Should anyone ever ask you: "What is a Christian, anyway?" a good place to start would be with the Beatitudes, this familiar and beloved listing of those whose very lives show forth God's presence and blessing-or, as we might call them, the saints.

As Protestants, of course, we don't hear that word "saint" in the same way our Catholic brothers and sisters do, as Sister so pointedly reminded us last week at "Late Nite Catechism." We're not just referring to St. Peter, St. Anne, St. Patrick, and so forth. Instead, we use the word "saint" in the way the apostle Paul used it in all his writings. To Paul, the people in his congregations were the "saints." It was the most common designation of an early Christian. Saints were people like us, people born in the Spirit in the waters of holy baptism, who faithfully sought to carry the cross of Christ in this life, whose lives are described by Jesus' Beatitudes, and who now enjoy Christ's reign in the joy of life everlasting.

On this All Saints Sunday, we bring to our recollection all the saints who have gone before us and give thanks to God for them, for all the ways in which they demonstrated to us just what it means to live as one of God's faithful people. And we pray that we will be challenged and inspired today, as we remember, to seek to more faithfully fashion our lives after theirs.

It's always good to remember them and keep them close to our hearts. The act of remembering gives us a chance to shed some very therapeutic and healing tears. You know, Orthodox Christians even teach that tears are sacred and sacramental, because they carry us close to the heart of God.

But remembering also reminds us that we are not alone as we journey through this life. Remembering roots us and grounds us in a large, extended, sacred family, which we call "the communion of saints." Remembering connects us into this "community of memory," as Robert Bellah might call it, a community of memory that sustains us through the stories of all those who have preceded us.

The sociologist Bellah worried that our culture, with high geographic mobility and high divorce rates, is shaping us into "spiritual amnesiacs," people without the kinds of memories and stories that enrich and nurture our lives. Thankfully, through our annual All Saints commemoration, we reconnect with that community of memory.

Because really, we are who we are today in significant part because of them, those who have gone before. This fall, the greatest shortstop ever, Ozzie Smith, was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. His many incredible accomplishments were touted and, for a moment, all the lights in the place shined on him. But in his acceptance speech, this great player, so very gifted and talented, said an interesting thing. He said, "No one gets into the Hall of Fame on their own." And then he gave credit to his family, to all who had believed in him, to all those who had seen a spark of potential in him and nurtured him along. He gave credit to the scout who took a chance on him, to his trainers and coaches and managers and teammates. "No one gets into the Hall of Fame alone."

And so, as we remember today all those who have preceded us in the life of faith, in our personal lives and in the life of this congregation, we pause to give thanks for all the ways they have shaped and formed and encouraged us. For all the ways they had faith in us, even in the times we found it hard to have faith in ourselves. For the gifts they called out in us. For the encouragement they gave, the love and the prayer. For putting up with us when we acted stupid. For refusing to give up on us and never letting go. For seeing in us that spark of light which is the Holy Spirit and loving us into letting that light shine.

For all those saints, we give thanks. And then, as we remember those who preceded us, we begin to call to mind as well those who will come after, the next generations of Christians who will seek to be nurtured in the Way and the Truth and the Life that is Christ Jesus. And we must consider now our obligation to them, our role in being mentors and saints to them, for them, that the gospel will not be left ever without witnesses. It has been said that the church must be reborn in every succeeding generation. And as those who live now, we must solemnly consider our responsibility to see that it is carried forward.

I recently heard the great Jewish author, Elie Wiesel, interviewed. He was asked, as he has been so many times, how he could still have faith after the Holocaust. So many from his own family had died, along with millions of others. His response, forged in that excruciating crucible of despair and doubt, was this: "My father had faith. My grandfather had faith, and his grandfather's grandfather. What right do I have to be the last one? What right do I have to break the chain?"

The decision for faith and for the future of the church is ours to make, and it is an awesome responsibility. We are tempted away by so many distractions and other opportunities. We are tempted to take it for granted and just assume that of course the church will be there for our grand- children and grandchildren's grandchildren. But the fact is, our commitment and support now, through our prayers, our presence, our gifts and our service, have everything to do with whether or not succeeding generations will find this community of memory, this community of faith.

It has been said that "the person with the best future is the one with the longest memory." That's true for the church, as well. For our community of memory, the communion saints, goes all the way back to the Beatitudes of Jesus. And the future that is opening before us now stretches farther than the eye can see or even the heart perceive.

And so, dear brothers and sisters, you, the saints in Santa Monica, let us this day learn from those saints of old and pledge our lives to all the saints yet to be. May God bless us to live the faithful, joyful, authentic, generous lives of God's ever-faithful people. With all the saints, may we be sustained by memory and empowered by hope. Amen.

NOTES:

1. Elie Wiesel interviewed on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. October 19, 2002.
2. Robert Bellah quoted in Richard Mouw's Consulting the Faithful. Eerdmanns. 1994.
3. Concluding quote from Lionel Poilane, artisanal French baker, quoted in the New York Times. November 2, 2002.

© Patricia E. Farris, 2002. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution. All other rights reserved.