W. Arthur Kale - "Summons to Sainthood" (April 29, 1962)
Loading the media player...
Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | Of all the subjects discussed on a college campus, | 0:22 |
perhaps the topic, sainthood | 0:28 | |
belongs at the bottom of the list. | 0:33 | |
Who cares about saints? | 0:37 | |
Who wants to talk about saints | 0:42 | |
at any time, but especially on a Sunday | 0:45 | |
following your college celebrations? | 0:51 | |
Back in the 1930s, however, tourists who came to this chapel | 0:56 | |
wanted to talk about at least one saint. | 1:02 | |
In the very first year | 1:08 | |
after the completion of this edifice, | 1:09 | |
tourists who came who were impressed with the dignity | 1:14 | |
and beauty of all our buildings | 1:18 | |
went away talking chiefly about a very special saint | 1:21 | |
whose likeness Duke University had placed | 1:29 | |
in the great church in the center of its campus. | 1:34 | |
The name of the saint was Garlic. | 1:39 | |
That's right, spelled G-A-R-L-I-C, Saint Garlic. | 1:45 | |
This might have become quite a legend | 1:52 | |
except for one skeptical visitor | 1:54 | |
who interrupted an attendant who was lecturing | 1:58 | |
about the holy man with the unholy name and asked, | 2:01 | |
"Who told you that that is Saint Garlic?" | 2:06 | |
"Why," said the attendant, "Dr. William Preston Few, | 2:13 | |
the President of Duke University told me, he's the one." | 2:17 | |
This, of course, necessitated a visit | 2:22 | |
to the President's Office | 2:25 | |
and brought the President out of his inner cubicle | 2:28 | |
with a characteristic grin on his face | 2:32 | |
as he greeted the visiting inquirer and said, | 2:35 | |
"I have been slightly misunderstood | 2:40 | |
and definitely misquoted. | 2:43 | |
I did not say that is Saint Garlic. | 2:47 | |
I said that is symbolic." | 2:53 | |
One realizes that he must enunciate quite carefully | 2:58 | |
as he talks about saints. | 3:05 | |
I have had trouble all week | 3:09 | |
with the sermon subject for today. | 3:10 | |
I sent it over to Chaplain Wilkinson earlier | 3:14 | |
and a few days later, | 3:20 | |
instead of finding "Summons to Sainthood" | 3:21 | |
on various placards around the campus, | 3:25 | |
I saw the title, "Sermons to Sainthood." | 3:28 | |
And I sent over a mild protest and said, | 3:34 | |
"That's not what I'm gonna to talk about. | 3:38 | |
That doesn't make much sense to me." | 3:39 | |
The Chaplain sent back saying, "Why do you bother? | 3:43 | |
If it were Dean Cleland, | 3:49 | |
the two words sermons and summons would not be the same, | 3:52 | |
but you, a good American and a Southerner | 3:59 | |
with something of a drawl, | 4:02 | |
why don't you leave the word S-E-R-M-O-N-S | 4:04 | |
and just pronounce it summons and go ahead? | 4:07 | |
(audience laughing) | 4:11 | |
I did very well and adjusted to that | 4:16 | |
until I picked up last night's paper | 4:18 | |
and read that the topic in the chapel on Sunday morning | 4:21 | |
would be summons to fainthood spelled with an F. | 4:24 | |
(audience laughing) | 4:29 | |
Thus, somewhat faintheartedly, | 4:33 | |
I launched myself upon the task of talking about summons | 4:36 | |
or the call to sainthood. | 4:43 | |
It is not my purpose to ask if one of the saints | 4:48 | |
in a chapel window come down | 4:52 | |
that I may extol his beatified nature. | 4:55 | |
Rather, I come to do a more difficult | 5:02 | |
and perhaps somewhat surprising task. | 5:04 | |
Namely, to make a simple declaration | 5:09 | |
and to talk about it for these few minutes. | 5:13 | |
The declaration is a very brief one. | 5:17 | |
Eight words, eight monosyllables of a sentence. | 5:22 | |
We could use more saints in our time. | 5:29 | |
Now, very quickly let me say | 5:39 | |
that I am not espousing sanctimoniousness. | 5:42 | |
I do not ask for a multiplication of, | 5:47 | |
but rather deliverance from the pseudo-apostle | 5:50 | |
with his spurious piety | 5:56 | |
and such manifestations as his holy tone | 5:59 | |
or the sanctimonious air | 6:05 | |
or the vain repetitions of religious cliches | 6:08 | |
and pedantic utterances. | 6:13 | |
Just as quickly I wish to dismiss | 6:16 | |
certain familiar concepts of sainthood, | 6:19 | |
especially those that suggest that the life of the saint | 6:24 | |
is not for the average man. | 6:29 | |
We sometimes ascribe to biblical personalities | 6:33 | |
some very unreal characteristics, | 6:38 | |
as, for example, we speak of the patience of Job | 6:44 | |
when more correctly we should note the impatience of Job | 6:49 | |
as displayed in the great Old Testament drama. | 6:54 | |
Or again, we look at the windows of our cathedral | 6:59 | |
and the saints who appear there seem most unreal, | 7:04 | |
having grotesque physical appearances | 7:10 | |
with eyes that glare down upon you | 7:14 | |
and toes on a left foot three times larger than normal | 7:19 | |
standing piously, yet awkwardly, | 7:25 | |
with hair and beard in tangles, wearing archaic clothing, | 7:29 | |
and carrying a symbol appropriate to a name or a message. | 7:37 | |
Somewhat unreal, we think. | 7:44 | |
Still another concept must be laid aside. | 7:50 | |
The one that requires a saint always to be a dead person. | 7:54 | |
In this view, he is a famous personality, | 7:59 | |
but always of the past eras, most likely someone associated | 8:03 | |
with significant causes or events. | 8:08 | |
Perhaps someone who has suffered greatly | 8:13 | |
or who may have been martyred. | 8:16 | |
Likely he's been canonized by some ecclesiastical body | 8:19 | |
and declared eligible to the title saint. | 8:24 | |
Nevertheless, he's dead. | 8:29 | |
Perhaps the simplest meaning of the word | 8:33 | |
and the one held by most Protestants | 8:37 | |
is that a saint is an extraordinary Christian. | 8:39 | |
A very devout and holy man exalted far above the average | 8:47 | |
with his superior insight into God's ways | 8:56 | |
and his unparalleled devotion to religious exercises. | 9:01 | |
Now, all these familiar interpretations | 9:08 | |
and points of view cannot be completely ignored. | 9:12 | |
I know, nevertheless, they are misleading. | 9:17 | |
They suggest that the saint is a very rare person, | 9:23 | |
one in a million, one in a generation, | 9:30 | |
two or three in a century. | 9:35 | |
In contrast to that view, the New Testament, | 9:39 | |
particularly the Church of the New Testament | 9:44 | |
indicates that all members are called to be saints. | 9:49 | |
In his letters to the Christians across the world, | 9:57 | |
St. Paul was fond of addressing his readers with this term. | 10:01 | |
Writing now to the saints at Colossae, | 10:09 | |
still again to the saints at Philippi, | 10:14 | |
and again at Corinth or Rome and so on. | 10:18 | |
Other writers in the New Testament provide us with evidence | 10:24 | |
that all members were called by this term. | 10:28 | |
And it has been the responsibility of the Church | 10:34 | |
in the intervening centuries | 10:38 | |
to summon all people to the saintly light. | 10:42 | |
Perhaps I should this morning address you | 10:51 | |
as my fellow saints, but that would cause me to blush | 10:58 | |
and perhaps prompt you to smile scornfully. | 11:05 | |
I know I am not a saint, | 11:09 | |
yet I am positive I am called to be one. | 11:13 | |
Furthermore, I am persuaded | 11:19 | |
that a more acceptable and a more Christian meaning | 11:24 | |
to the term must be reintroduced | 11:30 | |
into both conversation and public utterance. | 11:35 | |
We can ill afford to deny that the capacity | 11:42 | |
for spiritual genius and for spiritual insight belongs, | 11:47 | |
at least in some measure, | 11:53 | |
to all intelligent thinking persons. | 11:56 | |
In this time when we frequently refer to the fact | 12:03 | |
that we're on the threshold of a space era, | 12:08 | |
we dare not place limitations on the abilities of man | 12:12 | |
to respond to eternal calls | 12:21 | |
or to calls from the eternal being whom we call God. | 12:25 | |
It was Dr. Harold Bosley who declared from this pulpit | 12:35 | |
some 10 or a dozen years ago when he was amongst us | 12:40 | |
that ours will be the best generation in all history | 12:45 | |
or it will be the last. | 12:53 | |
It was that thought that started me | 12:59 | |
upon the pursuit of further knowledge of sainthood | 13:04 | |
and aroused my own first serious interest in this subject. | 13:10 | |
What, then, do we really mean by the saintly life | 13:19 | |
if we do not accept these familiar | 13:25 | |
and popular interpretations? | 13:28 | |
To what type of life is man called | 13:32 | |
both by the exigencies of the times | 13:37 | |
and by the very essence and purpose | 13:41 | |
of the Christian Church or the Church of God? | 13:45 | |
I have three simple answers, very briefly stated. | 13:49 | |
First, sainthood has always meant | 13:53 | |
and may continue to mean resistance to evil. | 13:57 | |
Saints are people who are able to take punishment | 14:05 | |
with a measure of poise and with a greater measure of faith | 14:10 | |
and with a demonstration of high courage | 14:16 | |
and of devotion to a principle beyond themselves. | 14:21 | |
All forms of evil have provided tests | 14:30 | |
for the saints in every century. | 14:34 | |
Physical suffering is one. Ignorance is another. | 14:36 | |
The very fact that we are mortal | 14:42 | |
and inevitably must come to the hour of death | 14:45 | |
is also considered by many an evil | 14:48 | |
and the great fact of sin is still another. | 14:51 | |
Well, whatever one's definition | 14:55 | |
or one's favorite explication of the term may be, | 14:57 | |
it remains consistently true that spiritually-minded persons | 15:03 | |
possess a strange power to endure hardship, | 15:12 | |
to overcome handicaps, and to offer stubborn resistance | 15:18 | |
to all forms of evil. | 15:26 | |
Likely you recall and are able to say often, | 15:32 | |
as has been said for generations that Christians outthink | 15:36 | |
and outlive and outdie non-Christians. | 15:43 | |
Note that the letter from which we've chosen | 15:54 | |
our Scripture passage for the morning, | 15:57 | |
the letter called Ephesians is addressed | 16:00 | |
to the residents of a great city. | 16:03 | |
Like the citizens of other cities of the time, Corinth, | 16:07 | |
Rome, others, and like the residents of cities | 16:13 | |
in all other times, these Ephesians lived under pressures. | 16:16 | |
This is true of man in every urbanized culture. | 16:24 | |
City life beats upon us, our bodies, | 16:29 | |
and our spirit ceaselessly every hour, day after day. | 16:34 | |
The Ephesians likely knew the meaning of pressure. | 16:44 | |
There were pressures threatening the solidarity | 16:50 | |
of their family life. | 16:53 | |
There were pressures then against moral restraints | 16:56 | |
and in favor of moral irresponsibility. | 17:00 | |
There were pressures to get ahead economically. | 17:05 | |
There were pressures to keep abreast | 17:09 | |
or perhaps to surpass the neighbors. | 17:12 | |
There were pressures in the direction | 17:15 | |
of social homogenization to dress in conformity with others, | 17:18 | |
to travel to the same resorts | 17:27 | |
to indulge in the same forms of recreation, | 17:29 | |
to read the same types of literature, to think alike, | 17:31 | |
to conform to stereotypes and conventions. | 17:35 | |
And the pressures to interpret man's successful exploits | 17:41 | |
as mechanic, as technician, as organizer, | 17:47 | |
as manifestations of God's favor. | 17:52 | |
Those Ephesians knew even as we know | 17:58 | |
what city life can do to man. | 18:03 | |
This is one reason why F.R. Barry some time ago | 18:10 | |
said that the Book of Ephesians is at once the most modern | 18:13 | |
of all the books of the New Testament and at the same time | 18:19 | |
the richest record of Christian experience. | 18:23 | |
Certainly this writer must have been familiar with the fact | 18:28 | |
that man must be redeemed from fatigue, from hysteria, | 18:32 | |
from insomnia, and chiefly from the meaningless existence | 18:39 | |
that was their lot amidst the noisy clamor | 18:48 | |
and impersonal atmosphere | 18:55 | |
of their metropolitan transactions, fashions, and postures. | 18:58 | |
Hence, the call to sainthood. | 19:08 | |
Saints can and do withstand the pressures | 19:15 | |
of urbanization and of homogenization. | 19:20 | |
We've had a familiar example | 19:27 | |
in our own American Protestant Christianity in our time | 19:31 | |
in the person of Dr. Ralph Sockman, | 19:37 | |
who recently retired from a long and distinguished ministry | 19:40 | |
to a great church in New York City. | 19:45 | |
Something like a dozen years ago "Time" magazine | 19:49 | |
ran a feature article on Dr. Sockman, | 19:53 | |
the final sentence of which was about as follows. | 19:56 | |
"Dr. Sockman moves with relaxed urbanity, | 20:02 | |
with a pace that would exhaust | 20:10 | |
or at a pace that would exhaust | 20:16 | |
the average business executive." | 20:19 | |
No doubt Dr. Sockman would say, | 20:24 | |
as I say, as you say, "I am no saint." | 20:26 | |
Nevertheless, he has maintained through these 40 | 20:31 | |
and more years of a busy, exacting career | 20:36 | |
in this great metropolis an inner poise and power | 20:40 | |
that has shielded him and sustained him and directed him | 20:50 | |
in the midst of the pressures of city life. | 20:57 | |
It is about that inner power | 21:04 | |
that the Ephesian letter is written. | 21:08 | |
I bow my knees to the Father that He may grant you | 21:13 | |
to be strengthened with might in the inner man. | 21:18 | |
It is this inner power that men must achieve. | 21:24 | |
It must not be limited to the Ralph Sockmans | 21:28 | |
or to some Albert Schweitzer or to a Frank Laubach. | 21:32 | |
We could use more persons with inner poise and power today. | 21:38 | |
I wish I could delineate it more completely | 21:49 | |
and more clearly, but I must press on to say another thing | 21:52 | |
about the life of the saint. | 21:57 | |
He is one who resists all forms of evil, | 22:00 | |
and you can count on that. | 22:04 | |
In the next instance, however, he is a person | 22:08 | |
who with grace and with graciousness denies himself. | 22:11 | |
He's remarkable in that sense. | 22:22 | |
Perhaps you remember an old Latin motto | 22:25 | |
which in English is, it is true art to conceal art. | 22:28 | |
No saint needs a publicity bureau. | 22:36 | |
Sainthood is perhaps the byproduct | 22:42 | |
of the life of contemplation and prayer, | 22:46 | |
the byproduct of commitment to a cause beyond yourself, | 22:51 | |
the byproduct of obedience to the will of God. | 22:56 | |
Some of you have read the great biography | 23:02 | |
of St. Francis by Sabatier. | 23:04 | |
And you may recall a very arresting sentence. | 23:07 | |
Sabatier said of the great saint, | 23:12 | |
"He possessed a rare combination of all the virtues, | 23:15 | |
including the willingness to remain unknown." | 23:21 | |
Sainthood involves denying self. | 23:26 | |
In our own time, Douglas Steere has defined a saint | 23:32 | |
not as a genius, but just a normal human being | 23:36 | |
released from the love of self. | 23:42 | |
Now in the final moment, the summary or the summarization | 23:46 | |
and perhaps the climacteric thought related to it all | 23:52 | |
is that a saint is just an ordinary person | 23:56 | |
who has responded so completely to God's call | 24:02 | |
that he becomes God's slave. | 24:07 | |
He is the slave of God's love. | 24:12 | |
Let us look once again | 24:16 | |
at the Book of Ephesians for this final thought. | 24:17 | |
This prayer passage which is the special study for today | 24:21 | |
includes the petition that the Ephesians be rooted | 24:25 | |
and grounded in God's love. | 24:30 | |
Or again, the prayer is that they may know | 24:34 | |
the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. | 24:36 | |
Here the writer is exalting the central doctrine | 24:42 | |
of Christianity, namely that God has loved man inordinately, | 24:47 | |
supremely, and has manifested that love in Jesus Christ. | 24:53 | |
And this, this is the key | 24:58 | |
to the very purpose of man's life on the planet Earth. | 25:02 | |
To believe this requires response to God's love, | 25:06 | |
which leads of course to that relationship | 25:11 | |
which may be described as enslavement to God's love. | 25:15 | |
Now, just because I have preached a sermon about sainthood, | 25:23 | |
I know I shall not become a saint. | 25:30 | |
And just because you have listened | 25:33 | |
with some measure of interest and patience, | 25:35 | |
I do not think you will become a saint. | 25:39 | |
I am sure of but one simple fact | 25:43 | |
stated now in two sentences. | 25:48 | |
First, a repetition of the earlier one. | 25:50 | |
We could use more saints in our time. | 25:54 | |
But stated in the parallel sentence, all of us, | 25:58 | |
and I'm sure of this, all of us are called to be saints. | 26:03 | |
We may never achieve that high destiny. | 26:10 | |
Likely we shall settle for the fulfillment | 26:13 | |
of personal ambition and the attainment | 26:16 | |
of some earthly distinction. | 26:19 | |
But if this be so, we shall miss our true calling | 26:22 | |
and fail to accomplish the purpose for which we were born | 26:29 | |
and the destiny to which the Creator God | 26:33 | |
and the Redeemer God has summoned all people. | 26:36 | |
Let us pray. | 26:46 | |
O Thou, who has called us to be saints | 26:54 | |
and to whose call we have responded negatively | 26:59 | |
or cautiously or partially, | 27:03 | |
accept our prayer of confession and penitence now. | 27:10 | |
And grant, O God, that Thy call may continue | 27:17 | |
sounding in our presence until in some high moment | 27:23 | |
we yield ourselves into Thy holy will. | 27:32 | |
And now the Lord bless you and keep you. | 27:40 | |
The Lord make His face to shine upon you | 27:44 | |
and be gracious unto you. | 27:47 | |
The Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon you | 27:49 | |
and give you peace now and forever. | 27:54 |