Citizen Saints – 11-5-24
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday’s gospel reading is here.
Last week we celebrated All Saints Day – a major feast day in the Christian calendar. It is a day that affirms your sainthood and mine. The term “saint” is conferred not only on those who are “holy” or “a good person.” In the New Testament it is simply a label assigned to those who follow Christ, however straight or wobbly our path may be. Paul’s letters are often addressed to “the saints who are at Ephesus,” or “the saints in Thessalonika.” We know from the contents of those letters those folks weren’t always “holy.” They were saints by virtue of their baptism into the holiness of Christ. You are too.
Today is Election Day the United States of America. How does our identity as saints of God affect the way we exercise our citizenship, the way we seek to protect liberty and justice for all, especially those most vulnerable to having those things taken away? How does our identity as saints in the body of Christ dictate the way we deal with conflict in the “body politic?”
We are made saints at baptism. We grow into our sainthood as we increase our capacity to love, to hold God’s power and grace, and learn to carry that contagious love into the world. At our best, as saints of God we spread viral love, clustering to infect people with hope and dignity, scattering to carry this love far and wide. What if we think of saints as viral cells that strengthen rather than weaken the bodies with whom they come into contact? Who help people become whole?
Who might you want to “infect” with hope, compassion, dignity, love? How can you, working with the other saints with whom you worship and work, carry God’s contagious love into your community?
Whatever the outcome of this election, and however long it takes to determine that outcome, a good half of our citizenry is likely to have strong feelings of fear, anger, confusion and perhaps animosity. We will be called upon to take up our mission as citizen saints, crossing boundaries of difference, seeking to forge unity wherever we can, being intentional about spreading viral love.
It is not our own love we spread – that can be a flimsy and fickle thing. It is the love of the God who is Love, who cannot but love – that’s what we carry and share. And that Love is stronger than death.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
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