Hebrews 11:33-12:2;
Matthew 9:36-10:8
Today
we commemorate our Lord’s Twelve Apostles and all the Saints, looking to them
as brilliant examples of faithfulness to the Savior. We may, however, be tempted to think that such
glorious persons have little to do with the humble and broken circumstances of
our lives. After all, the Apostles were
our Lord’s closest followers during His earthly ministry. Though they did not fully
understand Who He was until after His resurrection, He sent the Holy Spirit to
empower them to shepherd the Church as they fulfilled His command to “preach…‘The
kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers,
cast out demons.” They all struggled and
suffered greatly in faithfulness to the Lord in their ministries, with St. John
the Theologian being the only one not dying as a martyr.
If
we are ever tempted to think that we have achieved something great in the
Christian life, we should look to their example of abandoning all the comfort
and security of a conventional life to experience the uncertainty of following
a Messiah Who Himself was rejected and condemned by respectable religious and
political leaders. The Savior’s message
was such a threat to their power that they crucified Him as a public example of
what happened to those who got in their way and threatened the interests of the
powerful. As Christ foretold, “the time is coming when anyone who kills
you will think they are offering a service to God.” (Jn 16: 2) It
is not surprising that the Apostles who continued our Lord’s ministry met
deaths like His. They obeyed literally
the Savior’s teaching to deny themselves, take up their crosses, and follow
Him.
The way of
Christ was certainly not popular or celebrated during their lifetimes. To the contrary, it was a path to
persecution, imprisonment, torture, and death.
In contrast to false teachers who tried to use their position for
self-glorification, true Apostles followed in the way of those in the Old
Testament who looked forward in faith to the coming of the Messiah. As we read
today from Hebrews: “Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that
they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and scourging,
and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they
were tempted, they were killed with the sword; they went about in skins of
sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated—of whom the world was not
worthy—wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the
earth.”
Christ fulfilled
their hope not by setting up an earthly kingdom with geographical borders in which
they or their descendants would rule, even though that is what the Apostles
themselves had originally anticipated. Instead,
He offered Himself freely to the point of death on the Cross for the salvation
of all in a Kingdom not of this world.
He then rose in glorious victory over the worst that the most powerful
empire of the world could do. Empowered
by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Apostles were completely transformed and manifested
the ways of heaven amidst the realities of a broken world. They healed the sick, cast out demons, and
raised the dead. They did not respond in
kind to their enemies, but embodied the merciful love of the Savior. Even as He prayed for the forgiveness of
those who killed Him, St. Paul wrote of the Apostles, “When reviled, we bless;
when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we try to conciliate.” The Apostles are members of Christ’s Body,
the Church, and chief shepherds of His flock. Their work is not their own, but
Christ’s. That is why St. Paul could say
with integrity “I urge you, then, be imitators of me.” (1 Cor. 4:12-16) His
life had become an enacted icon of the Savior.
As he wrote elsewhere, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives
in me.” (Gal. 2:20)
No matter what
our particular calling in life may be, we all have the same fundamental vocation
to become radiant with the holiness of God.
People should be able to look at any one of us and see a vibrant image
of the healing of the human person in God’s image and likeness that our Savior
has worked for the salvation of the world.
The Apostles are examples for us all in this regard, as are all the
Saints. We do not know the names of all the Saints, but God certainly knows all
who have entered into the blessedness of the heavenly kingdom, regardless of
whether they have been formally recognized by the Church. We have the benefit of the teachings,
ministries, and prayers of countless people who have manifested the holiness of
God, and we must not excuse ourselves from faithfully following their examples. As today’s epistle reading exhorts us: “Therefore,
since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside
every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance
the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfection of
our faith.”
Christ said to
the Apostles, “You received without paying, give without pay.” All the more does His admonition apply to us,
who have benefited from the witness of countless generations of holy people in
the Church, not as a reward for good behavior, but due to the mercy of our Lord
Who was and is at work through them by the power of the Holy Spirit. We must resist the strong temptation to make the
pursuit of the Christian life all about ourselves, or about people who are superficially
like us, as though God’s salvation were our personal possession to be used for
our own comfort and satisfaction. The Apostles
and the Saints have rejected the temptation to distort the way of Christ into
an exercise in serving themselves or seeking earthly glory. Had their religion
been something they had invented, they could have done with it as they pleased. Our Lord’s salvation, however, is not a
product of this world or a commodity to be divided up or bought and sold
according to conventional human designs.
He has conquered death, the wages of sin, by His own death and
resurrection. We share in His life by
grace, which means that we are always in the position of those who have
“received without paying.” Consequently,
we must “give without pay” as we offer our resources, time, and attention in
support of the ministries of our parish and to bless the suffering, outcast,
and needy neighbors with whom our Lord identified Himself. If we are truly in Christ, then His life will
become our own; our character will conform to His. He is the vine and we are the branches. (Jn. 15:5) Since He offered up Himself freely
for our sake, we must offer ourselves to become channels of His blessing and
healing for the world, as all His faithful servants have done.
Across the
centuries and to this very day in some parts of the world, countless Christians
have followed the Apostles in literally dying as martyrs. Such martyrdom is a particular calling that requires
a God-given strength to make the ultimate witness for Christ. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord
calls and enables us all to bear witness to Him as we take up the crosses we
bear in our particular circumstances. In order to gain the spiritual strength
to bear faithful witness to Him, we must make the most basic spiritual disciplines
part of our daily lives as we pray, fast, share our resources, read the
Scriptures, forgive our enemies, and keep a close watch on the thoughts and
desires that we welcome into our hearts.
These practices are essential for gaining the spiritual clarity to
discern how the Lord is calling us to serve Him in the Church and in the world. Embracing them is an essential step in
following in the way of all the Saints.
By the power of the
Holy Spirit, an unlikely group of Palestinian Jews became our Lord’s
Apostles. To this very day, people who
face all the problems of life in our fallen world become radiant with the
holiness of God as His Saints. Let us take
the small, faltering steps that we are capable of taking today as we follow in their
path to the Kingdom. We have no lack of
opportunities to do so in our parish, our families, our workplaces, and our
neighborhoods. By responding to those
opportunities as best we presently can, we will learn to take up our crosses
and take our place among those who bear faithful witness to the saving mercy of
our Lord. We have received from Him without
paying. Let us give ourselves to Him and
our neighbors in the same way. That is how, by His grace, we may all become
Saints.
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