History focuses on key people whose thoughts and actions have influenced the trajectory of the civilized world. We may love or hate these unique characters but either way they always seem to find their way onto a final exam. While prominent men and women build earthly empires, a great cloud of nameless, faceless Christian construction workers are framing God’s Kingdom board-by-board by pounding their own particular nail or sawing their own piece of wood.

Jesus said the meek will inherit the earth, the crippled will dance into God’s kingdom, and the spiritually poor will become rich when they find their treasure in heaven. He told of God’s power displayed in the weakness of a man born blind, He declared that the story of His anointing by a woman of questionable repute would be retold for years to come, and He offered a Kingdom to children at play. If Jesus was correct then the mightiest Kingdom that will ever be known will be built by paupers and not princes, children and not chancellors, the disabled and not the distinguished. And the finances necessary to fund construction of this Kingdom won’t come from the stock portfolio of the religious establishment but rather from the last copper coins of a devout widow. Ultimately, it won’t be the flamboyant celebrity preacher who will declare God’s power but the deaf and dumb man who can’t say a word, not the religious visionary but the one born blind. In God’s economy it is not the movers and shakers that forge the Kingdom but rather those who anonymously shimmy.

C.S. Lewis helps us understand this idea in his marvelous book, The Great Divorce, which tells the story of a group of ghosts that have been bussed from Hell to Heaven. In one memorable scene, a visitor from Hell witnesses a majestic parade and asks his guide to explain who is being honored.

Visitor: “Is it?…, is it?” I whispered to my guide.

Guide: “Not at all,” said he. “It’s someone ye’ll never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green…

Visitor: “She seems to be…well, a person of particular importance?”

Guide: “Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on earth are two quite different things … Every young man or boy that met her became her son…Every girl that met her was her daughter… Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers. But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer, to their own wives… Every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love. In her they became themselves… But already there is joy enough in the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life.

—C. S. Lewis

Sarah was unknown on earth yet had the power to make everyone else known. Her accolades came not from her own accomplishments but from the accomplishments she made possible in others. We should admire the contributions of the many important religious and historical figures but let us not forget that they are mere paint on the house of faith built by those “ye’ll never have heard of.” It is in our weakness that God’s power is made manifest, so when we take credit for our accomplishments we are actually creating a heavenly power outage, and the light that shines brightest in our humility is extinguished when our pride pulls the plug.

While the daily grind often feels like elevator music to us, it may just be the sound of our orchestra tuning up for a glorious heavenly symphony. We may feel like we have spent our entire lives at the back of somebody else’s parade cleaning up horse poop, but in reality our humble shovel-ready project actually qualifies us to be the Grand Marshall in our own heavenly procession. The Good News is that while we may never have the bravery of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the intellect of Thomas Aquinas, or the eloquence of Billy Graham, we can be assured that we can all be a Sarah Smith.

A new definition for a saint: a “life giver” who makes others come alive in a new way, a garden variety human being through whose life the power and glory of God are made manifest even though the saint himself may be standing knee-deep in muck.

—Phillip Yancey

C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (New York: HarperCollins), 105–7.

Philip Yancey, Soul Survivor (New York: Galilee-Doubleday, 2003), 263.

Photo by Yolanda Sun on Unsplash