1 Corinthians 13: 1-13
The text we read this morning, 1 Corinthians 13 is commonly read at weddings in front of starry eyed couples getting ready to live a life together in holy wedded matrimony. However Paul was not writing this for a wedding. These beautiful poetic words were written for a newly formed church in Corinth whose members were anything but in love each other.
There was much infighting in the church in Corinth, many of its members fighting amongst themselves, jockeying for position telling each other things such as “my spiritual gift of healing is better than your gift of working miracles,” where others would say, “well I can speak in tongues, top that!” to which the response would be, “and we’d wish you’d stop disrupting our worship with your very special gift thank you very much.” Paul was notified by the church leaders in Corinth that all was not fine in paradise and they asked him to intervene. I sometimes refer to this particular book as Paul’s letter to the cranky church telling them to “cut it out.”
Many of us would like to believe that where ever there is love, there is no conflict. Like that famous line in the movie Love Story, “Love means never having to say your sorry.” We think that if people would just love each other strong enough, that there will be no conflict. We also think that this should be true of churches, that if we are strong enough Christians, faithful enough people, kind enough to each other that we will not have conflicts. That if I love like Jesus did, that I can make peace with anyone. What we forget is that the church is a human institution and whenever any group of humans get together, there will be disagreements, especially in times of change and transition. Conflict in and of itself is not a bad thing, it is how we choose to handle the conflict that makes it good or bad and this morning’s reading provides us with a Christian way of dealing with conflict.
Going back to the church in Corinth, we find Paul having to deal with an anxious church wondering if their individual gifts will provide what they need to keep their newly formed new church going. We remember that the church in Corinth was struggling because they were a faith community living in opposition to the culture around them. In a city where the many Roman gods were worship, the church of Corinth claimed Jesus as their one and only Lord. In a city where the wealthy and the poor don’t mix, here in this church the rich and the poor shared a common meal in the context of worshiping together. Where the Jews and the Gentiles were separated by the ritual purity laws of the Jewish tradition, in the church in Corinth, Jews and Gentiles were in community together. With all these differences within the Corinthian church, it is no surprise that tensions arose in several ways. One way this happened in the Corinthian church was a conflict over whose spiritual gifts were better than whose. Paul tried to ease their tension by reminding them, “there are varieties of gifts but the same spirit and there are varieties of services but the same lord…To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good.” (1 Cor. 12: 4-7).
After affirming the gifts that the individuals in this community have, he then tells them that without love, these gifts are nothing. The key word in this morning’s text is love. He states, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” (1 Cor 13: 1-3) If you look at the original text as it was written in Greek, you will find that Paul uses the Greek word agape when he speaks of love. This is a special kind of love that is different from the love shared between friends or romantic love. This is a self-sacrificing love that is unconditional and given freely. Agape love is more difficult than other loves because it calls us to love in spite of not because of. It calls us to share not because it is to our advantage, but because it will advantage others. In our consumerist culture, agape love does not make sense, but now in the aftermath of an unbridled economy, agape love is the only thing that will sustain us. Many times we have heard the message that the greatest commandment of all is to love God with all our heart, and all our strength and all our soul and to love our neighbors as ourselves. The love that we are called to share with our neighbor is agape.
Listen again to the words of Paul,
"Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails." (4-8a)
Love never fails. If left up to our own devices, it is hard to truly love each other. It is all too easy to be jealous, to take each other for granted, to be short tempered or to resent each other, especially when times get tough. Love is a deliberate decision to do loving things. Agape means loving without the expectation of being loved back. It means giving out of what you have without strings attached. It means giving to folks just because they are children of God. It means giving not to make yourselves feel good, but rather giving just to contribute to the good of all humankind.
When I was ordained three years ago, I had the text of 1 Corinthians 13 read at my ordination. I needed to be reminded that whatever I do in my ministry, that I needed to do it in the spirit of love. I knew that it would be all too easy for me to become arrogant, boastful and even rude because I had a degree hanging in my office with the words “Master of Divinity” written on it in big bold letters. What I learned in ministry is that it doesn’t matter how much book knowledge I have about all things religious, if I do not share my gifts in the spirit of love, they are nothing. Now doing ministry in the spirit of love does not mean that I won’t encounter disagreements because really disagreements will exist anywhere there is energy for change. which really is quite healthy. Like many of you I am not comfortable with differences of opinion however I know that in order to effectively work within the church I needed to “put an end to childish things,” and do whatever I can to stay connected even with those who disagree with me.
What it really comes down to is this, everyone one of us is needed here in this community of faith to continue the building of God’s kingdom here on earth. We need each others different gifts, perceptions and opinions to be able to see the whole. For as Paul says, “we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end… For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”(13:9-10. 12)
Paul did not negate the disagreements of the Corinthian church or sweep them under the rug. He named the tensions in the church and lifted them up. He gave them tools so that they could communicate with each other in healthy and open ways where all would feel safe to speak and all will be heard.
In the months to come we will continue discerning together what God is calling Smalltown Congregational Church to be in this time and this place. As we embark upon these conversations, let us keep on the forefront of all that we do and say to each other the spirit of Agape love. “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” (13:13)
May it be so.
Amen.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Us
“The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Us”
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Luke 4:14-21
It was one year ago this week that Barack Obama took the oath of office to become our 44th president. 1.5 million people came to Washington D.C. to watch his inauguration, and millions upon millions more watched it on TV. Whether or not we voted for him, we all wanted to witness this watershed moment in the history of our country, the day that the first African American person was sworn into the highest position of power in the United States. The culmination of the hopes and dreams of all who worked hard for the civil rights came to a head on this day. Indeed this day felt like our work and the work of our forebears in the work of justice making had been fulfilled as we listened to his inaugural speech. In his speech Obama laid out the themes for the next four years of his presidency. He talked of and I quote, choosing “hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord…to proclaim an end to petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics. We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: The God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”(i)
This morning we are reading Jesus’ inaugural speech to his ministry. The setting of his speech was quite ordinary compared to the great gathering at Obama’s inauguration. After his baptism, after his temptation in the desert, after his swearing in so to speak, Jesus comes back home to his tee-tiny town of Nazareth. He goes to the Synagogue and is handed a scroll containing the scripture from the prophet Isaiah. He finds the verses that lay down the themes of his entire ministry, and begins to sing Isaiah’s song of good news for the poor.
"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, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4: 18-19). And then he makes his audacious claim, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (v. 21)
This text is as special. Some have said that we have an “intuitive understanding of this reading, after listening to many inaugural addresses of leaders in the public sphere: What gets said here, today, will be the plan for the days ahead.” (ii) These verses are the center of Jesus’ teaching "to which we should keep coming back to this text to measure our work…the primary question is not so much, what does God demand for righteousness? It is rather, who needs attention and compassion…[w]hatever we take to be the heart of the gospel will be the central shaping force in our faith.” (iii)
Smalltown Congregational Church UCC has done much towards this end. Several years ago, this community of faith convenanted to become a “Church for Peace and Justice.” In your bylaws you “reaffirm [your] dedication to prayer, study and understanding of issues of peace and justice in [yourselves], [your] families, [your] community, [your] state, [your] world…to speak out and act to resolve words and deeds of injustice and violence in [yourselves], [your] families, [your] community, [your] state, [your] world.” (iv) This commitment to justice has been the foundation that has led you to become an open and affirming church, a child friendly church, a green church and a church that gives generously to such causes as Earthquake Relief in Haiti.
As good as it is to give ourselves a much deserved pat on the back, we must remember that heeding to Jesus’ ministry of justice is a continuous task. As we make decisions concerning the ministry of this church we must keep coming back to the gospel text that we read this morning. We must ask, how is our church called help the spiritually blind to open their eyes to the truth? How is our church called to release those who are captive to their addictions, their illnesses, their anxieties? How is our church called to set free those who are oppressed by poverty, racism, sexism, and homophobia? How are we called to fulfill the scripture as we heard it today?
In a little while we will be holding our 239th Annual Meeting. During this meeting we will celebrate the accomplishments of this past year and lay down the themes for our ministry into the next year. Most importantly we will be electing a slate of candidates to serve as trustees, deacons, officers of the church and our standing committees.
The apostle Paul reminds us that “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” (1 Corinthians 12:12) And that “God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as God chose.” (12:18) Within this community there is a rich diversity of gifts which all work together towards this church fulfilling its purpose to “worship God, to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, to celebrate the sacraments, to realize Christian fellowship and unity within this church and the Church universal; to render caring service to all people; and to strive for righteousness, justice and peace.” (v)
The work of the justice committee would not be possible without the work of the trustees, the work of the deacons would not be possible without the work of the church council, and my work as a preacher would not be possible without the work of the choir, the deacons, the sextons and most of all you who are sitting in the pews. For all of us “are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (12:27)
Over 2000 years ago, using the words of the prophet Isaiah, Jesus gave his inaugural speech that laid down the themes of his ministry which was about justice, salvation, and living in shalom where all of God’s creation live in right relationship with each other, where all who hunger spiritually and physically are fed, where all who mourn are comforted and all who hunger and thirst for justice are satisfied. Yes my friends, the Spirit of the Lord is upon us. As members of Christ’s body let use our various gifts to strive for the greater gift of proclaiming the good news of God’s love for all of God’s creation to all people.
May it be so.
Amen.
i "Text of Obama’s speech for his inauguration as 44th president.” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28751183/ns/politics-inauguration//
ii Kathryn Huey, “Sermon Seeds: Good News, Good Ways.” http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/january-24-2010.html
iii Ibid.
iv. Smalltown Congregational Church Constitution and Bylaws (5th revision January 2004).
v. Ibid.
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Luke 4:14-21
It was one year ago this week that Barack Obama took the oath of office to become our 44th president. 1.5 million people came to Washington D.C. to watch his inauguration, and millions upon millions more watched it on TV. Whether or not we voted for him, we all wanted to witness this watershed moment in the history of our country, the day that the first African American person was sworn into the highest position of power in the United States. The culmination of the hopes and dreams of all who worked hard for the civil rights came to a head on this day. Indeed this day felt like our work and the work of our forebears in the work of justice making had been fulfilled as we listened to his inaugural speech. In his speech Obama laid out the themes for the next four years of his presidency. He talked of and I quote, choosing “hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord…to proclaim an end to petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics. We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: The God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”(i)
This morning we are reading Jesus’ inaugural speech to his ministry. The setting of his speech was quite ordinary compared to the great gathering at Obama’s inauguration. After his baptism, after his temptation in the desert, after his swearing in so to speak, Jesus comes back home to his tee-tiny town of Nazareth. He goes to the Synagogue and is handed a scroll containing the scripture from the prophet Isaiah. He finds the verses that lay down the themes of his entire ministry, and begins to sing Isaiah’s song of good news for the poor.
"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, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4: 18-19). And then he makes his audacious claim, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (v. 21)
This text is as special. Some have said that we have an “intuitive understanding of this reading, after listening to many inaugural addresses of leaders in the public sphere: What gets said here, today, will be the plan for the days ahead.” (ii) These verses are the center of Jesus’ teaching "to which we should keep coming back to this text to measure our work…the primary question is not so much, what does God demand for righteousness? It is rather, who needs attention and compassion…[w]hatever we take to be the heart of the gospel will be the central shaping force in our faith.” (iii)
Smalltown Congregational Church UCC has done much towards this end. Several years ago, this community of faith convenanted to become a “Church for Peace and Justice.” In your bylaws you “reaffirm [your] dedication to prayer, study and understanding of issues of peace and justice in [yourselves], [your] families, [your] community, [your] state, [your] world…to speak out and act to resolve words and deeds of injustice and violence in [yourselves], [your] families, [your] community, [your] state, [your] world.” (iv) This commitment to justice has been the foundation that has led you to become an open and affirming church, a child friendly church, a green church and a church that gives generously to such causes as Earthquake Relief in Haiti.
As good as it is to give ourselves a much deserved pat on the back, we must remember that heeding to Jesus’ ministry of justice is a continuous task. As we make decisions concerning the ministry of this church we must keep coming back to the gospel text that we read this morning. We must ask, how is our church called help the spiritually blind to open their eyes to the truth? How is our church called to release those who are captive to their addictions, their illnesses, their anxieties? How is our church called to set free those who are oppressed by poverty, racism, sexism, and homophobia? How are we called to fulfill the scripture as we heard it today?
In a little while we will be holding our 239th Annual Meeting. During this meeting we will celebrate the accomplishments of this past year and lay down the themes for our ministry into the next year. Most importantly we will be electing a slate of candidates to serve as trustees, deacons, officers of the church and our standing committees.
The apostle Paul reminds us that “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” (1 Corinthians 12:12) And that “God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as God chose.” (12:18) Within this community there is a rich diversity of gifts which all work together towards this church fulfilling its purpose to “worship God, to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, to celebrate the sacraments, to realize Christian fellowship and unity within this church and the Church universal; to render caring service to all people; and to strive for righteousness, justice and peace.” (v)
The work of the justice committee would not be possible without the work of the trustees, the work of the deacons would not be possible without the work of the church council, and my work as a preacher would not be possible without the work of the choir, the deacons, the sextons and most of all you who are sitting in the pews. For all of us “are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (12:27)
Over 2000 years ago, using the words of the prophet Isaiah, Jesus gave his inaugural speech that laid down the themes of his ministry which was about justice, salvation, and living in shalom where all of God’s creation live in right relationship with each other, where all who hunger spiritually and physically are fed, where all who mourn are comforted and all who hunger and thirst for justice are satisfied. Yes my friends, the Spirit of the Lord is upon us. As members of Christ’s body let use our various gifts to strive for the greater gift of proclaiming the good news of God’s love for all of God’s creation to all people.
May it be so.
Amen.
i "Text of Obama’s speech for his inauguration as 44th president.” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28751183/ns/politics-inauguration//
ii Kathryn Huey, “Sermon Seeds: Good News, Good Ways.” http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/january-24-2010.html
iii Ibid.
iv. Smalltown Congregational Church Constitution and Bylaws (5th revision January 2004).
v. Ibid.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Spiritual Gifts in the Shadow of Disaster
John 2:1-11
When I started praying about this week’s sermon on Monday, there had been no earthquake in Haiti. When I first read the lectionary texts on Monday, I was not plagued by images of disaster and wreckage flashing across my TV screen like some surreal horror movie that just won’t stop. When I started outlining my sermon on Tuesday morning, the 100,000 deaths had not come to pass. Then on Tuesday evening, shortly before sunset, the country of Haiti was rocked by a massive 7.0 earthquake, the most powerful earthquake to hit the Caribbean Republic in 120 years. This earthquake has destroyed thousands of homes and thousands upon thousands of Haitian citizens have died. I began to wonder how I was going to preach the good news of God’s grace and love in the face of this catastrophe. As I heard the news of the earthquake and watched the images of desperate people trying to dig out their loved ones from the rubble and the dead being lined up in the streets dripping with blood, I felt angry, helpless and sad. I could not read the texts for this weeks sermon in the same way I did before the earthquake.
This is a week of contrasts. Paul is writing to a conflicted church in Corinth and Jesus is at a wedding. Paul and Jesus are sharing in God’s abundance through preaching and miraculous acts. Paul is dealing with snotty people whereas Jesus is being a snot towards his mother. Add to this Homiletical mix the celebration of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday on Monday. More than just another national holiday, it is a day for us to remember Dr. King’s dream of a better world and to celebrate the accomplishments that we have made toward that end. And yet, reality is starkly different from these other worldly things. Reality is that we are still in the midst of the Great Recession with many of us still struggling to make ends meet in the aftermath of financial disaster. Reality is the desperate people of Haiti, wandering dazed through the streets of Port-Au-Prince looking for their loved ones, something to eat, medical care or even just a glass of water. Reality is the individual suffering that we are all enduring in this moment, grieving the loss of a loved one, dealing with the crisis of a grim medical diagnosis, and carrying the other worries that weigh heavy on our hearts. It is at times like these we ask where is God in all this?
The events of this week have indeed caused a deep spiritual disquieting in many of us. Some of us have grown up believing that religion has all the answers to life’s uncertainties. But in the face of such human suffering we wonder how could a loving God allow this to happen? Some will try to explain this away with easy answers. They try to ease our anxiety by telling us that God was punishing the country of Haiti, or that God was testing the faith of the Haitians or that God was sending a warning to all of through the destruction of Haiti. Yes there are Bible stories about God destroying Israel, Judah and Jerusalem due to the people not obeying the laws of God. However, in the end God also bestows his mercy upon these cities in spite of their wrongdoing. What is missing in these easy answers is that God’s mercy and grace is always present especially in the face of human suffering. That our God is an incarnational God, who poured himself into human form to know first hand our humanness and God experienced excruciating pain through the crucifixion on the cross. And I have no doubt in my faith that God is standing with us and weeping with us as we try to grapple with what happened in Haiti.
Do you ever wonder why does this disaster hurt us so much? I do. How can we explain the emotional distress that we feel over a country’s disaster thousands of miles away? Paul in his letter to the Corinthians keeps referring to the church as the body of Christ and he reminds us if one part of the body hurts, the other parts are affected. So too, it is with us when we hear of the suffering of our brothers and sisters across the world, we hurt for them because our faith tells us that we are one body in Christ Jesus.
The church in Corinth was struggling because they were a faith community living in opposition to the culture around them. In a city where the many Roman gods were worship, the church of Corinth claimed Jesus as their one and only Lord. In a city where the wealthy and the poor don’t mix, here in this church the rich and the poor shared a common meal in the context of worshiping together. Where the Jews and the Gentiles were separated by the ritual purity laws of the Jewish tradition, in the church in Corinth, Jews and Gentiles were in community together. With all these differences within the Corinthian church, it is no surprise that tensions arose in several ways. One way this happened in the Corinthian church was a conflict over whose spiritual gifts were better than whose. Some Corinthians gave more appreciation toward outward displays of spirituality, such as speaking in tongues. Because they felt that speaking in tongues was more important than other spiritual gifts such as prophesy, discernment and the working of miracles, those who spoke in tongues would dominate and disrupt the church meetings with the outpouring of their spiritual fervor. Paul had to remind them that all of these gifts come from God and that because they are from God no one gift was better than the other. All these gifts are needed for the building of God’s Kingdom on earth and God works through human hands, feet and voices by activating these gifts through the power of the Holy Spirit to a world in need of God’s presence and strength.
On Monday before the earthquake, I was caught up in my own worries, insecurities, and jealousies. I was caught up in comparing myself to others wondering where I fit in this pecking order I constructed for myself. At times I felt inadequate, at others I felt superior. But then the earthquake happened and suddenly my worries seemed so minor compared to the life and death problems in Haiti.
What especially caught my attention was the outpouring of generosity that people of all kinds were giving to the country of Haiti in recovering from this earthquake. All sorts of folks stepped up to use their gifts toward the rescue of the people of Haiti. Minutes after the earthquake, Haitian’s immediately starting digging through the rubble to dig people out with no regard to what danger they were putting themselves in. Within hours of the earthquake, Doctors and nurses, soldiers and missionaries, Red Cross workers and even world leaders left their comfortable lives to give aid and comfort to an impoverished country in the Caribbean. And the minute news came out about the earthquake, millions of folks took to their phones, the internet and even text messages to send donations great and small toward organizations already on the ground at Haiti. And Today we join with churches all over the world in praying for the country of Haiti.
There is no gift given to Haiti that is greater than the other, the work of the construction worker digging through the rubble is just as important as the work of the doctor attending to the injured. The $10.00 donation given to the Red Cross through a text message is just as important as the million dollar donation given by a corporation. All these gifts are equally important because they are all working towards the same common good. This is how God responds to our need and is at work towards the healing and redemption of the world. Through our hands, our voices, our prayers, our talents, our financial support, God uses it all to bring wholeness into a broken world. May it be so. Amen.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Friday Five: If
In EFM this week, our question was, "If you were a color, what would you be?" So that's where this Friday Five comes from, at least its jumping off place.
1. If you were a color, what would you be? I'd be red. It's a bold color, it's racy and it's out there. Kind of like my personality.
2. If you were a flower (or plant), what would you be? I would be a lilac bush. So beautiful and comforting. Blossoms in the spring with it's wonderful flowers and comforting smell.
3. If you were an animal, what kind would you be? I'd be a cat. Pampered and spoiled and divalike in every way.
4. If you were a shoe, what type would you be? I'd be a Doc Marten boot. Very radical.
5. If you were a typeface, which font would you be? I'd be comic book san sarif. A fun little font that is pleasing to the eyes.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Remembering Our Baptism
Isaiah 43:1-7
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
How many of you remember your baptism. I am sure there are a few of you who remember because you were baptized as child or adults. However for most of us, our baptisms happened long before we could remember anything. Instead it is our parents and our godparents who can recall the details of the day of our baptisms. My mom tells me that my baptism was quite uneventful. I was calm throughout the whole ceremony and I actually delighted as the priest poured the holy water upon my head. Then there are the stories like my friend Patrick, where while he was being baptized he actually tried to drink the baptismal water. Is it any surprise that we both ended up in the ministry.
This morning we hear the story of Jesus’ baptism as remembered by the evangelist Luke. John the Baptist, the prophet called by God to proclaim the coming of the messiah was at the river Jordan “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (Luke 3: 3) The story continues with Jesus being baptized and while Jesus is in prayer, the heavens opens up and Holy Spirit appears in the bodily form of a dove.
The Holy Spirit is a mysterious thing for sure. You never know when it will show up or what it will look like when it does. Some believe that Holy Spirit works as the embodiment of God’s special effects. “Water, Spirit, Wind and Fire: the stage is set for something important to happen and such events are always more impressive and more memorable if there are “special effects” accompanying them. Water is the stuff of life beginning with birth and baptism and yet it can overwhelm us in such things as floods and tsunamis. Fire brings light in the darkest night and heat in the coldest winter but it can destroy anything it engulfs. Wind is the most evocative sign of the Spirit moving among us; in fact, the word “wind can be translated into Spirit,” however comforting a cool breeze maybe on a hot day, it can turn into a tornado causing the wind to destroy anything in its path. +
The Gospel of Luke is what some interpreters have called “the book of the Holy Spirit.” Baptism is an outward sign of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling grace. Through the use of water and the work of the Holy Spirit, the baptized is marked by the grace of God. The Holy Spirit is the form in which God quietly influences people to be God’s hands, feet and voice on earth. God and the Holy Spirit are what creates and sustains. At the baptism of Jesus it is God and the Holy Spirit who break through from heaven to proclaim, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Through the waters of baptism we are named as children of God, beloved and pleasing to God. In baptism, God works in us the power of forgiveness, the renewal of the spirit and the knowledge of the call to be God’s people always. Baptism with water and the Holy Spirit is the sign and seal of our common discipleship. Since baptism is God’s gift, the Holy Spirit is called to be upon the water and those being baptized. The act of baptism marks the beginning of new life of discipleship with Christ, the human response to the gift of God’s grace. In every Christian Church we share this sacrament of baptism within a worship service in order to welcome the newly baptized into our community of faith and vow to always remind them that indeed they are a children of God.
This indwelling grace, this beloved-ness comes to sustain us through the challenging and hard times that we encounter through life’s journey. Many of us know that the way of Christian discipleship can be difficult and at times can take us to places that we would rather not go. I know this has been true for me. I’ve faced trials and been in situations where I’ve been wounded while witnessing to Jesus’ message of peace and justice in this world. At times, I’ve lamented my call, knowing the difficulties I face as a Christ’s disciple. However in these dark times, I remember my baptism. I remember that with the water that was poured over my head oh so long ago that God had claimed me and named me as God’s beloved child. I take to heart these words of Isaiah spoken to a people in exile.
“Do not fear …for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name and you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned and the flame will not consume you
…because you are precious in my sight,
and honored, and I love you…
Do not fear, for I am with you.” (Isaiah 43: 1-7)
This morning, I invite you to remember your baptism through the service of water. I invite you to remember your baptismal vows and our denomination’s statement of faith. I invite you to remember the delight of baptism through sprinkling of water in this morning’s blessing.
+http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuael/s010707.html
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