“What’s It Take to be a Saint?”
October 26, 2025
Romans 1:1-7
St. Paul AME Church, Manchester, KY
David A. Shirey
Thank you for the invitation to be with you this morning and during November and December when Pastor Stuckey is unable to be present. Presiding Elder Golphin is a dear friend and respected colleague with whom I have been part of a Wednesday morning Bible study for eleven years.
I retired three years ago, but one of my mentors said, “You never retire from following Jesus” so I have remained open to the Spirit’s leading and the invitation of God’s people. So it is Jennie and I have been busy in so-called retirement, having done a year-long interim ministry in Missouri, then eight months in Colorado. We’ve been back home in Lexington for four months now, so Elder Golphin said, “Since you’re willing to go out of state to do the Lord’s work, I know you’ll go out of county. I’ve got a church I’d like to send you to in Manchester in Clay County. Then he connected me with Mr. Lytle, and now I’m here with you. Hear me when I say I give thanks to God for this honor.
So what to preach on? I looked at my calendar and saw we have a holiday coming up this week. A high holy day. Not Halloween! The next day. This coming Saturday, November 1, is All Saints Day. We forget Halloween is derived from All Hallows Eve. The Eve before All Hallows. ‘Hallow’ as in the word “hallowed” as in “hallowed be thy Name” which means holy. Holy as in the saints of God. Once a year in the late fall the Church celebrates All Saints Day. I thought to myself: preach about the saints of God. I don’t know about you, but when the saints go marchin’ in / O when the saints go marchin’ in / O Lord I want to be in that number / when the saints go marchin’ in.
But what Scripture to use? And I thought to myself: Well, duh. Shirey, you’ve been called to St. Paul AME Church. Find a scripture from St. Paul. There’s plenty of those to choose from. All his letters. So I began with his first letter, his letter to the Romans, began to read it, and what do you know? He mention saints in the opening verses. Romans 1:7 says, “To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Did you hear that? St. Paul writes to St. Paul’s Church in Rome (and St. Paul Church in Manchester, Kentucky): To all God’s beloved in Rome (and in Manchester) who are called to be saints:
St. Paul says, “to all God’s beloved who are called to be saints.” All means all. That means you and me. According to Paul, we’re all called to be saints. Now, I don’t think of myself as the saintly-type. No halo on my head. If you see an aura around my head it’s the sheen of too much hairspray. It’s no halo. I’m no saint. (Ask Jennie).
But Paul is serious – We are all called to be saints. So what’s it take to be a saint? Does it take a halo? The answer is ‘No.’ I’ve known my share of saints in my lifetime and not a one of ‘em had a halo. Let me tell you about some of the saints I’ve known and what it took for them to be saints.
St. Ella
To be a saint, you don’t need a halo, but you do need what St. Ella had – toenail clippers. She had no halo, but she did have toenail clippers. You didn’t know this until now, but to be a saint you need to have toenail clippers like the ones St. Ella had.
Ella was a member of my church back in St. Louis. Her birthday was a day before mine and so she sent me birthday greetings each year. When I was called to another congregation, she continued to send me my birthday card each year and enclosed letters in each one filling me in on how everybody in the church was doing. You see, St. Ella visited everybody in that church regularly – hospitalized, homebound, broken-hearted, and lonely – Ella would visit them. She said it was the least she could do for the Lord – to look after the older folks. Ella was 86 when she said that!
Every month or so she’d go out to nursing homes where we had members, kneel down on one knee at their feet, and trim their toenails for them. When she told me that the first time, I scrunched up my nose in disgust. Whereupon she said, “David, do you know that story about Jesus kneeling down at his disciples’ feet and washing them? He said he came ‘not to be served but to serve.’ The closest I can get to that is when I’m on my knees trimming toenails.” Ella had no halo, but she had toenail clippers. She had what it takes to be a saint.
St. Jerry
But you don’t need toenail clippers to be a saint. You really just need orange, green, black and brown construction paper. That’s what St. Jerry used.
St. Jerry was a 10-year-old I knew. He lived in a rough part of the city, had asthma, got made fun of a lot when he broke into a wheezing spell, and got beat up by kids bigger and stronger than him. And Jerry spent a few weeks a year every year of his life in the hospital trying to get his lungs back to the point they’d work right again. Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital was where he’d be sent.
One Christmas we were making Christmas cards – make one and address it to someone in your family – that sort of thing. Jerry caught on just fine. He cut out a green manger and an orange star and a black Mary and a brown Jesus and glued them all on a piece of paper, folded it, and on the inside scrawled a message that read: I hope all you all get better for Christmas. Love, Jerry.
He brought it to me and asked me to address it.
“Where to, Jerry?”
“Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital.”
That Christmas, a card featuring a green manger and an orange star and a black Mary and a brown Jesus was received at the children’s unit at Cardinal Glennon Hospital. Compliments of St. Jerry. The boy had no halo, but he had some construction paper – he had what it takes to be a saint.
St. Cliff
Actually, to be a saint you don’t even need to be able to cut and paste and make construction paper cards. All you have to do is sing. Or sort of sing. Like St. Cliff, who had no halo nor much musical ability to speak of, but who believed in the passage in the Psalms that reads, “Make a joyful noise to the Lord.” All it says is make a noise – a joyful one, mind you – but a noise no less. Cliff did that for years – made a joyful noise in the choir. And he made a joyful noise, too, with the particular instrument he played – the steel pedal guitar.
St. Cliff wore his Christian faith not on his sleeve, but deep in his heart. One Thanksgiving after I moved away, I heard he had been diagnosed with cancer.
“Can’t treat this kind,” the doctors said. “Six months, perhaps.”
I called Cliff on the phone. I stuttered and stammered and finally I asked him what he was going to do between now and…then.
“Well, I’m gonna sing in the choir as long as I can,” he said, “We’re starting to sing Christmas music right now. You know how I love to sing the Christmas carols. I ‘spect I’ll keep singing as long as I can.” “You know, David,” he said, “St. Paul said, ‘If I live, I live to the Lord. If I die, I die to the Lord. So, whether I live or die, I am the Lord’s.’ So I’m going to keep singing.”
Dying of lung cancer and the man insisted on making a joyful noise to the Lord. Had no halo nor much of a voice to speak of, but St. Cliff had what it takes to be a saint.
St. E.L.
And then there’s St. E.L. He had no halo. All he had was a soup ladle. Disabled years ago, doctors told E.L. he ought to just go home and take it easy for the rest of his life because his body wasn’t any good for much else. When I knew him, his back hurt him so bad sometimes he had to stop where he was and lie down on the floor for a while until the pain passed.
St. E.L. should’ve stayed off his feet. But he didn’t. He took to volunteering at the soup kitchen next to the church he belonged to. He stood on his feet all morning, making and stirring soup for neighbors in need, moving tables and chairs around to make room for the hundred or so folks who looked to him for a daily meal. It was terrible for his back, but wonderful for his spirit.
E.L. served up food to those folks and called every one of ‘em by name, answered ‘em with a “Yessir” and a “Yes ma’am” as if they were children of God or something. His church was Church of the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church. E.L. said, “The Good Shepherd knows his flock by name. And the Good Shepherd says, “Feed my sheep.”
E.L. had no halo, just a bad back and a soup ladle. He had what it takes to be a saint.
St. Lillian
Then there was St. Lillian. One Sunday, Miz Lillian ambled into the sanctuary right about mid-way through the announcements. She came in pushing her walker out front of her and shuffling along as she did. Her son and daughter usually brought her to church, but they were out of town that week. Her granddaughter was there, though, and when she saw her grandmother amble in, she sort of gasped, and after the service, she gasped some more when she found out how her grandmother had gotten herself to church.
Somehow, St. Lillian had gotten up, gotten herself dressed, eaten, taken her walker in hand, gotten to the elevator, taken it down eleven floors, walked from the elevator to the front doors of the retirement apartments she lived in, shuffled one block to the curb, gotten off the curb and crossed the street, waited for the right bus, somehow got on it, and rode it two miles to the front of the church where she managed to get off, got up the curb, up the eight steps leading to the front door, got the door opened and made it to her pew all in time for the beginning of worship!
You’ve heard it said, “The spirit’s willing but the flesh is weak.” St. Lillian’s flesh was no match for steps, curbs, city blocks, and a moving bus—but her spirit was set on worshipping God. Have walker, will worship!
What does it take to be a saint? A halo? No.
Toenail clippers or a soup ladle or anything that’ll help you serve another.
Construction paper or anything that’ll help you tell someone else you care.
Your voice, an instrument, or anything you’ve got that’ll make a joyful noise.
A walker, a cane, a wheelchair, your own two feet – whatever will get you to the place where you can worship the Lord and have your Spirit refreshed and renewed.
I’ll bet we all have laying around our houses the very things we need to be a saint.
All we need to do is use them to praise the Lord and serve others.
This Saturday is All Saints Day and I just want to remind you that you are among the saints of God.
From David, a servant of Jesus Christ, to all of you who are called to be saints at St. Paul AME Church, Manchester: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let all the saints of God say AMEN.
