Stephen Becker Letter

Called to Be Saints

Our Church calendar begins the month of November with the celebration of “All Saints Day.” This feast day marks the remembrance of the lives of the saints who have gone before us. Most of the time when I think of the saints, I all too easily remember their strengths and accomplishments, without reconsidering the painful process that they endured as God perfected his work in their lives. For this reason one of the hymns we sing on this Festival Day is #293. It reads, “I sing a song of the saints of God, patient and brave and true ….” This opening verse exhorts us to imitate the character qualities of those who have gone before us, and the first of those qualities is patience. Patience has the connotation of endurance and longsuffering that will stick with the work and ministry that we are called to perform. Living for Christ also requires bravery. As God’s children, we have not been given the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of self-discipline (II Timothy 1:7). Therefore, we must pray for the courage to step out in faith, and take on the challenges and ministries that we have been given as individuals and as a corporate church body. Lastly, we are to be true to ourselves, to others, and especially to God as we allow him to mold us into the saints he wants us to be. To be true to God we must be obedient to his call confident that he will perfect the work he has begun in our lives.
As we face the challenges that await us at Emmanuel (see the linked article on stewardship as just one example), let us strive to be a faithful, brave, and true community. One that works together with the belief that we are the body of Christ-his hands, and his feet- empowered and gifted to fulfill his will here on earth. Let us stand together as saints and joyfully rejoice in the truth of the last line of that much loved hymn “…for the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.” Yes, we at Emmanuel mean to live out our baptismal covenant, with joy and confidence; for he is “… able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen. (Eph. 3:20-21).

Yours in Christ’s Service,
Stephen