Becoming Saints

Found in an excerpt from Jon M. Sweeney's The Lure of Saints:

There is a tradition in Judaism that if you are about to plant a tree and you hear that the Messiah has come, you should go ahead and plant your tree before you go out to meet him. The point of the teaching is this: the people of God bring about the kingdom of God. Do what you do to bring about the kingdom. In that is your sainthood.