Saints

From the hymn I Sing a Song of the Saints of God

I sing a song of the saints of God, patient and brave and true, who toiled and fought and lived and died for the Lord they loved and knew. And one was a doctor, and one was a queen, and one was a shepherdess on the green; they were all of them saints of God, and I mean, God helping, to be one too.

As we walked through the cavernous Sanctuary and ornate chapels of Westminster Abbey, I could not help but feel small and insignificant among the saints, royalty, musicians, philanthropists, soldiers, and theologians who are honored and buried there. Going back over a thousand years, this magnificent structure and its inhabitants called my spirit forth.

We happened into the Abbey at the hour of noonday Eucharist, so we sat down and prayed ancient words that had been spoken in this space for hundreds of years. Our prayers echoed throughout the hall and harmonized with the saints who had gone before us and who would come after us.

In his homily, the priest talked about the current Christian martyrs of Syria and Iraq. He was shortly to travel there and bring strength and comfort to this persecuted Christian community. Again, my spirit was called forth, but this time looking into the present and the future, instead of the past.

Bernard of Chartres said that “we are like dwarves perched on the shoulders of giants, and thus we are able to see more and farther than the latter. And this is not at all because of the acuteness of our sight or the stature of our body, but because we are carried aloft and elevated by the magnitude of the giants.”

There are so many to whom we owe a huge debt. The theologians like Martin Luther, John Calvin, C.S. Lewis, Karl Barth, Desmond Tutu, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The social justice fighters like Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Fredrick Douglas, Rosa Parks, John Lewis, Mildred and Richard Loving, Marsha P. Johnson, Harvey Milk, Sylvia Rivera and Jim Obergefell.

And then there are the multitude of saints who do not have recognizable names, but who have faithfully “toiled and fought and lived and died for the Lord they loved and knew”. Our families, our friends, benefactors of our church, mentors, teachers, and saints who worked behind the scenes.

Who are some of the “giants” on whose shoulders we stand? While it is true that our challenge is to live and labor in the present with an eye to the future, it is also the case that we cannot faithfully do that without knowing about those on whose shoulders we stand and who have paved the way that has enabled us to be where we are.

O God, by your Holy Spirit you have made us one with your saints in heaven and on earth: Grant that in our earthly pilgrimage we may always be supported by this fellowship of love and prayer, and know ourselves to be surrounded by their witness to your power and mercy. Amen.