Sermon for May 11

This morning I had an interesting assignment. I wanted to talk about baptism because we are having a baptism this morning; say something about Mother's Day, because that is today; and I wanted to talk about the Gospel this morning. I went back and forth on how to do that and decided that the best way for for me to tell you the story about my worst Holy Week ever. (Not at this church.) Holy Week for those who don't know is one of the busiest times at the church. We had services every day Wednesday through Sunday, including an all night prayer vigil on Thursday night. Normally, it is my favourite time of the year. We follow the tragedy of Jesus' final week; every service helps us to meditate and enter more fully into one part of the story. When done well, it is a powerful spiritual experience. This one year it was not a powerful experience. This one year both my children had the stomach flu that same week. That week I would do a service, go home, stay up all night with a child who is scared and too young to understand why she is throwing up. I am cleaning it out of her hair, trying to contain it. Then go and do a another service. Repeat process. Do another service. That went on all week as Stephanie eventually got it as well. 

Going through the week it felt like I was doing two completely different things. On the one hand I was speaking about things like grace, love, eucharist, maudy thursday, vigil, altar, sacrifice, sin, redemption, resurrection. On the other hand I was speaking about things like flu, washing machines, clean the sheets, it's going to be okay honey, daddy's here, mop, hot water. And that is when the penny dropped and I understood something very important. They were not two different things; they were the same thing, they blended together in necessary way. At the church I brought my struggles and difficulties and thanks to Jesus and in the midst of the worshiping community I found the grace to go back home and bring the love of Christ working through me to my wife and children. The church and the house aren't separate. They are two sides of the same coin because the fundamental lesson I learned that weekend is this: The Business of Life IS the Business of the Gospel. I want to say that one more time and it is what I want you to take home with you this morning: The Business of Life IS the Business of the Gospel.

I bring it up because we are doing one of most glorious things this morning that we do in a church: we are baptizing a child into the faith of Jesus Christ. And it is such a joy to do exactly that. And baptism can seem so exalted, and it is exalted. It is a powerful experience. It looks like only a little water is being poured over a baby's head. But God has chosen to take that water and give it a spiritual significance that is hard to over estimate. What is baptism? It is uniting this child with Christ and his body the church; it is entry into the New Covenant with God; it is a sign of new life, a participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus; it is conversion and cleansing; it is receiving the Holy Spirit; it is a sign of the coming of the Kingdom of God. How exalted is that! And it is good to meditate on these deep truths.

But the problem is that the words we use to describe baptism are not the same words we normally use in our lives: dinner, washing maching, work, cell phone, Google, taxes, coffee, sleep, exercise, Ukraine, Nigeria, vacation, and television. Because of this there seems to be a disconnect between baptism and life and what I learned that Holy Week is that this not true. Why? Because all those fancy words to describe baptism come down to this truth: God is for you; God is with you. This is the bedrock, foundational truth. Baptism is the church's declaration that you are never alone; that you carry Christ with you and Christ will carry you.

At the end of the baptism I will mark Keaton's forehead with oil and I will say, I sign you with the cross and I mark you as Christ's own forever. For me, that is a powerful moment because it means for me that Jesus Christ, who is the face of the God who is love, will walk with this child forever. Now he may or may not embrace this fact; he may or may not even realize but it is true. And what this means for me in light of that Holy Week is two fold. First, Christ supports me in my daily life no matter how busy or dreary or even tragic it may be. And second, that I am bring the grace of Christ to my everyday life. When I am doing laundry, I am not just doing laundry; I am doing ministry. When I am washing my dishes, I am doing ministry. I don't have to go far away or do crazy things to do ministry. Baptism tells me when I am cleaning up my daughter after she is sick that I am doing ministry, because in that action I am trying to bring the grace of Christ.

Baptism says, don't feel guilty because you are not doing more stuff. The business of life IS the business of the Gospel. Baptism is not about doing more; it is about being changed so that you bring Christ to what you are already doing. Our everyday life does not change after baptism. We still have to go to work, clean our house, care for loved ones and buy groceries. What changes is how we come about all of those things, so that in Jesus, we do them with a new spirit. And it is that new spirit that makes all of the difference. Because now you are doing all of these things with Christ.

How does this work? The logic of baptism is simple. Through water and the Holy Spirit, Keaton will be united with God at the deepest level of his soul. This is a gift from God, but it is also God's hope and desire for this child. This is the whole meaning of the Christian faith and the ultimate meaning of our lives. We were created to be united with God, and in baptism we are both instantly changed and slowly changed. Instantly changed because we are bound to God in a bond that will never break. In other words, God's love for us is eternal and does not change. We can always turn to it and trust it. And God's love has power as well. It changes us slowly as we open ourselves to this love, trust it and live into it. This love that changes us is called grace and it points to our essential identity is in Christ, and that now we bear Christ in all we do. 

And this essential reality is ourselves is expressed in what St. Paul calls the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, self-control, courage. Now how many of you laughed when I read that list? Why is that? Because we realize that the spirit of baptism is messy. There is the promise of new life, but it is quite mushed together with the old life. I stand here and confess that I am a selfish man who is prone to laziness, frustration, and impatience. I am not the epitome of all those good attributes. How do I understand this truth in the reality of my experience? The hard truth of the matter I know is that spiritual growth takes time. As Rowan Williams writes, "The one thing we are truly awful at is taking time, or understanding that some outcomes, some processes, just take the time they take - that you can't rush the business of growing." So I need a few things. The first thing I need is patience and to realize that if God is happy that I am an ongoing project, then I need to kind to myself and accept the fact that my faults will not be burned away quickly. Second, I need to remember the promise of hope. Baptism promises that I will be purified and that in eternity I will filled with love and joy, and my life now is preparation for eternity. I will see God face to face. But for now I need to be intentional. I have come to think that this may be one of the most crucial of all the spiritual virtues. I don't need to be brilliant, wise, or holy. But I do need to show up. Regularly. Preferably everyday. Just before the baptism, we read what is called the Baptismal covenant. And it is a profound statement of what we believe and what the life of a Christian looks like. (BAPTISMAL CONVENANT)  

I think this profound, but with the very important reminder that baptism does not take us out of our lives. The business of life is the business of the Gospel. Imagine how life changes if we can bring Christ into the midst of it. If we can be Christ-bearers in the midst of messy life. It is actually far more than just living a more moral life. I want to end with one image to twig your imaginations. One of the places I really want to go someday is Japan; on my bucket list is to participate in a Japanese tea ceremony. I have read about it quite a bit out of fascination and seen it in videos, but that is not the same as participating. What I love about the tea ceremony is that it takes a very simple activity: making and drinking a cup of tea. Something many of us do everyday. They take this everyday activity and make it into an art form. But they don't do it by bringing out the gold kettle or the fanciest dishes. In fact, it is the opposite. The tea house is austere in its simplicity. They use worn and well used utensils. All who sit at the table have removed marks of rank and all are equal. It is not rushed, but every movement is deliberate and beautiful. The point is that taking what we do everyday and taking it away from the stress of everyday life and doing it deliberately reminds us that the everyday things that we do are beautiful. The mundane act of drinking a cup of tea becomes a doorway into the divine. I think baptism does something very similar. We are invited to see the world as God's world; a grace drenched world; what would it look like to see Christ in every activity? Could dishes be beautiful? Could laundry be beautiful? Can the mundane be beautiful? Can we love the place where we are? I think baptism says yes. Christ in the church; Christ in our homes; Christ at work. Ultimately, it is all the same. God is for you; God is with you.

Sermon for May 4th: Being a Christ-bearer

I hope that if you have listened to me preach a few sermons you realize that they are my way of carrying on a conversation with you, with myself, and with God. My sermons are one of my main ways to process in my own heart and mind the power of the Gospel, my own terrible inadequacies, my love for the church, the pain I feel about a suffering world, my own questions, the questions people bring to me, my hopes for community and my own bungling attempts to live out the glory of God in the world. Often the sermon I preach today flows out of questions raised by people from the last one. And this next set of sermons does just that. I really enjoyed the last series on spirituality. It really helped me and I was encouraged that a few of you found helpful things in them as well. Also, just so that you know, I am trying to figure out both how to preach but also make this a better conversation. So you can come talk to me, and many of you do. And I can't tell you how much I enjoy those conversations. But also I have started posting the whole sermon on my blog and linking it to our facebook page. So on either place if you want to read, comment, even criticize and challenge (as long as it is charitable) please do so!

The last group of sermons was on spirituality and spiritual growth by focusing on the Word of God. My next group of sermons will look at the reason why we practice spirituality and why we try to grow spiritually. And the reason comes from a ancient Christian legend of a man named Reprobus. He was a giant of a man who served his local king. One day he got the idea that he wanted to only serve the greatest king in the world so he went and found him and served him. But one day at the mention of the devil the king crossed himself in fear. Reprobus thought if this king is afraid of the devil than the devil must be greater. I will serve him. So he found the devil who was at that time leading a gang of theives and murderers and pledged his service. But one day as they were walking along, they came to a cross and the devil flinched away from it. Reprobus concluded that if the devil feared Christ, than Christ must be the greatest. So he searched for Christ when he met an old hermit who suggested that he devote his time to prayer and because he was so big helping people cross the river where the hermit lived. That service would be pleasing to Christ. So Reprobus spent his days putting people on his shoulders and walking them across the river. Until one day a little boy came and asked to cross. Reprobus put him on his shoulders and started to carry him across until the boy became heavier and heavier and as he was about to go under he called to the boy on his shoulders: ""You have put me in the greatest danger. I do not think the whole world could have been as heavy on my shoulders as you were." The child replied: "You had on your shoulders not only the whole world but Him who made it. I am Christ your king, whom you are serving by this work. Your name will now be Christopher because you are bearing the Christ" The child then vanished. And from that time, St. Christopher, which means the Christ-bearer went into the world bring Christ with him in his acts of mercy and service and his proclamation of the good news.

I tell this story because even though it is a legend it gets at why I fell in love with the Christian faith. I wanted to be a Christopher, a Christ bearer. I think we all want to leave the world a little better than if we had never lived. It can be heroic perhaps like Mother Theresa, but for most of us it will be smaller, like make a good home for our family so they can be.  I say seemingly, because small and big don't apply to God. As Michael Ramsey said, "The glory of Christianity is its claim that small things really matter and that the small company, the very few, the one man or woman, the one child are of infinte worth to God. Let that be your inspiration." The vision is clear. If you are like me, you see the pain and suffering of the global world; the struggle of our neighbours, good people who struggle; the struggles of people who are harder to love but who need help. What happens when Christ comes into the midst of it? I think profound things. Healing. Grace. There is a part to the prayer of St. Francis that speaks to me:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is error, truth;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

But as we all know, trying to be light in the darkness can be a hard slog. It can be discouraging, take our energy, be thankless, see no results, the problems are bigger than the resources and so on. How do we continue to be salt to the world day after day, month after month, year after year, decade after decade? This is what spirituality is all about. Spirituality gives us the foundation and daily renewal that we need to be Christ-bearers. As I said in an earlier sermon: Jesus has a mission, and we are his hands. And to bear him out into the world, we need him in our souls. Because ultimately it is not our strength that makes this possible, but his. That is the spirituality question. How do we get him into us in a way that is sustaining and enlivening. In these next four sermons, I want to look at what it means to be a Christ-bearer. This one is a brief introductory look at the Eucharist. Next week will be about how baptism starts us on this path and nourishes us on the way. The third is about our ultimate goal. It is a topic neglected in Anglican churches: the glory of God. And it is not what you think. It is not about God being egotistical and needing us to tell him how awesome he is. It is something that is so beautiful I hope that it will move you. And finally in the fourth, what ultimately drives us and keeps us going, namely the Holy Spirit. I am excited about this. The theme has a special resonance for me.

This morning I want to talk about Eucharist. The reason is because as with any endeavor, in order to sustain yourself over the long haul you have to eat. That is so obvious and necessary that I am guessing that you never ever put it on your list of things to do today. Do the laundry, pick up the groceries, drop off the library book, eat, go swimming. Eating you don't put on the list because it is so basic to keeping you going so you can do everything else. The Eucharist is so basic to our spiritual nourishment because it is one of the primary ways that we get the Gospel inside of us. 

To see why that is and how that might work I want to look briefly at the Gospel story we read this morning. This is one of my favourite stories in the Gospel and I know for many others. It takes place on a road with two people who are walking out of Jerusalem toward the town of Emmaus. They are dejected because they had been followers of Jesus who had just been arrested and executed. They are talking about this when they are joined by a stranger on the road they don't recognize. He asks them what they are talking about, and they are amazed that this man has no idea what they are talking about. So they tell him about Jesus, and how they had hoped that he would be the one chosen by God to redeem Israel. But that obviously wasn't going to happen now. They this stranger amazes them by starting to explain the scriptures to them. He goes through all of salvation history. Now this is just an ordinary bible study, as he is talking they later will describe that their hearts were on fire. The words of scripture take on a new meaning; they see how God is using all of this to bring about his great plan of healing for the whole world, and how the scriptures told that the Messiah must first suffer and through this, then enter into glory. There was no need to be afraid.

At this point in the story they stopped for the evening for a meal at an inn and invited the stranger to join them. Strangely, it is the stranger who takes the break, and offers the blessing. Then he broke it and gave it to the other two. And when he did it, they finally got who it was that had been speaking to them this whole time. It was none other than the risen Jesus. And then he is inexplicably gone. And they can't finish the meal. They rush back all the way to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples what just happened and the real adventure begins. Jesus is the one who will bring life to this world; it is all about Jesus.

You can read this story a number of different way and get so much spiritual nourishment from it, but for the sermon today I want to look at it in the way that it sets up the basic way that we come together every Sunday morning. As you see in the story, there is a progression like our Sunday worship, we go from Word to Sacrament. And also we see in the story this is no accident. Luke is showing that this is going to be the way that it is done in the church because the actions of Jesus around the bread are exactly parallel to his actions at the last supper. He takes the bread, blesses, breaks and gives. In other words, each Sunday service is supposed to be our own Emmaus road where we come to encounter Jesus. How can we do that? I want to say three quick things about that.

First, Jesus explained the scriptures to the two, and their hearts burned within them. The learning was not just academic, but transforming. This is the way we try to listen to the scriptures in our worship This is the the learning part of the service. The reason we read scripture every Sunday is that we learn more and more about who Jesus is. Calvin tells us that we read scripture in order "to know Jesus Christ truly." Barth tells us: From first to last, the Bible directs us to the name of Jesus Christ." In order to bring Christ in the world, we first have to know Christ better. His character, who he was, how he would treat the person in front of him. But knowledge not just in our minds, but in our hearts. To bring Christ, we have to slowly become like Christ. That is why we read the scriptures. 

Second, when Jesus broke the bread they recognized him. Jesus has taken this physical stuff: bread and wine. And given them a new spiritual meaning. A transformation. There is a reason they recognized Jesus when he broke the bread. Jesus meets us here at the altar rail. It is intimate and person; it is God renewing our deepest self, giving us a glimpse of wholeness once again. If we want to be Christ-bearers, we have to let Christ feed us. That is why we break the break together. 

Third, After Cleopas and his companion encountered Jesus they sprinted to Jerusalem, and so their adventure started. They became Christ-bearers bringing a good news of a God that is love and by grace meets us in Jesus and who works for the building of his kingdom. Down the line have been generation after generation of Christ-bearers. It is a centuries old family that God has called to be part of the church, and each person who become part of that family is given a special grace that marks that person as Christ's own forever. A grace that forms them their whole life long as Christ-bearers. The grace is called baptism and that is what we will look at next week. Amen.