Tag Archives: Baptismal Covenant

An Invitation to Grow

Acts, Baptismal Covenant, Easter, Year B, , , , ,

Year B Easter 6
Acts 10:44-8

Sunday Sermon – May 6, 2018 from Christ Church Christiana Hundred on Vimeo.

When was the last time someone made a comment on your listening skills? Was it on a report card? Was during an argument with someone dear? To hear how God is calling us to grow, we must be good listeners: ready to hear the expected and the unexpected, the familiar and the radically new, the comfortable and the uncomfortable. The diversity in God’s Creation isn’t there to fuel one versus another; our differences are invitations to each other to grow closer to God by seeing the diversity of God.

We’re in our fifth week of our series Witness, as we work our way through the Acts of the Apostles, the band formerly known as the disciples. We’ve been following the apostles on their journey in the years following the resurrection as they spread the Good News and sow the seeds to start the Church. We are called just as they were called to witness – to proclaim our faith. When we follow their example, we know that this is not just about our words; it’s about action. In this season of Easter, we’ve heard about answering God’s call – even when it brings us back to the place of conflict, resisting temptation – especially the temptations to fear and worry, and moving forward in our call as adventurers – even when we like staying settled in one place. Our testimony of our faith to others is not just what we say to them; it’s how we live.

Our life in the Episcopal Church is shaped by two primary sacraments: Holy Eucharist, the bread we break and the cup we share around God’ table, and Holy Baptism, in which we become members of Christ’s Body, the Church and inheritors of the kingdom of God. The promises we make at our baptism govern our life together. One of these promises is “to seek and serve Christ in all people.”[1] The Main Event at the heart of today’s passage from Acts is a baptism – on an occasion where Peter is able to serve Christ in an unexpected way.

One of the great, unexpected joys of my ministry, was my year as an Episcopal missionary after college. When I was at training for my journey, one of the priests I was working with tried to teach my classmates and I about comfort; It’s a lesson that’s useful every day of our lives, and I’m really glad I listened to it. He drew an oval on the board and said, “This is your comfort zone: everything you know, everywhere you feel safe.” Then, he drew an “X” 5 inches from the oval and said; “This is one of the many experiences you’ll have when you move outside the country. Your comfort zone is going to have to grow to encompass this new item, and there will be nothing comfortable or expected about that, but you know what?” He drew a new oval on the board; once that encompassed the previous oval and the X he’d drawn. “Once your comfort zone expands, your perspective will always be bigger and what you’re capable of will be permanently altered.” It’s astounding.

At the beginning of today’s passage from Acts, Peter is preaching, something well within his comfort zone. While he knows he’s connecting with people and he can see the Holy Spirit moving through them, the people he’s connecting with are the people he’s used to connecting with, the people he expects to reach: the Jews. Peter’s seeking and serving the Christ is people who are familiar to him, whose way of life he already knows that he understands.  Suddenly, amid all this familiarity, something happens that astounds Peter: he finds his preaching is reaching people he did not expect to reach – people outside his comfort zone. Suddenly, he’s seeing that the Gentiles, too, are filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter’s suddenly found an opportunity to serve Christ in people he hadn’t even been seeking it in.

Peter had this oval that encompassed where he was comfortable seeing God, and in that moment from today’s passage from Act – that moment when we hear that he is astounded – Peter’s oval has an unexpected growth spurt, and his faith grows to encompass an unexpected way of seeing the Holy Spirit work through people. His perspective was permanently altered; his faith is permanently bigger. Because he opened himself up to listen for God in an unexpected place, in unfamiliar faces.

I’ve come to believe in my heart of hearts that the reason we’re all made so differently is because learning to understand each other helps us grow. To overcome the barriers of speaking different languages or coming from vastly distinct cultural backgrounds, we must slow down, really listen to each other, and make the effort to understand how someone who sees the world very differently than we do. This is why the experience of traveling is so important and enriching! Every new person, place, way of life, we take time to understand along our early pilgrimage brings us closer to God by helping us see Christ in our fellow humans, especially the ones most different from us. We get to know God better by exploring a new corner of God’s Creation. Whether we’re going just around a river bend like Lewis and Clark or growing deeper in relationship with another human, the richness of God’s Creation is astounding!

What Peter thought was a world of one versus another – Jew versus Gentile – was really a reminder that we’re all in this together. Encountering Christ in another person looks like a moment of tender vulnerability, a deep belly laugh, something powerful and new yet familiar, common ground: this is holy, indeed. This is living into our promise to seek and serve Christ in all people. How could Peter withhold the waters of baptism from a brother or sister after seeing Christ in them? How could we withhold that piece of the divine in each of our hearts from a neighbor, when we made a promise to seek and serve Christ in all people, no matter how short, tall, culturally foreign, politically opposing, or geographically distant?

Seeking and serving Christ is an opportunity to grow and be astounded as Peter was astounded. Don’t you just love that for all the wild and crazy places Peter’s followed God’s call we still get to Peter surprised by the Holy Spirit? It happens to all of us; it’s how comfort zones – and our faith – grow.

The Main Event in today’s sermon about Witness is our call to be good listeners, who are unafraid to be a little uncomfortable because we know that every new experience is an invitation to grow our faith comfort zone, to know God’s diversity from a grander perspective, and to be astounded at this richness of God’s Creation into which God has called us all into being and continues to call us to grow. So, slow down… and listen up!

[1] BCP 305

Something Better Than Gold

Lent, Sermons, The Psalms, Year A, , , , ,

Year A, Lent 3
Psalm 19
Christ Church Christiana Hundred, Wilmington, DE

This Lent, my colleagues and I committed to preaching on the psalms, an exciting challenge for all of us. More than usual, this sermon evolved over the course of the morning’s services, so the video does not include the Jordan River bit that I prayerfully extroverted, then added to the script below.

Sunday Sermon – March 4, 2018 from Christ Church Christiana Hundred on Vimeo.

One of my practices at the end of the day is to recount the things that I am grateful for. Sometimes, my gratitude for the riches of the day blinds me from my gratitude for my journey to the day. I’m grateful for my education. In high school, I always knew I would go on to college. I was quiet, but I did well in school. Generally, I was quite a rule-follower, too; I wanted to do the right thing, you know? Even if my vision for my life didn’t always line up with my parents’, I didn’t want to let them down. And though I went to high school in a post-Columbine world, I felt safe. I can’t imagine what it feels like for high schoolers now. I am overwhelmed by the violence and the pain it causes. It sounds like the youth of our nation are fed up, too, as they vocally cry out and peacefully march. Some schools are threatening suspension or loss of prom or graduation for students who walk out. In an age where competition for college is greater and greater, no one wants a stain on their application. How can they choose between securing their future and securing their present safety – our future? It’s challenging enough to do the right thing when the answer to the problem is clear; what happens when we can’t figure it out?

In the heart of today’s psalm, Psalm 19, the psalmist tells us about the glory of doing things “God’s way.” He spends three verses – verses 7-9 –  on the Lord’s law, testimony, statutes, commandments, fear, and judgements; many of which are fairly synonymous. Together, these things make up the God’s will, for our world as a whole and for God’s call in each of our lives. When we say the Lord’s Prayer – the prayer Jesus taught the disciples –  God’s will on earth is what we’re praying when we say “Thy Kingdom come.” Praying for God’s kingdom is praying for a world that follows God’s call as a community and as individuals. The Psalmist describes following each piece of the way of the Lord as reviving the soul, giving wisdom, rejoicing the heart, and always enduring.

In verse 10, the Psalmist summarizes of God’s law and testimony as more desirable than gold and the sweetest of honey. An important thing to know to fully understand this verse is: During the Old Testament times, honey was a rare enough commodity that it was considered a luxury, more on par with gold than it is by today’s standards. So, for all the soul-reviving, wisdom-granting, heart-rejoicing, and always-enduring aspects of the Lord’s commandments – the way of life we pray for – these things are not only associated with items of the highest value but with items that are rare.  See, even for knowing that God’s will for our lives is best, most enlightening way of life that offers for the greatest reward: we get to verse 12 and the psalmist says “Who can tell how often he offends? Cleanse me from my secret faults”

The Psalmist, just like us, struggles. The Pslamist knows that God’s law is the best way to live – something better than gold – but he also knows that it’s hard to figure out how to do the right things.  Do any of us know how often we offend? How many secret faults do I have that I am blind to? When we join together in saying the confession there’s that line about “things that we have left undone.” When I say the confession, I’m more comfortable in naming ways that I may have fallen short than I am in having to acknowledge that I might have some blind spots. The first two thirds of today’s psalm are all a set up for the last third: the psalmist is asking God for help to do the right thing. “God, please keep me from making the same mistake again, and while you’re at it, please help me make fewer new mistakes.” Sometimes, part of the challenge of doing the right thing means knowing what the right thing is.  Our lives are filled with some pretty murky waters.

Last month, during my pilgrimage to Israel, I had the great joy of renewing my baptismal vows while standing in the Jordan River. While the way of life that these promises calls us to remains clear, the waters of the Jordan River are actually quite murky. Standing knee-deep in that river, I couldn’t see my feet, but I could still recommit myself to my baptism, no matter how much lack of clarity surrounded me.

Lucky for us, our Lord and Savior is Jesus, who spent a good portion his earthly life wandering around healing people because of their faith or the faith of those around them. I’ve heard the story of Jesus restoring the sight of the blind beggar; it helps me keep the faith the Christ can restore my sight to the blind spots in my heart that keep me from seeing which is the right decision.

Thomas Merton, a twentieth century theologian and writer, penned one of my favorite prayers, which is known at the “Thomas Merton Prayer.” I couldn’t help but think of it, when I read today’s psalm. It begins; “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going” and continues “the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does, in fact, please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.” Don’t we all want that desire? When I struggle to discern God’s will, I take comfort in believing that that desire to please God does please God.

For all the psalmist’s pleas to God to help him discern God’s will and follow God’s law,  he is clearly aware of God’s presence. This whole journey of declaring the glory of God’s will and begging for strength to follow it begins with the psalmist reveling in the glory of God’s creation; “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows God’s’ handiwork.” Every day. Every corner of the earth. Every glorious sunrise and sunset. God is visible in God’s creation. God reveals Godself in Creation. While the psalmist makes it clear the glory of following God is even greater, these first verses provide us a roadmap that Creation is the first place we are to look for God: the trees and the flowers and howling wind and the warm rain… and us. Humanity. We are a part of Creation. There is a piece of Christ in every human heart. We get to know God better by getting to know each other. We are agents in helping to manifest God’s transformation at work in all of our lives; thy kingdom come, indeed!

One of the reasons our life together as a Christian community is that when we share our faith with each other – whether it’s in a church, in a Growth Group, on a night ride home, or sitting on a rooftop in some strange city – it makes us vulnerable. When we are vulnerable with each other, we reveal Christ to each other and get to know God better.  One of the promises we make in our Baptismal Covenant is to “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.”  All of these things are connected: apostles’ teaching and fellowship. Because learning about God and being in community together are inextricably linked.  When I am struggling to do the right thing, I can ask for help. When I can’t see what the right thing is from where I am, my friend can tell me how things look from her perspective. We’re all in this together, and I am so grateful. I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine figuring it all out on my own.

We all know the right thing is usually not the easy thing. It’s made harder still when we can’t even identify the right thing. But we have us. Our community. When I say the “Our Father,” I take comfort in the our, in the prayer’s line  to “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive.” There are no I’s in the Lord’s Prayer, or the Confession of Sins. We need the support of everyone in the church to welcome someone in Baptism. Our Sunday mornings are filled with this communal language because we are all in this together. One step at a time. It’s the only way we’re going to navigate God’s law and live a life richer than gold. Thy kingdom come, indeed.