Saints and Superheroes

Proper 15 C August 15, 2010 Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18 Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56

We are making a saint today. And all around us are a great cloud of witnesses, cheering us on.

Several years ago, Hillary Clinton wrote a book: It Takes a Village. She got the title from an African proverb: it takes a village to raise a child. It takes all the people who love a child, who care for the child’s future, to support that child into maturity. It’s not just the parents, the little nuclear family, who have to carry this burden alone: it takes a village. Or in our modern American context, it takes all of our extended family, the people we are born related to and the people we choose to be related to – our special friends – to support and love a child, and help him or her grow up to be the adult they want him to be.

We are all here today for Ernesto Jose. We are that modern village, a collection of family and friends – some very close to Ernesto Jose indeed, and some of us who maybe are just meeting him today for the first time. It takes all of us to raise this child, or in the words of the baptismal service, it takes all of us to see that Ernesto Jose is brought up in the Christian life and faith. Parents and godparents have the intimate, day-to-day responsibilities, but all of us here today in this church have a stake in how Ernesto Jose grows up. Today, we are making a saint.

What is wonderful about the church is that there are many more saints with us here today, cheering Ernesto Jose on – the Communion of Saints – the great cloud of witnesses, the angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. There are those saints who are known only to us – parents, grandparents, loved ones who have died and gone before us. They are with us today. There are those great saints whose names everyone knows – great superheroes in the faith: they are with us today, as well. Today is also the feast day of Our Lady, St. Mary the Virgin, Mary, the mother of Jesus. Yes, indeed, all the saints in heaven and earth are here with us today.

Those saints are like superheroes to us – the examples of wise and brave ones who help us in our everyday lives. When we wonder if we are making the right decision about something important, when we need help with our family, or raising our children, or worrying about what is around the next corner, we can just call those superheroes to our minds, for help and guidance and wisdom. How would we make it without those special personal saints of ours, those superheroes known perhaps only to us alone?

So, as we baptize Ernesto Jose today, we may be making a new saint, but we are also making some new superheroes: you who love Ernesto Jose the most – you parents and godparents and dear friends: you are being made into superheroes today. To Ernesto Jose you will be those great and wise ones to whom he will look for love and guidance. If it takes a village to raise a child, well, in today’s world it takes a village of superheroes to raise a child. We all know the stresses and strains on family life, and no, no one can do it alone. No two parents can do it alone, no matter how superheroic. It takes friends, family, teachers, counselors, fellow church-goers, neighbors. All of us here are cheering you on.

The bible tells us we are running a great race: a race toward God, really, toward our home, toward our hopes for a world in which all children are as beloved and cared for as Ernesto Jose. There are times when that race is tough, the course is bumpy, when we slow down or get side tracked. Sometimes we think we’ll never get to the end, we’re discouraged or troubled. But it is just at those times when the going gets rough that the superheroes really start to cheer us on. That’s when the saints earn their stars and the cloud of witnesses work up a head of steam. They are not going to leave us to run this race alone. Listen. Can you hear? They are with us.

Ernesto Jose, welcome to the company of the saints in light.