Modern Saints                                                                                  9/10/44

 

Scripture:  Romans 1: 7-17

 

Text: Romans 1: 7a;      “ ---- called to be saints ----”

 

I suppose that not one would care to claim a letter that was addressed to “the saints” of this church.  Church members of Paul’s day were pleased to receive letters addressed in that fashion.  But we are not pleased today if one refers to us as “saints.”

 

Perhaps the reason for this lies in the fact that the word “saint” has come to have an unfortunate meaning.  We think of a saint as a pious person who has departed this life.  [canonized by the Roman Catholic church; martyrs, miracle workers, ascetics.]  Or we think of a saint as one who is distastefully sanctimonious, who speaks in pious phrases without much seeming reality to what he says.  And so we do not want to be considered saints in that fashion.  In fact, we shy a long way aside from it.  We don’t want to be considered passionless, sanctimonious, or angelic.  So we say, “Well I never pretended to be a saint,” or “You can’t be a saint in my business.”

 

The word “saint” sounds to us like a forbidding and undesirable word.  If it means one who is “perfect” then none of us have any right to be called “saintly.”  We are tempted, we have made mistakes, and occasionally we willfully do what is not right.  But I doubt if the word “saint” originally had any such meaning as we give to it.  It seems to have been an entirely proper and desirable word to apply to those who were early church members.  It must have been an honorable term, sincerely used when addressing Christians of that time.  And if it was honorable in the days of Paul, why can it not be an honorable word now?  Let us stop and think what a “modern saint” would be like.  Perhaps there are some genuine modern saints - good, human sorts of people, abroad in thhe world today.  What is a modern saint like?

 

1)  First, the modern saint is one who looks upon every bit of life as sacred! (not sanctimonious)  I do not mean that he or she is a solemn person forever preparing with stern face for death and the hereafter.  But the true saint realizes that all living has meaning and great value and that it is lived in the presence of the eternal God.  It is not to be swayed by more passing desires and passions.

 

Contrast, for a moment, the lives of two men who lived in widely separated times and circumstances - Paul and Esau.  The life of Paul was well poised, full of direct purpose and directed toward the great task of establishing Christianity all over the Roman world.  Esau viewed his life (at least when he was tired) as a cheap and easy sort of existence.  Paul said, “Ye are bought with a price.”  What did Esau know about being bought with a price?

“I am a debtor,” said Paul.  What did Esau know about being indebted to anybody for the benefits and opportunities of life?  Paul said, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of the living God?”  What did Esau know about enshrining an altar within the heart?  All he could think of was his appetite, as he thoughtlessly bargained away his birthright to his shrewd brother for a mess of stew to fill his hungry stomach.

 

Esau was a profane person.  I do not know that he used foul language.  His profaneness may not even have been that of a dissipated life.  But his viewpoint was essentially sensuous rather than sacred.  He would allow himself to view his whole life in terms of what he wanted at the moment for himself.  He was anything but saintly as he said, “Give me that pottage.  What do I care for a birthright?  What do I care for the future?  Give me what I want now.  I’m hungry.”  [Genesis 25: 28-34].

 

Esau’s mood is that of the baby who cries only for the thing that he wants, and wants now.  It is the attitude of the person who prefers what seems to be present good to what is always good, now, in the future, or anytime.  It is the philosophy of the man who uses his possessions and opportunities for self-gratification rather than for the good that he may do with them.  It cheapens and degrades human life.

 

Your life is sacred, given and watched over by God.  There is no such thing, in the last analysis, as a life divided into sacred and secular.  All life is sacred.  All days are sacred.  It is not right to say that the week is divided into seven days, six of which are secular and one sacred.  Every day is sacred to the best interests of living.  [The Sabbath is a holy day for underlining all of this.]

 

Your business is sacred - as sacred as mine.  The great question, is not only what you do with your business, but what does your business do to the lives of all those who are connected with it - to you and to everyone else affected.  Your leisure is sacred.  Its function is to refresh and recreate you, to make you mentally and physically more alert and fit for living.  The greatest sport in the world it to be mentally and physically equipped to fight for what is right.

 

2)  Again, to be a modern saint means separation.  To one who believes that all life is sacred, life is more than a bargain or a game.  When we speak of separation, we do not mean a feeling of mental superiority, or of social exclusiveness, or of desire to get out of unpleasant tasks - or of a desire to assume only unpleasant tasks.  When Jesus said to his disciples, “Come ye apart, and be ye separate,” he was inviting them to consider some of the vital issues and concerns and needs of humanity.  He was asking them to get hold of themselves and to prepare themselves for hard tasks that were ahead.  He was calling them to new visions, new opportunities, a new outlook.  (soldier, college student, explorer.)

 

Saintliness has been notably expressed in several ways since the time of the first disciples.  In the middle ages, it took the form of monasticism.  During this period, many men felt that the only way to be “holy” was to withdraw themselves, as monks, from the affairs of a pagan world.  Though we do not think much of the secluded form of righteous living now, there was much to be said for it then.  This form of saintliness may have saved our religious heritage to us during those days when the church had lost its hold on men, and when much of the priesthood had become corrupt.  It was the monks who kept faith alive and burning, who gave us new translations of the scriptures, who enriched the world with good music, and gave the world some of the most splendid creations of art.

 

Saintliness was expressed in another way by the Puritans in their separation.  The Puritan movement was based on high motives and the determination to worship God after conscience rather than according to the dictation of worldly power.  The trouble with it, when there was trouble, was that it became a negative sort of life, making Sunday a day of seeming gloom and sternness, and needlessly denying to people many of the common social pleasures.

 

These two forms of separation have passed, probably permanently.  The one thing that helped us to overcome this “gloomy” aspect of religion is the new appreciation we have of the life of Jesus.  Jesus never lived secluded from other people.  He lived among people, shared their joys, and entered into the social life of his day - in love and trust among his friends; in boldness among his enemies.

 

But let us not be deluded into the idea that we can be into everything that goes on with spiritual impunity.  There must be separation from some things for the modern saint.  There are no hard and fast lines of separation.  But there are some things from which you must be separated if you are to live as fine a life as you can.  I can not tell you what those things are.  But you can know what they are.  What crowds prayer and the consciousness of God out of your life?  Perhaps it is some wrong emphasis on living, or some actual sin.  What spoils the fine appreciation of the best and most beautiful?  Perhaps it is cynicism or self pity.  What makes some of us think coarse thoughts and say crude things?  Perhaps it is carelessness or the easy companionship of people whose ways are cheap.  Whatever it is that tends in your own life to pull you down, “come ye apart” from it “and be ye separate.”

 

3)  A third mark of the modern saint is purity.  I do not mean that one may or should expect to feel boastful over a supposed “perfect life.”  No one has such a life of which to boast.  But in the heart of the saint there is the constant prayer and desire to be pure.

 

We may be told by some that every man’s life should be an open book that everyone may read.  Let us not be too sure of that.  Here we are together in this church, a group of people in a worshipful attitude before the Almighty.  We have a feeling that we worship God with pure and undefiled thoughts. 

 

But would any of us want to lay open his or her whole life to the gaze of the world?  There may be some things, some thoughts and actions in our past that even we ourselves hate to think about.  We don’t understand how we ever found ourselves in them.  How much less, then, might even our closest friends understand them!  There are times when we are very humble at the good things our friends say of us, knowing how poorly we deserve their admiration.  Paul was thinking of this when he said, “I do not pay much heed to what the world thinks of me, or what men say of me.  I do not pay much heed to what I think of myself.  I do not accept man’s judgment of me, or even my own judgment of myself. I accept the judgment of God.”

 

To wish for a life of purity and to hold purity as an ideal does not mean that you or I will surely exhibit a spotless page of living.  There have been times when, to our grief and chagrin, we have slipped and failed.  We do so in the presence of God, and we ought to repent (change our mind) in the presence of God, but we need not parade or make display of our failure to men.  To confess sin is not necessarily to detail it.  It is well and honorable to confess sin and mistakes before men.  It is an immense relief to lay them bare in private prayer before God. (value of counselor).  But the details of one’s wrong-doing are not public property and purity does not demand that they be generally known.

 

The purity of the modern saint is not to be merely negative, either.  No standard and no religion is vital that is merely prohibitive.  Purity demands that we cultivate the desire and determination to do what is good and to dislike and scorn what is wrong.  It demands that we be generous also with our fellows in their mistakes and shortcomings, just as God is generous with you and with me.

 

4)  Finally, the modern saint has the quality of humility.  In trying to account for the greatness of some men, and the smallness of others, it is often difficult to determine the reason, even after considering heredity, environment, intellect and natural abilities.  Probably the reason why some men are great is that they are humble about their achievements and capabilities.  Many a man has walked into larger duties, and tackled greater issues, through the door of humility.

 

The saint is not the Pharisee, but the publican who prays, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”  He is St. Francis as he said, “I am God’s poor fool.”  He is the one whose soul is not proud, but is humble in the presence of what is holy and yet is lifted up for service by God.

 

It is worth noting whom Paul was addressing as “saints.”  They sere not so-called important people.  Almost all the people of those early churches were ordinary people from ordinary walks of life.  They were really only in the process of becoming saints.  But they were people who believed in the sacredness of life, who were willing to be separated from any and every form of evil, who wanted to be pure, and who were humble enough to believe that God would make saints of them even though they did not, of themselves, deserve the honor.  Let the modern saint be like unto them.

 

It has been aptly said that the devil likes the sinner who falls and tries not to rise.  But the Lord makes his saints of the sinners who, though they fall, get up and keep trying.

 

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Dates and places delivered:

 

            Wailuku Union church, May 17, 1931

            Paio Japanese Church, May 17, 1931

            Pauwela Hawaiian Church, May 24, 1931

            Kahului Union Church, May 24, 1931

            Puunene Filipino Church, September 6, 1931

            Wailuki Japanese Church, September 13, 1931

            Puunene Japanese Church, December 13, 1931

            Puunene Hawaiian Church, January 31, 1932

            Kahului Union Church, January 21, 19

            Wananalua Church, Hana, November 17, 1935

            Pilgrim Church, October 11, 1936, AM

            Wisconsin Rapids, September 10, 1944

            Wisconsin Rapids, January 8, 1950