“SAINTSPEAK”

 

 

A post-homiletical discourse delivered by the Rev. Dr. James R. Beebe

Rector, St. Patrick’s Church, Incline Village, NV, November 1, 2009 (All Saints Day)

     I’ll bet you didn’t know that St. Brice is the Patron Saint of Stomach Aches.  Or that St. Teresa of Los Andes is the Patron Saint of Headaches and Migraines.  It’s true.  It being All Saints Day, I thought I’d share that with you.  Still, the whole notion of “saints” has steadily gone downhill since about the year 60. 

     When Paul wrote his first letter to the church in Corinth, for example, he started by saying, “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ….”  When he used the word, “saint,” what he meant was any old follower of Jesus, not the super-moral.

     So I guess I can stand up here this morning and say, “This homily is for the saints of St. Patrick’s Church.”  That means you.  On the other hand, my favorite observation about a saint is that he is someone whose past has been insufficiently researched…. The truth is, we have saints from every generation in this congregation – about six, if my count is right. 

     William Strauss and Neil Howe have written a book called, Generations, and in it they count six.  Their creative premise is that America, since the late 17^th century, has repeated four generations.  It’s a cycle, they say, where one generation’s unique characteristics lead into the next and the next and next until a fifth generation appears, having the same characteristics as the first.

1.        If you who were born before 1925, you are what is known as “The Civic Generation.” 

     Your generation has been one of trends – lower rates of suicide and crime, higher aptitudes, greater educational attainment, increased voter participation, and rising confidence in government.  Your heroes have been collective – the flagraisers at Iwo Jima, the Boys of D-Day, and the Seabees, to name a few.  You dominated the White House for 30 years and won two-thirds of all Nobel Prizes ever awarded to Americans.  Recent polls suggest that you are America’s happiest age bracket.

     In these, you are blessed.  Nevertheless, there is more to living a Gospel faith.  In creating a mighty society, you must consider the effects that this has on other peoples throughout the world.   In addition, what younger saints need most from you in this partisan politics world of ideology is a reawakening of a “community-first” spirit.

2.     If you were born between 1925 and 1942, you are what is known as “The Helper Generation.”

      Most of you – about 98 per cent, to be exact – wanted to work in big corporations that offered job security.  As a result, your affluence and upward mobility have been virtually unhindered.  You have led the way in the helping professions such as teaching, medicine, ministry, and government and the 1970s explosion in public interest advocacy groups.  You have produced virtually every major figure in the modern Civil Rights Movement.  As a result, the United States has become a kinder, more communicative place.    

    In these, you are blessed.  Nevertheless, there is more to living a Gospel faith.  You must realize that your security does not rest in promises of some corporation.  Where your treasure is, your heart is apt also to be.  In the same way, you must realize that the power that you so effectively wielded in the helping professions is actually that of God working through you.

3.     If you were born between 1943 and 1965, you are what is known as “The Baby Boomer Generation.”

     We – and here I’ll have to use the first person plural – found our parents’ world in need of a major spiritual overhaul; our “Consciousness Revolution” was in many ways a revolt against our fathers.  Picture our fury over napalm, whose forerunner, the flamethrower, had enabled our fathers to overrun enemy pillboxes.  Picture our two-fingered peace taunt, adapted from the old V-for-Victory.  And picture the universal wearing of khaki, the color of the Civic’s uniformed teamwork.  Like Katharine Ross in “The Graduate,” we approached the altar or nursery or corporate ladder and heard something inside scream, “STOP!”

     In these we are blessed.  Nevertheless, there is more to living a Gospel faith.  We’re not very good about losing our lives to find them.  We have to realize that in our search to “find ourselves,” the church is not here primarily to meet our needs.  We have to learn to worship God for God’s sake.  And finally, we must be willing to stop our incessant seeking, as though seeking were a noble end in itself.  We have to learn to take a stand because the Gospel – at first, at least – doesn’t require certainty, only commitment.

4.     If you were born between 1966 and 1981, you are what is known as “The Skeptic Generation.”

     You are the most aborted generation in American history.  No other generation has witnessed such a dramatic increase in domestic dissatisfaction on the part of parents.  Through the 1970’s, the number of latchkey children under 14 roughly doubled.  You are the most heavily incarcerated generation in American history.  Nearly one Skeptic in five now lives in poverty.  During their childhood, America has substantially shifted the federal fiscal burden from the old to the young.  It’s no wonder you think it’s all bull….

     It’s not surprising that your generation feels unloved.  But you can’t live in victimhood forever.  The Good News is that we do survive – forever.  You’re disenchanted.  That’s OK – so was Jesus.  You understand the futility and ineffectiveness of adult leadership.  That’s OK – so did Jesus. 

5.     If you were born between 1982 and 2000, you are what is known as “The Millennial Generation.”

     You have a lot going for you.  You have parents who love you, in large part because they themselves felt unloved as children.  You have schools and teachers who are not only competent, but value you as well.  You will grow up to be more educated than any other American generation, ever.  You will be super stewards of this world and do more than any other generation to “green” the world.  Like the Civics four generations ago, you will have a sense of community and a “can-do” attitude

     But you will be subject to the very same temptations as the Civic Generation before you.  You will be tempted to worship what you build.  You will be tempted to think that God is not required.  In your pampered and cocksure psyches you will lack the introspection that it takes to contemplate.  You’ll miss Jesus’ first requirement – the part about repenting.  “Repenting of WHAT?” you’ll ask.

And, if Strauss and Howe are right, we start again….

Or will we?  Are we condemned to this cyclical myth of Sisyphus?  The Greeks say yes.  The world says yes.  Conventional wisdom says yes.  The polls say yes.  Sociologists and historians say yes.  Followers of Jesus say otherwise.  We may be different generations with different spiritual needs… 

…but we are all saints.