{"id":885,"date":"2020-07-02T16:39:27","date_gmt":"2020-07-02T15:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/chaplaincy\/?p=885"},"modified":"2020-07-02T16:39:27","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T15:39:27","slug":"unlikely-saints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/2020\/07\/02\/unlikely-saints\/","title":{"rendered":"Unlikely saints"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here is the reading and reflection from today’s Communion service, thinking about two people who are unlikely saints…<\/p>\n\n\n\n


A reading from Paul\u2019s letter to the Christians in Rome. He has been wrestling with the point of the Jewish law for Christians. It\u2019s from the Message version of the Bible:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I don\u2019t understand about myself is that I decide one\nway, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can\u2019t\nbe trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes\nobvious that God\u2019s command is necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I need something more! For if I know the law but still\ncan\u2019t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best\nintentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don\u2019t have what it takes. I\ncan will it, but I can\u2019t do it. I decide to do good, but I don\u2019t really do it;\nI decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they\nare, don\u2019t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets\nthe better of me every time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It happens so regularly that it\u2019s predictable. The moment I\ndecide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God\u2019s\ncommands, but it\u2019s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight.\nParts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve tried everything and nothing helps. I\u2019m at the end of my\nrope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn\u2019t that the real question?\nThe answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Monday was the feast Day of St. Peter and St. Paul. It seems a bit odd to put these two saints together as if they weren\u2019t important enough to have their own days. And they are such an unlikely pair. Peter, the Galilean fisherman – a blunt speaker, impulsive, over enthusiastic, forgetting to engage his brain before using his mouth. And Paul, a sophisticated Jewish scholar, a debater, a man of deep thought. It\u2019s fascinating to imagine their meetings and their conversations. We know that at least at one point Paul has to rebuke Peter sharply. That can\u2019t have gone down well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter and Paul have one important thing in common – they both\nremind us what a saint isn\u2019t. A saint is not someone who is especially good.\nHoliness is not about never getting anything badly wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter spent three years with Jesus and then, as we know,\ndenied that he even knew him. And even after that, after he had been shown in a\ndream that non-Jews – were also now being invited to follow Jesus, he later\nwent back on this and stopped mixing with them. That\u2019s why he and Paul fell\nout. He was rocky in more ways than one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul had gone further in his past, watching as Stephen was stoned\nto death for being a Christian, and then setting out himself in pursuit of the\nfollowers of Jesus. After his conversion he did amazing work as an apostle, but\nthat didn\u2019t completely change his character. He still had spiky relationships –\nfalling out with his friend Barnabas, and arguing with the churches he founded.\nIn his letters you can see his very human struggles – \u2018I don\u2019t want to boast\u2019\nhe says, in one – and then lists all of his qualifications. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing that Peter and Paul share is an awareness of their\nfallibility. Both could look back on a time when they had done something\nterrible. Both knew their own capacity for getting things wrong. And both also\nknew the freedom that came with forgiveness – and the joy of being called by\nJesus, in spite of the past. They were both broken vessels for God\u2019s grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the passage I read from Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans, he is\ntying himself in agonising knots, recognising that he has this ingrained sinful\nnature that he cannot escape, even when he really wants to.  I find that very encouraging! In the end all\nhe can do is turn to Jesus, to give him the grace that he needs to live out his\nfaith as a very imperfect person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally in the New Testament, \u2018the saints\u2019 in a place were\nsimply the Christians there, not people who were especially good. But we humans\nhave a need for heroes. We need someone to project our ideals onto in a muddy\nand messy world. However, we\u2019re finding out that putting people up on pedestals\nis problematic. As we discover more about the ones we have made saints, we often\ndiscover aspects of their lives which don\u2019t fit so well – Mother Theresa\u2019s\ndepression, Martin Luther King\u2019s relationships, even Jean Vanier now seen to be\nflawed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe the whole idea of a hierarchy of goodness is unhelpful,\nespecially if it becomes a yardstick against which we measure ourselves. If you\nneed to be this good to be a saint, where are we? Does God only use the good\nones? Can God really care about messed up old me? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or maybe we find that we have managed to do something good, and\nthen we\u2019re in another danger. We climb the ladder of \u2018goodness\u2019 only to slip\ndown the snake of pride. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Peter and Paul, our main qualification for serving God\ncomes from our awareness of our flaws and failings. It\u2019s when we come \u2018to the\nend of the rope\u2019 that we discover underneath the arms of grace to catch us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week I had a retreat at home – lots of long walks and\nsitting on churchyard benches. Retreats are often not really peaceful for me,\nat least to start with. There\u2019s quite a lot of looking back and examining my\nlife, and that isn\u2019t always comfortable. As the truth of the way I have behaved\nor thought through much of my life is revealed, layer by layer, I have the same\nsense of despair as Paul. I wrote in my journal one day: \u2018How to live with\nimperfection and not getting things right?\u2019 And then, \u2018What I bring – I am\nloved and forgiven – God\u2019s grace is working in me\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the thing that we all bring – and it\u2019s the most\nimportant thing we can bring. It led me to think that a good move for me could\nbe from \u2018must try harder\u2019 to \u2018must try less hard\u2019 , remembering that God often\nuses our getting it wrong more than he uses our getting it right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will all have our particular areas of weakness. We often\ntry to fight them, or suppress them. Maybe the most important thing that Peter\nand Paul can teach us is that we need to face them, to look right into them,\nhow ever uncomfortable that may be – because as we do, with God\u2019s grace we will\nrediscover that we are not loved for being good, but just as who we are, and\nthat our utter dependence on God is the one thing that qualifies each of us to\nbe used in the service of his love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n