Reflections on Sainthood

What a week.

October 29th marked 10 years since my father's best friend Mark completed suicide.

October 31st was Halloween of course and my first funeral in the pastoral role. Not to mention - if you haven't already heard from everyone and their grandma - this Halloween marked the 500 year anniversary of the Protestant Reformation! (500 years ago Martin Luther nailed 95 Theses (points of conversation) to the door of the Church and ignited a flame that continues to burn bright today.)

November 1st was All Saints Day (a tradition started by the Catholic Church to honor those who had died and been declared Saints by the Catholic Churches standards)

November 4th, today, the end of this iconic week, marks 10 years since my dear friend Adrian completed suicide.

Ten years ago my life was in chaos already, but this week, bookended by the death of Mark and the death of Adrian, changed the course of my life in many ways.

Now here I am.. ten years later.. the chaos and the trauma have subsided and my focus has turned from survival to preaching. In college this anniversary of Adrian's was honored by a suicide and mental illness awareness event I coordinated for my school. Now on this ten year anniversary I suppose it is only fitting that I would be honoring the saints in my life in yet another way - preaching. Having to preach on All Saints Sunday is one thing, but preaching on All Saints Sunday while it also being the ten year anniversary of my own personal saint's death is even weirder. God, you never stop surprising me.

I had to do a lot of researching on this All Saints tradition in order to prepare for preaching today and tomorrow. I didn't necessarily grow up in the church so I'm still learning a lot of these things that make up our liturgical year. But everything I thought I could assume about All Saints Day turned out to be wrong.. or maybe not wrong, just half true.

I thought the only people who could be saints were those who were 1) amazing people, beyond measure and 2) dead. On this day in the Lutheran church it is indeed tradition to name, honor, and remember those whom the community has loved and lost in the past year. Yet, another reason I thought this was only about the dead. But as I investigated further, my first realization was that we were recognizing ordinary people. Not extraordinary people who were prophets, martyrs, nuns, monks, priests, apostles, or any of the "usual suspects." They were people like you and me. If someone you loved died, you could have their name read and honored in worship AS A SAINT! So what are the requirements to being a saint?? AND THEN, I realized that in the congregation I am interning with, we not only name the dead, but we also name those who have been baptized in our congregation over the past year. Mainly BABIES! So who, I ask you, WHO is a saint!?

What I learned in preparation of preaching on All Saints Sunday is extraordinary.

YOU are a saint.

I am a saint.

And most importantly, Adrian (and Mark and Josh and Allyssa and Giles and others who took their lives) are SAINTS!

Not all Christians have the same theology. Not all will agree and in another time and place in my life I was told that suicide is THE unforgivable sin.

And so, how could I ever name these loved ones in worship, in such a holy space? How could I ever explain just how deeply my life, my faith, and my call have been impacted by such people whom the church I used to know wanted to ignore?

I'm so glad God did not let those voices have the final word in my life. I'm so glad the Spirit compelled me to ask questions. I'm so glad that God found me in my deepest despair and revealed to me a God, not of judgment and hate, but of love and mercy. I'm so glad. I'm so glad.

You see.. my call story is entangled with sinful people. People I never imaged to be saints.

Growing up I survived a lot of shit. I lost a lot of people. And I met God.

I didn't grow up in the Church.. but I was baptized. My parents took us to Sunday School and were members of a parish they never attended. So therefore I had a pastor. That pastor had different theological views than I now have today, but at the time I thought he was the LAW. I put myself through Confirmation after I lost Adrian, because "I needed saved." As an "older student" I took one-on-one classes with said pastor and was told to stop crying for my friends who took their own lives, they were dead to us now and didn't deserve our tears. I learned every week about sin. I'm a sinner. I'm a terrible person and all I can do is repent repent repent.

This was not healthy for my 15 year old mind. I wanted to give up on God. But God wouldn't let go of me. Every night I cried myself to sleep and sometimes begged to die. I would somehow eventually find rest. And I would wake up to another day. At the time this felt cruel. Looking back, I see God in every moment. It's a miracle I made it out of the misery my life was at the time alive and (fairly) well. God met me where I was, entered into my despair, gave me rest, made the sun rise, and helped me to rise to the occasion.

This.. this is not a God of judgement and hate. This is not a God that sits on a throne in the clouds looking down on us 'peasants.' This is a God of love. A God of mercy. A God who comes to earth, experiences death first hand, and promises better. A God who created humanity and called us GOOD. Yes, we are all sinners. BUT WE ARE ALSO ALL SAINTS! Not because we are perfect, because that would be a lie, but rather because of what CHRIST HAS DONE for each and every one of us. THAT is the Good News, the news that speaks LIFE into DEATH, that while we were STILL sinners, Christ died for us. Christ took off his coat of righteousness (of sainthood) and gave it to us, taking our coat of sin. You wear this coat whether you like it or not because what Christ did is PAST TENSE. It has already happened.

So, what are the requirements for sainthood? Life. You are a saint because you are alive and God has given you that life. In birth, YOU are blessed by God to be a blessing to other. YOU are a means of grace in this world. YOU have power and YOU are worthy of love, attention, and respect because YOU EXIST and you are a child of God. This is your identity.

Adrian, and many others, may have taken their own lives.. but that does not render them unworthy of God or unable to have had a powerful impact on the lives they knew. Rather, because of my God given identity, I am unashamed to declare that God has brought life out of Adrian's suicide. I would give anything for Adrian to be alive today. But I cannot change the past, I can only change the future. Adrian was and is a blessing to me. Adrian's death saved my life. If I had not known the pain of being a "survivor," of being "left behind" due to suicide, I would have taken my own life years ago. Yet I press on. Eager to keep reshaping my identity from one of shame to one of sainthood. Because I am a child of God, I am NOT my past and I am NOT my depression. And in this new identity I have the courage to proclaim Christ in the midst of life's muck. Christ is close to the brokenhearted. Christ does not shy away from that which society turns its face from. Christ loves those plagued by mental illness in all the same ways God loves those who society praises.

Who in your life has been a saint to you? How have you lived into your saintly identity?

You are blessed to be a blessing.

There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still.

#rethinksainthood #mentalillnessawareness #suicideprevention #godsabundantlove #kingdompromises