A Reflection on re-commitment

A Homily for III Epiphany All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC January 27, 2013 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 Psalm 19 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a Luke 4:14-21

First of all I want to thank you for all your prayers for me while I was in the hospital. It was a lousy time for me, and I was heartened by your care. Each day for that week I was aware of my own need for a power greater than myself and the love and care which flowed over me. On Wednesday, January 23, as I was being driven home from the hospital and we were crossing the bridge back to Southern Shores, I saw our church through the trees and realized that, I was so thankful, I was needing to make a recommitment to my ministry here.

I have made many commitments to my Baptismal ministry in my life. In the last week of January in 1985, seven months after I made a re-commitment and was ordained a Deacon in my home church in Boone, North Carolina, I was in Christ Church in Blacksburg where I was working, and I re-committed myself to that new life when I was ordained a Priest. The next day, on the 3^rd Sunday of the Epiphany, I presided at my first celebration of the Eucharist and preached on the Gospel, as it is today, about Jesus beginning his ministry after his recommitment to God in his baptism.

In the Hebrew Testament lesson for today from the 8^th Chapter of Nehemiah, the people who have come back from exile in Babylon are gathered together at the Water Gate in the ruined city of Jerusalem for a recommitment ceremony of the people to God. Ezra and the scribes read and explain the nature and expectations of that relationship, and the people undergo a cathartic experience, so overwhelmed with emotion, that they cry. Eventually the people are told to stop weeping and get ready for a celebration, the Feast of Booths. So what is happening here?

Well, there are several interpretations depending on how you view the event. Three widely separate groups use this event as a model: (1) the Jesuit Spiritual retreat, modeled by Ignatius of Loyola, (2) the old time revival preachers, and (3) the confrontational therapists in the 28 day recovery programs. And they would all join in saying, “Yes, that is the way to begin!”

Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order in the Roman Catholic Church, put together a model for a retreat for spiritual healing. The exercises would have three parts - purgative, illuminative, and unitive. The “purgative” is to get rid of all the stuff that holds us back from commitment to God; the “illuminative” is to show how a new way of living might be; and the “unitive” is the coming to union with God. I first encountered the Ignatian model in 1978 in a program called Cursillo, a renewal movement in the Episcopal church which begins with a three day retreat, in which the recommitment is called the 4^th Day, the rest of our lives. In essence, the program was like was an expansion of the different parts of the Mass. In the Mass, or our Holy Communion service, there are three parts: (1) we stop what we are doing, running around like chickens, and just slow down and gather together, (2) we listen to what strengthening words might be given to us, and (3) we are invited to reconnect with God by symbolically taking God into our very being with the bread and wine, the body and blood of the one who loves us, which then gives us the motivation to lead a God-filled life in the “real” world when we leave the service - or as the Quakers used to say, “The meeting is over, now let the service begin.”

The Revival preachers have a formula for their sermons which usually is a kind of rerun of the “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” theme. Part one of the sermon is to tell the people how loathsome to God is their behavior, which would then lead into letting the people know that there is a way out and that is repentance, as they are “beaten down to their knees” by their shame. Then, and only then, when they are down on their knees in repentance, are they given the message that God loves them. And then, as the choir sings “Just As I Am” for however many verses it takes, the weeping sinners are invited to join and be baptized as a sign that they could recommit to God. I remember when I gave a sermon at an ecumenical gathering, one of my very evangelical brethren came up to me with tears in his eyes and said, “Oh Brother Tom, you really stepped on my feet tonight!” I replied that I was sorry that I was not aware that I had done so. He laughed and told me that it was a compliment, for I had reminded him of how he needed to repent and return to the Lord. The reality was that was the Holy Spirit acting and not me.

Years ago I did some volunteer work in a 28 day treatment facility for the diseases of alcohol and drug addiction based on the 12 step model. The first three steps are:

(1) We admit that we are powerless over alcohol ( or whatever it is to which we are addicted) - that our lives have become unmanageable.

(2) Come to believe that a Power Greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

(3) Make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God.

I would come in and co-lead groups on steps two and three. Many of the people had led tough lives, and part of the 28 day program was attempting to call them to a new way of thinking and feeling. Addicts tend to become psychological, emotional, physical, and spiritual strangers to themselves. They tend to stuff down their feelings, and part of the task is to get them back in touch with their selves. In response to the question, “How are you feeling?”, they tended to say one of two things - “Not bad” or “Fine”. The more experienced of the group members would chime in with the response to “Not bad” with “The rev asked you what you were feeling, not what you weren't feeling! Happy, mad, sad, glad- what!” The response “Fine” would usually bring a retort like, “Oh yeah, FINE! F- I- N- E: F for all effed up (I am paraphrasing here), I for insecure, N for narcissistic, and E for egotistical. FINE is what got you into this place!” The groups were rough confrontations with reality so that they might rediscover themselves and begin the commitment to recovery. Tears were a regular part of group work, but the point was not the tears but the movement toward recovery.
Another interpretation of the weeping people in the lesson is that some people weep when they are overwhelmed when something wonderful is happening. I remember when Pat and I were getting married, one of those commitment moments, she cried all the way through our wedding vows. I mean to tell you, the tears really scared me. I leaned forward and asked her if she was all right, and she said she was so happy! Maybe the people gathered at the Water Gate in Jerusalem were weeping with joy and the scribes told them to continue with their joy.
What do we do when we are struck with the inescapable fact that God loves us more than we can ever realize or deserve and calls us all into a new relationship with God and our neighbor? We are free to weep or not weep, it doesn't matter, as long as we move to a deeper relationship. We can make re-commitments for lots of reasons, and sometimes we are aware that each day is a re-commitment. Each time the sun rises, we can remember that the Son rises for us and invites us into a new and deeper relationship with God, neighbor, and ourselves.
Today let us remember the promises and invitations that God makes and the promises that we made in response when we made our baptismal vows by turning to page 304 in the Book of Common Prayer.

Reflections on being sick Part 2

I just went through a bout of being sick again--  some of you remember that I went through some stuff before Christmas. Last week I went through some GI bleeding and ended up in the hospital because I lost so much blood. They threw me in bed and pumped blood in e and told me to settle down. I was not in pain only just weak for the week. I had to miss the services on Sunday and was muttering about how my sermon on which I worked so hard would not be read-- (threw it on the blog anyway after I got home). I fell more behind on my visits with people and committee work- had to postpone the vestry retreat-- my church said not to worry they could handle things but I had to come face to face with my sense of worth.

One of my lies that I carry around inside my soul is that my worth is determined by my performance- I am only as good as what I do- I am a human doing rather than a human being. Basically I was throwing myself a huge pity party.

The truth to combat the lie is that my worth is not based on my performance but on God's love for me. I have no problem  with looking at another person and seeing how they do not do something  but I don't question their worth- but my lie is that I am different than mere mortals. Last time I checked we call that arrogance where I tell God I don't need God's grace because I am my own savior. That gets me in real trouble with my soul. Healing comes in the awareness that I have limits and the world does not revolve around me. "Quel surprise!"

I am home now and will do some work from home but I am feeling better and stronger but I need to remember to continue to need the truth to combat the lies that lay so close to the surface of my soul.

As I did with last month's illness- after a couple of days I found again the prayer from the Book of Common Prayer on page 461: In the Morning

This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring

forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I

am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still,

help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it

patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly.

Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit

of Jesus. Amen.

Reflection on MLK

This was the sermon I would have given on last Sunday but I ended up in the hospital but am home now.

A Sermon for II Epiphany All Saints Episcopal, Southern Shores, NC January 20, 2013 Thomas E Wilson, Rector

Isaiah 62:1-5 Psalm 36:5-10 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 John 2:1-11

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians was written to a church that was dealing with a squabbling group of people who wanted win over their opponents. Paul writes to tell them that they are all part of the one body of Christ and all have a spirit from God that can be used to become one in Christ. The 12^th chapter of the epistle which our lesson for today is from, is a prelude to Paul’s point in the 13^th chapter that the gifts of the church is faith, hope and love but the greatest of these is love.

This weekend we remember the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and we horror his leadership in the areas of Civil Rights and it is well that we remember his contributions in that area but today I want to look at his contributions to our spiritual life as Christians. In 1963 King was leading a campaign to stop discrimination in Birmingham, Alabama. He was arrested and put into jail. While he was there eight leaders of the religious community, two Episcopal Bishops, two Methodist Bishops, a Roman Catholic Bishop, a Presbyterian Moderator, the Pastor of First Baptist in Birmingham, and a Jewish Rabbi wrote an open letter called “A Call to Unity” condemning Dr. King’s actions as an outsider fomenting trouble. They praised the actions of the police to maintain order and recommended that the problems of the discrimination should only be handled by the courts and the church arguing that the matters be decided in court.

King responded by writing a letter in response, which is now known as A Letter From a Birmingham Jail. The jailers refused to allow him paper so he wrote it in the margins of the newspaper scraps which were smuggled out and assembled in the offices of the organization. The New York Times at first refused to publish the letter in its magazine. It was finally published and it was shot across the bow of the American religious establishment.

He wrote in part:

. . . I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.

When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.

In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.

I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.

I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"

Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world.

Many churches struggled to respond. In the church in upstate New York in which I was in the youth group and an acolyte we had many arguments. I was one of the ones who pushed for greater action but got few responses than an admonition to respect my elders and to be patient. The next year the white wife of our white Bishop was arrested when she tried to enter with some of her black friends Trinity Episcopal Church in St. Augustine, Florida to desegregate it. Trinity had withdrawn its pledges to the Episcopal Church in response to “outside agitators. Back in the Diocese of Central New York, many of my church were appalled, but here was one of my elders I could respect.

I was one of those youth of whom Dr. King were disgusted by the church and I started my half century struggle of a love/hate relationship with the Lord I loved and the Institution with which I had a hard time. I was all for pushing a liberal crusade for justice but somehow it took me years to see the deeper side of Dr. King’s theology. What he was calling for was a recovery of the message of Christ to stand up for justice but also to love one’s enemies. As Jesus had disarmed Peter in the garden, so also we were to peacefully confront our enemies in order to work for reconciliation. His work on disruption was a plan for the entire system of oppression to collapse under its own weight for there could never be enough courts and jails to enforce the laws of discrimination but discrimination of the heart could only battled by love. I wanted victory and humiliation of my foes. He wanted to be a loving brother in the Kingdom of God.

Dr. King had many faults; he like all of us was both a sinner and a saint. But he was a prophet who pointed us in the direction that our faith in Christ calls for us to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.” The purpose of the church is not to enshrine the status quo but to live into our Baptism and allow the Holy Spirit to change us so that we might be freed from the prisons of our society’s, and our own, agendas by loving our neighbor and our enemy.

In the Gospel from John for today, Jesus turns the water into wine and it is the best wine for the celebration and I think the power of the Spirit of God has the ability to make us water people to be the wine poured out for the wedding feast of Christ and his church.

A reflection on Micah (the book and the girl)

Parson Tom’s Tomes

As I write this addition to the Tomes I am also preparing for the Vestry Retreat where we figure how what to do this year. Yet from the time I woke up this morning, my mind is stuck with a loop in a quote I memorized years before; Micah 6:8 “He has told you, O mortal, what is good;  and what does the Lord require of you  but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” 

What else should we be doing? The list seems to go on forever. We are in a building that is getting older and roofs and HVAC systems need to be replaced when the time comes. We need to get the finances of the institution in order. We need to get the Christian education program for our youth and children stabilized. We need to connect people closer to each other so they don’t feel as if they have fallen through the cracks. We need to put together Episcopal services that are faithful to the Episcopal tradition. We need to go through the process of finding a new Bishop for the diocese now that Bishop Daniel has resigned to go to Philadelphia. We need to do all the stuff that the religious institution of the church requires; but if we do all of that stuff for institutional maintenance and forget about doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God, we sort of miss the point. 

I think we do justice when we, as a community of faith, speak out for, and minister to, the poor and marginalized in our community. I think we, as a community, act as if we really do love mercy when we minister to the hurting, sick, broken and dying. I think we walk humbly with our God when we stop our busy corporate and individual lives and gather together, as a community,  regularly to give worth (that is what the word worship means) to the power greater than ourselves, our individual agendas, and our institutions.

This last fall I attended a young girl’s Bat Mitzvah in New Jersey. She is a summer neighbor of ours and her name is Micah. On her wall she has a picture which her parents gave her when she was born and have hung in every bedroom in which she has slept of the verse of Micah 6:8 in calligraphy with an illustration of a group of dancing Rabbis around the verse. At the ceremony, this young 13 year old girl spoke movingly about how much that verse meant to her. She shared how her learning of Hebrew helped her to go deeper in her worship of God and she sang the entire chapter of Micah in Hebrew- there wasn’t a dry eye in the synagogue. Micah also related the volunteer work in school and community she has done to make the world a better place; one example is her volunteer work each summer at the Dare County Animal Shelter. When we adopted our dog, Yoda, and brought him home from the shelter, that day we walked Yoda around the neighborhood and Micah ran out of her house and there was a tearful reunion because she used to walk and play with him during the months he was waiting for a placement. 

Today read, mark, learn and inwardly digest Micah 6:8 “He has told you, O mortal, what is good;  and what does the Lord require of you  but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”  As we look forward to Lent this month ask yourself; how are you doing with Micah’s spiritual direction.

SHALOM

Reflection on an old letter

 Doing some thinking about the coming Sunday and went back to look at a document that, a little less than 50 years ago, started my love/hate relationship with the Episcopal Church. I was fond of the church because it was comfortable when I was a child, but in the junior year of high school I was disturbed by reading this letter and my relationship never stayed the same and it keeps working on me almost 50 years later. This was a response to some prominent church leaders urging King  to stop the disruptive boycotts and demonstrations . They wanted everything to be peaceful and not rock the boat.

Excerpt from Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Written by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

16 April 1963
 My Dear Fellow Clergymen:
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

. . . .But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.
When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.

In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.

I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.

I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"

Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world.

reflection on baptism

A Sermon for the 1^st Sunday after Epiphany                  All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, N.C. January 13, 2013                                                    Thomas E. Wilson Rector

Isaiah 43:1-7                Psalm 29          Acts 8:14-17                Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

This is the first Sunday of Epiphany and which is also called the Baptism of Jesus. We have the opportunity to look at the nature of Baptism, and we see in the Acts’ lesson that there are two different kinds of Baptism. Now, I know that some of you are saying “Whoop-de-do! Just what I wanted to hear about - how theologians argue with each other! Maybe if I’m lucky, the Mayans will turn out to have been right, and the rapture will take place right now and spare me this.”

Well no, the Mayans were wrong, and yes, there is a difference between the two different ideas of Baptism. The first idea of Baptism is that it is all about me getting Baptized, where the person being baptized is the actor.  And the second idea is that it is all about God’s Holy Spirit Baptizing us, where the person being baptized is the re-actor.
In the first idea of Baptism, which we will call the “Baptism of John”, the point was to change a person’s life so that s/he will be a better person and a better religious person in the Kingdom of God on earth. People looked at their lives and were disappointed in their behavior and felt guilty and wanted to put the past behind them. In this case Baptism was a way to wash off one’s sins. John the Baptizer set up camp on the edge of the country on the border marked by the Jordan River. As the Hebrew children coming back from slavery in Egypt around 1200 BC and later the Jewish exiles coming back from Babylon in the 500-400’s BC did, they had to cross through the Jordan River to get back home. They went through the water, washing off all the dust from their wanderings. In the same way, sinners could symbolically leave their homeland and go outside Israel and start all over again by meeting John in the river and washing the past away. There is nothing wrong with that kind of ceremony if you want to lead a better life and be part of a better community and be a better person who is trusted and respected for one’s religious sensitivity. In essence, it is all about me, being a better me and about the rewards I might be able to get from being a better me. We see this view in popular culture when people say things like “S/He was a good wo/man and, God loves good people and s/he will get into heaven when s/he dies because s/he lived a good life.” In this view Baptism is about earning God’s love by living a good life.  In this view of Baptism where it is all about me, God's love can be marketed into benefits in this life - I can become rich, or score touchdowns, or be famous, or have a big church. This view runs into trouble when things go wrong in life, because when it is all about me, then bad things are a sign that I have failed, am not good enough, or God doesn't love me anymore.

The second view of Baptism, which we call the “Baptism of Christ”, is not about goodness at all but about dying to one’s self. The metaphor is not about washing away the past but about going through the breaking waters of birth. Before a person is born, they live in a womb and they are loved fully and completely by God, growing each day. Into this peaceful existence, suddenly there is a change in their lives, and the waters of the womb break, and they are thrust out into a new way of living. They have to see the new creation in a different way. They have to hear the world in a whole different way. They move from a place of comfort to a place of strife. They learn how to die to the old life so they can begin to live in a world which does not fully revolve around them. Their lives become a series of choices to try to return to a womb –something that is no longer possible - thereby trying to find ways to replicate the womb experience of safety without risk and change. In this attempt life becomes a fearful, alien space that must be manipulated and conquered so that it can be “mine”. The other option is to embrace this new life and go deeper into the new reality, accepting the death of the old life and seeing a full life as a dying to oneself on a daily basis so that a new creation can be fully known. In this view, all of life is a gift, and all of space is sacred space, which is not ours to own but ours of which to become faithful stewards and co-creators with a power greater than ourselves.

The early church combined the birth trauma with the death to self in the Baptism of Christ, asking God’s Holy Spirit to be the new breath in the new life, God’s vision to be the new sight in the new life, God’s passion to be the animating principle in the new life, God’s spirit to fill every moment as we join with God in being co-creators of the universe. They called it being born again as we were lifted out of the waters of birth.

When Jesus comes out of the water in the Jordan, he does not become a good person.  Rather he is filled with God’s Holy Spirit and begins to die to the old self and live in the new creation which he called the Kingdom of Heaven. For him heaven was not after one dies but right here and right now, where the space between and within people, friends, neighbors, even enemies, is holy space, filled with God’s animating spirit. He teaches his disciples a prayer where they live so that God’s heaven will come on earth, where not my will but God’s will is done, where we eat God’s bread lovingly, given on a daily basis.  We are nourished to die to our own egos on a daily basis, where forgiveness and love are the norms rather than revenge and hate, where God is the power, the Kingdom and the glory. He teaches them to stand up to the corrupt ways of this world and to die to this world so that we can better live together as sons and daughters of the divine in God’s creation.

It is not about us being masters of our own domain but being servants, where we do not own people, places, and things but we care for them. We are stewards who do not complain about having to give 10% of our earnings and time as rent, but are pleased to make 100% of all that we are and all that we have sacred.  We were not baptized to be good; we were baptized to live into being born into being God’s beloved children in whom God is well pleased. Paul says in Romans, “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” 

In this baptism where we learn how to die to our own egos, we no longer need to be afraid of what is called the “second death” at the end of our earthly life. From Isaiah’s prophecy is the promise “the God who made you in the first place, the One who got you started: “Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you. I’ve called your name. You’re mine. When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you. When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down. When you’re between a rock and a hard place, it won’t be a dead end.” The river of God’s love enveloped us in God’s womb before we were conceived, surrounded us in our mother’s womb, flowed with us into new life, swept us into deeper life, and brings us finally to the sea of God, where all streams find their source. 

Let us remember our own Baptismal covenant, turning to page 305 in the Book of Common Prayer.