Bob Bell was not an important man in the way the world measures important. In fact, he was someone that even his friends could often forget about. But for some reason I've been thinking of Bob on this All Saints Sunday. When I was a kid, Bob Bell was a saint I didn't recognize. Not a particularly holy man. Not an defender of the poor. Not a fighter for justice. Not a figure of deep theological wisdom. Most of the time, he was about the most pitiful person I could imagine.
I came to know him as another weird friend of my grandparents'. He was usually rumpled and dingy, and I am embarrassed to admit that my friends and I found it fun to laugh at him. He had contracted polio later in life when he left the military so he lumbered along in braces, all jerky. And he seemed to get sick a lot, and he was always borrowing money, and he was always sitting at my grandparents' kitchen table, drinking until he swayed, sometimes dropping his cigarette out of his mouth, and dozing off. He would tell us kids stories of having been shot down in the Korean War, falling into a rice field, and having his feet grow together in prison. We figured he was lying, fooling with us. I mean where in the world could something that awful really happen? Right?
His eyes were bad, so bad that he wore thick glasses. At night, he said he loved to look at bright lights through those glasses, because he said the lights would turn into shimmering kaleidoscopes. So he couldn't drive at night and often stayed on my grandparents' couch. He was pitiful.
But, somehow, when I look back on it, through his crazy behavior and stories, and through his stumbling care for us kids, Bob Bell showed me something about God. Essentially, for all his lowly behavior, Saint Bob Bell simply cared. He cared for people, no matter how they responded or reacted to him. And he seemed to care for us stupid little kids, no matter how much we laughed at him or ignored him or shied away from him for fear of catching his illnesses or just his bad luck.
But now I think his poverty is the reason I understand this first verse of the Beatitudes, according to Luke: "Blessed are you who are poor; for yours is the kingdom of God." Folks often point out that there is a difference between the Beatitudes according to Luke and the Beatitudes according to Matthew. Most of us recite Matthew's version: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Luke's version, the one we read today, is simply this: "Blessed are the poor." Period.
Saint Bob Bell is proof for me that both Matthew's and Luke's versions are right. Blessed are the poor, in both a physical and a spiritual sense. If you want to meet a saint, look to the poor. Look to Bob Bell.
Because it's not just the holy and the wise who are saints. Not just those with shiny halos. Jesus, in this gospel, shows us just how many saints are among us, that we so often don't notice...or at least don't think of as saints.
I once read a book by Michael Malone called “First Lady.” It's a fun Southern gothic murder mystery written by someone who knows a fair bit of how religion and the spirit work their way into the our lives and society. In this one, there was an Episcopal priest. And that priest says this:
"What makes a saint? If stars are the light, then I'd say saints are people the light shines through. Not just the famous saints, because the famous ones are stars, too. But the everyday saints around us in the world. Light shines through them and illuminates what they see. The light just goes right through them to what they love so that we can see its beauty. They don't get in the way because they're looking too."
Blessed are the saints.
Blessed are you who are poor, said Jesus. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are you who hunger and thirst, who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Blessed are you who weep. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek, the peacemakers.
We use all those words in the gospel for All Saints Sunday, the day when we remember the saints. Ssaints are not just the brighter holy stars, not just the Mother Teresas, those whose work outshines ours, those superstar saints. Most of us are not that. We are those who mourn and weep, who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, for justice, for God.
And here's the thing. We don't need to pass holiness test to be a saint in the eyes of God. God makes us saints. God chooses us, God claims us, to let the light shine through.
Like Saint Bob Bell, most of us saints really are strange. But they know how to give. They know how to serve. The saints I have known, whether poor or rich, weeping or laughing, hungry or full, have managed to point me to God in whatever they have been experiencing. They have looked to God, and the light was shining right through them. "The light just goes right through them to what they love so that we can see its beauty. They don't get in the way, because they're looking, too."
This is why the Church celebrates All Saints Day. We've known a lot more saints than just the famous ones. We have known the weird ones and the crazy ones. The proud ones and the humble ones. The capable ones and the inept ones. We've known the poor in spirit and the rich. The poor in body and the rich. And at some point, each of them has provided a space for us to know God. We have known Saint Bob Bell, over and over again. And thank God for that.