian Communication. The Basic course was supposed to have 25 students, and one backed out. It was held at the Crystal Cathedral, in conjunction with other seminaries who made it part of their DMin program.
It required me to be videotaped during a short sermon, 15 minutes or so.
Most of the other pastors were from churches of 350-1500. Some were on television, some pastored famous churches. I was pastoring a church in the desert, one many have given up on. We would work 5 to 1 with some of the most famous preachers and christian communicators in the USA. My mentor was Juan Carlos Ortiz. If you’ve never heard him, in English or Spanish, you should. He is one of the most dynamic, deep preachers you will ever hear. He had the first megachurch in his home country of Argentina, came to the USA and started a church for people speaking Spanish at the Crystal Cathedral.
As I watched him shred the first four pastors in my group, I became more and more fearful. I was very stiff, monotoned and tried to stuff 45 minutes into 15. I could anticipate every comment he would make, and already feeling overwhelmed by my “peers”, I was wondering if his advice would be similar to what I had heard before. That I wasn’t cut our (some said I didn’t have the gift ) to be a preacher.
That’s not what Juan Carlos did. After shredding (very politely constructively and with the skill and elan of a world class fencer ) the more renowned and skilled preachers, he focused only on a 75-second portion of my message.
There, I told the story of the picture above, although thirty-five plus years in the past. Instead of my son and I, I was the son, my dad beside me, on the same road along the shore of Lake Ossipee in Salem New Hampshire. Then and still, this is the relationship we are to have with God, walking hand in hand down the road together. Sharing the problems of life, our doubts, our joys, our anxieties. We would ask questions about this life that puzzle us, Asking for help in making life right. (confession) And sometimes, it is simply walking in silence.
It is this communion that is what the life of a Christian is to be. It is how Jesus ministered to the blind man as well, taking him by the hand, and walking with Him. It is as St Josemarie talked of, where our problems, our anxieties, our fears, our sins are the very thing that drives us to God in the first place. There. everything becomes right.
What Juan Carlos told me was to tell this story, the same way. To get people to know the God who walks with them, as a father walking with his son. If I did that, everything else would fall into place.
Today I took that walk with my son…. today, I thought back on that lesson… today, perhaps you need to get back on that road you used to walk with your Father in heaven.
It’s time – let’s all go for that walk….
Amen.
Escriva, Josemaria (2011-01-31). The Forge (Kindle Locations 926-927). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.
