Homespun Homily by Lori: “I can be a saint, you can be a saint.”
NOVEMBER 1 IS THE FEAST OF ALL SAINTS!
Who’s your favorite saint? Who do you know who is a modern-day “saint,” someone in your family or your circle of friends who exemplifies saintly qualities?
Here’s my recent nominee for “sainthood.” She has a kind greeting for each person that passes by. She never fails to notice a person’s bright-colored shirt or happy smile or when someone is moving slowly and perhaps with pain. Her cheerful greeting rings out loudly, showing interest and care:
“How are you, my dear?” “Ahh, you have that lovely sweater on – isn’t this fall weather gorgeous?” “Take care now. May I help you with that cart?” “Thank you for your smile today!”
Perhaps you have a greeter at your grocery store these days, someone who welcomes you into the store and checks your purchase receipt on your way out. At my regular grocery store, the greeter is a lovely woman, mature in age, tall and slender, with long graying hair. For the many times that I trek to the grocery store, I always experience her as warm, hospitable, and truly sincere in her compliments and encouraging words.
This cheery woman is a light in the often dark and chaotic world of today, and her example is a lesson in faith, hope, and love. She doesn’t know what’s going on in the lives of the many people who pass by her each day. And we shoppers don’t know what she might be experiencing in her own life. But she is present to the moment. She sees the person in front of her, she notices something specific and positive – hair, smile, clothing, how the person is responding to the day or the weather – and she offers a loving word.
I know nothing about this lovely woman’s faith. But I know that “God is love, and all who abide in love abide in God.” (1 John 4:16) The love and kindness she consistently shows certainly reflects the love of God she somehow feels in her heart.
Isn’t this the call of Jesus, to live in the now with gratitude for our lives? He says, “…do not worry about your life and what you will eat, or about your body and what you will wear. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing.” Luke 12:22-23
I don’t think it means that we should give up planning or have no hopes for the future. But I take Jesus’ words as a reminder to appreciate the present moment and to nurture a grateful heart for the people and the circumstances that are right before us. Where we are, who we are with, what we are experiencing – this is where God has placed us; and God gives us the strength and grace to endure, and is with us through it all.
The world can seem like a mean place, making it difficult to see God’s grace in our neighborhoods, our workplaces, in the faces we pass on the street, in the news we read each day. As Christians, though, we are called to LOOK for God’s grace EVERYWHERE.
My daily prayer to the Holy Spirit is, “Help me to see God in everyone I meet today. Help me to share the love of God in every instance, even if it seems so small and insignificant. Give me Your strength and wisdom and power, because on my own, I can do nothing.”
What gets in the way of our Christian call to sainthood, blocking grace and stifling gratitude? In that frame of mind, we can’t share God’s love with others. My block is fear and worry. It’s impossible to be as cheerful and welcoming as our grocery store greeter when I am mired in negative “why’s” and “what if’s.” At those times, I’m an Eeyore (Winnie the Pooh’s glass-half-empty friend). But lately I’ve asked myself, “Will worry help?” We all know the answer to that one.
Jesus addresses anxiety throughout the New Testament. So many times Jesus reminds us – “Do not worry! Do not be afraid!” Look again at Luke 12 – full of exhortations of “do not fear.” In fact, “Fear not,” or some variation of this phrase, is widely accepted as the most repeated command in the Bible, appearing hundreds of times, depending on the translation.
All of us are at times like Eeyore, but we can’t wallow there for long. However, neither am I promoting a Pollyanna attitude, a false happiness. Life is hard. Sometimes life is not fair. Life comes with suffering, and we’re all going to die. As we encounter these stark truths, can our faith make a difference in how we respond? Yes it can!
“What came to be through him [Jesus] was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:3-5
Jesus didn’t promise his followers a trouble-free life. But he did promise to be with us throughout our lives; and he gave us an advocate, the Holy Spirit, to guide and empower us. That is GOOD NEWS, the best news, news worth sharing with everyone we meet. And, in most cases, the best way to share that good news is how my grocery store greeter does – with a caring smile and a kind word.
Who are the “saints” in your daily life? And how will you strive to be a saint today?
