11/06/2011 WHAT MAKES A SAINT?
WHAT MAKES A SAINT?
What makes a saint?
One common answer is: a person who deals with great adversity by making personal sacrifices. “My mother is a saint, God rest her soul. What I put her through. Anyone who could put up with my behavior when I was growing up has to be a saint!” Or, “Fran is a saint. To be married to such a difficult spouse, one would have to be a saint.” We chuckle.
In general though, we tend to think that most saints are perfect, or pretty darned close to perfect. One needs to be perfect to be a saint.
Well, not quite. The Roman Catholic Church doesn’t use perfection as a criterion for canonization (the process that puts someone on the list of saints). Attributing a few miracles to the individual, however, is required. The Eastern Orthodox Church has a different set of standards. The
If you think the Lutherans lower the bar too much, the writers of the New Testament lower the bar even further. St. Luke,
It almost sounds like everyone is a saint, doesn’t it? Well, everyone can become a saint. Remember, saints didn’t start out that way. What makes a saint is: believing in Jesus Christ & earnestly living that belief. John Wesley called it, a “vital Christianity.”
Jesus performed many miracles. In John’s gospel, only seven are reported. Those seven, nonetheless, cover the waterfront & are represen-tative of the kinds of miracles Jesus does. He turns water into wine (2:1-12). He heals illnesses (4:46-54 & 5:1-18) & blindness (9:1-41). In chapter 6, he multiplies 5 loaves & 2 fish to feed 5,000 men(1-14), & walks on water, too (16-21). Jesus’ crowning foray into the supernatural, though, is the infamous raising of the dead man, Lazarus.
Lazarus is dead four days. To contemporary readers, that means he was really dead. It’s been four days, after all! John didn’t necessarily anticipate, however, that his book would have 21st century readers. His gospel’s intended audience interpreted “four days” a bit differently. The Jewish culture in John’s day believed that the soul hovered around its deceased body for three days, but on the fourth day, gave up & really left. This is to say that for John’s original readers, four days meant to them, too, that Lazarus was truly dead.
The dead man’s sisters, Mary & Martha, are understandably upset, not only at their dear brother’s passing, but at the fact that Jesus wasn’t there to prevent it. Jesus, as you may recall from the reading, deliberately tarried two days where he was. That delaying (in)action made him culpable to some degree, the sisters determined, & deserved a reprimand, so they gave him one.
Both women voice the identical complaint to Jesus, “If you would have been here, my brother would not have died.” Martha, though, adds two further proclamations: She says, 1) “I know that he (Lazarus)will rise again in the resurrection on the last day” (11:24); & 2) “Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God” (11:27). Her complaint to Jesus about his absence at such a critical time is immediately followed by these genuine, even amazing, statements of faith. It’s kind of puzzling, isn’t it?
You & I do this kind of thing all the time. In one breath we complain about our children, our parents, our spouse, whoever. In the next breath we confess our love for those same individuals. The chiding, “If you would have been here,” has to be taken in context. Martha’s being honest, yet her belief in Jesus ultimately accepts the reassuring reality of resurrection.
Despite her upset, she realizes that it’s going to be okay.
It is her belief that sets Martha apart.[1] It is her belief that makes her holy (holy means set apart). It is her belief that makes her a saint – some- one who is set apart. It is the belief of the loved ones we memorialize today that makes them saints. It is our belief that makes us saints, too.
Contrast Martha to the unbelieving crowd that gathers to support the sisters in their grief. Our Bibles describe Jesus’ reaction at this time as being “deeply moved,” & “disturbed.” A far better translation would be “indignant,” or better yet, simply, “angry.” (The other words don’t get at his true feeling as well as “angry.”) He was angry at the crowd’s unbelief & hostility, especially compared to grieving Martha’s profession of faith. They complained. Martha who has the most right to complain, also speaks eloquently about her belief.
Jesus doesn’t like this crowd, but can understand where they’re coming from in regard to their unbelief.
Think of our own situation & how we wrestle with unbelief. Jesus understands us, too. We can dismiss the water become wine as a magician’s conjuring trick. We can pass off healings as either coinci-dences or based upon a different definition that the ancients had for certain infirmities.[2] One can note that Jesus walking on water was during windy conditions of decreased illumination, a situation that could deceive the disciples’ senses. Maybe Jesus was closer to shore than they realized, wading in half-inch water. Even the feeding of the 5,000 could have been a metaphor for persons who had been hoarding the food they had with them, yet were suddenly moved to share it, seemingly “multiplying” the five original loaves & two fish. I’m not supporting the correctness of those ideas, but I understand how persons come up with them.
This raising of Lazarus, though, cannot be explained away so simply. It was so real that the religious authorities, this ruling group of elders called the Sanhedrin, decided that the act was worthy of execution. Jesus would be killed for this one. They let him slide on the other miracles, but not this one. He raised a dead man for goodness’ sake, & everyone present saw it & knew it to be true. Magicians don’t raise the dead. Jesus posed a threat to their authority, their need to control. He had to be gotten rid of at all costs.
If it had been a hoax, some sort of grand parlor trick, it would have been exposed in the Jewish & Roman history books. Jesus’ followers were a scorned, persecuted fringe minority. They had no power & would have been trounced as laughingstock lunatics, but they were not. They could not have been laughed off & discounted. Too many persons knew the raising of Lazarus was true. Even conspiracy theorists have to admit that Jesus & his “agents” were two days away, when Lazarus died. Jesus couldn’t have pulled a fast one on an unsuspecting, grieving family.
The raising of Lazarus is a defining moment in John’s gospel. It is a defining moment for Jesus in his ministry. It is a defining moment in the life of these other characters present in this gospel passage. It is a defining moment for all of the saints.
If we believe Jesus can raise Lazarus, then he can transform us in his love, too. When persons don’t believe Jesus can miraculously change others’ lives, they also don’t believe he can change them or make them saints. There’s a lot hanging on this miracle! The saints are not merely among the religious, but among the faithful. There’s a difference. We are not followers of some dime-a-dozen human-made set of spiritual propositions. We are not mere devotees of just another great world religion. We are not just members of a religious institution. We are followers of & honest-to-goodness believers in Jesus, the one who is resurrection & life.
Christ alone has the power to transform us now & into eternity! That’s what the Lazarus miracle is all about. The saints today join St. Martha not in perfection, not in performing miracles, but in saying with all our heart, soul, mind, & strength, “I believe! Jesus, I believe.”
In the Name…. Copyright 2011 by G.D.Knerr at
[1] In Luke’s famous Mary & Martha story in Luke’s gospel, Mary is the one credited with having faith (Lk. 10:38-42).
[2] We know that the word translated “leprosy” in the Bible was a catch-all term for various skin disorders, not just the horribly disfiguring one. Nowadays, we call people legally blind who have some vision; though extremely limited, they’re not totally without sight.