Called to be Saints — Book Review
What does a mature Christian look like? What marks would someone who was growing to be more like Jesus possess? In other words, what does it look like to be holy? If holiness is to have any meaning as a spiritual reality, then it should express itself in concrete ways. We should be able to recognize it when we see it. In Gordon Smith’s book Called to be Saints: An Invitation to Christian Maturity he outlines what spiritual maturity looks like identifying the source of our holiness, the characteristics of holiness, and the context for developing in holiness.
In Christ
From the beginning Smith says, "What makes a Christian a Christian is participation in the life of Christ Jesus, or union with Christ." We grow in maturity as we are rooted in Christ. Jesus is the source of our holiness as we abide in him. Yes, we are forgiven, and yes, we are called to follow and imitate Jesus, but the New Testament makes clear over and over that through the Holy Spirit we are baptized into the Messiah, crucified, raised, and living through Jesus. As Paul says, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal 2:20). We are connected to Jesus like branches to a vine, and the same way that the Father is in Jesus, so Jesus is in us through the Spirit. Smith says, "every dimension of the Christian life flows from or is the fruit of this life in Christ. Nothing so defines what it means to be a Christian as our relationship with a person — the person of Christ."
So, what does this mean? It means that holiness and maturity come not so much from striving after holiness and maturity, but in knowing, loving and worshipping Jesus. As we pursue him, give ourselves over in complete worship and awe of him, and come to grips with the profound depths of the love of God for us expressed in Christ, maturity happens. We become like Jesus because we have simply sat at the feet of our Lord.
The character traits of a Saint
There are four traits that mark someone who is on the path to spiritual maturity according to Smith: wisdom, good work, love, and joy. First, a holy person is a wise person. Smith says, "Those who long for and seek wisdom are seekers after God and the ways of God..." such that "to be righteous is to be wise." This wisdom is rooted in Scripture and teaches us to read our world through the narrative that the Bible gives us. It is understanding God and his world, but more than that it is acting rightly in it. A saint wisely navigates the world.
Second, a spiritually mature person does good work, meaning a maturing Christian understands his or her calling in the world. It is a calling to serve God and participate in what God is doing in the world by understanding our unique contribution to it. God desires to reconcile the world to himself, to redeem creation, and bring his kingdom rule to bear on earth. A spiritually mature person serves in the greater mission of God through the gifts, strengths, and calling God has placed on him or her. It could be by serving as a teacher, banker, artist, pastor, musician, or any number of occupations all with the deep conviction of doing the work as an image bearer of the Creator God who is reconciling the world to himself through Christ. Smith says, "Each one is created in the image of God and as an image-bearer is doing the work they know in their souls they must do." All of this requires a broad vision of God’s work in the world, but also self-knowledge to find the congruence between what God is doing and what we were created for.
Third, saints love as they have been loved. Holy people love God and love their neighbor, because they are being constantly overcome by the length, breadth, height and depth of the love of God expressed in Jesus. This love pushes us toward community with other people teaching us to offer hospitality, forgive, and serve with generosity. At this point Smith reminds us that "we do not love community; we love the people who make up our community." We don’t have access to an ideal and perfect community. We can only love the actual people we are in contact with on a day-to-day basis. These people will try our patience, need our forgiveness, and demand our time. We will also need their patience, forgiveness, and help. We learn to love in the laboratories of our daily lives.
Lastly, a holy person is joyful, which is to say that a holy person is a happy person. Smith calls this the "capstone" the "ultimate mark of a person who is mature in Christ." A spiritually mature person exhibits a growing capacity for joy, because he or she knows that one day God’s Kingdom will come, Jesus will put all things right, and all will be well. It is a joy rooted in hope. Paradoxically it is a joy that can’t be attained by reaching for it. As we cultivate faith and hope, joy comes as the byproduct. Joy comes as we worship, which brings us into an encounter with God. It comes as we pursue friendship, which lets us delight in the presence of another. Joy also comes as we take a Sabbath, where we play and feast trusting that God runs the universe so that we don’t have to.
The church as the context for growing in holiness
We’ve seen that the source of our maturity is union with Christ. We’ve looked at wisdom, calling, love, and joy as marks of a holy person. Now we need to look at the context, that is where or rather with whom are we becoming more spiritually mature. Smith argues that all these elements converge in the church, the body of people called to worship, serve, and proclaim Christ together as local assemblies. The church is a teaching-learning community where we grow in wisdom. As a community of real people brought together by the love of God expressed in the sacrifice of Jesus, the church is also our primary laboratory for experiencing and demonstrating love. Through worship and liturgy our hearts are shaped for joy and our feelings are cultivated. The mission of the church brings our individual callings together to reflect our Creator as well as work together with the Spirit to bring about the reconciliation of creation and creator through the sharing of the Gospel. And we can’t be in Christ if we don’t participate in the body of Christ, the church. Everything overlaps, spills over on each other, and collides in the church. Mission shapes our hearts even while it expresses them. Worship teaches us, and teaching helps us fulfill our vocations. This doesn’t all happen on Sunday. It happens as we participate in the life of local communities of believers over the course of time. It’s the rhythm of worship, commitment to actual people, the cycle of failure and forgiveness, meals, and so on, as well as the sermons and songs, that little by little shape and transform us into the saints we were called to be. We are ever so gradually taken deeper into that union with Christ that gives everything else its shape and character. In a lot of ways, we’ll become saints without ever realizing it.
