How Do You Imagine Our Church?

Rev. Debbie Cato
Ephesians 3:14-21
Fairfield Community Church
January 30, 2022 

Let us Pray:  Holy God, humble us and open us to your life-giving Word. As we hear your Word read and proclaimed today, may our hearts and minds be open to the Spirit’s moving and Jesus’ teaching. Amen.

How Do You Imagine Our Church?

Now I’m going to read the same passage again but from Eugene Peterson’s The Message Bible:  Listen again for the Word of the Lord:

^14-19 My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

^20-21 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
 
Powerful words.  The Holy Spirit is with us in our own situation when we are  
doing ministry.  God’s promise is valid.  We can count on it.  The Holy Spirit can transform, revitalize, and renew.  We can believe it.  We can trust that this is true.
 
The question is, do you believe that God is at work in this church?  Do we believe that the Holy Spirit is at work through each of us in this church, ready to transform and revitalize and renew us into a new creation in this community?  How do you imagine our church?  Do we trust that we have a God of abundance, and that God has a future for us right here in Fairfield, Washington? 
 
You see, how we see ourselves, the words we think of when we think of this
church, that’s what we are likely to be.  Just like your self-talk becomes who you are, how you see yourself, how you respond to things that happen in your life, how your respond to people in your life, is just like how you see and think about this church becomes who we are.
 
I understand you are tired.  I get that you have been through a lot.  I know that you have been discouraged for quite some time.  The transition of Pastor Paul leaving was very hard on you.  I do not want to minimize that.  Many of you grieved the loss of a beloved pastor.  That’s very hard.  Then you had an interim who came and some of you struggled to adjust to her leadership.  That is understandable.  Then Covid hit.  The church closed and went virtual.  That has been hard on every church in this country.  But I know it was very hard on this church.  This church that’s all about relationships could not meet together.  During all this your pastor nominating committee was praying and trying to find your new pastor.  That process went on a very long time.  The committee and you, the congregation, became hopeless.  Would you find someone?  Would the church survive?
 
Finally, the church began meeting in person again – albeit wearing masks, but at least you could meet in person.  Many people did not return.  Attendance is smaller.  More grief.  More fear.  All summer you had pulpit supply and the PNC was still searching.  Would you find a pastor?  Would the church survive?
 
I’m here to tell you.  Yes!  The church will survive.  We must trust that we have a God of abundance and God has a future for us.  A future that is more full and far richer than we can imagine.  We must believe – I believe because I see it.  I see that God is at work.  The Holy Spirit is at work through us and through this church.
 
We must change our mindset and reground ourselves in the story of our faith.  This church that many, many years ago started the food bank that is now thriving and feeding hundreds of families throughout this community every week.  This church that started the preschool that serves 14 children every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, shaping their minds and hearts in the
early stages of their lives.  This church that the community considers “their church” even when they never step through the doors of the church.
 
It's time to change our mindset from survival mode to thriving.  It’s time to stop wondering if we will still be here in 2 years or five years and believe that worship a God of abundance.  It’s time to believe what scripture tells us - that God can do anything, — far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!  This is God’s church, and His Spirit is at work!  It’s time we live into that and leave the pain and stress of the last few years behind.
 
Marci, KayDee and I are attending a series of online workshops through the ELCA called Re-Boot: A Journey of Transformation, Revitalization and Renewal. There are over 450 churches from 35 states and Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands participating. There is not a church in the country – large or small like us that is not in a state of transformation, revitalization, and renewal.  We are not alone!  Every church is in a state of having to re-envision themselves.  Reinvent how they do church.  How God is calling them to be His body.  That is incredibly encouraging!
 
So far we have heard amazing stories of churches as small as we are doing incredible mission in their communities.  A church of 25 people saw a need to
provide food for their community.  They started a small food pantry.  It has grown to serve over a thousand people a week!  The pastor said that as long as they focus on their mission, God has met their need.  As long as they don’t worry about where the money or resources are going to come from to meet the need; as long as they focus on doing the work in the community, the resources and money they need have appeared.  God provides for them. The promise of Scripture is true.   God can do anything, — far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! 
 
We heard other stories just like this.  One church leader said “we moved from
venting to inventing.” From venting to inventing.  We like that!  Another said. “we listened to the neighborhood.  We opened a lemonade stand outside our church and just served free lemonade and talked and got to know people that
stopped for lemonade.  We learned a lot about our neighbors and the neighborhood and what their needs were just by making friends and listening.”  Another said. “we listened to our food pantry volunteers and found out how else we could serve the community.”
 
A pastor of a church our size said, “the more you risk; the more you trust that God will provide, the more you will see ministry open in places and ways that you never imagined possible.”
 
This is so encouraging!  It’s so exciting!  It allows us to imagine!  To be creative!  To try simple things.  To listen to what our neighbors are saying.  To what people at the food bank are saying.  Preschool parents.  To listen to the Holy Spirit. Nothing is off the table.   I am so excited!  I hope you are too. 
 
Here’s the thing.  I can’t do it alone.  Even if I could, it’s not healthy for a church.  We need to do it together.  In concert with the Holy Spirit leading us of course.  Yes, Covid will limit us.  It may slow us down, but there are still lots of things we can do. 
 
Pray for the church.  Pray about how you can be a part of moving forward.  Pray about how you think about this church.  How do you imagine this church?  What kind of a future do you imagine Fairfield Community Church to have?
^14-19 My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
²⁰God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

Amen.

Extravagant Abundance

Rev. Debbie Cato
Isaiah 62:1-5 and John 2:1-11
Fairfield Community Church
January 16, 2022 

Let us Pray:  Holy God, we need the guidance of your word. Help us be honest with ourselves and with you in this sacred moment of listening for what you have for us today. Amen.

Extravagant Abundance

 

Our passage in Isaiah is a call by the prophet for God to set things right.  The Babylonians have been defeated. But, the restoration and rebuilding of Jerusalem have met obstacles and delays and the people have lost hope and their morale is deteriorating.  The prophet is addressing people experiencing broken dreams and crumbling faith, wondering if God is powerless to fulfill the promises made during the era of exile.  Is God indifferent to the plight of His people? 1]       

So, Isaiah addresses God and demands that God do something about the situation.  Part of the power of the Bible is the good news it offers people who 
desperately need to hear it.  But the other part of the Bible’s power is its ability to name the reality that people are facing.  Someone knows how we feel.  This is the power of Isaiah 62:1 for the discouraged returnees and for anyone dealing with the feeling that God has turned away in indifference.[2] 

The prophet begins these five verses with a bold protest against how God appears to have turned away from God’s people.  But the prophet ends with names signifying how God has turned toward God’s people – with the image of a wedding.  God has not turned reluctantly to face us; God comes toward us with all of the delight and joy that a bridegroom has for his bride. This is a wonderful image of God’s grace, full of his love for us.[3]

Everyone loves a good wedding.  In Jesus day, the bride and groom celebrated the marriage with a seven-day wedding feast at the groom’s home rather than go on a honeymoon.  The seven-day feast was all about food and wine and celebration and hospitability.

Running out of anything before the celebration was over was a crisis and embarrassment for the family but running out of wine would have been the worst.  We don’t know why or how Mary the mother of Jesus is the one who notices that the wine is giving out.  But she does.  Mary notices the need and takes action to get the help.

Prompted by his mother, Jesus performs his first miracle, an understated act of turning water into wine. “Fill the jars with water.  Now draw some out and take it to the chief steward.”  What a happy ending!  It turns out the very best wine has been saved for last and only the servants know about the miracle performed by Jesus.  The groom’s family has saved face and the joyous wedding celebration can continue.

Jesus’s transformation of water into wine clearly reveals God’s generous nature.  For John, the Gospel writer, the miracle represents the first of seven “signs,” or proofs of Jesus’s deity, and signals the onset of the Jesus public ministry. The importance of joy, celebration, pleasure, and hospitality Jesus affirms in conjuring 150 gallons of first-rate wine, just to keep a party going.

God’s endless capacity to transform the ordinary into the sacred, the weaker into the stronger, the incomplete into the whole.  The foreshadowing of the Eucharist in the sharing of the wine.  

 There is something I struggle with in this miracle of shear abundance.  It is with our own reality, both what we see in our personal community and what we see in the world around us of blaring scarcity. Just like there was an abundance of wine and yet there is so much scarcity of critical needs all around us. 

 

Mary’s pivotal role stands out to me.  “They have no wine,” she says.  I hear that.  “They have no money.”  “She has no cure.”  “He has no friends.”  “I have no strength.” “He’s been sick so long.”  Mary’s line is a line we repeat every week in our prayer concerns.  Every day in our daily prayers.   Blogger Debi Thomas says, “It’s the line I cling to when I feel helpless, when I have nothing concrete to offer, when Christianity seems futile, when God feels like he’s a million miles away.  It’s the line that insists against all odds on the mysterious power of telling God the truth in prayer.”[4]

 

I think Mary’s role in Jesus’s first miracle is important.  It’s odd and provocative because we don’t know why she’s the one to notice the wine is running dry, because it allows us a place to find ourselves.  While we don’t know how to turn gallons of water into gallons of wine, we do know how to say what Mary says. Sometimes, it’s the only thing we know how to say. "There is need here."  "Everything is not okay."  "We’re in trouble."  "They have no wine."[5]

Mary persists.  Perhaps this is the oddest and yet most encouraging part of the story.  I don’t know what to make of Jesus’s reluctance to help when Mary first approaches him.  “What concern is that to you and me?” he asks her dismissively when he hears about the dwindling wine supply.  “My hour has not yet come.”  Of course, Jesus is no fool; he knows that his countdown to crucifixion will begin as soon as he makes his true identity known.  Maybe he’s reluctant to start that ominous clock ticking.  Maybe he thinks wine-making shouldn’t be his first miracle.  Maybe he’s having fun with his friends and doesn’t want to be interrupted.  Maybe there’s a mysterious timeline he prefers to follow — a timeline known only to him and to God.  Whatever the case, Mary doesn’t cave in to his reluctance; she continues to press the urgency of her need into Jesus’s presence.  As if to say, “I don’t care about your ‘hour’ — there’s a desperate problem, right here, right now.  Change your plans.  Help!”[6]

Mary isn’t discouraged.  “Do whatever he tells you,” she advises the household servants.  She doesn’t wait to hear the specifics of Jesus’s plan.  She doesn’t pretend to know the details; she doesn’t invent a roadmap.  She simply communicates her long-standing trust in Jesus’s loving, generous character, and invites the servants to practice the minute-by-minute obedience that alone makes faith possible.[7]

The servants’ task isn’t easy.  There’s no running water in the ancient world, and those stone jars are huge. How many trips to the well? How heavy are those jars?   Mary turns potential into action and ushers in a miracle. She lays the groundwork for Jesus’s instructions: “Fill the jars.”  “Draw some out.”  Take it to the chief steward.”[8]

It's hard, holding the promise of God’s abundance up against the agony of scarcity, loss, and need.  Don't misunderstand me; I love the miracle, and all that it signifies.  But I'm more familiar with water than I am with wine.  Many of us are, if we're honest.  It doesn’t matter what the “water” look like — chronic illness, physical pain, financial trouble, loss.  Regardless of how we rewrite Mary’s line to match our circumstances, it rings true for all of us, in some form or another.  They have no wine.[9]  

 

So what do we do?  What can our place be in a miracle of plenty?  Debi Thomas suggests that “maybe we can be like Mary.  Maybe we can notice, name, persist, and trust.  No matter how profound the scarcity, no matter how impossible the situation, we can elbow our way in, pull Jesus aside, ask earnestly for help, and ready ourselves for action.  We can tell God hard truths, even when we’re supposed to be celebrating. We can keep human need squarely before our eyes, even and especially when denial, apathy, or distraction are easier options.  And finally, we can invite others to obey the miraculous wine-maker we have come to know and trust.”[10]  

 

Let’s be a people, be a church that continues to name the need and be prepared for action to meet that need whenever we can.  Perhaps in unexpected ways.  "They have no wine."  “Do whatever he tells you.”  We live in the tension between these two lines.  Let's live there well, confident of the one whose help we seek.  Because he is good.  He is generous.  He is Love.[11]  Amen.

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[1] Feasting on the Word.  Year C, Volume 1.  Second Sunday After Epiphany.  Isaiah 62:1-5.  Pastoral Perspective.  Page. 242.  W. Carter Lester. 
[2] Ibid.  Page 244.
[3] [3] Feasting on the Word.  Year C, Volume 1.  Page 244.  Pastoral Perspective.  W. Carter Lester.
[4] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2053-they-have-no-wine.  Debi Thomas.
[5] Ibid.
[6] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2053-they-have-no-wine.  Debi Thomas.
[7] Ibid
[8]  https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2053-they-have-no-wine.  Debi Thomas.
[9] Ibid
[10] Ibid
[11] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2053-they-have-no-wine.  Debi Thomas.

 

A Water Birth

 

Rev. Debbie Cato
Genesis 17:1-16 and Matthew 3:13 – 4:1
Fairfield Community Church
January 9, 2022

Let us Pray:  Help us, Holy God, to connect to your word in a new way. Open the Scriptures to us in a way that is life-giving. Encourage us to listen to the message your Spirit makes known in word and worship. Amen.

A Water Birth

 

It’s always so strange after Christmas and Epiphany.  We go from Jesus in a manger to Jesus as an adult. 

Today, we are standing in a long line of people by the banks of the Jordan River.  Ahead of us, waist-deep in the water, John the Baptist bellows a no-nonsense call to repentance.  Behind us, at the very end of the long line, stands that once-upon-a-time baby — all grown up.  Thirty years have gone by, and the promised child is about to come into his promise.[1]

I’m grateful that the first glimpse we get of Jesus’s adult life is during his baptism.  We are still in the church season of epiphany.  The word “epiphany” comes from the Greek, "epiphaneia," meaning "appearing" or "revealing."  During this brief liturgical season between Christmas and Lent, we’re invited to leave miraculous births and angel choirs behind, and seek the love, majesty, and power of God in seemingly mundane things.  Rivers.  Voices.  Doves.  Clouds.  Holy hands covering ours, lowering us into the water of repentance and new life.  In the Gospel stories we read during this season, God parts the curtain for brief, shimmering moments, allowing us to look beneath and beyond the ordinary surfaces of our lives, and catch glimpses of the extraordinary.  Which is perhaps another way of describing the sacrament of baptism, in which the "extraordinary" of God's grace blesses the ordinary water we stand in.[2]

Whatever else Jesus’s baptism story is, it is first and foremost a story of profound humility.  The holy child conceived of the Holy Spirit, celebrated by angels, worshiped by shepherds, and feared by Herod, stands in the same muddy water we stand in.  The Messiah’s first public act is a declaration of solidarity.  God is one of us.[3]

 

Jesus’s first public act is an act of alignment.  Of radical and humble 

joining.  His first step is a step towards us.  Let it be so at the hands of another, he decides, indicating that his power lies in his capacity to surrender, to share, and to submit.  Let it be so here, he further decides, in the Jordan River with its rich and sacred history. 

In this one act, Jesus steps into the common and inescapable experience of living in a broken, sin-soaked world, hungering for righteousness, redemption, and restoration within that world.  The question at stake is not about Jesus’s personal “sinfulness.”  The question is about what it means to declare genuine and costly solidarity with our neighbors in a world that is structurally, wholly, and jointly “living in sin.” We can’t belong well to each other if we’re busy erecting walls between “our” piety, our religion, and “their” sinfulness.  We are in this together.  We are in all of this together.

 

To embrace Christ’s baptism story is to embrace the core truth that we are

all united, interdependent, connected.  We are all one.  Our personal “goodness” notwithstanding, our baptisms bind us to all of humanity — not in theory, but in the flesh — such that you and I are kin, responsible for each other in ways we fail so often to honor.  We are called into radical solidarity, not radical separateness.  In baptism, we are freed up to touch, embrace, and love all that is broken within and around us, precisely because we are always and already God's Beloved.  We’re beloved not because we've done anything to earn it, but because God’s very nature, inclination, and desire is to love — and to birth that same kind of love in us.

There’s something very special about baptisms.   They always make me smile and often, they make me cry.   I cry with a mixture of joy and awe.   The sacrament of baptism is just so beautiful.  The most memorable baptism service that I’ve ever participated in was on January 11, 2009. 

 One of the requirements for both seminary and our denomination is a pastoral internship at a church.    The requirement is that you spend 10-15 hours a week for nine-months learning under a pastor. 

Sensing that God was preparing me for small church ministry, I wanted to do my internship at a small church so that I could learn how to be a solo pastor.   With some divine intervention – another story, another time! – I ended up at a small church in a South Tacoma neighborhood.  Manitou Park Presbyterian Church is planted next to an elementary school, a beautiful neighborhood park, and a middle school in a fairly poor, struggling part of Tacoma.  The pastor, Ken Sikes agreed to mentor me and the internship was so beneficial for me – and apparently the congregation, that I served as the pastoral intern at Manitou Park for 17 months!  But then, that’s another story too!

 Well, I want to tell you about Perley.   I met Perley soon after I came to Manitou Park.  Perley was 16 years old.  He looked pretty sloppy, pretty unkept; he used a lot of slang when he spoke; swore too much, and was a little goofy. He was a “gang member wanna be”.  He hung out with the wrong crowd.  But there was something about Perley – his eyes sparkled when he spoke and he had a beautiful heart and a gentle spirit;  although he tried to hide it.  It was hard not to like Perley. He showed up at the church – during the week – he just dropped in and chatted with Pastor Ken or anyone else who was there.  He tutored an elementary student in the church’s after-school tutoring program.   But, Perley didn’t come on Sunday mornings – at least not when I first met him.

I learned a little about his family – an alcoholic, abusive father and a mother who just hung on day by day.  Perley had several older sisters, all of whom got pregnant in high school, dropped out, and had babies.  His older brother also dropped out of school and was a gang member.  Perley was lost – without much support and he was in and out of trouble – making bad choices.  The odds were against Perley.

I learned that Perley had been hanging around the church for a long time; since he was a very young boy.  I learned that the church had sort of “adopted him” many years before.   He would be around for a while and then he would disappear for months at a time and then suddenly show up again. 

And when he showed up, the church just welcomed him back and loved on him. He had lots of “moms’ at Manitou.  Perley was a hugger and he got lots of hugs, lots of love at the church.  Maybe you can tell… I became attached to Perley.  He was really hard not to like.

Well, Perley volunteered to be a youth leader for the summer drama camp the church held for the children in the neighborhood – sort of like Vacation Bible school but the end result is a Sunday worship service of kids singing, dancing, and acting that the whole neighborhood is invited to, followed by a neighborhood picnic. 

 Perley was helping us rearrange the sanctuary for camp and Pastor Ken asked him to help him move the baptismal font.  “What is this anyway?” Perley asked.  “What do you think it is?” asked Pastor Ken. Well, that started quite the conversation and the conversation continued through the week of drama camp and beyond.  Perley hung around the church more than usual after that, asking Ken questions, asking me questions.  We could feel the fire burning in his soul.  So we answered his questions and had rich conversations.

 We told him about Jesus.  We told him that God loved us so much that he sent his Son to live among us.  We told him that while Jesus was fully God, he was also fully human.  He got hungry and thirsty just like us.  He got angry and hurt; he laughed and he cried.   We told him that Jesus felt pain… he knew what it was like to be hated and he knew what it was like to be misunderstood and mocked.

We told him how God made a covenant with Abram that he and his descendants would be God’s people.  Because the people were unable to perfectly keep God’s law, Jesus became the new covenant.  And the sign of the new covenant, our adoption as God’s people is baptism.  Through baptism, our sins are washed away – a water birth if you will.  Baptism marks us as a child of God.

We told him how Jesus suffered a horrible death, crucifixion on a cross so that we would all be forgiven.  We told him how Christ redeemed each one of us from the darkness of sin and gave us life eternal.  We told him that when we feel hopeless, we hope in Christ.  We told him when we feel lost, when we feel all alone, we remember that Christ is with us.

 We shared our own stories with him – Ken shared his.  I shared mine. We told him why we were Christians – why we were followers of Christ.  We shared the high points and the low points. 

One day, Perley asked if he could have a Bible and he started reading it. 

This 16 year old kid started coming to church at 9:30 on Sunday mornings so he could attend Sunday School with a group of senior citizens.  He asked questions… raw, honest questions.  Questions that folks were too embarrassed, or just plain afraid to ask.  Perley didn’t care.  There was a fire burning in him.  He was hungry for God’s truth. 

 Pretty soon, he started staying for church.  Sat by himself and listened to the songs, the prayers, the sermons.  He continued to ask questions – hard ones!  One weekday afternoon, I found him in the sanctuary, just sitting by himself.   I asked Perley if he was O.K. and he said, “Just thinkin.” So I left him alone.

Before he went home that day, Perley asked Pastor Ken if he could be baptized.  Plans were made.

The day Perley was baptized was a glorious day - January 11, 2009.  Ken told Perley – and reminded the congregation that in baptism, we receive three gifts.  First, is the gift of the forgiveness of our sins.  Ken explained that in our baptism, we are given the full assurance of salvation, carrying with it all the effects of renewed and confident Christian living. In baptism, we have union with Christ in His resurrection as well as with His death.  In baptism, we are washed and purged of our sin for our whole life. Through baptism, we are assured that our condemnation has been removed and that we are indeed saved.  He explained that the water symbolizes a washing away of our sins; a new birth.  A fresh beginning. 

He explained to Perley  - and reminded the congregation that baptism symbolizes the gift of the Holy Spirit – the very presence of God that lives in us as believers.  The same Holy Spirit that ascended on Christ at his baptism is given to us.  Like Jesus, the Holy Spirit fills us with the strength and the power and the glory for our walk as disciples of Christ.  

 And he told Perley that just as God’s voice came down at Jesus’  baptism and announced Jesus’ anointing as the Messiah; just as he publically announced Jesus’ ministry and mission to the world; just as God said to Jesus for all the world to hear, “This is my beloved;” the kind, loving voice of God the Father was saying to him publically in his own baptism; “This is my beloved child, Perley.  He is adopted into my family now.  I love him.”

 In his dirty t-shirt and baggy jeans, kneeling next to the baptismal font;Perley was baptized.  As Pastor Ken spoke each baptismal vow, they took on new meaning to each of us as we experienced them through Perley. 

“Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce evil and its power in the world?”  (pause)  Perley began to weep as he loudly proclaimed, “yes!”

 “Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior, trusting in his grace and love?”  (pause)  His weeping turned into sobs, his body shook.  “Yes,: he said. 

 “Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his Word and showing his love?”  (pause)  Perley wiped his nose on his sleeve, looked around and saw that every single person in that church was smiling at him through tears streaming down our faces.  He took a big breath and smiled and said, “yes.”

 Dripping wet (Ken is a generous baptizer!), Perley stood up and grinned.  Ken invited us to come forward and lay hands on Perley while he prayed for him.  There wasn’t a dry eye or a face without a smile that Sunday.

 Baptism took on new meaning for me that day; me the seminary student.  Because of Perley, I truly understood the depth of the gift of the sacrament of baptism.  I understood the enormity of the moment; the enormity of the meaning of being a beloved child of God.  I understood the freedom of forgiveness.

 This lost kid; this kid who was in and out of trouble; was a beloved child of God. I saw it on Perley’s face.  I heard it in his voice.  Perley understood.  He was birthed anew in those healing waters of baptism that Sunday morning.  

Today, the day we celebrate the baptism of our Lord  is the time to recall our own baptismal vows.  Today is the day to remember our baptism promises and reaffirm the decision to live a baptized life as a follower of Christ; whether you made those promises yourself or like me, they were made for you as an infant.  

“Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce evil and its power in the world?”  (pause) 

 Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior, trusting in his grace and love?”  (pause) 

 “Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his Word and showing his love?”  (pause)

The baptismal font is filled with water.  After the service, maybe you would like to reach in and feel the water and remind yourself that your sins have been washed away.  Maybe you would like touch the baptismal water and remind yourself that you are a beloved child of God. I invite you to come up here and put your hands in the water.

 Perhaps you have not yet been baptized but like Perley, you have questions and are feeling a fire burn inside of you.  Maybe you hear God calling you.

Maybe you want to be baptized but you haven’t known how to go about it.  Please, talk with me.  Get in touch.

 Jesus begins his ministry in a river among sinners and ends his ministry on a cross between thieves.  And he does it all for us – for you and for me.   He changes us in ways that seem impossible.  His love is incomprehensible. 

We are his beloved children.    Let’s live remembering whose we are. Amen.

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[1] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3285.  Debi Thomas.  1.9.2022[2]https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3285.  Debi Thomas  1.9.2022
[3] Ibid.