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The Sermon given by Canon Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans
at the Deanery Eucharist at St Margaret’s on 20th July, 2006
Saints - St Margaret of Antioch, Ridge
One of my favourite saints is Saint Pyr. You won't have heard of him, he was a Welsh monk in the fourth century who founded a monastery on Caldy Island, in West Wales. What I find so wonderful about St Pyr is the way he died. It wasn't a glorious martyrdom or anything like that. The hagiography simply records that one year while celebrating Easter with his brethren Abbot Pyr drank an excessive quantity of mead, and on his way back to his cell tripped into the monastery well and drowned. What I find so impressive is that nobody in the Celtic church thought any the worse of him for this. They just remembered his kindness and gentleness, and his hard work in building up the monastery. And so they duly put him into the calendar, and quite right too. St Pyr, patron of the pootled (tipsy or alcoholically challenged), pray for us...
I suppose it says something about me, but I find I get as much encouragement from the faults of the saints as from their virtues. Take St Jerome for example. Jerome was a brilliant linguist and theologian, and they made him a saint mainly for doing the first decent translation of the Bible. But nobody could pretend Jerome was a nice man. If you read some of his letters to his contemporaries you'll find that for sheer egotism, gossip and venom St Jerome has few rivals. Yet I can't help finding this a cause not of sadness but joy. I suppose I feel it leaves me in with a chance.
When it comes to St Margaret of Antioch, of course, so little is known about her that it is rather hard to find fault. Though I suppose one might at least argue that her habit of bursting dragons was environmentally unfriendly and a danger to wild life…
And it’s no different with our modern saints. I was reading recently a highly critical article about Mother Teresa of Calcutta. One of her former nuns was writing about what an aggressive, domineering old woman she was. And I entirely believe it. I’ve noticed that quite often people who achieve real good in this world are rather aggressive and domineering; they have to be to fight for what they know is right. But of course that’s not the point. What made Mother Teresa a saint wasn’t that she was a nice, cuddly, Hollywood-type of nun, but probably the fact that she was a feisty old baggage with a bit of an ego problem - but one who was determined to show the dregs of Calcutta something of the mercy God had shown her.
Or take Martin Luther King. He’s one of my greatest Christian heroes of all time. He did more than anyone for racial peace and justice, his message has empowered the oppressed all over the world, and his sermons and speeches are so moving and compelling that I don’t doubt Christ was speaking through that man as through a loudspeaker. But at the same time, if you read accounts of Martin Luther King’s private life, it seems he had so many extra-marital affairs you wonder he ever found strength to climb into a pulpit!
No, saintliness is not the same as perfection, which belongs only to God. Most of the canonized saints were chosen not because they were perfect all-rounders, but because they had one outstanding gift or virtue which shone through them so brightly that the people who knew them couldn't help feeling, "God really is in this person". And it's important for us to remember this, because not many of us are good all-rounders either. Most of us are pretty mediocre in general, and probably all of us have some extremely dusty corners which we'd rather not have inspected. But all of us also have some particular gift through which God can be seen, and which is, if you like, our special potential for saintliness.
That's why scripture calls all of us saints, not only the ones the Church has canonized. St Paul often addressed his letters to "the saints at Ephesus", "the saints at Corinth" and so on. He was certainly under no illusion that they were perfect, since half the time he's telling them what a useless, good for nothing lot they are. BUT he still calls them saints, holy to the Lord, because Christ has counted us all holy, and given us all some gift that we can contribute to the whole body of his Church.
So it’s mistake to treat the saints as if they were perfect. But it's an even worse mistake to treat them as if they were dead. Too often when we talk about the saints you get the impression that they are just historical figures, dead heroes from long ago. But that's not what we mean when we stand up every week for the creed and say we believe in the Communion of Saints. You can't have communion with historical figures who are dead and gone. Communion is a here and now experience, a relationship, not with dead people but with living brothers and sisters in the family of God.
And how can you have communion without communication? You can't commune with somebody you don't talk to, and the communion of saints means the saints are there to talk to. It's a very good tradition, sadly neglected now, to choose a name saint or a patron saint, not only as an example but as a friend to talk to, a brother or sister in Christ whose prayers you can ask. Within the Body of Christ we are all one, whether we happen to be this side of the grave or beyond. As the hymn says, we have "friends on earth and friends above". We can talk to the saints and can pray for all the departed, and we can be sure they pray for us. If you really believe in the resurrection, death doesn't count, and down the centuries countless Christians have drawn immense support from a living sense of friendship, a fellowship with the saints who have gone before.
And if people try to tell you that bothering with saints is superstitious, or idolatry, or just for Roman Catholics, I hope you'll tell them it's nothing of the kind. It simply follows from our faith that in Christ death can't divide, we are members of one another whether here or beyond. That's why we have pictures and statues of saints in church. It's really just the same as having photographs of friends and relatives on earth. We don't worship the photo, but it helps us by reminding us there's someone there who loves us and cares for us. It's the same in Church. We don't worship saints or pray to them in the same sense as we pray to God. But it’s good to know they are there, that they do care for us, and that we can ask for their prayers just as we ask for our friend's prayers on earth.
There's one last thing. In a few moments the action of the Mass will make present to us the Body of Christ. This is what Jesus told us to do in remembrance of him. But this remembering is far more than just looking back historically to an example. When we remember Jesus in this way we mean we re-call him, he comes to be present with us now in the sacrament. But just as Jesus is alive and with us now, so all the members of his body are with us too. As the priest sings in the Eucharistic prayer, we offer the Eucharist "with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven". Whether we can see them or not, here we are surrounded here by the saints, - all those who were made members of his body by baptism, all who have conquered death in him, and who, because they are in him, still live, and live forever. And they - wonder of wonders - are part of us and we of them, one Bread, one Body, by him and with him and in him.
John Keble wrote about the Eucharist:
What is this silent might, making our darkness light,
New wine our waters, heavenly blood our wine?
Christ, and his Mother dear, and all his saints, are here;
And where they are is heaven, and what they touch, divine
Time stops now; the barriers are down. The saints are all around us,
and heaven breaks in. Alleluia!
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