baptism – Word In Process

Fourth Sunday of Easter, 2021

Fourth Sunday of Easter – April 25, 2021 – Acts 4:5-12; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18 – STEM-Wide Morning Prayer via Zoom

Today Jesus tells us that he is the good shepherd and that the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The good shepherd is different from the hired hand, he explains, because when the hired hand sees a wolf coming, he runs away. The good shepherd not only stays with the sheep, he lays down his life for them.

If it wasn’t clear before, it should be by now that this is no ordinary shepherd. In fact, “good” is probably an understatement.

I’ve never known any full-time shepherds. It’s not as common of a profession in 21^st Century Tennessee as it was in 1^st Century Palestine. But I imagine even back then that you’d have been hard pressed to meet one who was willing to die for his sheep.

Therein lies the point. Jesus is no ordinary shepherd. An ordinary shepherd would probably, like the hired hand, have run away. Or perhaps an ordinary shepherd would have sacrificed a weakling in order to protect the pride of the flock, or defend only a particular sheep that, despite his better judgement, he had named.

But the Good Shepherd? The Good Shepherd doesn’t risk his life only for the sake of a sheep that he’s especially fond of. The Good Shepherd neither fights off the beast nor scapegoats a lamb. Instead, the Good Shepherd willingly lays down his life to save the entire flock.

A sacrifice of that magnitude is based on a lot more than affinity or fondness. It requires nothing less than the Love of the One from who all love comes. That Love—God’s capital-L Love—is precisely the Love of the Good Shepherd who says, “I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.”

This is the Love of the God who knows humanity and divinity inside and out. This is the Love of the Shepherd who knows what it’s like to be a sheep, and a sheep who knows what it’s like to be nabbed by a wolf.

Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is the living, breathing, flesh-and-bone manifestation of a Love so divine, so profound, so perfect that even after 2,000 years here we are still gathered together to celebrate it. But let us be clear. We do not only celebrate this Love because it led the Shepherd to lay down his life for us. We celebrate it chiefly because by laying down his life he took it back up again.

This is the paradoxical promise at the center of our faith: in dying Jesus was raised to new life.

We share in that same death and that same resurrection. When we renew our baptism each year during the Great Vigil of Easter, we are reminded that when we pass through the waters, we are buried with Christ by a baptism into his death so that we might be raised with him to new life.

By virtue of our baptism then, we share in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. That’s important, not because it is some sort of “fire insurance” that saves us from burning for eternity, but because it has real-life implications for how we live our lives now.

In this post-resurrection world, we embody the risen life of Jesus. Here. Now. Today. Tomorrow. Next week. Always.

So not only are we inheritors of Love strong enough to bring back to life that which was three days dead, but we are called to proclaim it. Take Peter for example. In our lesson from Acts this morning we find him in the custody of the authorities after healing a man in the name of Jesus.

Peter says, “let it be known to all of you . . . that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead.”

These words comprise one of the first sermons ever, in which Peter is testifying to the promise of the power of Jesus whom God raised from the dead. Because Jesus has new life, says Peter, so does this man have new life. Because Jesus has new life, so do each of you have new life. Here. Now.

Peter also says something that a lot of 21^st Century Christians have trouble with. He says, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.”

Some hear it as exclusive. And indeed, it is hard for us not to when for generations we have heard Christians whose primary means of invitation to the faith is something akin to, “Believe or be damned to the fiery pits of hell!”

But I don’t think Peter’s message is meant to be exclusive. He is merely expressing his sincere belief that by raising Jesus Christ from the dead God acted once on behalf of all humanity for all time. As a result, no human person or entity can claim to have exclusive access to the power of God.

Yes, the claim comes from an unashamedly Christian perspective. It places Jesus’ resurrection as the hinge-point of salvation history. But, at its core, it also means that no person can with authority say, “Unless you believe like I do, you’re damned for all time.” That is not, nor has it ever been, the central message of Christianity.

The keys to death and hell have already been to Jesus given. And he has unlocked the door and thrown the devil out. Been there. Done that. Already taken care of.

God became human, the Shepherd like the sheep, even to the extent of death. By dying he destroyed death and by raising him to new life again, God has brought us all into free and lasting life in the presence of our redeemer. We are now united with God in resurrection life.

That means it’s never not Easter.

That means we are at present filled with the true Love of God.

That means eternal life begins at the font, not the grave.

Peter is simply inviting us to live like that’s the case. Do you hear the difference? The focus of Peter’s sermon is not what the resurrection is going to for us when we die. The focus of Peter’s sermon is what the resurrection means for us now, as we live.

Jesus’ resurrection changed Peter’s life. And by the power of the Spirit and in the name of the God who made it possible, Peter wants you to know that it can change yours, too. Here. Now.

How exactly?

Well, there are far too many examples to name here. But one that seems especially fitting for today comes from our reading from the first letter of John. It is this: if you happen to find yourself with all the goods of the world passing by someone in need, do not refuse to help them.

You just might begin to get the idea.

Sermons

Holy Conflict

Third Sunday after Pentecost – June 21, 2020 – Romans 6:1b-11; Matthew 10:24-39 – STEM-Wide Morning Prayer (via Zoom)

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” When you first heard this morning’s Gospel, you may have been caught off guard.

Jesus’ words reek of division, not harmony; they hint at war, not peace. Indeed, Jesus doesn’t sound like Jesus at all, but I think we can still figure out what he means.

Perhaps, if we read this passage from Matthew in light of the passage from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, we might gain some perspective on it.

A portion of what we hear from Paul today will become part of the Pascha Nostrum (found on page 83 of the Book of Common Prayer). These words should sound familiar; we recited them together at the beginning of worship each Sunday during the Easter season.

“We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

With these words, and those that precede them, Paul establishes a theology of the Christian life. He tells us that, as Christians, we are baptized into Christ’s death, so that we might be raised with him to new life.

In other words, we don’t have to wait until our physical deaths to be united with Christ. That unification first takes place in baptism, the ritual act that joins us to the Christian faith.

Submerged in the waters of baptism, we die with Christ, emerging from the font redeemed agents of the resurrection life. This is the Christian paradox: Jesus died, so that we may live, and so, in baptism, we die, so that we might live.

Jesus took care of our sin on the cross. There is no guilt on this side of that great sacrifice. Sure, there is still sin—we see it all around: racism, bigotry, chauvinism, homophobia, and our refusal to take the perspective of others.

The difference is, through our life in Christ, we are freed from complacency to sin, no longer willing to submit to sinful behaviors, but instead empowered to fight against them.

In light of this understanding of Paul’s words, perhaps we will hear Jesus’ words in today’s gospel anew?

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.”

It might seem a strange thing to preach on Father’s Day—Jesus’ words are indeed words of division, of enmity, but if Paul’s understanding of our Christian life tells us anything, it is that, sometimes, division can be a good thing.

Creation is full of helpful division—cell division, by which a parent cell divides into two daughter cells and creates new life; root division, by which perennial plants are divided at the root, planted separately, and propagated just as beautifully as ever; division of labor, by which tasks are shared among many in order to improve working conditions and promote efficiency.

So it is with division between life and death, sin and grace.

Jesus is clear. Preaching the Gospel will cause conflict, even in our own households, but that “division” can be helpful.

Think about it. It’s a good thing to separate yourself from your weird cousin’s conspiracy theories, right? It’s a good thing to separate yourself from your aunt’s particular brand of homophobic humor. It’s a good thing to separate yourself from your racist grandpa’s musings about brainpans and bone structures.

This week, Jesus asks us, do we value our relationships with friends, our families, and our neighbors more than the Kingdom that Jesus calls us to strive for?

At Pentecost, God gave the Spirit necessary for us to do the work that God has given us to do. But what happens when that work comes into tension with our closest earthly relationships?

No simple answers to these questions exist. So it is with questions of faith, no one answer is right for all times, all places, or all people. Nevertheless, these are questions that we must consider, lest we make peace with oppression.

We must start by remembering that our old selves were crucified with Christ. Our bodies of sin were destroyed, that we might become active members of Christ’s resurrected body. “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Now, we are ruled by the grace of God. Jesus came to show us that grace in human form because we need it when we preach the Gospel, especially to the people we love the most.

As we question our role in causing conflict for the Kingdom, we may find that it really is a holy thing whenever we “set ourselves against each other,” as it were, to have the tough, yet civil, conversations that our baptism calls us to have.

These conversations do not include picking petty fights or complaining about pet peeves. Nor do they include name-calling or spitefulness.

They do, however, include respectful, Gospel-centered dialogue about fairness and dignity, liberation and love.

Division between ourselves and our loved ones is not meant to imply giving up on them or desiring for them sin and death. Rather, it is a means of differentiating ourselves from particular brands of sin and death, which can breed fear, violence, and hate.

It is holy distance that gives us space to remember that Jesus, by his life, death, and resurrection, shows us another way.

It is holy conflict that gives us space to take a deep breath, to get a little perspective, and to remember that our role as followers of Jesus is to walk with all people toward eternal life.

It is holy division, that creates the space necessary to build bridges of love and a grace.

Friends, from time to time Jesus will call you to have tough conversations with the people you love for the sake of the Gospel, and today he reminds us all that to refuse to do so is to deny the presence of God in ourselves and in them.

And so he gives us the grace to do it, now and always.

Sermons

The Great Vigil of Easter 2019

The Great Vigil of Easter – April 20, 2019 – Luke 24:1-12 – Trinity, Winchester

Maybe you noticed, there are no shortage of readings to preach from this evening. And we only read five of the nine suggested readings and responses. Some Christians go all night long, praying, reading, and fasting until the sun comes up. We won’t be here that long tonight, but there is something to be said for that tradition.

After all, the longer one sits in the darkness of the vigil the sweeter the triumphant “Alleluias” sound when they finally do arrive.

Darkness is a powerful thing.

Christian metaphors of light and darkness often give us the sense that darkness is bad. It often represents the absence of God, but the truth is, darkness was always part of God’s plan.

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep…Then God said, “Let there be light.’” And there was. God separated the light from the dark, and it was good.

Yes, darkness was always part of God’s plan.

In Abraham’s darkest hour, as he bound his son and raised his knife, God sent an angel to bless him with the light of his countenance. Because you have obeyed my voice “I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.”

In their darkest days in the wilderness God sent a pillar of fire to light up the night and protect the Israelites from the Egyptian army. He even parted the dark waters, so that they might pass through to the light of their salvation.

In the darkness of exile God sent the prophet Ezekiel to tell his chosen people that he would bring them up from their graves and give them the light of new life.

Surely darkness was always part of God’s plan.

From Thursday night when we stripped the altar, through Friday evening when we venerated the cross, there has been within these walls and within our hearts a shroud of darkness.

Still covered in darkness, many of us returned this morning to do the things people do when confronted by death. We busied ourselves by sprucing up the church, as for a funeral, making sure everything was just right.

Even tonight began in darkness. Our celebration of Jesus’ glorious resurrection from the dead begins in the quiet shadows of the evening.

Yes, darkness was always part of God’s plan, you see, because if it weren’t for the darkness, we wouldn’t be able to see the light.

Sitting in the darkness tonight we could see signs of light all around us: the glorious splendor of the new fire; the radiant light of the paschal candle, that marvelous and holy flame that focuses our attention on the Risen One; even the Exsultet is a light to our ears, a love song from Mother Church to the triumphant Christ.

The salvation history narratives, ancient stories of our faith, enlighten our memories, and the faint whiff of fresh lilies enlightens our senses.

It is in the darkness we see the fullest expression of resurrection light. Nowhere is this more prevalent than through the sacrament of Holy Baptism. Tonight as we gathered around the font to renew our baptismal promises, we were sprinkled with the water of abundant life.

Our reading from Romans reminds us that we were baptized into Christ’s death so that we might rise with him to new life. In other words, in order to see the light of resurrection, we have to know the darkness of the death of Jesus.

From the very beginning God has been telling us, teaching us, showing us that darkness is part of God’s plan. At the dawn of creation. In the wilderness. By the Red Sea. In the valley of dry bones. Even at our baptism.

As people of faith, we need to recognize that darkness is a part of our journey, but we must never mistake it for our destination.

That’s reserved for resurrection light.

Sermons

Imagining eternal life

Sunday after All Saints’ Day – November 4, 2018 – Song of Solomon 3:1-9; Revelation 21:1-6a – Trinity Church, Winchester, TN

“Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you.” So says today’s collect.

At Tuesday’s Bible study Geraldine asked, “Don’t you just love the word “ineffable?’”

Ineffable. Too great to be expressed in human words. More than magnificent. Surpassing sublime. Ineffable.

That’s what the kingdom of heaven is. Ineffable.

This portion of the collect is the petition and the reason–what we ask for and why we ask for it. It’s the meat of the thing: give us grace to follow the example of your saints already in glory, so that we may come to know that glory, too. That ineffable glory. That glory beyond description. That glory which we know not now, but which we hope for with with every fiber of our being.

The feast of All Saints’ reminds us that this time of year is not about hiding from the reality of death, it is about embracing the hope of enteral life and the ineffable joy that awaits us all.

Today we remember those whom the Church has set apart as particularly shining examples of life in Christ–our Saints. Apostles: Peter, James, John, and Bartholomew. Martyrs: Stephen, Paul, and Cyprian. Evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Even modern-day prophets like Martin Luther King, Jr. They offered their lives as a sacrifice to show us what Godly living looks like, some even unto the point of death. As we sang, “These, like priests, have watched and waited, offering up to Christ their will, soul and body consecrated, day and night they serve him still.”

All Souls’ Day, November 2nd, is traditionally the day set aside to remember all of the faithful departed: each and every Christian who has gone to glory. Often, we conflate the two days. We tend to remember everyone who has gone before us, our mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, on All Saints’. Although that’s not technically the traditional intention, it’s not all bad. I’m certainly not trying to put parameters on who you remember today. After all, there is no hierarchy in heaven.

The enteral life we celebrate on November 1st is the same eternal life we celebrate on November 2nd. Today, the Sunday after both of these important days, we gather to rejoice in the life of ineffable joy for which we all hope.

At least, I hope we hope for it.

Sometimes, though, I think we are embarrassed of our Christian hope. Sometimes we make up excuses and invent distractions so that we can avoid hoping. This time of year, when we are reminded of death and dying, we tend play dress up instead of actually dealing with those hard realities.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fine to inject good humor into our lives–to pass out candy, put on a costume, or wear a mask. But we must be careful that whatever mask we wear–whether it’s Frankenstein or Richard Nixon–is not an attempt to disguise our mortality.

Our hope is often fragile, and never concrete, so sometimes we have to use our imagination to describe what it is we hope for. The authors of today’s scripture lessons are prime examples of this.

The Song of Solomon says, “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God.” “…Their departure was thought to be disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace.”

The prophet Isaiah, in the Old Testament option we did not read today, imagines this peace. He writes that on his mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all people a feast of rich food and well-aged wines.

I’ve heard people say that their number one vision of heaven is a banquet table. That makes sense, especially for Episcopalians who constantly gather at the table of the Lord, consuming bread and (not-so-well-aged) wine.

Some of our best memories occur around the dinner table. Sunday afternoon with the whole family, or another weeknight, just you and a your spouse. Your guard is down, your mouth full of flavor, and your heart warm within you. That’s heaven alright.

The author of the book of Revelation has a different vision for ineffable joy. “I saw a new heaven and a new earth . . . I saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God . . . and I heard a loud voice . . . saying . . . See, I am making all things new.”

We know from history that the author of this book was living under Roman persecution. Perhaps his imagination was the only hope he had left. He knew there was a better life coming, so he tried to imagine what that would be like. This city will pass away, but the city of the Lord with come like a bride adorned for her husband. That’s heaven.

These are attempts to imagine ineffable joy.

Our tradition is filled with such imaginings, as well. In our sequence hymn today the saints in light are compared to stars who stand before God’s throne wearing crowns of gold. Is that what heaven will be like? Will we wear robes of purest whiteness, as the poet says? Or will heaven brighten like a golden evening where Saints like warriors finally find peace and rest?

Well, we don’t know exactly, do we? It is beyond description. So, we use our imaginations. We imagine that which we cannot adequately describe but nonetheless know by promise.

This promise is perhaps best known to us through the covenant of our baptism. In just a few minutes we will renew our baptismal vows. This is an opportunity to recommit ourselves to doing Christ’s work in the world.

Our baptism is our initiation into a life of Christ, a life in which we are buried with Christ in his death, so that we can rise with him in eternal life. That eternal life is not conditional friends. Our baptism tells us that we have already entered into it. Eternal life begins at the font, not the grave. Even though we are not at rest, we are already participants in the life of Christ. So, let’s take a cue from our saints and act like it.

What if people in our society used as much imagination envisioning the kingdom of God as they do planning their halloween costumes?

And what if instead of denying death, we imagined eternal life?

And what if our hope stretched beyond mortality?

What if we imagined the glorious company prophets, apostles, and martyrs that awaits us?

What if our dreams were of saints and souls dwelling in “mystic sweet communion?”

What if what we know to be certain in this life, didn’t constrain our expectations of what is possible with God?

What if our lives were infused with that kind of hope?

What if we consider ineffable joy, an inevitable reality.

What if? What if we did all those thing?

Well, then, I guess they’d call us Christians. Yes, they’d call us Christians.