Surprising Vision

  

That sharp-tongued genius G. K. Chesterton once said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”[1]

Well, not quite. There are a few who have actually tried it, but such a few it should make us blush to celebrate the feast of All Saints. So what is a saint and what manner of people are those we call saints?

First is the way that we speak of exemplary people of faith. In the strict sense, “saints” as the Christian Church uses the term, are those people who have been exemplary in the way they have lived the Christian life. They are the people that have believed when it would have been easier to lose faith, those who have persevered when it would have been easier to give up, who have loved when it would have been more natural to hate, who have given generously when everyone said it was foolish, who have risked life and limb when it would have been easier to run for safety, who have stood for justice when the mass of people cried out for vengeance, who have been cheerful when everything in them knew that their situation was desperate, and who have never asked for credit, who have seldom been recognized as particularly good until they were dead, and who have honestly thought of themselves as quite ordinary people following a quite extraordinary God. It has never been easy and it still is not.

Dancing Saints
Church of St. Gregory of Nyssa, Episcopal
San Francisco

A second use of the word saint is associated with persons who have endured great suffering. The Book of Revelation, reflecting an age of persecution in which it was composed, speaks of “those who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” In that sense, saints are martyrs, and martyr means “witness.” They have borne witness to the Power of the Crucified Lamb of God, and they have paid for their witness with their lives. So they are before the throne of God and worship God day and night with palm branches of victory in their hands. Indeed they are a polyglot bunch, from every family, language, people and nation.

And a third use of the word “saints” or “holy ones,” the ‘αγιοι of the New Testament, is to denote the entire people of God. You see this usage when St. Paul, for example, begins an epistle by saying, “Paul…to all the saints who are

Church of St. Gregory of Nyssa

at Ephesus,” or some such place. He means the entire assembly of Christians there.

It is pretty clear that All Saints celebrates all three categories of persons. But precisely because saints are seen to be moral and religious exemplars, most of us are generally uncomfortable with the idea that we could seriously think of ourselves as saints. And perhaps that is not altogether bad. Because if we walked around thinking of ourselves as any more exemplary than we already do (in some cases, not in all), we would have one huge problem of a world even fuller of inflated egos.

Yet there is a great big fly in the ointment. The irony is that the more reticent we are to see ourselves as holy, the more likely we are to give ourselves permission to oppose not just holiness but goodness as well. Drink that in for a moment. The more reticent we are to see ourselves as saints, as holy people, the more likely we are to give ourselves permission to oppose not just holiness but goodness as well.

How so? You and I both know that we have seen individuals, including our very own selves, who can be shockingly insensitive, downright mean and nasty, perfectly hateful one minute, and turn around the next and do something generous or nice or helpful. One of the mysterious qualities of many of us is that we can be as sweet as pie on an individual level—never coming close to doing something cruel or unkind to a person we can actually see—but then turn out to be virulent haters of people who are different from us that we deem unworthy of ordinary human decency, let alone mercy. We continue to imagine that people who are personally congenial and polite to friends and close associates wouldn’t think of lying or cheating or stealing or taking advantage of the vulnerable or powerless. The truth of the matter is that much of the time good behavior is popular because it is socially approved, not because of some notion that it is connected with holiness or sanctity. We are good generally because it pays to be good, and we get complimented when we are. We are trained to be good and most of us are—to a point. More bluntly, we are ready to be good when it suits us to be, but ready to excuse ourselves from goodness when we find it inconvenient or taxing.

But are we saintly? Holy? Not only are we reluctant to see ourselves as either of those things, but few of us aspire to be much different from what we already are. Unless, of course, what we are is so uncomfortable for us that improvement seems to be the better course. What would it mean to be saintly? To be holy? To take seriously our vocation to live—dare we say it?—as the baptized persons we actually are?

Christ dancing, Church of St. Gregory of Nyssa

That is actually how saints are made: by baptism. But not because baptism is something magical that transmutes common people immediately into examples of holiness. It is because to be a baptized person is to be on a lifelong pilgrimage to explore what the Life of God is all about and how we can embody that life as Jesus did. You see, Jesus was not about pointing to himself as an object of worship, but rather modeling for humanity what a life lived in union with God is truly like. That is what holiness or sanctity really is: taking on the characteristics of the heavenly One, and living as nearly as possible as God is. That is why, by the way, that Jesus is so indispensable to the would-be lover of God sharing God’s life: he demonstrates in his words, life, and death just what it is for a human being to embody God. Impossible? Of course. But in and with God, all things are possible, even the transformation of quite ordinary people into very extraordinary human beings.

In the Baptismal Covenant we answer five questions after we have confessed our faith.

·      Will we continue in that faith, the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers of the Church?

·      Will we, whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?

·      Will we proclaim not only by word but also by example the Good News of God in Christ?

·      Will we seek and serve Christ in all persons loving our neighbors as ourselves?  

·      Will we strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being?[2]

Baptized in the River Jordan

If you want to know what being a Christian is, there is your answer. Do those things and you will be following Christ. Do those things and you cannot help but move in the direction of becoming more and more like the God who created you. Do those things and you will find that your false self, the ‘you’ that fears letting go of control, the ‘you’ that worries about whether you are enough and whether you have enough, the ‘you’ that is never really sure that you are worthy of love will slip further and further away. Instead there will be born in your body a new person who trusts more easily, frets less, quarrels less viciously, speaks the truth, and takes up causes like justice for the powerless that once frightened the starch out of you. Do those things and you cannot avoid becoming more and more holy. Indeed you will be on the road to sainthood though you may know nothing about it and in fact never have believed it possible. Faith is not about believing the possible. It is about trusting that the glorious impossible is worth giving one’s life to.

St. Dallán Forgaill

One way to put it is to let the vision of God be your vision for yourself. That is far from having an ego two sizes or more too large. It is indeed a way of losing your life—that is your cramped, false self—in exchange for the true Self that amounts to becoming the Christ who already lives within you. There once was a man known as a saint who left the world some words that have inspired thousands since they first were spoken and written in the 8th century, or maybe as early as the 6th, and translated into English and other languages in the early 20th century. Their supposed author is Saint Dallán Forgaill, who was said to be have been blind, which would make them even a more powerful prayer, since they are about true vision.

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,

Naught be all else to me, save that thou art,

Thou my best thought by day or by night,

Waking or sleeping they presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true Word,

Thou ever with me and I with thee, Lord,

Thou my great Father, thine own may I be,

Thou in me dwelling and I one with thee.

Be thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight,

Be thou my whole armor, be thou my true might,

Be thou my soul’s shelter, be thou my strong tower,

O raise thou me heavenward, great Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor the world’s empty praise,

Be thou mine inheritance now and always,

Be thou and thou only the first in my heart,

O Sovereign of heaven, my treasure thou art.

High King of Heaven, when victory is won,

May I reach heaven’s joy, bright heaven’s Sun.

Great heart of my own heart, whatever befall,

Still be thou my vision, O ruler of all.[3]

Eastern Orthodox Baptism: candidates are naked and fully immersed
symbolizing union with Christ's death, burial, and resurrection 

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[1] Quoted at https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/inspiring-quotes/20-wise-quotes-from-g-k-chesterton.html, accessed November 4, 2017.

[2] The Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Publishing Company, 1979), 305-306.

[3] “Be thou my vision,” Irish ca. 8^th century, translated by Mary Byrne (1880-1931), versified by Eleanor Hull (1860-1935), as found in The New English Hymnal (Norwich: The Canterbury Press, 1986, 1997), 339, and adapted by comparison with the text in The Hymnal 1982 (New York: The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1982), 488, and other translations. A history of the text may be found on the internet at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Thou_My_Vision, accessed November 4, 2017.