Our Greatest Gift
September 5, 1997. Two people die. One in Calcutta, India. The other in Bayonne, NJ. The first person goes to heaven. Her name: Agnes Bojaxhiu, also known as Mother Theresa. The second person, we will call him Merle. He was known to the world as Merle. And Merle, well, he also went to heaven.
On a day like the Feast of All Saints, we take time to remember all those people who have gone before us in the Christian walk. Saints are people that we usually think of as having golden halos and being made of stained glass. The title “saint” comes from the word sanctus, which is Latin for “holy”. So, when we say, “Saint John” or “Saint Andrew” or “Saint Mary”, we are literally saying “Holy John” or “Holy Andrew” or “Holy Mary”. So, a saint is a person who is really, really holy.
Saints are people – in our mind – who in the business of being really, really holy - never swear, fast a lot, and do good deeds all day. They are always in the business of saying things which are wise and beautiful and sometimes even witty at the same time. Really cool saints can even do neat parlor tricks, like heal the sick, raise the dead, or even levitate when they pray.
In the Bible, a saint, a holy one, a sanctus, is anyone who is admitted into the presence of God in the company of the angels, into eternity. A saint is just another title for a person in heaven. Every person in this room who hopes to one day make a home with God in heaven, will be a saint. Every person who has already passed beyond the celestial gates of infinity, and resides in that place where “the home of God is among mortals” and where “he will dwell with them as their God; [and] they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; [and] he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. [And where] Death will be no more; neither mourning nor crying nor pain will be any more” – every one of them is a saint.
Both Mother Theresa and Merle are enjoying that kind of peace, that kind of personal attention from the Father of Lights, the Lord of Glory, and the Prince of Peace. They dine at the same table, sing hymns with same choirs of angels. They are a part of the same book club with Johnny Cash, C.S. Lewis, and Dr. Livingstone, I presume. They get together on Friday nights with the other members of their bowling team – Norman Rockwell, and Jerry Falwell, and the meanest bowler of them all, Elvis, “King of the Lanes”.
And why shouldn’t Mother Theresa and Merle be in the same place? This is all very fitting. Most people do not stop to think about it, but Saint Theresa of Calcutta and Saint Merle of Beyonne have – in fact – the exact same qualifications for heaven. Seriously! It is true! As much as Saint Theresa deserved to be in heaven, so did the blessed and holy Merle of Beyonne.
See, God makes the qualifications for heaven very clear in the Bible. The qualifications are nothing less than perfection itself!
You have to be perfect in holiness and love. Matthew 5:48: Be ye perfects as your father in heaven in perfect. Genesis 17: I am the Almighty God; walk before Me, and be you perfect. And I will make My covenant between Me and you.” Deuteronomy 18: “Thou shall be perfect with the LORD your God.” 2 Corinthians: “Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you”. Want that blessed heaven with God forever afterwards? Then all you need is perfection, like God himself is perfect, just like Mother Theresa was perfect. Just like the great and fabled Uncle Merle was perfect. Both deserved the riches and glories of Heaven itself!
Now, maybe you find this all a little odd or even very disturbing. It is a little odd for many people to think that Uncle Merle is actually Saint Merle. Odd to think of him with his pot belly, in his easy chair, reading his copy of TV Guide, with a halo round his head, and angels singing about him in glory. But, there it is. The Bible says you have to be perfect to be in heaven and it says that people like Uncle Merle, no less than the Mother Theresas of the world, are saints in heaven.
How can that be?!?!
The reason is less shocking than you might imagine . . . See, maybe uncle Merle was no mother Theresa, but – you know what - Mother Theresa would have been quick to tell you that she was no Mother Theresa either. Most true saints know that they are sinners, imperfect, impure, given to weakness, doubt, strife, and that they have their bad days the same as any other person alive. Yes, sometimes, even Mother Theresa sometimes felt like strangling the person in front of her who brought 3,000 items to “20 Items & Less Express Lane” at the supermarket.
Mother Theresa fell short of the glory of God’s perfection no less than Merle. She lied (at least once), if only when she was a little girl. There were days when she was not sure of who she really was or what she was doing with her life. Her private letters to that effect were just published. She (at least once), if even for a nanosecond, liked something more than God. As a flesh and blood woman – she must have though some married guy was very handsome (at least once). There were days when she was tired and did not want to get out of bed. So, take you pick – whether it was bearing false witness, unbelief, idolatry, lust, adultery in her heart, or sloth – she was a very sinful woman. Surely, if anyone deserved Hell for all her iniquity upon iniquity, it was that vile reprobate before God, the sinner Mother Theresa.
Merle, well Merle fell short of the glory of God on all the same accounts. Hey, maybe he even fell short on a few extra counts, too. But, perfection is the requirement and you are either perfect or you are not. No horseshoes. No hand grenades.
What we miss when we name people as saints in the church, is that most core doctrine of the Christian faith: that God is God, and that we are not God.
What makes a person holy and acceptable to God, what makes a person perfect as their Father in heaven in perfect, is not your long list of amazing spiritual accomplishments. Mother Theresa is not in heaven because she held a 100,000 people while they were dying and whispered to them the love of God. Uncle Merle is not in heaven because he went to church every week, and that pleased God enough to look past it bad TV choices.
Theresa and Uncle Merle met requirements for heaven just the same . . . they didn’t. Neither of them deserved to be in heaven if the price of admission is perfection or love and holiness.
Both Saint Theresa and Saint Merle are in heaven because they loved God, they served God, they lived lives of deep and humble faith. Both are in heaven because of their desire to be faithful to God, and both were taken into heaven in spite of the fact that they had lots of failings as people.
Scripture teaches us in Romans that “none is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have all gone wrong: no one does good, not even one.” You, me, Mother Theresa, and yes – I dare say - even Uncle Merle.
Heaven is something that none of us deserves. And yet, if we give our hearts to God, it is a gift that we receive from God, our greatest gift from God, offered unto us because of the blood of his Son Jesus - you, me, Mother Theresa, and yes – I dare say - even Uncle Merle.
Today is our day to take a breath, to stop, and to remember all the great company of saints in light. None of them deserved heaven, but they all got it. They all got it because every one of them took their lives and gave them as gifts to God. Some of them did it better than others perhaps. Some suggest that Mother Theresa served better than Merle, and they are welcome to that opinion. But, from the eyes of God, Jesus had to die for their sins, both, just the same. And from the perspective of a parent who had to give up his only Son, it probably did not matter much that his Son needed to die more for this one and die less for that one. Dead is dead is dead; and a lost son is a lost son all the same.
Today is our day to take a breath, to stop and to remember the great company of the saints in light. They served God. They loved God. They let their faith spread through their blood and bones. And they lived what they breathed – even if they were not perfect about it.
Today is our day to take a breath, to stop and to remember the great company of the saints in light, because in a sense they have never left us. The great Mother Theresas, no less than the John Wesleys, Martin Luthers, Apostle Peters, and all the rest still inspire and move us to be live our faith a little better tomorrow than we did today, and follow them in trying to be a little more perfect – even if we never get there. But, just as those greats inspire us, so does Uncle Merle. Maybe he was your mother, or your father, or a friend from school, or grandparent, or a husband or wife, or a child, or someone you never knew well – but there was something about their story that touched you in a way you have never been able to let go of. They have never left us and never failed to guide us, if we will listen to them.
Today is our day to take a breath, to stop and to remember the great company of the saints in light, because once they were us. And because we hope to be remembered and honored after we are gone. Hopefully, if our hearts are in tune with honoring none but God, we do not hope to be honored for all the good and impressive things we did with our lives. Mother Theresa and Uncle Merle would not have us remember them for their accomplishments, either. But we should remember them for what God did through them, acts of the divine both great and small, bringing about in their own true way the Kingdom of God. And we can honor that as we hope to be honored in the same way when the number of our days has come to a close.
Today is our day to take a breath, to stop and to remember the great company of the saints in light, because one day, if we can give our hearts to God as they did, we too will be in their company. Now, maybe that will have nothing to do with a book club with C.S. Lewis, or bowling with Elvis. I suspect it won’t. But knowing where they are, and knowing that God saw them there in spite of the fact that they did not deserve to be there anymore than we deserve to be there, they gives us hope for long walk from cradle to grave, to the glory beyond the grave.
Take time this day to remember them all . . . the Theresas, the Merle, the parents, siblings, friends, heroes of yesterday. All of them. This is their day. And, by the grace of God, one day, it will be ours as well. May it be so. Amen.
