If you ask most people, they can name their heroes, real or fictional, although some of the first images that come to mind are those iconic comic-book do-gooders in colorful tights Wonder Woman or Superman, memorable for the skin-tightness of spandex rather than heroic deeds. While caped crusaders inspire us to be heroic, real heroines inspire us to be fully human through the extraordinary glimpses they provide of the capacities each of us has, but usually slip away in the unclaimed-talent section of our lives. They are models for what we think is best about life, and what we aspire to become.  

All Saints Day which we celebrate this morning, is not, however, about worshiping our heroes, not even our heroines in the faith.  It is about the way each of us look in God’s eyes when we claim God’s calling to follow after Christ with every fiber of who we are, and in whatever ways God is calling us to give of ourselves.  Heroes are entitled to adulation for the great deeds they have done.  Saints, however, live wholly outside the economy of entitlement, and thus often are little known, despite being the foundation on which God builds the Reign of God here on earth.  The virtuous and godly living reflected by the Saints of our faith is not about extraordinary piety and religiosity – saintly living is simply taking all of who you are and making it fully available to God-- to serve the purposes of love and justice as Jesus embodied them.   Being a saint is about faithfulness in our journey through life with God and all of God’s creation.

Mother Theresa, who is often thought of in heroic terms for her work with the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, India, knows better than we do the difference between a hero and saint.  Mother Theresa once had a microphone jammed in her face by an etiquette-challenged woman-reporter, who demanded with barely contained disdain to know: “Mother Theresa, are you a SAINT?”  Without missing a beat, or showing the least smidgen of resentment, Mother Theresa stepped up right in the face of the young reporter, seriously invading her personal space, and smiled, tapped her bony finger on the chest of the well-nourished westerner, and gently said, “Why, yes I am!  AND SO ARE YOU!"

Few of us will be called on to be heroes, but each one of us is either a saint who has embraced our calling to be Christ for the other, or a saint in waiting who has not, but at any point can, simply say, “yes” to God’s invitation to sainthood.  When we do, most likely no one will notice.  Sainthood isn’t about how we appear in anyone’s sight but God’s…for God’s heart yearns for us to be imitators of the life and deeds of Christ.  Saint is what the church calls those we remember for stepping up in ordinary times, and doing the extraordinary act not of heroism but saintliness.