Odd Thoughts on Sainthood

     Did I say this already?  There is no "saint" in Scripture.  The word "saint" does not appear. It is never singular, only plural--"the saints."
     This is a very freeing realization.  I am not a saint, and neither are you, even though you are a believer and the most committed, patient, loving, and forgiving person on earth. Neither is "St. Paul," regardless of what church history has called him. 
     But Paul and you and I, as believers, are among the saints. 
     According to Scripture, the body of believers is the collection of "saints," those who have been "sanctified" by the blood of Christ (gruesome as that always sounds--and is).  Those who believe in Christ have joined that body of sanctified ones.  It is not by anything we individually have done. (It is grace, not works, that saves us, of course; we know that.) Not a one of us is a saint by ourselves, but together we are those who have been "sainted" by the work of Christ himself.
     That doesn't mean that we don't have good works to do, or that we can "continue in sin that grace may abound."  That is not what I mean.  All I wish to point out is that we are not being exactly biblical when we use "saint" individually.  Paul himself struggled with sin just as much as the rest of us, as his letters make clear.  
     When we get caught up in calling individuals "saint," we can get off the track in at least two ways.  One, we think that these individuals really were perfect (they weren't), and two, thinking that we can never measure up to them, we use them as an excuse for our own mediocrity.
     Instead of cruising down those errant paths, we need to recognize that we, the body of Christ, are in this together.  There is no other saint out there to do the work for us, or to cover for us--only Jesus, "the author and finisher of our faith."  And we are--all of us, from Peter to Paul to Mary to Augustine to Jerome, to your favorite Sunday school teacher--His body, a body made saintly by Him.
     The question is not how I can make myself into a saint, but how I can function best as a part of the body.

Joyful Noise

"Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands..."
     Psalm 100 was commonly memorized when I was a kid, and it's commonly used today among believers, especially those of us who can get aslant of the music sometimes, and among those of us who like to pump the decibels up.
     Yes, do make a joyful noise unto the Lord.
     But please consider this:  when the Hebrews were busy making that noise, where were they? [pause while you think about that].  
     They were not inside the Temple.  They were not inside a tent.  They were not inside a steel-framed auditorium, or even one with acoustical tile.
     They were outside.  Outside.  They may have been in the Temple court, or they may have been in a campsite, on a mountainside, or on the walls of the city.  But they were outside. 
     The sound went up, to God (at least metaphorically, if not literally).  It did not reverberate on their eardrums a thousand times.  It did not kill cilia in their ear canals.  It did not make them cover their ears, turn off their hearing aids, or run for the lobby.
     I love to sing loud.  I love to praise the Lord with all my being.  But I also want to be a good steward of the many amazing senses He has granted us.  Hearing is a huge gift from God. When worship comes close to damaging our hearing ability, is it "reasonable service"?  
Does the "sacrifice of praise" mean the sacrifice of my hearing ability?
     Worship leaders: consult the science.  If www.dangerousdecibels.org is to be trusted, then most worship time is probably causing hearing damage.  
     What are we going to do about it?

Who's "we"?

      On student papers, I'm frequently asking "Who's 'we'?" The options are more than my student writers realize when they carelessly throw the word around.  Is it "we" of the class (and I do tell them to consider the class as the audience, so that does resolve it if they are following instructions)? 
     Sometimes it's "we humans," which is pretty clear and inclusive. Sometimes it cracks me up because it's clearly "we men" or "we women," omitting at least half of their readership.  Often it's "we who live on campus," forgetting the third who commute.
     Sometimes it's a subconscious racial identification, with white, brown, or black in mind.  That one always worries me. (Reminds me of the time I quit reading a particular novel because I reached a paragraph about fifty pages into the thing when the race of one character was suddenly mentioned, irrelevantly, when no other racial identities had been mentioned and race was not an issue in the story; I'm a pretty critical reader, I guess, but "we writers" ought to be more awake.)  It's the old Lone Ranger joke, "What do you mean 'we,' kimosabe?" (How is it spelled--need to google that.)
      Much of the time it is "we Americans," and that one, too, disturbs me (see the blog on competition).  "We Americans" is a good one when the subject is how the US can best help the rest of the world, but not when it's how this nation ought to be afraid of some outside threat, or how this nation can defeat, overcome, or otherwise win in some international competition.
      Any of these uses of "we" may be needed at times, in various contexts.  But "we" needs to be clear.  Let "us" (writers) not be guilty of unwarranted assumptions about our readers.
       But the point that most disturbs me is how little of the time the "we" is us Christians, the Church.  Why do "we believers in Jesus" so often think more about what "we Americans" are doing, or "we men" or "we women" are doing, than about what the Church is doing? I've actually sat in Sunday school classes where the discussion ranged more around what "we Americans" ought to be frightened of than around what "we the Church" ought to be doing to correct the town's or the world's ills.
      "We here at DCC" are a Christian college, so in fact the phrase "we as Christians" does occur rather frequently in student writing.  I wish it occurred more often (though I can get tired of "we as"--just say "Christians," or whatever else is clear).  When "we" stretch our "we-ness" to be "we the Church," no longer are we fighting for rights or hegemony or attention.  Instead we start seeing things from the more universal perspective, insofar as that is possible for "us people."  We start thinking about becoming more like Jesus--humbler, kinder, more patient, loving, and trustworthy.  If "we Christians" will do this, not only will we learn to be unafraid, but also we'll see the world start to pay attention to what "we've" been trying to tell it for centuries.
      I'd like to see us Christians be clear about our default "we"--"We the people of the body of Christ, in order to form a more perfect universe..."