Before entering the chaos of Holy Week: "He went away again across the Jordan . . ."

Bedouin resting by the River Jordan

The gospel lesson for this morning (John 10:19-42) is long, multi-layered, convoluted and tense as it portrays the conflict between Jesus and “the Jews.” Violence oozes between the lines. Sadly it is one of those passages that has been used to justify the persecution of Jews down through the centuries. It is hard to read, and tempting to skip.

It is therefore perhaps a perfect passage to set the stage for the chaos of Holy Week, with Palm Sunday, the Last Supper, the betrayal of Jesus, the mockery of his trial and his death-by-execution on the Cross.

But before we enter the abyss of Holy Week, please notice the very end of this passage (verses 40-42):

“He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing earlier, and he remained there. Many came to him… and many believed in him there.”

Jesus withdrew to the place where his ministry began, the River Jordan. He returned to the river that stands between life and death. He went to the cool waters where many people – including Jesus – had given up their old life to take up a new life. He returned to the river of his baptism where life comes out of death.

May each of us find that place as we go about our lives, especially in those moments of tension and chaos, pain and hurt.

As we enter these holy days, my prayer for each of us is we will return to the rivers of new life with gratitude and awe. May we remember at the core of our soul our baptism and the living Christ who is alive within us. May we discover anew the newness of life that the Holy Spirit gives us each moment of our existence, and see ourselves as God’s miracle. May we touch these life-giving waters despite whatever chaos surrounds us, and may we make each week of our life Holy. Amen

By James Richardson, Fiat Lux

Water and life, looking upstream

Ancient depiction of the Samaritan
woman at the well with Jesus

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
John 4:13-17

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The dawn breaks cold and overcast this morning in Central Virginia. The weather report has icy rain on the way later today. Yet my morning reflection takes me far away, to the life-giving waters of Jacob’s well in the Judean desert that is depicted in John 4:1-26 in today’s Morning Prayer reading.

In the story, Jesus is on his way home to Galilee, having heard an argument has broken out among the Pharisees about the topic of baptism. Jesus cuts through Samaria, a land full of untouchables, and he pauses at the well. He encounters a Samaritan woman, and rich conversation ensues. Gender and religious stereotypes are cast to the dust, and it is one of those stories that preachers can mine from many directions. Indeed, I have commented on it four times before on this page.  We could go many more places; the passage might well have been written as an instruction manual for baptism.

This morning, though, I am struck by the simplicity of the water in the well. Life comes from water. Dirt is washed away by water. The old is washed away, and the new comes from it.

Sometimes in my prayers, I imagine myself sitting beside a cool mountain stream in a grassy meadow. Often I am looking downstream as the water flows past, remembering moments of my life that are gone. But today, I am looking upstream at the water yet to come, and giving thanks for what it will bring.

By James Richardson, Fiat Lux

Grace in the pebbles

“You have shaken the earth and split it open; repair the cracks in it, for it totters…”Psalm 60:2 

“After this, Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he spent some time there with them and baptized…” John 3:22

Photo by Lori Korleski Richardson

During Lent, I have taken to reading the psalms in the evening. Psalm 60 came as the lectionary assignment for last night, full of earthquakes, armies, enemies and God’s wrath. Not exactly comforting bedtime reading.

This morning’s reading from John 3:22-36 brings calm. Jesus is in the countryside, teaching his disciples and baptizing. A side discussion ensues about baptism and how it is a gift of the spirit. It is the only suggestion in any of the gospels that Jesus himself might have been baptizing people, though a few lines later the gospel writer says it is the disciples – not Jesus – who are performing the baptisms.

A couple of years ago, Lori and I traveled to the Judean countryside for a few days. In the morning I sat beside the Sea of Galilee and watched the sun rise. The beach was thick with stones and pebbles, the rubble from the earth split open from centuries of earthquakes and floods. I could easily imagine Jesus sitting on this shoreline, praying as the sun came up.

Nearby were olive groves, and it was easy for me to imagine Jesus and his disciples finding shade there at the noonday. No words were necessary for my imaginings.

I brought back a few olive leaves from the groves, and pressed them in my prayer book. I also brought back a pocketful of pebbles from the shore of the Sea of Galilee. I keep them in an olive wood bowl near my favorite chair at home.

Lately I hold one of the pebbles during my morning prayers. A few days ago, as I held the smallest of pebbles, I heard a small still voice telling me to look for the small pebbles of grace in my day.

I leave you with this today: Hold a pebble in your hand. Find the grace that comes your way. It might be very small, and unexpected. It might be a smooth or rough. But that pebble is a blessing that is yours to keep forever.

Also from today's readings. . .

So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being. Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth with all that is in it, yet the Lord set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today.

Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God; him alone you shall worship.

Deuteronomy 10:12-20

By James Richardson, Fiat Lux

Down by the Riverside: Our Baptismal Covenant and guns, mental health care and the culture of violence

Jordan River

Today's sermon is based on Isaiah 43:1-7, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22.

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The people were filled with expectations and they were blessed and they were the beloved. May you be filled with expectations, blessings and know you are the beloved. Amen.


Listen again to the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.”

What must these people have seen and heard, standing in line at the river?

They had come from seemingly everywhere, traveling a long perilous journey across desert and mountains, to the lowest place on earth – the Jordan River Valley.

Now they stood in line, waiting to be washed in the river by a strange holy man, to be baptized into a new way of living.

Standing next to them in line was a young man from the north, from the region known as the Galilee.

Did they even notice him in line?

Or were they so consumed by their own worries, their own struggles, their own expectations, that they didn’t notice who stood with them.

He waited his turn. If he said anything to anyone, no one seems to have noticed enough to remember it or what he looked like.

Yet one man did notice. John, he was known, the one who they would call “the Baptist.”

John was an austere man of the desert, living off the land, and he attracted followers, lots of them. We can guess some of them were starving. Maybe all he could give them was insects and a little honey. It was all he ate, and it was enough.

Then there were these lines of people from all over the Judean countryside, waiting to see him.

Maybe some were fleeing from something, but I will bet most were not unlike us – searching for some sense that God is with them, that God has not deserted them in their troubles.

And there was this other man standing in line, this man from the north, and he came alone.

John, the one they called the Baptist, he noticed him. He knew exactly who he was, and he knew in an instant that the world would never – could never – be the same.

He washed this lone man in the river, baptized him like so many others. But this time it was different. This time it was the Baptist who felt like he had been washed, made new, made holy.

And he heard the voice, maybe only a whisper, saying that this man in the river is “my beloved. Listen to him.”

For countless centuries many have pondered this scene, debated its significance, wondered why on earth Jesus, the Son of God, would chose to stand in line with all these troubled people and chose to baptized.

To find the answer, maybe we need look no further than ourselves. By standing in line to be baptized, Jesus chose to be one of us, to share in the same troubles, to experience life as we experience it, and ultimately to bring the Godness within him to dwell with us, too.

He yearned to show us that we, too, are the beloved of God, that our very existence is God’s dream.

Today we are passing along this gift of God’s dream through baptism to three children: Charlotte, James, and Alice.

We will stand with them at the font in the center of our church, where so many have been baptized for decades and decades.

We will signify with the outward symbols of water and words, music and prayers, that these three beautiful children are the beloved of God.

And we will do more: We will promise to stand with them in whatever life brings them. We will declare that nothing – nothing – will separate them from the love of God. Down through the centuries, many have declared this reality in countless places, and in countless ways.

Indeed, today, by what we do, we are reaching back thousands of years to the ancient Hebrew prophets.

Listen again to the prophet Isaiah, who in a few short words proclaims the very essence of what we do today:

“You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.”

No one can be a bystander today. Baptism brings with it challenges for each one of us.

In a few moments, we will join together in renewing our baptismal covenant. We will make promises for how we will live our life in faith – promises not just for ourselves but for these three children and for every child in the entire world.

We will pledge to pray together and share in the breaking of the bread – regularly.

We will promise to love our neighbors as ourselves – regularly – and promise that when we fall into sin – as we will do regularly – that will return to the Lord, again and again.

And here is the hardest one. We will promise to respect the dignity of every human being.

By doing this, we are holding these promises in trust for these three children until they are old enough to hold these promises for themselves.

If we take seriously the promises of our baptism, that will have consequences and will change the world.

Our baptism commissions us to be servants for each other, servants of our community and servants of every nation. The only privilege of our baptism – the only privilege – is the privilege to be servants.

We can start by proclaiming in word and example that we stand for an end to the way of violence, warfare, poverty, and ignorance – and an end to the idol of guns.

I want you to know that, with 27 others from our diocese, I have co-sponsored a resolution at our upcoming Diocesan Council to join with other religious communities in calling for laws restricting the sale high-powered military weapons; strengthening our mental health system; and calling on all of us to take a critical look at our culture that glorifies violence.

My baptismal promises compel me to do no less.

People of faith can differ on the details, yet we must not shrink from doing what we can to make our world safer.

Yet know this too: Wherever we go in life, whatever good we do, or the mistakes we make, Christ Jesus stands in this line with us – joins us in the water of baptism – telling us over and over that each one of us is the beloved, each of us is God’s dream.

“Do not fear,” Isaiah proclaims, “for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.”

These are the promises that never, never, never end. AMEN

James Richardson, Fiat Lux

The cool cleansing waters of the river

Sacramento River, taken with my iPhone

SACRAMENTO – The air here is very heavy with smoke from brush fires on the Sacramento River Delta. The evening breeze that usually brings us cool air brought us only stifling smoke last night, and the temperature today promises to be 104 degrees.

So it takes imagination this morning to think of the cool waters of the mountains, and to imagine the water long ago where Jesus and John the Baptist initiated people into the faith by immersing them in rivers.

The Daily Office reading this morning, from John 3:22-36, is a debate about the meaning of baptism and who is allowed to perform baptism. John is baptizing at Aenon near Salim, while Jesus is baptizing in another stretch of the Jordan River. A few nameless folk ask John the Baptist, who has the better baptism? John turns it into a sermon about belief in Jesus:

“He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.”

Ouch.

Baptism in the Gospel of John has become about being initiated into a relationship with Jesus, and that has become the central motif of baptism in Christianity through the ages.

But the Gospel of John was written last (nearly a century after the time of Jesus), and it represents the early Church adding its claim of exclusive truth onto the story of Jesus. Perhaps it is a layer of smoke?

I cannot help but reflect that baptism looks and sounds different in the earlier gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke. In those gospels, Jesus is drenched in baptism and through it shares with us in temptation and suffering. God declares Jesus beloved in baptism, and baptism becomes a marker not only of his divinity, but also of his humanity.

Unlike in the Gospel of John, in the three earlier gospels Jesus does not baptize – he is not a rival to John the Baptist. Jesus casts out demons and heals people, feeds them and invites them to his table. He does not check their baptismal certificates at the door.

I am left wondering if these two ideas of baptism are mutually exclusive. Apparently not for the early Church, for both ideas were left in the New Testament: Baptism as Jesus sharing our humanity, and baptism as our initiation into life with Jesus.

Christians have had a very difficult time through the ages living in the tension of those two ideas. Can we find a way to live with both ideas?

Maybe the flowing waters can bring us there.

My prayers this morning take me to the banks of the river, and I am surrounded by many familiar people who are in this world and in the next. I prayer for the waters to cleanse us of all that harms, wounds and hurts us.

I feel connected through the water to many memories, many people, in the past and in the present. I feel connected through the water to life everywhere. And I await the promise of the water that has not yet reached us and for the smoke to clear away.

By James Richardson, Fiat Lux

Life at St. Paul's is very rich: Catching up on the last few weeks

We have some catching up to do from the last few weeks. Although I've taken a writing break here in this space, life at St. Paul's has been wonderfully rich of late. We've had four baptisms and our annual official visitation with Bishop Shannon Johnston, with a dozen confirmations.

Pastor Janet Legro has returned on Wednesday evenings to lead a class entitled "Three Bits of Wisdom to Guide Our Relationships," and more than 80 people came out to hear her last week. Her class continues tonight, so come if you can.

Two Sundays ago, we had a guest preacher, Robert Ratdke, the president of Episcopal Relief and Development who told us about the amazing work across the globe from our church to mitigate poverty and save millions of lives.

And Lori and I hosted the annual "Parish Tea" at our home. Although the rain kept it from being a garden party, more than 50 people graced us with their presence, and many hands helped make it a wonderful gathering.

I have to say the high point of the Easter season for me was the blessings of the covenanted relationship of Margaret Mohrmann and Deborah Healy on April 14. It was the first time a same-gender union has been blessed at St. Paul's, and we did so with the full sanction of Bishop Johnston. The day was the culmination of a great deal of work by Deborah and Margaret and a year-long process in the parish of forums, biblical study, and prayer. This was not the first such ceremony in the Diocese of Virginia -- there have been several in Northern Virginia. But this was the first in our region.

We invited the parish to attend, and the place was packed. The most amazing moment in the ceremony for me was when I invited other clergy to come forward to join in blessing the couple, and eight came forward, and from many denominations. The fullness and love of the Kingdom of God was on display.

I preached at the ceremony, and with the permission of Margaret and Deborah, I am sharing the sermon with you here. For those who are still struggling with this issue, I especially hope you will read it:

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Margaret Mohrmann and Deborah Healey

April 14, 2012 

First, Deborah and Margaret, stand up. Look around. Take a moment and look into the faces of everyone here.

         We love you, we bless you, we honor you.

         And we are blessed and honored by you. We thank you for bringing us here today, for your love and your friendship and the blessings you bestow on us.

         Now you can be seated.

         I have a few words I want to share today with all of you, and then a few words for Margaret and Deborah.

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         We are doing something today that is very old and very traditional, and really, if you think about it, wonderfully ordinary.

         At first glance, it may not seem so. None of us are, after all, very old, at least compared with the long sweep of Christian tradition. All of us are quite young, comparatively anyway. And no one here is ordinary. And at first glance, we are doing something breathtakingly new for the Church, an institution not exactly known for doing things in breathtaking fashion or breathtaking speed.

We are, in fact, doing something never done before within these four walls of St, Paul’s Memorial Church, and never before done in any Episcopal Church in Central Virginia: Blessing the covenant of two people, who are of the same sex, and we are doing so with the sanction and blessing of our bishop, Shannon Johnston.

Today is an historic milestone for this church, and it is meet and right that we so note. We especially need to pause with gratitude for all those courageous souls, for their witness and perseverance, who have made what we do today possible.

And we especially need to thank you, Deborah and Margaret, for inviting us here and for your willingness to be first.

Yet what we do today is very old and very traditional.

         What we do today stretches back to the time of Abraham, Jacob and Moses, to the time of Jesus and Saint Paul.

         What we do today is biblical in its tradition and biblical in scope:

         We are witnessing and blessing the solemn covenant between two people who are pledging their lives to each other.  They are doing what people have been doing for millennia and millennia, and that makes this wonderfully ordinary.

         We, too, are making a covenant with each other to support and encourage Deborah and Margaret “in times of joy and in times of sorrow.”

         We are in this with them.

         A covenant is not the same as a contract. A contract is an agreement for the exchange of goods and services.

And while a contract can sometimes lead to a relationship, a contract is not about the relationship; it is about the goods and services exchanged – and the parties might not ever even meet.

         A covenant is different. A covenant is an agreement that creates an intimate bond. It is primarily about the relationship, and the deepening involvement among those making the covenant.

         Today Margaret and Deborah are standing squarely within the blessed covenant of God and Abraham, and the relationship that covenant created.      

One way of looking at the long march of Christian history is to see it as the struggle to broaden, often painfully, our understanding of who is included in the covenant of God and Abraham.

Our forbearers began to call it the “new covenant” even as their understanding of its breadth and depth was incomplete.

Saint Paul and the early Christians proclaimed the death of Christ on the Cross as the supreme expression of the “new” covenant that all people everywhere are to be included in this old covenant.

And so, in a few minutes, we appropriately will remember again when Jesus, on the night before he died, broke bread and blessed all who shared at his table, and we will remember again how he proclaimed he is bound us, and to everyone else, by this “new covenant.”

         Margaret and Deborah chose with great care the readings we hear today, for each reading shines brightly with a different perspective on this covenant that is constantly made new.

From the prophet Isaiah:

 “I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open eyes that are blind…”

From Paul’s letter to the Romans comes the most succinct instruction we may ever hear on how to morally live into this covenant:

“Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another…

“Bless those who persecute you… rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep…live peaceably with all.”

And from the Gospel of Luke, we hear Jesus proclaim that God’s Kingdom is here now, if only we will open our eyes to see it:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.”

Our world finds many ways to be poor, many ways to hold people captive, many ways to be blind, to be oppressed by bigotry, prejudice, racism, homophobia, and just plain narrowness of mind and spirit.

The covenant Margaret and Deborah make today is very good news for the whole world because their covenant breaks through the captivity of blindness and oppression and narrowness. 

Our world is made new here, today.

The covenant between Deborah and Margaret shows us a way forward in all of human relationships.

No one today is allowed to be the same again because of their covenant with each other and our covenant with them.

By your example, Margaret and Deborah, you give us a model for a life of self-giving, founded in love and forgiveness, generosity and joy, with Christ at your center.

Yet, what Deborah and Margaret do today is uniquely theirs, a gracious gift to them alone from God.

They are made new today and life for them will never be the same again.

 By their covenant, Margaret and Deborah set forth today to explore life together in a new way, with the risks and vulnerabilities that come with that.

And by conferring the blessing of the Holy Church, we signify that they are set apart for a Holy purpose with each other and for God’s Kingdom. That makes what they embark upon today their Holy vocation.

         My final words are therefore for you, Deborah and Margaret. Please stand up.

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This may strike you as, well, very Anglican, because these next words come from the Royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Amid all of the pageantry and pomp, Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, gave one of the most generous homilies I have ever heard about how two people can be bound together in a covenant of love with Christ at their center.

And so Margaret and Deborah, here are the words of Bishop Chartres, and these words are especially for you: 

 “You have both made your decision today – “I will” – and by making this new relationship, you have aligned yourselves with what we believe is the way in which life is spiritually evolving, and which will lead to a creative future for the human race.

“The spiritual life grows as love finds its centre beyond ourselves. Faithful and committed relationships offer a door into the mystery of spiritual life in which we discover this: the more we give of self, the richer we become in soul; the more we go beyond ourselves in love, the more we become our true selves and our spiritual beauty is more fully revealed.

“We are all incomplete: we all need the love which is secure, rather than oppressive. We need mutual forgiveness in order to thrive.

“As we move towards our partner in love, following the example of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is quickened within us and can increasingly fill our lives with light.

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And, so my dear friends, Deborah and Margaret, we pray you will continue to grow in the light you give each other, to thrive, to be at each other’s side as companions on the way, in faith, hope and love, and for the Glory of God and the life of the world.

May you go from blessing to blessing, strength to strength, and your light shine forth brightly in this world. AMEN

James Richardson, Fiat Lux

What makes us human?

The other day in our Education for Ministry (EfM) group we did one of the exercises known as “common lessons.” The exercise asks each of us to write our own creed by answering a series of questions.

The questions are as you might expect – who is God? Who is Jesus? Who is the Holy Spirit? All rich questions for thought and conversation.

I’ve done this exercise many times before in EfM groups. But there was one question this time around I found most intriguing:

What makes us human?

We had many answers, starting with the obvious: our DNA. But what else makes us human? What connects us as human and makes us different than any other living creature on this planet?

We had many answers.

Is it human intellect? Not all humans have intellect.

Is it technology? Other primates make tools.

Is it language? Chimpanzees and whales have language.

My answer: Humans have story.

A wise sage once said there is no past and there is no future. There is only the present. We give the past and future shape by the story we tell, and how we tell the story.

We certainly have secular stories and call it history. The story of wars, heroes and villians, national myths and traditions. Science itself is story by the selective examination of the facts that science discovers. The fact of the cosmos – the stars and planets and this earth, our island home – is a story.

Quran, 11th century, North Africa
British Museum

Our stories connect us as human because at some level each of us become part of the story.

Human religious traditions are essentially story, whether it is the Hindu saga of many worlds, or Moses leading the exodus out of Egypt, or Muhammad’s prophetic vision, or Jesus Christ dying on the Cross.

Each of the religion tells the story its unique way.

The Christian story is a continuum connecting the people of God to the primal story of creation, to the desolation and redemption of the Jewish people, to the story of Jesus of Nazareth and his Resurrection, and to the people of God who came after living into the hope and promise of salvation.

Baptism is story.

When Christians are baptized they enter into the story and thereby continue the story of salvation into the next generation and beyond.

It is true that there are many things going on in baptism – the initiation into the Church and the outward and visible sign through symbols of water and words of the inward grace of the Holy Spirit present in the person being baptized. All that is true.

Yet there is something more to baptism that makes it completely human: When we are baptized we enter into the great story of salvation history. The ancient story continues onward through us.

It doesn’t matter our age or intellectual capacity to understand because baptism brings us into the story. It doesn’t matter that we fall short, or whether we are a sinner or saint or combination of both. We continue to write this story of baptism the rest of our lives.

It is no accident that Christians use the Apostles’ Creed at baptism. Unlike the Nicene Creed, which is an abstract (and hard to access) statement of the definition of the Trinity, the Apostles’ Creed is a story. It isn’t abstract. Hear the Apostles’ Creed again, and hear it as a story without an ending:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth;
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

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This Lent I am offering a special course for adults who have not been baptized or confirmed in the Church. The course, entitled “Journey of Faith,” begins this Sunday at 11:30 am at St. Paul’s, and will continue for seven weeks. All you need to do to get into the class is show up.

Even if you have been baptized or confirmed, the course is a good way to explore your faith, your doubts, and this great story we share together as the people of God. Come ask the hard questions of faith and life and meet fellow sojourners on the path.

For those adults who are interested, the course leads to baptism at the Great Vigil of Easter on April 7 at 7:30 pm. We are also offering baptism for babies and children on the following Sunday April 15, and for information on that please contact our office.

For those who are interested, the course leads to confirmation or reception as an Episcopalian at a special service Wednesday April 18 at 5:30 pm with Bishop Shannon Johnston.

You can still take “Journey of Faith” even if you aren’t interested in receiving any of these sacraments. I hope you will join me beginning this Sunday.

Our story: Baptism and the Baptismal Covenant

I was back in the pulpit today after a few weeks away.
Today's lesson is based on Matthew 22:34-46.

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The last few weeks you may have noticed that all of our sermons have touched on our baptismal covenant. And you may have noticed that each Sunday, instead of saying the Nicene Creed, we have been renewing our Baptismal covenant. 

Today is my turn, and next week Margaret Mohrmann will wrap up this theme.
I’d like to begin by asking you to turn to the Book of Common Prayer page 304 and take a moment to look at the baptismal covenant.  

You will notice it comes in two parts; the first half is a restatement of the Apostle’s Creed, and the second half is a series of promises. 

Please notice something else: It is not a statement of doctrine. 

It is a story. 

Here is what doctrine sounds like: “There is but one only, living, and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, visible, without body, parts, or passions; immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute.” 

That is from the Calvinist “Westminster Confession” of faith written in 1646, and foundational to the Presbyterians. It has 33 chapters, ending with a jolly sounding chapter entitled “Of the Last Judgment.” Be glad you don’t have to memorize this in a confirmation class here. 

That is doctrine because it is a description of the nature and qualities of God and the terms and conditions to be saved by God. 

But we don’t have a confession of faith; we have a story. 

Our baptismal covenant is how we make the ancient story our own story. The story begins with a summary of the Bible – the creation of the universe by God; and the story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; and how Jesus goes to the very depths of hell itself to rescue us; and then the story of the Church, ignited by the Holy Spirit, and bringing forgiveness and new life. 

We call this “catholic,” a word meaning “universal,” making this story a declaration that all of us are included regardless of church brand. 

If you are stumbling over the words “I believe,” there is a more ancient understanding of the word “believe” than attesting to a set of facts. 

The ancient definition of “believe” is to say, “I am in relationship” with the story, and therefore this ancient story is my story, too. 

We enter into the story through our baptism, and through the promises we make for living into the baptismal story in a very particular way: 

We pledge to continue journeying with each other in the tradition of all those who came before us – we call them apostles, and there are many down through history into our own time. 

We pledge to gather in fellowship, in joy and sorrow, in the breaking of the bread, and we pledge to always pray together. 

We pledge to resist evil, and when in our own arrogance we turn away from God, we pledge that we will “repent” by turning back to the way of our baptism – the way of God. 

We pledge to proclaim our life in Christ through our own words and actions. There is an old Franciscan expression for this: “Preach the gospel, and only when necessary, use words.” Actions speak louder than words. 

We pledge to walk with Christ by loving our neighbors as ourselves, by working for justice and peace by respecting the dignity of every human being, and especially those who live on the margins, and especially those whom we have the most difficulty. 

It is a tall bill this baptismal covenant. 

We say we will do it “with God’s help,” and how else could we do that except with God’s help? 

We baptize young and old alike, babies and adults; people who are beginning life, people in the prime of life and people who come to the story late in life. 

When we baptize babies and children, we are affirming loud and clear that they, too, are part of this epic story of God’s people, and we carry these pledges for our children until they are old enough to carry these pledges for themselves. 

We enter into this story with our whole being. We call this a “sacrament” because we experience everything through our human senses – our touch, our hearing, our taste and our sight. 

We have no other access to the Holy except through the humanness of our physical senses.
God made our bodies good, and that goodness allows us to experience the divine, and that makes us sacramental beings. 

We use the physical outward elements of water, bread, wine, words, music, and prayers, to give us entry – a window if you will – into the sacred presence that is inside all of us, surrounds us and connects us to the holy – and to each other. 

St. Thomas Aquinas once said that we are not souls inside a body, but bodies inside a soul. By that he meant that our souls are connected to each other and to God in ways that we can’t describe, but in ways we can touch, see and hear through sacraments. 

When we baptize people we are saying through physical symbols that God is already at work in them. 

We are also doing something more – we are welcoming the newly baptized into the “household of God” – the Body of Christ. We are declaring that this household of God needs everyone, of every age and every gift, and no one will be excluded. 

It is true that religion, faith and belief is an intensely personal thing. You believe what you believe, you journey where and how you will, and it doesn’t get more personal that that. 

Yet the religious experience is more than personal. It is about all of us experiencing the divine together as a sacramental community. When I falter, when I doubt, when I cannot pray, I rest assured in knowing you will do that for me. I cannot do this alone, and neither can you. Faith is personal, but it isn’t private. 

We come together around this Holy Table to be connected to each other in the sharing of the bread and wine, and hearing once again the story of salvation that is our story. 

The Church has long taught that baptism is the gateway to the other sacraments, including the Holy Eucharist, and that is true. 

But as you may know, in this parish we welcome all who enter these doors to share in the bread and wine of our Holy Eucharist. We invite everyone who is drawn here to bring with them their faith, their doubts, the longings of their hearts, their brokenness and wounds, and their hopes and joys, and bring all of that to this feast of the divine. 

We don’t check baptismal certificates at the railing because Jesus didn’t check the certificates either. Nor does it matter if you’ve led a saintly life or a sinner’s life, or both. 

Yet the Holy Eucharist finds its fullest meaning in baptism. It is not so much that baptism is a ticket to the table, as it is that coming to the table is an expression of the fullness of baptism. Everything we do emanates from the center of our baptism. That is why the baptismal font is placed in the center of the church and why symbolically you pass by it on your way to the Holy Table. 

It may be that coming to this table may lead you to baptism, and I know many people for whom that is true. 

They asked to be baptized precisely because they had been welcome share in the Holy Eucharist. 

Gathering at this table, Sunday after Sunday, is foundational to living fully into the promises of our baptism. 

How do we live fully the sacramental life of our baptism? There are many ways, many techniques, many practices, yet all of them come down to what you hear this morning proclaimed by Jesus in the gospel lesson from Matthew: 

“ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” 

To love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves is to write our story differently than we might have otherwise – to live a life of giving to others motivated not by guilt but by love.
Think of giving itself as a sacramental action. 

Giving is not just about pledging money to the church, though I hope you do. Giving is really about leading a life that is marked by generosity in all that you do, in your daily life, in your home, in the classroom, in your work, in your church, and everywhere you go and with everyone you meet. 

How? With God’s help; by finding your passion for how God is calling you to build a world brimming with love and generosity, and then following your passion wherever God leads, and writing your story large.
AMEN.

Beginnings and endings: The circle of the Holy Trinity

My sermon marking Trinity Sunday is based on Genesis 1:1-2:4a , Psalm 8, 2 Corinthians 13:11-13, and
Matthew 28:16-20:

+ + +

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”

Sometimes first things go first. Sometimes first things go last. 

Think of the lessons we hear today as circles – with endings and beginnings that circle back to beginnings and endings. 

We hear the opening verses of the Bible: the Genesis story of how God created all that there is and will be. God said, “let there be light” and called it good. 

And we hear the closing lines from the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus tells his disciples to go forth and baptize “all the nations” – all the peoples of the earth – and that he will be with them “to the end of the age.” 

The creation story of Genesis continues in the new creation of story of Christ, the story circling back to the beginning. 

And in the middle is a farewell from Paul to the community in Corinth, imploring to keep their circle alive by living in love and peace. 

All of this is wrapped inside of the circle of the hard-to-understand concept of the Trinity.
This is Trinity Sunday, and on this Sunday preachers like me are supposed to explain the Trinity. 

Some will compare the Trinity to a tree with roots, a trunk and leaves, or to water, ice and steam, or to a three-sided diamond. 

We will recite the ancient Nicene Creed in a little while, that formula of the Trinity written in the 4th century. We will hear again the Trinity proclaimed in the words of our Eucharistic prayer. 

Many words and much blood have been spilled over explanations and defenses of the Trinity, and truthfully most of it leaves me very cold. 

What is often lacking in this talk of the Trinity is an explanation of why we should care a wit about it. It gets awfully abstract in a hurry, kind of like 9th grade algebra. 

We may fairly ask, what does understanding the Trinity – or algebra – possibly have to do with my daily life? 

What does the Trinity have to do with war and unrest, climate change and a tottering economy, or a friend who is in the hospital? 

It is important to know that those who came up with the concept of the Trinity were trying very hard to grasp how God could be present in the world with them yet feel so distant at times. They, too, faced warfare and plague, and life was perhaps more precarious for them than it is for us.

At its root, the Trinity is fundamentally a statement of the infinity of God and God’s infinite ways. 

To hold the idea of the Trinity is to grasp that God has infinite ways of being understood.
Among my favorite ancient symbols of the Trinity is three circles that interlock. Circles, after all, have no end and no beginning and are symbols of infinity. 

The God of the Trinity is the Infinite One who is the spark that creates all things, and calls it good; the Infinite One who came in a particular time and place as a man called Jesus to show us how to love each other; and the Infinite One who is still a holy spark living within us and among us and going infinitely where she will. 

God as male, God as female, God as a living being who is capable of reaching all people everywhere infinitely. 

Instead of a God who is a monolithic stone distant from us, we hear and see expressions of God who is dynamic, relational, here with us, and has infinite love for us. 

I can’t see all of God and neither can you. The Trinity is another way of saying that all people are capable of experiencing God, each in our limited way, yet God is bigger than any of us can experience as alone. 

These lessons today bring us full circle to our own beginnings as individuals and as a faith community by touching once again on our baptism. 

In this final passage of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus calls us to go forth and baptize the people of the world in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in the name of this infinitely knowable God. 

The passage is known as “the great commission.” 

Jesus’ great commission is a preposterous notion on the face of it. 

There he was with his handful of disciples one last time, telling them to leave their hiding places and get out into the world and change it. 

Heal the sick, feed the hungry, and baptize them in water and spirit into the good news of God’s kingdom bursting forth all around us and inside us. Go into lands that are foreign to you. Get out of your comfort zone, big time. Go to all the nations of the world and I will fill them with love and grace and healing – and baptize them into this new life. 

They must have said, who us? There are only a handful of us. How can we possibly do anything of the sort? 

Yet they did, and could because the Christ who they knew sustained them and was with them to the end of all ages. 

It is important we see baptism as something more than the milestone of “christening” of a baby. Baptism is foundational to all that we do as a faith community. 

Baptism is a starting line in the circle of faith for us as individuals and for the faith community with us. 

Baptism is the initiation into the Church and that makes it about all of us. And once you are in, you are in, and nothing can take your baptism away from you. That is why we baptize someone only once. In the words of the Prayer Book, you are “Christ’s own forever.”
You are not just in the body of Christ in one locale, or in one parish, or even in one branch of Christianity. You aren’t baptized an “Episcopalian” or a “Catholic” or “Lutheran.” 

You are baptized in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit, and like the Trinity itself, that makes your baptism infinitely large. 

You are a member of the entire body of Christ, all over the world, in every place and in every time. It doesn’t matter whether you change locations or even change church brands. You are Christ’s own forever, no matter where you go. 

Think of baptism as the center of the circle. Think of Jesus, standing at the center of the circle, at the water, pointing us in new ways to reach beyond this circle and into the world. 

The symbol of our baptism is the font at center of this house of prayer. It is a reminder to us every time we come here of our own baptism, and it is our gateway to this Holy Table to be sustained with the bread and wine of our Holy Eucharist. 

And there is one more thing: Our baptism compels us to leave here, and do those things Jesus called those first disciples to do: Heal the sick, be with the lonely, work to repair this broken earth, and proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom bursting in the open for all to see, and baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
AMEN

Patience, solitude and Baptism: The river beginning before time, bringing new life, washing our tears, and my personal journey

Many years ago, probably around 1980 or so, I was introduced to a stream that flows from beneath a slumbering volcano, Mount Lassen, in the northeastern corner of California.

The stream, Hat Creek, runs cold and deep, and a three-mile section is maintained as a wild trout sanctuary.

I learned to fly fish on Hat Creek, and I learned how to read the water and the wily ways of truly wild fish. I also learned something about patience and solitude, though not nearly enough.

I have returned to Hat Creek many times over the years, often with a buddy or two, and many times alone. Hat Creek is remote, but not so remote that a good half-day of driving from Sacramento can't get you there.

There was a time in the mid-1980s when things were not going so well for me. I got up in the middle of the night and drove to Hat Creek so I could be there at dawn for the morning mayfly hatch. I wanted to catch fish, but really I wanted to be on the stream to be alone and sort things out.

I went to the widest, slickest, deepest section below the riffle at Powerhouse #2. I took my time, gazed at the water for awhile. I set up my rod, put on my waders.

I watched the water awhile longer. I got into the water, walked out into the stream until I was waste deep, found firm footing on the sandy bottom below, then took my first cast.

Instantly I caught the largest trout I have ever caught on Hat Creek. The rules say that you can keep two large trout a day, but I thanked this one and let her go (the big ones are usually female).

At that moment, I had this wonderful feeling that all would be well, that God was with me standing in the stream, holding up my feet, and like the water flowing by me, my life would be long and would have many twists and turns before reaching the sea hundreds of miles and many years away. I could sense God telling me that my difficulties were temporary but now I needed to do something new in my life, but I needed to be patient to see how this would unfold.

I would not exactly call this a "conversion experience," nor would I have made any connection at the time with church things or baptism. I'm not sure I would have known the words. But it was, for me, a numinous, holy experience, and I knew in that moment that my life was going to change in ways I would not and could not know, and I didn't mind that unknowing.

You can chalk it up to cold water or a big trout, and maybe that would be so. But the moment has stuck with me forever.

Over the years, much has changed in my life, and in ways I could not possibly have imagined. Marriage, career, new friends, new stories, new adventures, a return to church and a life of faith, and the rediscovery of a submerged and nearly drowned calling that had been with me since I was quite young. I've had many joys and many disappointments, and the deaths of too many dear friends. I would not have dreamed on that day standing in Hat Creek that any of this would have happened, much less that I'd be a priest in a church in the faraway land of Virginia.

Not everything has turned out as I would have liked or planned, then or now, and that is alright because that is what I heard would happen standing in the stream a long time ago.

I bring all this up because I return to Hat Creek often, although I have not been there physically in several years. Hat Creek is the place of my imagining, the place of my deepest prayers, the place I return in solitude when my eyes are closed. I picture so many people, living and gone, sitting with me on the bank just below the riffle at Powerhouse #2. Sometimes in my prayer we get into the water. Sometimes we sit gazing. Sometimes there is a banquet table on the bank, sometimes simply the warm mountain breeze with Jesus sitting beside me in silence.

This past week, the readings from the Daily Office have been strong with rivers and water. Last Sunday, the Morning Prayer readings included this from Isaiah 66:12:

“For thus says the Lord: I will extend prosperity to her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream.”

On Monday, we began an exploration of the Book of Ruth 1:1-14, and I was struck by the scene as Naomi tells her daughters-in-law to return to their families because she can longer support them, and “Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud.”

I imagined Naomi's and Ruth's tears falling into the river, and those tears being swept away. The river brings life and prosperity but also washes away their pain and all that doesn't bring life. We, too, get to stand in that river, our footing sure, as it flows relentlessly around bends and over riffles to places beyond where we can see now. Our tears also disappear into the river and will become droplets bringing new life once again.

Maybe this is why water is such a powerful symbol for so many things, and why we use water in baptism. This coming Sunday at St. Paul's we will be baptizing four babies, and I've been thinking about how their lives will likely stretch decades beyond my own life, and how they know nothing of the world they will inherit. But inherit it they will.

The Church considers baptism as the starting line in their life of faith. But in another sense, these children have been in this river all along. On Sunday, in their baptism, they will symbolically step into a very old stream that flows from beneath the earth and before time, and will flow onward with them. They, like us, will dream dreams one day of where the river will take them, and like us, they will be surprised.

Baptism is a sign that it is never too late for any of us to have a new beginning; it is never too late to stand in the stream and dream. And maybe catch a big fish. This came in last night's Evening Prayer, Psalm 126:4-6:

“The LORD has done great things for us,
and we are glad indeed.

Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
like the watercourses of the Negev.

Those who sowed with tears
will reap with songs of joy.”

+ + +

The first photo above is of Mount Lassen from the Lake Almanor side, taken by someone who only describes herself as a Modoc Indian from a blog called A Wayward Life.

Incidentally, Mount Lassen last erupted in 1915 and there are still many hot spots and young lava beds in the area.

The second photo, by another anonymous photographer posting on the Internet, is of the exact spot that I describe on Hat Creek.

By the way, if you ever get to Hat Creek, the best fly is a #16-#18 light colored parachute mayfly "Para Dun" in the morning, and a #14 brown cadis at dusk. Use #6 tippet or lighter. You won't need anything else in your box.

Following the star to the waters of baptism

Today's sermon is based on Isaiah 42:1-9 and Matthew 3:13-17.

* * *

Have you seen a star lately? Out in the country, where we live, we only need to go out on our front porch to see a stunning display on a clear winter night.

Not all stars are in the sky.

This morning, in a little while, we will meet again the wise men as they follow a star to the crib of Jesus.

Nowhere in the biblical story does it say anyone else but the wise men saw the star. They were the only ones to see this star. I like to think the star was inside them. They followed this star by faith and faith alone.

They did not know where they were going, or how the journey would come out, but they went anyway. That is the definition of faith – going somewhere and doing something without being certain of the outcome or even the final destination.

This year, as we hear the biblical stories once again, we will hear about many people – human beings not unlike you or I – who have strengths, and flaws, courage and cowardice, and sometimes a mix of both.

We will meet sinners and saints alike, and like most of us, people who are somewhere in between.

In these ancient, sacred stories, we will hear of a few people who get it right, and a lot of people who don’t. Some are lovable characters. Many are not. That is the nature of the people of faith.

Today we meet once again one of these characters, who maybe didn’t always get it right, who was probably pretty unpleasant: John the Baptist.

We meet him in the River Jordan, baptizing Jesus.

Sometimes people ask: Why did Jesus need to be baptized? That is the wrong question. Instead we should ask: What does Jesus want us to see and hear when he is baptized?

When people in the time of Jesus heard about John the Baptist standing in the river drenching people in water, they might have thought of the Prophet Isaiah proclaiming that God will bring life-giving water to “the poor and needy.”

They might have thought of Isaiah when he tells about the leader who comes as a servant to bring “justice to the nations.”

And this leader would be anything but a conquering Caesar.

The messiah who comes, Isaiah says, is a gentle servant, “a light to the nations,” Isaiah declares.

This servant springs from the people of Israel, the people of Abraham, yet he comes for all the people of the earth. This servant brings not exclusion but inclusion, not revenge and hate, but reconciliation and healing.

Isaiah is describing in Hebrew what is called shalom.
When Jesus steps into the water with John the Baptist, God’s shalom comes alive in the river.

“This is my son, the Beloved, with whom I well pleased.”

By being baptized, Jesus signals the beginning of his life of servant ministry.

We, too, stand in the river. We, too, are the beloved. We, too, begin our life of servant ministry through our baptism. All of us are ministers by our baptism, no matter our age or status in life.

By experiencing the same baptism we experience, being drenched with the same water, Jesus enters into the same community we share – this circle of faith we have come to call our “communion.”

This is a circle that is infinite in time and space, and has baptism at its center.
Today we will baptize a young child, Cassiopeia. We will welcome her into our circle of faith, and with outward symbols of water and words, we will acknowledge the reality that God has long been present and working in her.

With her, through our own baptism, each of us is a member of the entire body of Christ, all over the world, in every place and in every time. All of us are connected through our baptism, with Peia and each other, and with Jesus at his baptism.

All of us are members of the One Body. It doesn’t matter whether you change locations or even change church brands. The circle is unbroken.

This is not an intellectual thing; it is relational. But there are words that go with baptism – and those words are our baptismal covenant. These words are our charter for ministry as the people of God.

We pledge to pray together and share in the breaking of the bread.

We promise to love our neighbors as ourselves, and we promise that when we fall into sin – as surely we will – that will return to the Lord, again and again. And we promise to respect the dignity of every human being.

There are many challenges to each of us in these words.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the terrible events yesterday in Arizona: the shooting of a Congresswoman; the murder of a nine-year who was standing nearby; and the chief federal judge of Arizona and four other people.

The details are still emerging, and I don’t know much about the killer. But this I know: Our personalizing of politics can have real consequences, emboldening an unhinged person to act murderously.

If we truly love our neighbors as ourselves, if we truly respect the dignity of every human being, then we need to take responsibility for our politics – all of it. We need lower our voices and change the tone of our politics – all of our politics of every stripe.

Changing the tone starts with us. We respond to nasty politics and so politics gets nastier. Changing the tone begins with our everyday conversation. If we respect the dignity of every human being, then let it start with us and how we talk to each other.

And there are more challenges that come through our baptism. We in this church are challenged to widen our baptismal circle, to practice God’s hospitality of shalom by bringing others in. We do not get the comfort of a closed circle. We have to keep opening it up.

That is why Jesus stands in the water with us, to widen the baptismal circle, one at a time, starting with us.

Our baptism makes us servants of each other, right here, and servants of our community and of every nation. You and I are ministers together by our baptism.
The only privilege we have as Christians is the privilege to serve.

And, by our being here today, together in this place, we can declare with Isaiah: “The former things have come to pass, and new things we now declare.” Amen.

Artwork above: The Bayeux Tapestry (ca. 1070-80 AD) depicting Halley's Comet during the Norman conquest; Frescoes in Danish churches, ca. 1430.

Doused in the water of baptism

I came across this item below the other day and it really smacked me. This is from the blog of The Very Rev. Dr. Brian Baker, who is the Dean of Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento, our home parish. It is about the radicalness of baptism. Please read this all the way through...

Doused with the waters of baptism

By Brian Baker

A few weeks ago I preached a sermon on Baptism. It is one of my favorite sermons. Since I preach extemporaneously, I can be surprised by what happens when preaching. In this sermon I included part of a poem I had heard 12 years ago. I loved these words but I had never connected them to baptism before.

It was written by a classmate of mine. We were in our first week of classes of a three-year program we had just started. Our assignment was to re-contextualize an ancient text. We were to take the text and write something that would express the sentiment of the text so it made sense in our modern context. We were given several passages from which to choose. Martha Due (now Robertson) and I chose the same passage, Amos 5:18-24.

Here’s the second part of that passage:

²¹I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. ²²Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. ²³Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. ²⁴But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Amos is writing against the Israelites who are looking for the “Day of the Lord” to deliver them from their enemies who are about to attack them. He says, Why are you looking for the Day of the Lord when it is you who will be judged. God is angry because the Israelites have not been caring for the poor and needy. He then launches into the passage quoted above.

The last verse became a popular refrain in the civil rights movement.

I don’t remember what I wrote. It wasn’t memorable. I do remember what Martha wrote. Or to be more precise, I remember the last few verses of what she wrote. Keep in mind the connection between “justice flowing down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream” and the civil rights movement.

Here’s my memory of how Martha’s ended her poem:

“Douse me with those waters forced through a fire hose to Birmingham pressure and give me companions with whom to rise from the pavement and build”

I remember when I heard those words read in class. We were all moved. It was a holy moment. We just sat in silence. I wish I had the entire poem.

My new realization is that in Baptism we are doused with those waters. We are knocked over by, and drenched with, the waters of God’s justice and compassion and we are given companions with whom to rise from the pavement and build God’s Kingdom.

Every few years I come to a new appreciation of baptism; I discover a new way this ritual shapes the spiritual life. Thank you Martha for this new understanding of baptism.

Photo of St. Paul's Memorial Church baptismal font by Bonny Bronson

Standing at the font; breaking bread, loving our neighbors as ourselves: the centrality of our baptismal covenant

Last week, I reported to you about a baptism of four-year-old Isaiah, who stood at the baptismal font, put his hands in the water, and helped me bless the water of his own baptism.

Isaiah was fascinated throughout, and it was one of those wonderful experiences that I will remember forever. And I would guess Isaiah will remember his baptism forever. Isaiah's grandmother, Virginia Germino, shared a few photos, and I share them with you. The second photo shows retired Associate Rector Paula Kettlewell as she baptized Isaiah.

That experience underlined for me again the centrality of baptism in the life of The Episcopal Church. That was not always true; it is really an outgrowth of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.

The baptismal covenant from the 1979 prayer book is now firmly foundational to our life of faith. The covenant is really proclamation of the ministry that we share together as the people of God. That is probably the single most important change brought about by the adoption of the prayer book 31 years ago, much more important that some of the other changes including moving the altar out from the wall.

Our baptism, and the vows we take together each time we baptize a new Christian, represent a declaration that we are all in this together; that we are ministers, and not consumers of religion; that we will take our faith beyond our walls into the world; and that our faith is not just something we do for an hour on Sunday. We may not always get it right (but sometimes we do!); we will keep returning to that covenant, pledging together to share our ministry as God lights our path and shows us the way.

The baptismal covenant begins with our reciting the Apostle's Creed, which is an ancient statement of the Trinitarian faith. Note that is inclusive in tone; there are no statements that you must believe something or you are out; it is simply a statement of how Christians since ancient times believe God came into the world to be with us in the person of Jesus Christ, and how by his death he crumbled the boundaries of death.

Then the covenant shifts into vows about how we will live out our life of faith by continuing to break bread and pray together; by loving our neighbors as ourselves; by "respecting the dignity of every human being." The vows are practical, not doctrinal; they are practices that everyone from the youngest to the oldest are capable of doing as God gives each of us the maturity and ability to do so.

Here again is the baptismal covenant (Book of Common Prayer, pages 304-305):

The Baptismal Covenant

Celebrant Do you believe in God the Father?
People I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

Celebrant Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
People I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Celebrant Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?
People I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.

Celebrant Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and
fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the
prayers?
People I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever
you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
People I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant Will you proclaim by word and example the Good
News of God in Christ?
People I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving
your neighbor as yourself?
People I will, with God’s help.

Celebrant Will you strive for justice and peace among all
people, and respect the dignity of every human
being?
People I will, with God’s help.