Maundy Thursday: Hope Springs Eternal

 This was my message for Maundy Thursday:

Today, in addition to being Maundy Thursday, is also opening day for Major League Baseball. Normally I take the day off to watch baseball, which I could only do partially today. And I normally go to opening day for the Albuquerque Isotopes, but that’s tomorrow, and so that’s not happening either. I know your hearts cry out for me. I’ve always thought that opening day should be a national holiday, for many reasons besides just my fandom. And one of those reasons is that it represents the sort of official beginning of spring, they even call the preparation for opening day, spring training. Training for spring, or maybe waiting for spring. Now it doesn’t mean that spring will necessarily be here for those first games. Just as the last few weeks have shown us with continual snow storms, we may be done with winter, but it is not done with us. And there have been plenty of opening day games played in the snow. I even remember one Easter when I was in college getting up to go to church and looking out the window to see blizzard like conditions, and so I went back to sleep, but that was in Minnesota, so not totally unexpected. 

And yet we know that spring is right around the corner; the promise is there. And so, it is with opening day, it is the day that hope springs eternal because on this day every team is currently tied for first place. Every team has a winning record, or at least they don’t have a losing record. Every team, and every fan base, can say “this is our year,” even if they know it’s not true. For many, they know that their seasons will end more in ignominy than in victory, and perhaps its too many fanbases for which that is true, although that’s a different message for a different space. But regardless, hope spring eternal on this day; and the promise of spring springs eternal as well. New life, new possibilities, new realities, not being cooped up in the house, being able to open the windows, being able to take those long hikes without freezing, doing all those things that make where we live so spectacular, and I can say all of that as someone whose favorite season is winter. But even with that, the change to spring is still a lovely and wonderful surprise and time. And yet, perhaps none of those ideas really match the reality of today.

Baptism: Will You Accept the Grace God Gives You....

Here is my message from yesterday. The text was Ephesians 4:1-6 and John 15:1-17:

As part of programming night, which is our Sunday evening classes and meal, we have temporarily combined our adult and youth classes as part of our confirmation class in teaching everyone, or reminding everyone, about the basics of the faith. Last week I was teaching on the sacraments, which in the Protestant tradition are two, baptism and communion, because they are the two in which Jesus not only participated but also commanded the church to participate in. But only one of those is repeatable, which is communion. And so, someone wisely asked why we don’t baptize people more than once, or why we don’t practice rebaptism, especially since it seems like many churches do. And that’s a great question, and the reason is faithfulness. Baptism is a covenantal agreement, as we say in the communion liturgy that Jesus created a new covenant by water and the spirit. Another word for covenant is agreement, or contract. A contract is something entered into be two parties, and it calls for things for both parties to uphold, and to do for each other. And it can also be broken by either party, either through agreement or because one party violates it. 

But, when it comes to the baptismal covenant one of those parties is God, and the other party is us. And so, the question is, does God violate God’s side of the agreement. No, because God is forever faithful; God is ever loving. And so, while we can go astray, we can wander away, we can violate the covenant. While we can be like the prodigal son, God is always faithful, and God is always waiting for us to return, to come back home, to come back to abide in God’s love as God’s love always abides in us. And so, we don’t rebaptize because God is always there, but we can reaffirm our baptismal vows, to make whole the relationship, to heal what has been broken, by coming back from our part, but because one side has always been faithful. And so that leads us then into the final question we ask in preparation for baptism and that is “According to the grace given to you, will you remain faithful members of Christ's holy Church and serve as Christ's representatives in the world?”

Baptism: Will You Nurture These Persons

Here is my message from yesterday. The text was 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24:

Once when I was across the street at the high school talking to a class about Christianity, along with several other Christian ministers, one of the students asked me what I would do if my children didn’t want to be a part of the church when they were adults. It turned out that she was a PK, or preacher’s kid, so had some idea of what she was talking about. And I said, not knowing she was a PK, that the tendency is for PK’s either to become preachers themselves or to reject the church entirely. That’s not universal, but it’s a pretty good general rule, which includes my best friend from seminary whose daughter is currently in seminary and whose son is not, shall we say. And so, my response was that I didn’t want either of those things for my children, but what I would miss the most for them, and what I would want the most for them if they were not in a local church, was to find a community that the church can provide. A group of people who care for you and want to walk the journey of life with you through the good times, very important, and through the worst times, even more important. And so, I wouldn’t be necessarily be upsetting if they weren’t in the church, although I certainly want them to be, but they get to make their own decisions as adults, but I would be sad if they didn’t have a church like community in their lives. And that is where the question we that we ask in preparation for baptism leads us to today. The first three questions are about sort of individual things that we pledge to do, including accepting Jesus and participating in the church, which is the question we looked at last week. But then today’s question in a larger one about those activities as a community. And that question is “Will you nurture these persons in Christ's holy Church, that by your teaching and example they may be guided to accept God's grace for themselves, to profess their faith openly, and to lead a Christian life?”

Now this question comes in this section of the liturgy and is, as stipulated in the hymnal, directed to parents and other sponsors for those who cannot answer for themselves. And yet I think it’s actually much broader than that. Later there is a question specifically for the congregation in which we ask if you will nurture one another and include those to be baptized in that care. And so, I believe that this question is certainly also directed to the church, to the community of Christ into which people are baptized, and I am certainly going to treat it as such. Because one of the things that we have to understand is that baptism is not an individual activity, it’s communal. While we might conduct an individual private baptism in an emergency, such as in a hospital for someone who is dying, that is really the exception. And even then, I would try and get other people to be present for it to be witnesses to it and on behalf of the person being baptized. Baptism outside of the community simply doesn’t make sense. I have even refused to do a baptism for someone based on that. I was contacted by their friend, which was sort of the first red flag asking if I could come to the house to baptize them, and my first question was “are they going to start worshipping with us, or attending another church?” and I was told no, that they just wanted to be baptized. And I said that didn’t match theologically and I’m sorry, but I couldn’t do it. I would be more than happy to talk with them, and talk about the why, and that it is the initiation right into the church. That, as the question last week said, we accept Jesus Christ as our savior in union with the church. These two things go together. And since baptism and community go together, not only does that mean there has to be community, but it also means that the community is doing something for those who are being baptized, those being welcomed into both the church universal and the local congregation that is doing the baptizing. Which is where you all then come into play.

Baptism: Do You Confess Jesus Christ...

Here is my message from Sunday. The texts were Romans 4:13-25 and Mark 8:27-38:

When we talk about the membership vows to join the United Methodist Church, which are prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness, I always mention the fact that the order is important, at least for the first ones. Prayer isn’t just accidentally first, but it’s there because of its priority. And then presence is important because we need to be in and around and with the body of Christ, not to just be a part of it, but also in order to get from and give to the church what we need to grow and mature in our faith. And so, as we look at the baptismal vows through Lent in preparation for celebrating Easter which will include baptizing people into the church and doing a reaffirmation of baptismal vows, I wonder about the placement of the questions, or why they are asked in the order in which they are asked. So far we’ve looked at the first two question, and they are, and remember I ask them on behalf of the whole church, “do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness and reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?” and so that question has to deal with turning from the brokenness of the world, which is not just in ourselves but also in the culture and societies in which we live. And the second question is somewhat similar, but also different and that is “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?” Which means not only recognizing that evil, injustice and oppression are in the world, that brokenness of the first question, but also accepting God’s assistance to actually do something about it. First, we renounce it and then we say we’ll work against it to do God’s will in the world. But do you notice anything about those questions and Jesus? They actually don’t say anything about Jesus or even the church at all? It’s not until the third question, which we look at today, and that question is “Do you confess Jesus Christ as your savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations and races?” This is the first time we ask about Jesus, who seems kinda important right? So, is this the right place for it?

When the Methodist movement began to spread and grow quite rapidly in England, someone wrote to John Wesley and asked him what it was the Methodist’s were supposed to do. That is what are the marks of a Methodist, or more directly, what are the rules of Methodism. And so, he created what were called the general rules, and there were three. The first is to do no harm, the second is to do good and the third was, he said, to attend upon all the ordinances of God, which got shorted much later to stay in love with God. And so, if we look at those rule, the whole Jesus things also comes last. And you can certainly do no harm and do good without believing in God right? But, I will be bold enough to say, you can’t love God without also doing the first two. And so, is that order correct then, a call to living out the faith which could then lead people to faith? Or do we need to make the profession first to understand what comes out of it? And one more piece to throw into this conversation is that Jesus does not begin his ministry by saying believe in me, make a profession of faith first, instead he begins it by saying “repent, for the Kingdom of God has come near.” For him the first action is repentance, which is also the first question. And so perhaps the order makes complete sense, renounce evil and repent, then seek to resist evil, injustice and oppression, and then make a profession of faith.