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.

Baptism: Do You Accept the Freedom and Power...

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Matthew 4:1-11:

Last week I noted that in the ancient church, Easter was the only day on which people could be baptized. Part of the reason Lent was established was to use these 40 days for final preparation in receiving instruction about what it mean to be a Christian and what it meant to be a member of the church. And so, we are spending the Sundays of Lent looking at the baptismal questions that we ask people before they are baptized into the church in preparation for doing the baptisms we have scheduled for this Easter. And another reminder that if you are interested in being baptized, or having someone else baptized, please speak with me. Last week we talked about the first question that gets asked and it is “Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?” Now as part of that I said that portion of answering this is to be able to say that evil exists in the world and to be able to name it. I read this week that in response to his interview with Vladimir Putin, who at best is an authoritarian despot and whose chief opponents keep dying suspiciously, Tucker Carlson was asked how he responds to accusation that Putin had his latest opponent killed. And his response was, and I quote, “Leadership requires killing people.” Now we just finished a series on leadership, and never did I think that I had to say that, because I don’t think it’s required. And he wasn’t talking about tough decisions that some leaders have to make, like presidents ordering military strikes, or generals, and others, sending troops into harms way. He was talking about just ordinary politicians and leaders. And so, I’m good to be bold enough here to say that that is evil, or at least excuse making to cover evil. That doesn’t mean that Tucker Carlson is evil, but that he is giving into what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil. Justifying the ordinary terrible things that we can do to each other.

Because if you can justify the killing of one innocent person, then you can also justify the killing of many more. And so, while yes there are some things that may require leaders to take life, those are the extremes and never taken lightly by those who do them, or at least not taken lightly by those with a conscience and there are plenty of presidents and generals who have talked about the terrible cost that decision takes on their very being, but that is not what leadership itself requires. And so, I think that leads well into the second question we ask because it has direct relevance, and that question is “Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?”

Baptism: Do You Renounce the Spiritual Forces...

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Mark 8:31-38 and Romans 6:1-14:

We are now four days into our Lenten journey and so beginning a new worship series that will carry us through this season. Now Lent came into existence for two primary reasons. The first was for people who had been removed from the church to repent and prove their desire to rejoin the church, and part of this practice was to cover themselves in ashes and sackcloth. The other reason, and the one we are going to focus on, was as the final preparation and learning for those who were going to join the church through baptism on Easter Sunday. And Easter was the only day then that you could be baptized and join the church. And so these 40 days were set aside for this work. And someone asked me this week how come there are said to be 40 days of lent, but there are more than 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter. And that’s because Sundays exist outside of Lent because every Sunday is a little Easter, and so a time of celebration, rather than repentance. And so yes, that does mean that if you have given something up for Lent that you can stop doing that on Sundays because they aren’t technically part of Lent, although that then begins to become about rules rather than grace, as we heard in the passage from Romans today, and that certainly plays a part in our understanding of baptism. 

Before we baptize people there are a series of questions that get asked of the person being baptized, or of their parents or guardians, if its for someone who cannot answer for themselves, which is more than just for infants and toddlers. And so, we are going to be looking at each of those questions over the next five Sundays in preparation for Easter when we are scheduled to be doing baptisms, as well as a reaffirmation of baptism. And let me just add that if you are interested in being baptized, please speak with me. But that leads us to the first question, which, like most of them, is actually a multiple part question and that is “On behalf of the whole Church, I ask you: Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?”

Little Green Army People: Knowing Your Role

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Luke 14:25-33 and 1 Corinthians 12:12-31:

We are now concluding our series on Toy Box Leadership. I am very glad that so many of you have commented that you enjoyed this series because I wasn’t really sure about it going into it. I can say that I have never specifically preached on leadership before, although as I said when I read this book a long time ago, I thought it had possibilities. But I’ll be honest that I have sort of thought about leadership as this separate thing from spiritual disciplines. We talk about the second of those things a lot, but we don’t really talk about leadership, not because leadership isn’t important, but because we just don’t think about it in the role of worship, I guess is the best way to say it. That somehow these two things are separate and never the twain shall meet. But a few weeks ago, in one of the daily emails I receive on church things, it had a story from John Ortberg saying how incorrect that position was. That leadership is a spiritual discipline, and spiritual disciplines include leadership. And as I thought about it, I was definitely one who kept them separate, but now see that I was mistaken. And that has lots of implications to it, including that we have to work on it for the good of ourselves, the church and living the faith. It also means that like all spiritual disciplines it comes in different forms and also has seasons to it. But that’s going to take some more thought from me on what that means, how to communicate that as well as how it fits into what we do in worship and our expectations. It definitely connects, though, to the theme of today which is understanding and knowing our gifts, graces and roles as we look at the last of our toys little green army men. And again, credit is due to Ron Hunter, Jr. and Michael Waddell for their idea.

When we looked at the yo-yo I said that those who study these things have said that the doll is probably the oldest toy in the world, and it’s followed by the yo-yo. Well toy soldiers are nearly as old as well. Tiny military figures have been found in Egyptian tombs. Whether those were technically toys or not is up for debate as they could have been for military strategy, but we can be sure that others were using such things as toys. Over the millennia, toy soldiers have been made out of clay, wood, flour, paper and different types of metals, including, and maybe most popularly tin. They grew in such popularity in the 17th century that they began to be mass produced for not just war games but also for massive displays to be put together of famous battles. But it was in the late 1930s with the rise of the use of plastics that toy soldiers took the shape and name by which so many of us know them – Little Green Army Men, although you can now purchase them in lots of different colors including blue, pink, purple and grey. The poses and weapons have also changed some over time. And these little figures were adopted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2014.

Weebles Wobble But They Don't Fall Down

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Romans

Some of you have heard this before, but when I was growing up and would spend time with my grandparents, to try and get me to eat my vegetables, my grandfather would always say “it’ll put hair on your chest.” I never considered that an acceptable argument for doing something I didn’t want to do, and will note I still don’t. But that’s what I always think of when I hear Paul’s words that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint.” But if that’s what it takes to get hope, wouldn’t you rather pass? Not that I don’t want to live without hope, but I don’t want to suffer either, and let’s also note that anytime someone says about something that it will build character, you can be pretty sure that it too will be an unpleasant experience, like having to eat your vegetables as a child. And so, with that, we move on to today’s toy, the Weeble. And again credit is due to Ron Hunter, Jr. and Michael Waddell for their inspiration for this series.

This is the newest of all the toys we will look at, and thus one that many of you did not grow up with because it wasn’t yet invented, but one that your children, or perhaps grandchildren did grow up playing with. It also happens to be the only toy we will look at that has not been inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame. But it is based upon a much older toy. The television show Romper Room, which began in 1953, introduced a clown punching bag that was weighed down by sand at the bottom so that when you punched it, it wouldn’t stay down but would right itself so you could punch it again, and keep going. Nothing violent about that. And some of you may know the toy because there was a duplicate that had Bozo the clown on it. When toy manufacturer Hasbro purchased Romper Room in 1969, they wanted to market the punching bag idea, with a twist, and so they shrunk it down, made it solid, and shaped it like an egg, and thus was born, in 1971, the Weeble. And what made them so unique was not only their shape, but the fact that when they got knocked over, that because of the weighting, that gravity would cause them to right themselves, thus creating the famous advertising slogan that “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.” Allegedly this helped introduce children to basic physics, perhaps a stretch, but it is there. Now I will note, first that I couldn’t find any reason why they were called Weebles, perhaps just because they wobble, and second now they are much shorter and squatter than the originals, allegedly because the originals posed a choking hazard, although that seems like a huge stretch to me, not because kid’s wouldn’t put them in their mouths, but because they were still really big and I can’t imagine a child actually being able to get it stuck in their throat, but there we are. And so that leads us back not really to the idea of suffering so much as to the idea of resilience because Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.

Yo-Yo: Extending Yourself

Here is my message from Sunday. The scripture was

I’m guessing that most of us have probably seen an image something like this outlining the life cycle of organizations. It seems like just about every leadership seminar or workshop I’ve gone to, and definitely those that want to talk about revitalization, have used this image. Basically it says that in the beginning there is lots of energy, new things happening a great vision and direction which leads to growth, and continued climbing of the organization, but then things start to change, energy is lost, the vision gets a little less clear or a little less striven for and so the organization reaches maturity and then bureaucracy starts to set in, and it then begins a downward slide which can eventually lead to its death. Now, the reason this comes up in leadership workshops is to talk about the fact that you can stop that downward slide, give new vision, create new energy, and you then cycle back and you can start the cycle all over again, with growth, then maturity, then downward, and hopefully new vision, new energy and do it all over again. And while there is a lot to be said for that as an idea, I do think that it glosses over too many things, makes it too simple, too easy both to explain and to do, and the toy we look at today is a great illustration of what’s missing here.

But before we get into that, a quick recap of the toys we have looked at in our toy box that can teach us something about leadership and life. Although it wasn’t technically a part of this series, for New Years we did talk about the etch-a-sketch and the fact that if you have made a mistake you can simply shake it off, create a new screen and start again. And then we looked at play-doh and the reality that we are molded by the things with which we surround us, and so we need to form ourselves with the right things and the right people, and for us as Christians baptism should be our primary mold. Then we looked at the slinky-dog which is a great illustration of leadership and change. First as a leader you have to take ahold of the string of leadership and pull, and when you do that, the head of the slinky dog will move forward, but the hind end stays where it is, which means we have to be patient in our change, and also listening and watching, and preparing for the tail end to catch up, and then start again. And then last week we talked about Lego and the need for connection and building connection so we can build community. What Lego also show us is that sometimes we want to lock things into place, to glue them together, and on the organizational lifecycle that is represented on the downward slide, and so we also have to live into being open to change and trying new things, of being creative. And so today we then move onto the yo-yo.

Lego Connectivity

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was

Some of you know that besides for baseball and Star Wars I also love Disneyland, although perhaps I should throw in that I love my family as well. I follow several different people on YouTube to keep up with what’s happening at Disneyland, when I have time to watch. One of them has been a critic of Disney and its management, especially in their upkeep of the parks and the way they compare against Disneyland Tokyo, which is considered the cream of the crop. But their criticism is always done out of love; because they love Disney and everything it represents they want to call out those things that don’t match up to what they think the park can be, and in some ways, had been. But, under prior executive leadership they were directly called out for reporting a rumor they had ben told that Disney said was a lie, although it turned out not to be. But, because of the animosity that came about, this group was cut off from their press credentials in retaliation, which they took in stride, including not lessening their criticism and also enthusiastic praise when they thought it was deserved. But, now, under a new CEO, the communications department recently reached out to set up a meeting with them to first apologize for what happened, to reinstate their press credentials and also to start a conversation about some things they might work on together. I wish I would have known that last week because it could have worked great in thinking about the lessons that the Slinky Dog teaches us about leadership, and that just because people might be opposed to the direction, doesn’t mean they oppose the organization, they just don’t like the direction and that’s when listening to others can help make all of us better. But it also matches well with the direction we go today, which is the lessons we can learn about life and leadership from Lego®, and again credit is due to Michael Waddell and Ron Hunter, Jr. for the ideas of this series.

And so, let me start with the fact that the Lego organization treats Lego as the name whether we are talking about a singular or multiple Lego®. It’s like sheep or deer, whether you have one or multiple, they are the same, and the same with Lego®. Except, within the US, we have tendency to add an s to make it Legos, and so I am going to try and respect Lego® in their preference, but will probably invariably mess it up, so just keep that in mind. Lego® is now the largest toy company in the word, having passed Mattel® in 2015. And along with Play-Doh and the Etch-a-Sketch, which we’ve already discussed, it too was inducted into the inaugural year of the National Toy Hall of Fame, and was also named the toy of the century by Fortune Magazine, as well as the British Association of Toy Retailers, and it has an interesting history.

Slinky Dog Leadership

 Here is my message from Sunday. The scripture was

Most of you are old enough, or perhaps I might say seasoned enough, to remember the Tylenol poisonings in 1982. Just a quick refresher, someone added cyanide to Tylenol pills in the Chicago area, which killed seven people. In the immediate aftermath there was much conversation about what to do. The FDA actually recommended to Johnson and Johnson that they only recall the pills in the Chicago area, and were opposed to a nationwide recall to try and keep the country from panicking. Members of the board wondered if perhaps it could be more targeted in order to keep the economic income down, and many predicted the end of Tylenol as a brand, and perhaps even the end of Johnson & Johnson. But instead of following that advice, the CEO, believing in the first line of their credo, “We believe our first responsibility is to the patients, doctors and nurses, to mothers and fathers and all others who use our products and services.” And so, the CEO instead recalled Tylenol from around the country, as well as working with the media to issue emergency warnings, which then led to new safety standards for bottles, amongst other things. Their response is now studied for leadership principles in times of crisis.

I’ve been thinking about that example in this past week in comparing it against the way that Boeing has responded to their current crisis with the loss, basically, of a door during flight from one of their planes, on top of their crisis in losing two similar planes to crashes several years ago in which they tried to blame everyone but themselves. But this week the CEO of Boeing said that they supported the FAA’s decision to ground these models until they found out what went wrong. But, my thought was why did they need the FAA to take this action for them; why didn’t they ground the planes themselves and have the FAA agree with their decision? Leadership is hard, but sometimes we know the right decision and what to do, to be out front, even if we might have to pull others along with us, being proactive, which is what Johnson & Johnson did, versus being pushed to do the right thing, being reactive, which is what Boeing appears to be doing.

Play Doh Formation

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was

Today we begin a new worship series that will take us to Lent looking at what toys can teach us about leadership and life. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to be doing for the beginning of the year, and so was talking with Phillip if there was something that would be helpful for our faith development activities, and he said that we might look at our goals. One of our goals is to build up our leadership, and I had in my list of potential worship series ideas a note about a book I read a long time ago called Toy Box Leadership, and to let you know how long ago, they use Blockbuster Video as an example of a company facing a leadership challenges, and they say that the decisions they make will decide if they survive or not, and we now all know how that ended. And so, I am indebted to that book and its authors Ron Hunter and Michael Waddell for providing the inspiration. And with that, today we begin with one of the staples of childhood, Play-Doh®, which was inducted in the inaugural class into the National Play Hall of Fame, whose museum in Rochester, NY, is absolutely fabulous if you ever get up that way to visit.

Now I have to say that of all the toys we will look at, Play-Doh®, is my least favorite, at least as an adult. When our children get Play-Doh®, which they invariably do, I sort of bow my head and think, oh great, thanks. Not because Play-Doh® isn’t great, because it is and I enjoyed it as a child, but it’s the fact that we end of with little pieces of dried Play-Doh® that end up all over the house, which then have to be cleaned up and invariably I’m still finding it in strange places days later. And so, I guess, it’s sort of ironic then that that is exactly the thing with which we are starting because of what Play-Doh® and baptism and leadership all sort of have in common with each other, and I bet you never thought of that combination before.