Saints Who Are Living, Saints Who Are Dead | The Rev. Jordan Griesbeck

When we look at the Beatitudes, there is a long list of types of people who are blessed. In order to be a saint, do we have to embody each one of those things, checking off the boxes like a homework assignment? No, instead, to be a saint is just to be on a grand adventure into deeper and deeper dependence on not just God, but dependence on all the other people that Jesus gathers around himself.

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Weekly sermons from the traditional and contemporary worship services at Church of the Incarnation in Dallas, Texas. Rooted in Scripture and the Anglican tradition, these messages explore how the gospel speaks to our faith, our everyday lives and the world around us.

Well today, as we've said, the church does celebrate All Saints Day, a

day to remember that what the Nicene Creed says is true.

That to be a Christian is to be placed into a

communion of saints.

But of all the phrases in the creed, this is perhaps the phrase we

understand the least. Because what is a saint?

And what does it mean to be placed into communion with

them? And why should we even care?

To answer those questions, two points this morning.

First, the definition of saints, and second, the

communion of saints. First, the definition.

In order to see what a saint is this morning, we really only need to look at

one word, and that is the word blessed.

Because for hundreds of years now, out of all the gospel passages the church could

choose to read on All Saints Day, we have chosen the

Beatitudes. And the Beatitudes, of course, are called the

Beatitudes because of the repetition of that word,

blessed. "Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness."

Nine times, blessed. In the Greek, the word is

makarios. And so to be a saint is to

be makarios. But what does that mean?

According to a Catholic scholar named Father Simeon, who I believe to be the best

living commentator on the Gospel of Matthew, and who's honestly

transformed the way I read the Beatitudes, this word

makarios is notoriously difficult to translate.

Simeon lays out multiple options.

He says some say makarios means happy,

but that is the worst option because happiness is so

psychological and subjective. And the Beatitudes are not

describing some subjective or inner state, but they're

describing something that is objective and permanent.

Others, like our translation, says makarios means

blessed, and that's better. But blessed can also

give us the wrong idea. It can tempt us to make the

Beatitudes into a sort of reward system,

into a type of equation where A equals

B, or if leads to then.

And so if I will simply become the sort of person

described on the other side of that word are,

if I will become meeker or more merciful or

purer in heart, then God will finally bless me and

approve of me and reward me.

But the Beatitudes are not, and have never been, some sort of

spiritual homework assignment. I mean, they do not

command or prescribe anything,

but instead they describe. They describe not what

could be or what might be, but what will

be. And in fact, what already is.

Blessed are.

The third possible translation is fortunate.

To be makarios, and therefore to be a saint, is to be fortunate.

In the words of Simeon, it is to be in possession of some

good, some good that many desire but

not all can obtain.

And so what is it then that the makarios possess?

What is it that makes them so fortunate?

And that leads to what Simeon says is the fourth and best translation,

which is the Spanish one.

In Spanish, makarios is always translated

bien aventurado or

bienaventuranza.

And so do you hear it?

To be makarios is to be on a

grand adventure.

It's to be someone fortunate enough, by the grace of God, to

be on some journey that all desire but

not all can obtain.

Which sounds exciting,

until we read all of the phrases on the other side of that

word are, until we read about all the types of people

Jesus identifies as the makarios.

It's shocking, and it would've been shocking to Jesus' original

listeners because, as Simeon says, in Jesus' time,

in the Greek world, the word makarios was reserved for

two types of people.

The first were the gods.

The gods were said to be the makarios, or to be the fortunate ones,

because the gods were immortal. And therefore the gods were

immune from all human sadness, including the

saddest thing of all, which is death.

And so then therefore, by extension, in the Greek world, the upper class or

the privileged could also be said to be the makarios, the fortunate ones,

because out of everyone living, they were those who most

closely approximated the gods, insulated as

they were from at least most forms of human

sadness.

And yet look at what Jesus does this morning. He goes up on a mountain.

He goes up on the place reserved for gods, and he calls to himself

a group of people who in no way resemble gods or resemble

the privileged, but instead gathers to him a group of men, the

disciples, who are in no way immune from human

sin or pain or misery. And

he stares them in the face and he says, "From now on,

you are the makarios."

You are the fortunate ones. You are the ones on

some secret adventure that all desire

but not all can obtain.

Poor in spirit,

sad

Hungry and thirsty,

persecuted, reviled, hated,

makarios.

And so what is the definition of a saint?

It is to be on a grand adventure,

but an adventure that is, in so many ways, a journey

down,

a grand adventure into deeper and deeper dependence.

Dependence on God, but also dependence on other

people, dependence on all of the other hungry and

thirsty and dependent people that Jesus gathers around

himself.

And that leads to the second point, which is the communion of the saints.

Because that's what Jesus is doing in the Beatitudes.

On the mountain, he is establishing a community.

And the Beatitudes then become his Magna Carta or his

constitution which outlines citizenship in

the people of God. He is saying, "From now on, poor

in spirit, meek, peacemakers,

these are the types of people you can expect to find

gathered around me."

And usually, we read the Beatitudes so

individually.

We think that God is asking each one of us to become all

nine of the people in the Beatitudes, but that is actually not

what is happening at all.

Each of the Beatitudes, instead, is naming the sorts of people we can

expect to be around Jesus, and therefore, it is

naming the sorts of gifts that each individual Christian

brings into the community, almost like the spiritual gifts

in Paul's letters, in which each of us brings one,

maybe two or three gifts to the table.

And so I bring my Beatitude of poverty of spirit, and you

bring your mercy, and you bring your tears, and they bring

their persecution or their peacemaking, and together, all

of us become the people of God.

And that is true both for saints who are living and

saints who are dead.

Because

if I am joined to Christ and united to

him by faith and baptism,

and a medieval peasant who lived in the year 1219 is

also united to Christ by faith and

baptism, then in some very mysterious way,

I am also united to that peasant.

And because we are both dependent on Christ, we are

also, in some very mysterious way, dependent on

one another.

And this brings up what is probably Anglican Episcopalians' biggest

question when it comes to the saints, and that is, should

I pray to them?

And the answer is this:

we should not pray to the saints, but we should

absolutely ask them to pray for us.

Because to pray to the saints would be to direct our worship or devotion

to them, and therefore it would be to give to them what

belongs only for God.

But should we ask saints to pray for us? I mean, yes.

Because as the theologian Jason Michelli has said,

our fellowship with the departed is not altogether different from our

fellowship with the living.

If we believe in the communion of saints, then asking the departed

saints for their prayers is no different than someone in this

congregation asking you to pray for them this week,

or you asking someone in this congregation to pray for

you.

Because both the living and the dead are all friends

in Jesus Christ, we can talk to and pray for one

another.

It is not that the saints are our way to Jesus Christ,

but rather, Christ is our way to them.

Which brings me to the story of one saint who Christ has brought into communion

with us, and that is a man named Ji

Tanyong.

Ji Tanyong was born in China in the year 1834, and

he grew up in a wealthy family, and he eventually became a doctor.

But in his 30s, he contracted a very serious

stomach sickness, and he treated himself with opioids,

which was a routine treatment at this time.

But Ji quickly became addicted to these opioids, and

he suffered from that addiction for the next 30 years.

And over those 30 years, in spite of his addiction, Ji started a

family. He became a father and a grandfather,

and he also developed a reputation in the community for

providing free medical care to the poor.

In spite of his addiction, or perhaps because of it, Ji never

abandoned his faith, but for the next 30 years, he went to

Mass not only every week, but every day, and he

also frequently went before the priest for confession.

But for 30 years, every time Ji went to Mass,

he was denied the body and blood of Christ,

and every time he went for confession, he was denied

absolution because his addiction was seen as, quote,

"unrepentant sin."

Then, in the year 1900, there was an uprising in northern China that

we know today as the Boxer Rebellion.

And as a part of that rebellion, 120 Christians were put to death,

including Ji Tanyong and his family.

And it is said that Ji asked his executioners to be

beheaded last, so that he could comfort all of his friends

and family as they went to their deaths.

So exactly 100 years later, in the year 2000,

Pope John Paul II canonized Ji Tanyong,

officially making him a saint and giving him the name

Saint Mark.

Blessed Saint Mark Ji Tanyong,

so needy and stuck and broken for

30 years,

and yet so makarios and

bienaventuranza,

longing desperately to see the face of God,

hungry and thirsty

for God,

reviled and persecuted on account of

God.

And so this morning, as we gather around the mountain at the feet of

Jesus and hear the Beatitudes, Saint Mark

is gathered with us.

And this morning, as we hear of this heavenly throne room

described in Revelation, where we will gather

before the Lamb and before the throne with all those

others who have passed through the great ordeal,

with all those others who have washed their robes white with

blood,

and with all those others who will no longer cry or be

hungry or thirsty,

Saint Mark Ji Tanyong will be with us.

Saint Mark does not bring me to Christ, but Christ has

brought him to me.

And so we say, "Blessed Saint Mark, pray

for me,

a sinner."

In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.