What Shall We Become?

A matter of sainthood—then and now

Pastor Dave I held the dying woman’s hand some years ago, in another city, another parish, another lifetime, and prayed with her as she began the journey from the mortal to the immortal. Breathing was hard for her and words were few, but her mind was full of memories and her soul full of questions. “What will I become?” she asked. I told her I didn’t understand. “What will it be like? Will I be an angel?” she said. I understood. She knew death was near but she also believed in resurrection and she wanted to know what it would be like.

“I don’t know the specifics” I said, “but I think I know the answer. You’ll become your true self and what God has always known you to be.” She closed her eyes in thought for a moment, then whispered, “I was hoping for better.”

We’re all hoping for better, aren’t we? We want sainthood to be a refuge from the selves we’ve come to know over years. We’re hoping heaven will change all those nasty habits into shining virtues. We’re hoping for wings to replace hobbled knees. We’re hoping we end up as someone else.

But sainthood doesn’t work like that. Sainthood is not about becoming someone or something else; it’s about you becoming you…as God sees you. Sainthood is about recognizing yourself as God intends you to be; it’s about seeing that you are no longer bound by the rules of this life that keep you depressed, angry, vengeful, jealous, vain, and anxious. Sainthood takes you for what you are and gives you permission to be what you shall become, right now.

Churches, like people, hope for more. We want the future (heavenly or earthly) to be a reflection of what we are now (only cleaner). But the future for our church, like ourselves, is about transformation of what we are into what God needs us to become. What if we saw that future-self and embraced it like that dying woman embraced the wings of her sainthood.

What if we decided to really not care about possessions and stopped worrying about money? What if we decided to stop being suspicious about our neighbors and started treating them like our family (only nicer)? What if we let go of the worship of our pasts and fell in love with our future instead? What if we really allowed ourselves to live free? Sound silly? It’s a pretty good description of sainthood.

Faith is about believing that God’s hopes for humankind are creating a new heaven and earth. It’s about believing that we can act like our hopes instead of continuing the memories of our failings. It’s about recognizing ourselves as saints even if our neighbor insists we look like the same ol’ grouch he saw yesterday.

The woman who once held my hand as she lay dying, now knows the truth about herself as God had seen her all along. What relief she must know. What joy she must have. Perhaps the first question of every new saint is this: “What was I so worried about? Why was I so anxious? If I had known then what I know now, I would have acted differently.”

Well, now you know. Now, let’s act like saints.
Pastor Dave

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