Saints' Trading Cards: Luke 6:17–23

Today we celebrate the life of Thomas à Kempis. Protestants often get a little squeamish when we start talking about Saints. Are they closer to God than the average Christian? What about grace? Does that make everyone a Saint? As an Episcopalian, I know that my tradition's theology around Saints sometimes appears as clear as "looking through a glass dimly" to borrow Paul's words. Even after theological training and much time spent with Lesser Feasts and Fasts and Holy Women, Holy Men, both books celebrating Saints throughout the ages, I struggle to come up with the best definition of who a Saint is. Fortunately, I do not have the privilege to serve on some committee to say who is really a Saint and who is merely a saint.

Yet if someone did make the mistake of putting me in charge of discerning who belonged in a book like Holy Women, Holy Men I would stray from thinking that those to be recognized as Saints need to have two credible miracles to their name. Rather, I would wonder does this person follow the way of Christ Jesus and make the Gospel known and real to people in their unique time and location. Certainly this working definition sounds nice in this sermon, but maybe it does not hold up throughout the ages. Perhaps an analogy would work better though.

As a child, I was not all that into baseball cards, but I had friends who were. I can remember they would scour through plastic packaging searching for a prized rookie's or an all-star's special edition card. When they found it they were so very happy. They would put it in a plastic case or a book of cards. Then they would return to it every once in a while to admire it and to get inspired by it to go play that sport. Maybe the Saints are like that for us. I really do not think God has a special section of Heaven reserved for the VIPs, but maybe Saints are those folks that we get so excited about that we rip through the packaging so as to know them more intimately and to try and live our lives with God like them. One of those worth searching out in the "Saints' trading cards" is Thomas à Kempis.

Thomas was a man who lived in the late Middle Ages. He was the most well known author of the medieval age, although his book The Imitation of Christ may only be something that he compiled. Nevertheless, à Kempis after being educated as a young man, took on vows as an Augustinian monk, then later as a priest before he became a sub-prior in about the year 1425. From then until his death in 1471, he lived with the Order of the Brethren of the Common Life who took on a practical, rather than speculative, rule of life that was based on the Bible. Both lay and clergy members focused on living a pious life doing inner work and learning the virtues. Much of what elevates à Kempis as one to emulate is that he lived the Gospels out in his everyday life within this community and showed that one could connect with the life of Christ in Scripture, then complete action in the world. This countered the notions of the day that one had to pay a penance for God's love by giving money to the Church. As he shared his love of Christian virtues, his writing, and his life of discipline with the world in the location and time when he lived, to me he appears a Saint.

Thomas à Kempis took seriously the pursuit of the blessings from Jesus’ Sermon on the Plains (no it was not delivered in Auburn, AL). In his monastic life he took on a rule of life that made him poor, hungry, sorrowful, reviled, excluded and defamed on account of Jesus Christ. Yet, as he chased after Luke’s description of the beatitudes he found himself blessed. Really, we can do this too, and we do not even have to take a vow of poverty, silence, or celibacy.

Christ Jesus invites us to shape our lives and the lives of our families around the virtues. We can come in contact with the blessed poor, hungry, weeping, reviled souls and through this contact we become more saintly. When we share what we have been given by God with others, our lives transcend into something more saintly. When we say the Daily Office, like Thomas we are formed as more virtuous Christians. Certainly, we are all Saints, but I feel inspired that we can make known Jesus' Good News in this day and age, so that one day someone is ripping through packaging to seek out our Saints' trading cards.