Let's start with some home truths:
God
loves you.
God loves the person you are today.
God loves you for the person you could be tomorrow.
God's love for you isn't conditional about issues such as sexuality, age,
colour or gender, but God understands just how important these things are
to us.
God understands
your journey, the things you've faced, and the situations you've lived through
You're a saint.
Now for some of us, we may be feeling a little uncomfortable with that title, because surely saints have to meet some very strict criteria:
They're
very devoted Christians.
They're recognised by the Roman Catholic Church.
They're dead.
(Apparently they march everywhere and they're very patient as well)
So perhaps you think you can't be a saint? Well the word saint is a biblical word and it's another word that means disciple, it's there in the book of Psalms in psalm 30:
Sing to the LORD, you saints of his;
praise his holy name.
So we are all God's saints, sat here as followers of Christ.
But what is it that we mean when we say the communion of the saints? As I was planning this sermon, I found myself coming back to the 'I believe' part of the creed, so today's message has a very personal flavour
If you come from a Roman Catholic background, then saints have a very special place in the order of things. This communion involves the intercession of the saints (- those who are now in heaven pray for us, and we benefit greatly if we ask them to pray for us).
And there are a great many saints canonized by the Popes through the years
There's
Saint Albert, patron saint of scientists
Saint Joseph of arimathea, patron saint of tin miners
Saint Christopher, patron saint of lorry drivers
And Saint Guy patron saint of sheds.
Of course there's the other view of the communion of the saints, which view us as a large family of disciples all sharing a common faith.
It's this sharing, this notion of family that struck me with today's reading,
There you've got this little man, this outsider, despised by the people for being a collector for the Romans and a dishonest one at that, climbing into a tree so he can catch a glimpse of Jesus. When Jesus reached the spot he looked up and called him down, "Zacchaeus hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today"
If you were a citizen of Jericho you would have called Zacchaeus a sinner because he belonged to a despised class of people, the religious leaders at the time said he was no longer counted as being among the covenant people of God. They believed that he did not keep the law of the God and if you went to his house you would be corrupted by eating food that was not clean, not prepared in the proper way. He was considered to be outside the special family of Abraham to which they belonged.
It's difficult to image what must have gone through the mind of the crowd when Jesus invited himself to dinner at the home of this traitor.
And then even more controversially Jesus says to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost."
He too is a son of Abraham.
Jesus invites the outsider into the family, just as Jesus invites all of us into his family, to be a part of his body. And that family can provide us with many things.
When I first became a Christian, having shopped around trying to find the right church - and failing, - I became convinced that you didn't need to go to church to have faith and be a Christian. Well in one sense that view was right, after all just standing in a church no more makes you a person of faith than standing in a garage makes you into a car. But I was missing something. I was missing the effect of the communion of the saints. It wasn't until years later, when I found MCC that I felt Jesus really calling me into his family as a son of Abraham.
The people we think of as saints who are disciples from history stand as role models their stories can provide inspiration for us - many of them living in a world that was a lot harsher and a lot less comfortable. But those stories aren't all just historical record and myth, because we as part of that communion have our own stories that help us to inspire and build each other up.
When a relationship of mine ended, a particularly nasty end to a very traumatic period, I remembered all of my secular friends giving me advice and it was along the lines of "forget him", "sleep around a bit you'll soon get over it" or "go buy yourself something nice". None of it helped. The thing that sticks in my mind came in the form of a letter, from a Christian friend of mine living in Manchester, and it said;
"I know that you're feeling very let down and hurt at the moment, and even as your friend I know that I will let you down as well from time to time - but there is someone in your life who is constant, who's love for you doesn't fade and become bitter because of how you behave, who wants you to be a part of his life in this world"
Being a part of the family of Christ is an astonishing thing, it takes us and it helps us to change and be transformed. When times are tough or we're troubled we need to be around other Christians to give God more opportunities to offer care - through each other acting as the hands and voice of Jesus.
And that change can be a real transformation, I'd like to share with you something else, it's a section from a piece written by one of the former members of my old church, and it describes the experience of a trans-sexual woman's first weekend away with the women's group at her first MCC:
At the Women's Retreat this weekend I DID FIT IN!! I couldn't mention one of the girls without mentioning them all. Each and everyone made me welcome. I spent the whole weekend doing what my spirit and soul have always wanted; to be able to spend time in the company of women as a woman. It was an incredible experience. As I drove home the tears began to flow and by the time I arrived they were gushing freely. I had cried all the way home, but they were tears of Happiness. I really had experienced a miracle, that of the Joy of Belonging for the first time in my life. As to a miracle, surely a cure for a mental anguish can be just as miraculous as that for any physical ailment. I can't find the words that would even come close to describing my gratitude to the girls at the retreat for their kindness and generosity of spirit, other than to say they were part of my miracle.
This family of Christ that we belong to is not limited by geography or time. Just as we, the folk of this church here in Manchester, are in communion with each other, we are also in communion with all the other Christians who use this building and with all the other Christians worshipping in this city, this country and across the world. But it doesn't stop there; we are in communion with those saints who have gone before us, those people who we can hold up as examples from history as folk who have shown us shinning examples of devotion and faith.
No
one had ever walked their journeys before.
No one
has ever walked your journey before.
But the
journey doesn't have to be a lonely one.
Amen.
(Dan Joseph - with due thanks to M Pearson & A Cooke for their inspiration.)
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.