Small things with great love.

If you were to describe yourself to someone who didn’t know you or if someone were to describe you—what words or adjectives might be used?  Maybe you might say I’m fun or I’m witty, helpful—outgoing?  Intelligent, wise?  Maybe someone would describe you as having a Good head on your shoulders. 

Now I want to ask you—what about these adjectives--- Morally blameless, religious, holy and virtuous--pure.  Would anyone use these words?  Do you know what these words have in common –they are all words that I found on the internet to describe a saint. 

Saints are holy and virtuous. Thought of as morally blameless.

So let me get this straight?  Nobody in this room thinks of themselves as a saint?  No Saints here.

As you know today we are celebrating All Saints Sunday. We remember today all of the thousands of Saints whom church has said these are particularly holy and Pious and  are people we should try to emulate.    If we were at the Catholic Church down the street that would be the extent of our celebration, but because we are protestant—we have a much more expansive definition of saint—we include in our celebration not only the Holy and pious folks recognized by the church— immortalized in stained glass window—who have churches named after them--but we recognize all the baptized as saints of God.  Every single one of us in this pew-everyone of us sleeping in this morning or at home reading the Sunday globe.

Why don’t we think of ourselves as saints?

And maybe we don’t think of ourselves as saints—because we have the definition wrong. 

Maybe we don’t think of ourselves as saints, because we think that  saint have to do really huge things like start charities half a world away –committing  themselves to poverty to work with the poorest of the poor like mother Theresa did in India.

Maybe we don’t think of ourselves as saints cause we are not in church every week—or we aren’t down on our knees  praying as often as we think we should or our bible is covered in dust cause we haven’t opened it since 1982.

Maybe we don’t think of ourselves as saints because we are not morally blameless or pure or religious. 

What if saint hood were a little more simple than we think?  

This week Pope Francis laid out his own set of beatitudes in a sermon he preached  on all saints day.  His beatitudes were little different than the ones I just read he didn’t talk about the poor being blessed or the hungry being blessed.   But what he did do was lay out what I think are possibilities for our own sainthood--

Here they are-- I have changed the word blessed in the beatitude to the word saint. 

“[Saints] are those who remain faithful, while enduring evils inflicted on them by others and [they] forgive them from their heart."

“[Saints] are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalized and show them their closeness."

“[Saints] are those who see God in every person, and strive to make others also discover him."

“[Saints] are those who protect and care for our common home." Jim Nail—you’ve just been elevated to Saint hood.

“[Saints] are those who renounce their own comfort in order to help others."

“[Saints] are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians.”

There are some real possibilities there but I think it might be even simpler---But perhaps the thing that could guide us best comes from Mother Theresa—she once said , “We all can’t do great things, but we can all do small things with great love.” 

“We all can’t do great things, but we can all do small things with great love.” 

What if sainthood is simply  doing small things with great love?

  

Sainthood might be reading with a child.  Sainthood might be finding a way to respect the dignity of a person  at work that you have to fire or who you really don’t agree with. Sainthood might be volunteering to doorkeeper in our Godly play program. Sainthood might be finding a way on Wednesday to reach across the aisle and pick up that person who is utterly demoralized because their candidate didn’t win and they are having a hard time imagining what life is going to be like.  Sainthood  might be providing respite to that family with a special needs child.  Sainthood might be going to the town meeting and advocating for affordable housing.

Sainthood might be doing small thing with great love. 

I want to end by telling you a story I heard this week. It’s about an oil deliveryman in our area—this oil deliveryman delivered oil right here in our neighborhoods -he made his rounds Dover, Natick, Needham Wellesley.  And as he made his rounds—he began to discover something that poverty was not just a city problem—  that happened in Boston---he discover it happening right here in the suburbs—wanted to do something about it—this man and his wife started a food pantry in their basement.  I don’t know if folks would come to their house or if this man would deliver food from his pantry to some of his poorer customers.  As time went by though—something began to happen—this man’s passion for feeding the poor began to grow and other’s began to contribute their small efforts to a can of corn here and twenty dollar bill there—today in Natick there is a food pantry that serves  10,000 people a year it’s called a place to turn—because someone  that man did something small—but with great love and it’s grown because a whole lot of other people have done a whole lot of small thing.

We will probably never be immortalized in Stained glass—we will probably never have churches named after us, but we can do small things with great love—we can be saints and we never know what God will do with our small actions—we don’t know who’s lives we will change along the way-we don’t know how God will use  our small efforts, but I know God does because in God’s economy small acts of great love  are never wasted.

Dear Saints of God-- what small things with great love might you be called to do today and this week?

AMEN