Sermon Illustrations on Saints

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Background

Christians as Saints

For a long time all Christians called each other “saints.” They were all saints regardless of how well or badly they lived, of how experienced or inexperienced they were. The word saint did not refer to the quality or virtue of their acts, but to the kind of life to which they had been chosen, life on a battlefield.

Claiming Your Identity as a Saint

If you’re anything like me, when you hear the word saint, you probably think of anybody but yourself. We picture stained glass windows depicting Peter, Paul, or Mary. We think of modern-day heroes like Mother Teresa who seem to transcend the rest of humanity. Yet the word saint is innately human; it tells the story of people so devoted to the person of Jesus that they served him with their whole selves, their true selves. The word saint has a deep-rooted history within the story of God’s redemption and the fullness of life that he has for each one of us. A saint is someone who has been redeemed and found worthy by a perfect Savior.

…Claiming the identity of saint is not about how good a person each of us is—it is about the One who gave his life for us, who deserves our worship, who loves us in all our humanity. Saints is a charge to become more devoted followers of Jesus by encouraging us to expand our view of God and surrender our tendency toward self-worship and control. By expanding our view of God and allowing more space for wonder and mystery, we experience the world through God’s divine perspective; we begin to see our lives as glorious moments of God’s grace.

Addison D. Bevere, Saints: Becoming More Than “Christians,” Revell, 2020.

The Difference Between Heroes and Saints

It turns out the Christian story is a good story in which to learn to fail. As the ethicist Samuel Wells has written, some stories feature heroes and some stories feature saints and the difference between them matters: “Stories . . . told with . . . heroes at the center of them . . . are told to laud the virtues of the heroes—for if the hero failed, all would be lost.

By contrast, a saint can fail in a way that the hero can’t, because the failure of the saint reveals the forgiveness and the new possibilities made in God, and the saint is just a small character in a story that’s always fundamentally about God.”

Lauren Winner, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, HarperOne, 2012.

Saints of Darkness?

There are many ways to be a saint, and at times our fidelity may look like betrayal. We may have to become “saints of darkness.” We may have to be saints whose light seems to go out as we wander in the shadows, saints who tell the truth even when the truth seems blasphemous.

Satan is the father of lies, so lying about our doubt and pain, even in the name of piety and reverence, is Satanic. Conversely, the truth, even when impious and irreverent, can free us. Saint Job is proof, and at the end of his story he gets what he asked for: a showdown with the divine.

Stories

Gratitude, not Hardship, Makes the Saint

Ronald Rolheiser recounted an old Jewish folk tale. A young man, aspiring to be holy, approached his rabbi and said, “Rabbi, I think I have achieved sanctity. I fast from sunrise to sundown, work hard all day without expecting thanks, roll in the snow or thorn bushes when I have temptations of the flesh, and whip myself before going to bed.” The rabbi paused and then led the young man to the window and pointed to an old horse. “That horse,” he said, “doesn’t eat or drink during the day, works hard all day and never gets thanked, rolls in snow or bushes as it sees fit, and frequently gets whipped.” He eyed the young man, “But that is a horse, not a saint.” The lesson is that it takes more than virtue and self-renunciation to be a saint: “to be a saint is to be motivated by gratitude, nothing more and nothing less.”

Summary by William Rowley, source: Ronald Rolheiser, Our One Great Act of Fidelity: Waiting for Christ in the Eucharist (Image, 2011)

A Saint Like Us

For the most part, when we think of saints or heroes of the faith, we think of people who are altogether different than we are. They seem to embody a quality of communion with God that is impossible for the rest of us. On closer inspection, we find that most great “saints” are ordinary people who, in the midst of daily living, discover and interact with the reality of God’s presence.

One man like this was Nicholas Herman. His life seemed much like our own. Nicolas had a number of jobs in his life, starting out in the military and then in the transportation industry. After that, he found work in the food service industry, serving as a short-order cook and bottle-washer.

Eventually Nicholas became deeply discouraged by his life. He spent a lot of time, like us, thinking about himself. “Am I saved” was a particular question that burrowed deep into his soul. He struggled deeply with worry, until one day when everything changed. On that day, he was looking at a tree, not the most thrilling exercise, but something occurred to him: what makes a tree flourish is not its self-reliance, but it’s rootedness in something other than and deeper than itself.

With this in mind, Nick began an experiment to have a habitual, silent, secret conversation of the soul with God. Today we know Nick as Brother Lawrence, whose book, The Practice of the Presence of God has become a spiritual classic, continuing to beckon readers to a deeper, more intimate relationship with God 300 years after it was first written.

Stuart Strachan Jr.

A Sinner or Saint?

I heard about a pastor who was asked by a man in the community to do his brother’s funeral. Neither of the men had been churchgoers or showed any religious inclinations. The man offered to give $25,000.00 to the church if the preacher would call his brother a saint at the funeral. The brother had been a real sinner in the community and everybody knew it. A friend of the pastor asked, “You are not going to do it, are you?”

The pastor said that he was going to do it because the church needed the money. The word got out that the preacher had sold out to the family for money and the church was filled for the funeral. The pastor stood up and this is what he said, “The man we are burying here today was a liar, a cheat, and a drunk; however, next to his brother who is sitting here today, he was a saint!”

Source Unknown

The Story of Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day commemorates the date on which Valentine, a roman priest, was executed by order of Emperor Claudius II.

Claudius II was embroiled in a number of wars and believed that married men made poor soldiers. To prevent this, he banned marriages and engagements in Rome.

Valentine, undaunted, continued to marry young couples secretly.

When he was caught, Claudius ordered his death. He was beaten to death with clubs and beheaded on February 14 in about AD 270.

The story goes that Valentine left a note on love and friendship for the jailer’s daughter “From Your Valentine,” the first Valentine’s day note.

Valentine’s Day was first established in AD 469 by Pope Galasius.

Summary by William Rowley, source, “St. Valentine” on BBC Religions, 2009.

Humor

A Sinner or Saint?

I heard about a pastor who was asked by a man in the community to do his brother’s funeral. Neither of the men had been churchgoers or showed any religious inclinations. The man offered to give $25,000.00 to the church if the preacher would call his brother a saint at the funeral. The brother had been a real sinner in the community and everybody knew it. A friend of the pastor asked, “You are not going to do it, are you?”

The pastor said that he was going to do it because the church needed the money. The word got out that the preacher had sold out to the family for money and the church was filled for the funeral. The pastor stood up and this is what he said, “The man we are burying here today was a liar, a cheat, and a drunk; however, next to his brother who is sitting here today, he was a saint!”

Source Unknown