For the Sake of Joy

“This would be a great job if it weren’t for all the people!” I’ve heard that from all sorts of folks. I’ve even said it myself a few times. You know how it is: you get to the point where you quote that old saying - “Everyone is crazy but me and thee, and I’m not so sure about thee.” People, can’t live with them, can’t ... Well, you get my point. Sometimes, some people just get under our skin. Sometimes, some people just get on our nerves. Sometimes, some people ...

The communion of saints is one of those ideas that sometimes sounds better in the abstract than it does in the concrete. The reality of people, all sorts of people - even saintly people - is sometimes hard to take. Yet, we are encouraged, in fact, required, to live in community, to live in relationship. Relationships take other people. Community implies other people. We cannot be in a relationship with ourselves or be a community of one.

Granted, this is not All Saints Sunday, so why is there an emphasis on the communion of saints? Well, because the text does so. The theme we chose for this week is about Jesus, and the statement at the end of the text about the joy set before him. But to understand this joy, we have to look at the run up to these last couple of verses, which are all about those who have gone before. We are naming the great cloud of witnesses.

So, we are stuck with community, and we might as well learn to enjoy it. We find that people, all sorts of people, are endlessly fascinating if we take the time to explore. We might even find that our salvation is wrapped up in those around us. At least, that is what the writer of the letter to the Hebrews would like us to understand. You have to go back to the beginning of Chapter 11. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” That’s a powerful description of faith; it’s hard to find one better in the whole Bible. But from this rather abstract statement comes a whole chapter of people. It is as if the writer is saying that the only way to understand faith is to look at the lives of the folks around us. Sure, the first ones named are the heroes of the faith. But by the time we get to the passage for today, we discover that there are so many that we’ve run out of names. They are just stories of suffering and triumph, pain and peace. When we listen closely and think deeply, we realize these are stories of people we know, stories of people like us. And we are encouraged by their faith; we are lifted up and given a sense of hope and promise.

But the writer tells us that their journey, though it is done, is not complete. They still await fulfillment. They wait for us. And now they make up the cloud of witnesses that has gone before us and encourages us to run. They wait for their own completion, even as they press us forward toward ours.

Wait a minute. They aren’t done? Well, I suppose if you talk about the people that the writer to the Hebrews talks about, it makes some sense. After all, they were all Old Testament figures, so their stories couldn’t be completed until Christ came, right? But then, by the time of this letter to the Hebrews, Christ had come. So, they would have had their chance. Right? Hmm. Maybe something else is going on here then.

Maybe what we are supposed to understand is that none of us is complete until all of us are complete. Maybe we are supposed to hear that our salvation is not a personal issue. Our faith is not a private matter. Maybe we are supposed to understand that we are, by the nature of this faith, a community. We are the communion of saints.

Saint, of course, doesn’t mean halo-wearing and perfect-acting reasonable facsimiles of human beings. A saint is simply someone who has said yes to Jesus Christ. And if that is the key criterion, then we should know how fallible saints can be, how incomplete saints can be, and how needy saints can be. Because we are they! We are saints, and we have trouble wearing the halo without embarrassment.

So, if there is a cheering section encouraging us forward while we lay aside the weights and sins that drag us down and then run the race set before us, then it IS about us, after all. Right? Uh, no. Sorry. First of all, it is about him. “Looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” Our goal and our training regimen is to become like Christ. It is about him and our efforts to incarnate him in our own lives and communities, in our hearts and in our hands.

Jesus is the model; Jesus is the measure. It can’t be about us because as good as we can be, alongside the depth and power of his love, ours seems feeble at best. As soon as we begin to get full of ourselves - and we do way too often - then we look to Jesus and are reminded how far we have yet to travel to the destination. As soon as we begin to fade, convinced that we are far from the goal and—more than that—incapable of ever reaching it, then we look to Jesus and see an invitation and encouragement. And something more. We see joy.

That’s what we want, whether we can name it or not. We want joy—the joy that Jesus lived every single day. The joy of knowing we are where and who we are supposed to be. The joy of knowing that no matter our purpose, our value cannot be taken from us because it comes from beyond and within. The joy of knowing that every action, thought, and desire is focused on fulfilling our purpose. The joy of living not for ourselves but for the kingdom of God, the community of faith, and the communion of saints.

For the sake of this joy, Christ endured the cross. For the joy of loving us, for the joy of including us, Christ gave his life. And now, we find joy in loving as he loved. That’s what it means to be a part of the communion of saints.