Christmas is almost here. There is probably a Christmas tree in your house somewhere and there are probably presents appearing under it, all brightly wrapped and labeled. No doubt you have snooped around enough to see which packages have your name on the tag, and you may have begun to try to guess what is in them. If you have guessed what is in the package, you probably can't wait for the day to come for you to open it. If you haven't been able to guess what is in it, you are probably even more eager to open it.
During Advent, this season of expectancy, we have been looking forward to Christmas and trying to anticipate what it really can mean to us. A part of that meaning is that there is a gift waiting for you. It is a very special gift. It is something chosen especially for you by someone very special. It is the most valuable thing that anyone could ever have. It will open a really new and exciting possibility for you that will change the rest of your life. But, once you have guessed what is in it, you may decide not to open it. I hope you will choose to open it - but you may not. Let's talk about that.
Our scripture lesson puts things into perspective. We have read the very first verses of one of the most important books in the whole Bible. Paul wrote his letter to the Romans late in his ministry when his faith and his understanding of the good news were mature. He was making a very careful effort to sum up everything of importance that he had been sharing with people all over the ancient world. He was sending this letter to the people in Rome where he hoped to go. He really didn't know the people there and he felt a need to tell them ahead of time who he was and what he was about. But what emerged may really have been a letter addressed to all of the people of the Roman Empire. It is a very important summary of the meaning of everything that followed from the birth of Jesus which we will be celebrating soon.
Paul addressed his letter to the Romans, but those who incorporated it into our Bible identified it as scripture through which the living God can still speak to us. It is addressed to us as well.
Paul is so eager to share his message that he can hardly contain himself. The address of a letter would ordinarily say something very simple like, "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the people at Rome. Greetings." But Paul expands the address into an awesome run-on sentence that introduces all of the themes of the letter like the prelude to a symphony might.
He introduces himself and explains that he has been called to be an apostle, that is, a missionary, to the non-Jewish people of the world.
Then he introduces the gospel he preaches, good news about the saving work of God, begun long ago and coming into focus in the life of Jesus Christ, through whom, he said, he had received grace and responsibility to share that grace with the Gentiles, and to bring them to faith.
Then he tells who the message is for. It is for those in Rome and for us who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, called to be saints. That is the gift God has chosen for each of us. That is what God wants for you because God loves you.
Now you see what I meant when I said you might not want to open that package. When Paul mentions being saints, some of us instinctively begin to back away and start singing that old Bob Dylan song, "No, no, no, it ain't me, babe. It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe." Sure, we want to be Christians. We want to do whatever we must to know we won't go to hell when we die. We will even come to church and bring our children to Sunday school so they will grow up to be decent people and not do drugs. But we would like to keep our religion separated from the rest of our lives so it won't get in the way. This business of being saints goes way beyond what we have in mind. Is that what you are thinking?
Let's talk about that. Let's talk about what it means to be a saint and what it doesn't mean. The idea we have in mind about what it means to be a saint is different from what Paul meant. But the idea some of us have in mind about what it means to be a Christian is different from what Paul had in mind, too. Let's talk about what it means to be called to be a saint and then let's talk about why we ought to choose to answer that call.
The word "saint" means "one who is set apart for the service of God." In the early church, it came to be another name for a Christian.
When most of us think of saints, we think of people who are represented in statues in some churches. It also conjures up some images that are totally unattractive and also totally inaccurate.
A saint is not someone who is perfect. Read the stories of the biblical saints. They were very human. Even Paul himself was headstrong, impulsive, and inclined to be a little arrogant - and he had a temper. But God accepted them as they were and worked with them and used them in the service of God's high purpose.
A saint is not some super-human being who lives up to a standard that no real person could achieve. The Christian faith will make some differences in your life. But after those differences are made, you will still be you. And being "real" is a part of what it means to be a Christian.
A saint is not someone who can't have any fun. You will see that some of the things that are characteristic of the lives of the saints make it easier, not harder, to have fun. The saints are more likely to experience real joy in living than anyone else. One pastor always made it a point to tell his confirmation classes to remember two things. One is that fun is not sin. And, the other is that sin is not fun.
A saint does not have to go into a monastery or become a missionary. In fact, God has an urgent need for saints who are business people, engineers, teachers, politicians, doctors, managers, farmers, and workers in every kind of field you can imagine. It is through just such people that God works to change the world.
But being a saint does require commitment. There is the rub. That little religion that never gets in the way of the rest of our lives never has been any kind of real Christianity. It is just an easy little substitute for a religion that we have dreamed up for our own convenience. The biblical faith has always required commitment. The Christian faith requires us to venture out into life daring to trust the reality and the love of God instead of hanging on to the tangible little things we try to use as life preservers. The Christian faith requires us to march to the beat of a different drummer; it requires us to let our lives be shaped by an ongoing, daily interaction with the living God rather than by all of the little cultural things that are shaping most other people's lives. And the Christian faith requires us to be committed to a purpose bigger than our own little purposes. It requires us to intentionally invest our lives in accomplishing the purpose of God for us and for the whole creation. That is a big requirement.
Some of us are not willing to make that kind of commitment. We are so caught up in the little commitments of our little lives that we can't see any other calling as anything but an imposition. A pastor was talking with a man about becoming a Christian. The man said, "Preacher, I don't know about that. You know, I like my beer." Well the jury is still out on whether or not it is an okay thing for Christians to drink beer. Some say, "Yes." Some say, "No." But if the fellow couldn't think of anything bigger than whether or not he would have to give up beer, he hadn't really gotten the picture of what it means to be a Christian. To answer the call to be a saint - that is, to be a Christian - does require commitment. It requires a commitment that lots of people really may not be ready to make yet. That is why some people may not be ready to open that gift from God that is represented by the coming of Jesus.
But there are some good reasons for choosing to open that package no matter what the cost. There are some things in there that you may really want - or that you may come to want as your life goes on. Let's talk about those things.
There is freedom in that package. When we think of "being saved" we ought not just to think of being saved from some abstract thing called "sin." God actually works to save us from the things that are really messing up our lives, like the guilt that keeps us from being able to like ourselves, or the anxieties that make us afraid to venture out into life and relationships, or the selfish ambitions that make slaves of us and drive us mercilessly, or the bitterness that makes all of life taste bad, or the hatreds that could make us do destructive things. To get free from those things can make a big difference in our lives. But the freedom that we gain through the Christian faith is not primarily freedom from something. It is primarily freedom for something. It is freedom for new life in Christ.
There is happiness in that package. Ask any random group of people what they want most out of life and the majority of them are likely to say, "Happiness." There is a special kind of happiness in the package for you. No, there is no promise that everything is always going to come out like you want it to. There may actually be more troubles and not less. But there will also be an assurance that life as a whole is a good gift from God that we should receive gratefully and enjoy fully. You know, in this pleasure-oriented culture of ours, there are lots of people who cannot really enjoy anything. The Christian faith can teach us how to enjoy life even when circumstances are not what we could wish for them to be.
In that package there is also the ability to love. That is something all of our hearts hunger for. Stephen Covey, whose book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, was a best seller for a long time, told about an experiment he sometimes performed with his students when he was teaching in a college. He required them to think through what they would do if they had only the rest of the semester to live. He said that the exercise often produced some profound responses and the dominant central theme, the underlying principle, was love.1 Love is something that we all want in our lives. But many of us don't have a very clear idea about what love is, much less the ability to do it. Part of our inability to love has to do with our unwillingness to make commitments. God has sent Jesus to show us what it means to love, and God surrounds us with love, God's love and other loves, that can love us into the ability to share love. That is the pearl of great value that we all yearn for. It is in the package.
And purpose is in the package, too. Robert A. Raines began his book, New Life in the Church, by lamenting the lack of purpose in the nation, in the church, and in most of us as people. He compared us to plankton, the little plants that live in the sea and drift thousands of miles wherever the current takes them with no power or will of their own to direct their destiny.2 In order to be truly human, we need a purpose to live for that is big enough to be worth the investment of our lives. When we read the newspaper and learn of wars and corruption and suffering and all sorts of things going wrong in our own hometowns and around the world, we want to cry out, "Why doesn't somebody do something about all of this?" God is at work in the world to do something about it -and God calls those who are set apart for his service to participate with God in building a better world. Yes, it can be costly to get involved in that, but it can give you a purpose for your life that is worth living for.
Freedom, happiness, love, purpose, those are some very valuable gifts. Who knows what else you will find in your own personal gift from God? It is something that God wants for you because God loves you. God picked it out for you and put it under the Christmas tree with your name on it. It is all part of the calling to be saints, people set apart for the service of God. But it will require commitment. Commitment is an essential part of answering the call. Things just won't work without it. I can understand that when you have guessed what is in that package some may not want to open it. But I hope you will.
1. Stephen R. Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), p. 132.
2. Robert A. Raines, New Life in the Church (New York: Harper and Row, 1961).