For those of us who recognize this day as important in the life of Christians, we might want to probe a bit into the question: Who are saints? Are they not models of faith whose actions we strive to emulate, whose words we drink deeply, whose intentions we respect, and whose relationships we admire? Here are a few of my favorite saints from the list in Evangelical Lutheran Worship.

• Harriet Tubman pulled people out of slavery…

• Francis of Assisi turned his back on his family’s riches…

• Martin Luther King Jr lifted the nation’s eyes toward injustice and its remedies…

• Nicolaus Copernicus taught us that the planets revolve around the Sun…

• Florence Nightingale healed people and raised up nurses to save lives…

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote wise theological words from his prison cell…

• Teresa of Ávila founded convents and monasteries devoted to prayer…

• Mary, the Mother of Our Lord, said “Yes” to a seemingly impossible future…

Let us say that we are given life by the witness of the saints. Let us acknowledge that without the deep spiritual vision of these people, we would be poorer.

And then let us ask: Are there other saints among us? Are there some who live without human language, but whose lives just as surely hold us up in body, mind, and spirit? Might we expand the list of saints to include:

• the great cedars of Lebanon…

• the humpbacked whale –– that Leviathan of scripture…

• the lilies of the valley…

• the wind, the earthquake, and the fire that spoke to the Prophet Elijah in silence…

• the bees whose work makes manifest our candle light…

• the eagle whose wings will bear us up…

• the mountains and the hills that clap their hands…

• the water that flows from the throne of God to feed the Tree of Life…

• the snake whose question ushered the first humans to seek wisdom…

When Jesus commanded us to “Do to others as you would have them do to you,” he might have wished for us to think not only of our human neighbors but of Earth’s creatures and air and soil whose well-being should be held as close to our hearts as is our grandchildren’s well-being. Could it be that Jesus meant for us to heed his admonition with regard to all that exists? What if the “others” are the wildflowers and owls and ants and shorelines!

What if… when we think how we ourselves wish to be treated, we applied that same desire to the land and its inhabitants. Could we look upon Earth itself that gives us food and water as a saint? The vegetables and fruits as saints? The creeks and rivers and estuaries as saints? What if we tried that?

Even the storms of destruction may be considered not forces to eliminate but enemies for whom we need to pray. “Love your enemies,” Jesus said. “Pray for those who abuse you.” In a hurricane or a tornado, a tree may be uprooted and fall on your barn, a house may be slid into a river and washed downstream, a prized cow might be stuck between posts and drowned, a meadow of flax may be left for dead. We know the weather can rob us of what is necessary for survival, like shelter, or irreplaceable, like a member of the family. Grief yields new insights and eventually for many even joy. Disaster often brings a forward-thinking design that can thwart the damage from the next storm. And the clean-up surrounds the community with new friendships. The weather can be an enemy. Addressing Earth’s natural cycles with prayer may bring relief in the face of losses.

The American faith leader, educator, and peace activist, Valarie Kaur, began teaching Revolutionary Love when a family friend, a fellow Sikh, Balbir Singh Sodhi, was murdered after the attacks of 9/11. He wore a turban as is custom among Sikh men. He was mistakenly seen as The Enemy by bigots who wrongly associated the turban with Muslims. The title of Valarie’s book, See No Strangers, expresses the values of the Sikh religion which she is dedicated to spreading. In order to practice “seeing no strangers,” she asks us to pay attention every day for one week to everything we encounter (trees, the grocer, the neighbor watering the lawn, plants, kids in a park, animals, rocks, etc.) and say to each one: “You are a part of me I do not yet know.”

This practice broadens our relationships with those “others” Jesus asked us to treat as we ourselves wish to be treated. It is easy for us to give thanks for the human saints. For example, when a riverbed has been restored, the salmon come to spawn, and the water is made drinkable again, we give thanks and praise to the human engineers who shaped the repair. In the same vein, with the same intention toward living in peace with Earth, we might also give thanks and praise to the plants that clean the river, the trees that protect its banks from erosion, the stones that make music in shallow places. We might see them as a part of us we have yet to know. If we bless them as we do the human saints, we might mend our ways to honor them on a daily basis.

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Hymns to consider:

In ELW:

728 Blest Are They

580 How Clear Is Our Vocation, Lord

428 Give Thanks for Saints

In All Creation Sings:

            1005 Ask the Complicated Questions

            1042 May This Church Be like a Tree

            902 Come Now, O God