You are God’s beloved child

You are my Son, the Beloved;*

    with you I am well pleased.

Who are you? I am a beloved child of God – and so are you!

You are God’s beloved child.

Jesus after being baptized came out of the water and

heard the words

You are my Son, the Beloved: with you I am well pleased.

I wonder what the others heard but

I know what Jesus said to them.

He turned and said the words he dedicated his life to proving:

You are God’s beloved child.

We know he said this without benefit of videotaping or recording equipment –

Because of them he went on to live his life and in every action he took:

Proclaiming God’s kingdom 
of reconciliation, forgiveness, justice and peace;

Healing the sick, raising the dead,

Standing up for the truth at the cost of his own life – 

He said to the world, that

your life is precious in the sight of God. 

You are no accident –

And he has chosen you, holds you in his heart

God has yes, broken you,

Like Bread at the Eucharist,

As Bread for the World, 

Parted out and shared

That all may find life in the abundance of your giving,
like Jesus in his gifts of his self-offering abundance and

overflowing life and love.

God has taken, blessed …

Blessed you, given you hope, 
filled you with good things, 
not least the joy of life.

We look around us and see poverty or blessing, scarcity or abundance.

But God keeps filling our cup of blessing,

Offering us the warmth of his love,

The sustenance of his grace,

The comfort of his kindness,

The joy of his mercy, and

The fellowship of his Son, taken, blessed, broken, …

We are given as well, to the world,

We are distributed as instruments of his peace,

As manifestations of his peace,

As harbingers of his kingdom.

We come to the font and to the table,

Knowing we are imperfect, oh so imperfect beings.

We are taken – chosen,

blessed,

broken,

shared out – given,

for the life of the world depends on us,

Not in a bad way, not in a status way to make us special,

any more special than anyone else.

We are special as all are special and God has always loved you best.

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When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:15b-17)

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. (1 John 3:1)

You are born into God’s family (in baptism),

Heirs of heaven’s life and joy: wake up and celebrate!

 

The Feast of the Baptism of our Lord - Year C 

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

Robert Fuller, Homilies from the Heart, Year C (Tucson).

Henri J. M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World (New York: Crossroad, 1983).

Trustees of the Future

 

A generation ago the sociologist Peter Laslett reported to a committee of Parliament on the concerns and needs and challenges facing a cohort of British subjects: those approaching, reaching, or living in retirement. Based on extensive research he identified a new “Third Age” of life: after childhood and youth, younger adulthood, and before old age. (Awkward terminology is a sign of the freshness of his ideas.) These older adults he called, in their potential, “trustees of the future.”

What he saw was an era of, potentially, personal fulfillment, after the work of earlier adulthood – its responsibilities, demands, and rewards – a time of freedom to pursue goals broader in scope and longer in vision than the immediate tasks of career and household.

Older adults, especially those in retirement, gain perspective based on not only longer experience of the past, but on the possibilities of the future. They may have the ability to contribute uniquely to a vision of a hopeful future. That is the challenge of a generation.

As we all affirm, children are the future. How to make that the best future possible is the job of all of us, the whole family, the whole community, and, the whole people of God.

Indeed, we will be welcoming two young new members into the household of God, when we celebrate the sacrament of baptism on the feast of the Baptism of our Lord, January 13, 2013. 

When we affirm, at Baptism, that we will do all in our power to support these persons in their life in Christ, we are taking on this task, as a community, in the power of God.

We cannot affirm, without God’s help, that we will be able to see this through. But with God’s blessing upon us and the presence of the Holy Spirit among us, we should be able to take on this challenge.

This is one, concrete, immediate way that we the people of God can respond to the calling to act, think, and pray as “trustees of the future.”

As we move into a new year in the secular calendar and in the life of the church, let us also move forward into a new sense of our unity in faith and action, our common mission.

The mission of the Church is the mission of Christ: to restore all people to unity with God and each other – and to aid all people in living into the fullness of life in abundance.

Peter Laslett, A Fresh Map of Life: The Emergence of the Third Age  (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991) 7, 196.

For the Gospel Grapevine, parish newsletter of Saint Alban’s Episcopal Church, Edmonds, Wash. (Epiphany 2013)

JRL+

Be not afraid

Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who was crucified, God has raised from the dead. (Acts 4.10)

This is the first news you need to hear this morning. Keep it in mind as you hear the rest.

This morning we begin our service differently from what we had planned. Today especially it is time to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, who was crucified and who has risen. He is the first born of the resurrection; the rest are to follow.

Follow Jesus - follow Jesus through life, follow his Cross, follow him as he pioneers the way. He took upon himself the mortal life he lived, he took up the Cross, he took upon himself our sins, and he gave his life for us as a testimony to the truth. There is one true living God who created all things, who saves us, who loves us, who redeems us.

There are some sorrows and tragedies to tell you about. They have come upon us this week thick and fast. First we learned of the death of Bill McDonald, beloved husband of Lila, who died Monday. Then we learned Barbara Garcia was in the hospital, now in hospice care. We learned that Chuck Becker, who went through surgery successfully, then received the massive blow of a stroke. Thursday with his family I gave him last rites; Friday he died. This morning we remember Bill and Chuck and proclaim together our common faith and hope in the One who was raised, the One in whom we have eternal life, Jesus Christ.

And then this morning we heard the news that a friend of our family - and a friend of many families, in Tucson and around the world - was shot while she was going about her job as a Congresswoman, meeting with constituents. An apparently deranged individual, picking up on the violent speech of the political campaigns of last fall, moved into violent action, shooting her, critically wounding her, and killing six other people, including a federal judge and a nine-year-old child. Another dozen survivors were wounded. It is a tragedy for America; a senseless slaughter; a sad sign of our times.

We need to remember that democracy requires public safety, that for us to be able to govern ourselves as a free nation we need to be able to meet freely without fear. The tragedy is that freedom has been curtailed in the name of licentious violence. We need to stop this - and we need to do our part to make sure our nation remains safe and free.

This is something Christians can do - to make witness to the justice and truth and peace we know in Christ. We are not held to a higher standard - that is not the point; the point is that we know what the standard is. The standard is shown us in the life and death and resurrection of Christ.

All people are worthy of life; all have been given the gift of life; for all Christ lived - and died - and rose again.

Be free in Christ; be loving in Christ; and in Christ work together that the world may know his peace, his freedom, his justice. Do not be afraid; he goes before you, always.

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In Christ who set us free
In Christ who leads us home
In Christ who shows us the way
In Christ whom we follow home

Amen.

The Lessons Appointed for Use on the First Sunday after the Epiphany
The Baptism of our Lord
Year A, RCL

Isaiah 42:1-9
Psalm 29
Acts 10:34-43
Matthew 3:13-17


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Baptism of Jesus 2010

In this season of Epiphany we look for the miracle – the sign that attests to the glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ. That “attesting miracle” – sign – in this week’s story may be the voice from heaven, but do not lose sight of the earlier epiphany – the manifestation of God’s glory in the ordinary human action of Jesus.

Once I was talking with Dorothy Nicholl, who was active in Cheshire Homes for the disabled and with the “Co-workers of Mother Theresa” in her parish in Santa Cruz. We were talking about the handicapped accessibility of the city buses – how much that cost.

It would be a lot cheaper, I observed, to send out specially equipped vans to give them rides. “But then they wouldn’t be just like anybody else!” she protested. And I riposted – “But they aren’t just like anybody else!” Sure enough the special equipment was for them.

By the way you can find yourself one of “them” on short notice – just have surgery or an illness.

Of course I missed her point. People who need provision for handicapped access are, granted, materially different, but they are not morally different. They are of equal, equally infinite, value.

Just like “the rest of us” a person using provisions for physical disabilities is a person of infinite value to God – a person beloved of God, with whom God is well pleased.

Jesus lined up, just like anybody else, and was baptized, just like anybody else. He did not take special favors (“I’m his cousin, you know”) or cuts in line.

Just like anybody else he went up there and got his soul prepared, for the coming of the reign of God.

That is what baptism is about – a turning point, a turning homeward to God. It involves a ritual cleansing, a sacred bath, a washing clean, and a fresh start.

Then it involves coming up out of that water, taking those first steps, making a new beginning, and accepting the gift of grace that is God’s to give.

Jesus did all this, Jesus the Human One, the Son of Man, because it was the right thing to do, the human thing to do – because he was like us, just like anybody else…

He was willing to be obedient and submit to God’s ultimate authority, receive God’s ultimate grace, and accept God’s ultimate love – and then to go forward, act it out, and live that grace and love in his every move.

Every step he took from that day forward was a step closer to the kingdom of heaven.

Of course he was just like us – only without sin. That one baptism was enough – more than enough – for him... For us we need some ritual, some rite of cleansing, of forgiveness, and acceptance, of new allegiance to God’s grace and glory, more than once. Every day perhaps brings more challenges, some of which we are not adequate to meet on our own power – so we have our ways of renewing our baptismal vows.

In high school I went with my friends to a lot of fundamentalist church gatherings – revivals, coffee houses, Billy Graham movies – and there was always an opportunity to make that one initial commitment to Jesus Christ, that first step, that decision made to follow Jesus.

But what if you had already done it – but needed to further express your faith and your need of grace? What could you do?

You could only walk the sawdust trail so many times (once) before it felt silly.

So you need a way to renew your commitment. We offer two today – and more.

You can always, at any moment, “repent and return to the Lord” – that is, like the Prodigal Son, come to yourself, realize that what you are doing is no way to be living, and return to the loving arms of your heavenly Father. You can and should do that any time you feel the need –

(If the feeling comes on you while you are in traffic abide by all relevant laws – but go ahead and talk to God, let that burden down, and get a fresh start – get renewed – in Christ.)

This morning we have a couple of ways together to renew and remember.

There will be in place of the creed, the reaffirmation of baptismal vows – renewing our commitment to Jesus Christ and re-enlisting our selves (as it were) in his cause.

And, as the service continues, after the general confession we can approach the table together – the table where everybody is welcome – and in the Eucharist re-commit ourselves to God and receive anew God’s gift of grace for us.

For before we were born God knew us, knew he had made us well and for his purpose – and as his Son came out of the waters, he knows us as his own.

Through Christ and with Christ and in Christ we can know these words of welcome – you are my child, with you I am well pleased – apply to us too.

We can receive the gift of becoming God’s children with whom, in the fullness of his grace, God is well pleased.

It is not by our doing – it is through Christ, this one in whose name we are baptized; this one who, just like anybody else, received the baptism of John - and the one who comes to us now, under the form of bread and wine, water and oil; under the form of ordinary human endeavor; bringing us the gift of his presence with us.

And by this ordinary means – by water and the word, by bread and wine, working together – he brings us the gift of newness of life.

God says to us, as David Adam put it in a prayer, God says to us this:

Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you:
I have called you by your name; you are mine.

Lord, you have called us; may we rejoice in your love and saving power, and proclaim your presence and glory in the world.

Protect us from evil; lead us into ways of peace: that we may serve you & rejoice in you.

We thank you, heavenly Father, that you call us to know your grace and put our deepest confidence in you. Increase our knowledge of your grace and confirm this faith in us forever. Pour out your Holy Spirit on all of us as we renew our vows, that being people born anew in Christ, and made heirs of everlasting salvation, through our Lord Jesus Christ, we may continue to serve you and receive the gifts of your promise.

Bring us at last into your kingdom and your gracious presence, without fault or fear, but rejoicing in newness of life.

Through Jesus Christ, compassion incarnate, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, everlasting Father of mercy, and with the Spirit of holiness and truth. Amen.

* * *

Put on Christ and walk in the light. Follow the example of our Savior. Be made like him.

As he died and rose again for us, so being baptized, be dead to sin and alive to righteousness, daily proceeding in all virtue and godliness of living.

And the peace of the Lord be always with you.

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Lord our God, who anointed your Son with the Spirit at the river Jordan, and so hallowed the waters of new birth to bring us forth to salvation: keep us strong in the life of grace, direct the ways of your people, and open the door of your kingdom to all who stand upon the threshold of faith.

(Collect for Epiphanytide, in Celebrating Common Prayer, from Common Worship)




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Saint Alban's Episcopal Church, Edmonds, WA

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Sources and Resources


The Book of Common Prayer (1662, UK)

David Adam

Barbara Crafton

Dorothy Nicholl

Herbert O'Driscoll

Jeff Tobin

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like a dove descending

EXODUS // EXILE // EPIPHANY

Out of Egypt I have called my Son: a call to repentance, a call to turn home.

A voice in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord.

You are my Son, my Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.

As in the depth and darkness of Genesis, before the moving wind of the Spirit, there is nothing in our world but chaos, but when God’s word and Spirit come, there is an epiphany, a showing forth of God’s glory and a quickening of Creation.

Like the people of Israel, called out of Egypt, we are called to pass through a baptismal sea and through a wilderness of transformation into the land of promise.

Like the people of Israel, called back from exile, in repentance we travel from a deep darkness, the bondage of sin, along the way in the wilderness, and across the Jordan into the land of promise once again, into the light.

Through the power of the Spirit all things become new again in Christ.

In Baptism we move from gloom to glory: Baptism for Jesus and for us is being plunged into chaos, the realm of death, the deep dark & formless void, and then being summoned by God’s word out of that nothing to life.

God’s word brings to a chaotic world order, symmetry, and beauty; and a new hope for a future.

However chaotic our lives may be, they are the material out of which God builds us into a new creation. And once we begin to know his redeeming in our selves, we begin to see the Heavens open in the every day.

Creation becomes a series of windows onto eternity, showing us God’s glory. And we are called to live into this new dimension, this new vision of reality.

When Thomas Merton was a young man he lived a full and self-indulgent life of which he became ashamed; at the age of 27 he turned his back on the world and entered a monastery, only to find there the world he had lost. After years of prayer and study and meditation and sacrament, he found his way back to a new connection with the world.

One day, standing on the corner of 4th and Walnut in downtown Louisville he looked around him at all the people passing by; and he saw them with new eyes.

The heavens had opened, indeed. (On another day, he wrote about rain in the city. Rain puddles were shining in a new sun – as the pedestrians crossed at a street corner they seemed to him to be walking through radiant skies, plashing across a field of stars.)

Of course he knew that the world had not changed; but it had become for him a door to the sacred, a sign of God’s glory in the every day.

It was as if the heavens had opened for him and shown him God’s glory: it was an epiphany.

It was as if he was hearing the voice of the Lord – a voice of power, creative, renewing, beautiful, awesome, strengthening, blessing: You are my Son, my Beloved, in whom I am well pleased.

And at last he could hear it as good news for himself and for the world.


http://www.law.louisville.edu/cardinallawyer/node/61


***

In the gospel of Mark, Baptism reveals Jesus’ identity. He seeks Baptism, in obedience, and is endowed with the Spirit, that same Spirit that with ah! bright wings brooded over the primal waters of Genesis. With the Descent of the Dove – God’s new age now begins.

God’s creative power comes rushing out, pouring forth like a river, into and through his Son; the same power that made the world now brings forward its redemption. In the Baptism of Jesus, God identified with us: our human condition and our need for redeeming.

The Word that in Genesis brought order, goodness, life, and well-being, is now calling us from the wilderness into repentance to be transformed and released into the new world of justice, mercy, and peace. In this new beginning, as in the beginning of the world, the spirit wind, the spirit Dove shine forth upon what God has made; he calls his Son beloved, the one in whom he is well pleased, and in Christ and through Christ, by the power of his sacrifice, we are called, too, beloved and pleasing to him. It is the first day, the dawn, of creation, of new creation; all things are made new in Christ — and we live in the hope and grace of Resurrection life.

God’s blessing like a dove descending comes to rest upon us all. In Creation and in Baptism, the spirit moves over the waters. God gives form, order, to the chaotic, formless void, in Genesis; in Baptism he gives peace to lives seemingly chaotic and formless, and he does it once again through water and the spirit.

His order is one of justice, mercy, and peace. His word calls new things into being and all into right relationship under his Christ. We are called through baptism, by repentance & turning, turning home, to become his beloved children.

Through baptism – we are people of the new order of the ages established by his Word. Through baptism – we rejoice in the power of the Spirit descending upon Christ’s body. Through baptism – we are commissioned to serve as his People in the world he has made.

Let us respond to the proclamation of God’s love, by reaffirming our Baptismal Covenant.


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Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (re: March 18, 1958)
Thomas Merton, "Rain and the Rhinoceros", Raids on the Unspeakable

the first servant song - and the son of man

January 13, 2008
The Servant Song and the Son of Man

Isaiah 42:1-9 Acts 10:34-43 Matthew 3:13-17 Psalm 29

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us – that we might share your gospel, and do your work. Amen.

In the Psalm we have recited together this morning, the voice of the Lord is heard as thunder. Over and over again the gigantic voice booms out: trees split, mountains tremble, the wilderness echoes with the great sound. And among the people of God assembled in the Temple, the response is to reply likewise with one great voice, “Glory!”

The Lord is the Thunderer, the Lightning-bringer: the triumphant and majestic one. And it is he, this very one greater than all the earth, who is Israel’s friend. It is he sustains the people of God in the wilderness and brings them in safety into a new home. It is he who gives peace.

It is the one who gives peace, the one who guides his people safely, who appears, also, in the prophet Isaiah. And yet here he is gentle, calm, small. A reed he will not bend. No longer the voice of thunder, or earthquake, or flood, or wind, or fire: God is heard in a still, small voice, a gentle, quiet voice.

A few days before Christmas, in Seattle’s Town Hall, I listened to a performance of Handel’s Messiah. There was a quiet soprano voice, not too loud, but clear: and it sang, “Unto you is born a Savior." Unto you!

The love of the Lord comes quietly to us, personally to us, bringing us the peace and reassurance of a loving Savior traveling by our side. This is the same Lord whose majesty is over all creation. The One who creates heaven and earth is great, beyond all measure or boundary, and yet the smallest creature is his special delight, his particular care.

Peter, in the story from Acts that we have heard today, is in the house of Cornelius, a centurion, a Roman military commander, a Pagan – not a Jew. He has been astonished to find that, yes, God’s hand extends even this far: beyond the national boundaries of Israel, beyond nationality, even into the homes of the people he may have felt most distant from, the occupiers of his land. God’s hand reaches out and reconciles the most polarized of opponents. He is that mighty. He can bring peace.

And, in the story of the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River by John, he not only brings peace: he embodies peace. He comes himself to establish the reign of peace.

At the river the Servant appears. The one in whom the Lord delights, the chosen, the Savior, here he is: fulfilling all righteousness, doing what is fitting for any human being, taking on the sign of baptism, of repentance, of turning again to the Lord and thereby finding new life, this very one who embodies salvation in his person, is here now with us.

John steps back: what are you doing, coming to me? I should be coming to you! No. He is here already. God has sent him and he is doing more than we could ask for: he is taking on our humanity, not saving us by remote control, but by his very being with us, risking alongside us, living alongside us.

Good news: The Servant that Isaiah sung about, the one we have been waiting for, the one that all creation and all nations are waiting for, is Jesus. He is here, in the river, immersed in the water of life.

Great news: The Servant that Isaiah sung about, the light to the nations, called by God in righteousness, is more than just one man. And more than Jesus, standing by himself, wet to the skin, newly emerging from the river water. The people plunge in. They are baptized, too, and they too rise to new Life.

They are the people of God, the people who turn to new life, the people who offer the salvation of God to the whole world. The Servant that Isaiah sung about: is us… We are the people of God, endowed with God’s spirit, sent by Christ into his world to make disciples of all nations, and to embody the love of God.

Jesus is the Servant, yes. He is the one who shows us the way, who is the way. But he is not alone. The whole people of God are the Servant that Isaiah sung about. The people of God are called to follow Jesus into this new world, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon into light.

Peter sees it all at once and just as a beginning: through Cornelius of all people, a Roman centurion, he sees that God shows no partiality but that anyone of any nation who truly worships God and follows righteousness, that is, who does justice, loves mercy, and walks humbly with God, is accepted by God.

Jesus Christ – he is Lord of all. The whole world trembles, and rejoices. The clouds split, the oceans roar, and the people sing in the temple, Amen. “Glory!” they shout.

As Peter said: We are witnesses to all that he did. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate – they hung him from a tree; on the third day he rose again from the dead – God raising him; and he appeared to the witnesses chosen by God, those who eat and drink with him after his resurrection.

Oh, wait a minute: that’s us. We are going to eat and drink with him, this morning, at his table. And we are all welcome. Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins. All are welcome at the Lord’s table.

And when we take in that good news of salvation, and spread it and act on it and live it, we become the Servant, the people of God, along with Jesus. When the voice from heaven, loud and thundering – or quiet and gentle, comes ringing in our ears, what we can hear is God’s pleasure.

This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.


Jesus comes quietly, at first.

The message he brings is simple, and new, and profound. God is doing a new thing, with us. God is not apart from us, triumphant and distant and untouched. He is with us, in our pain and sorrow and grief and joy and laughter and in every new birth, every new beginning. He blesses us.

This day, the feast of the baptism of Jesus himself, we remember our own baptisms as well. As we renew our baptismal vows today, on this feast day of the baptism of our Lord and Savior, we are blessed.

We are blessed by God with abundance of grace: we are fully alive, members of the new creation, the new thing God is doing in our midst, individually, corporately, socially.

Jesus leads the way, through the river – the water of baptism, repentance and newness of life. He leads the way across, into the challenge and promise of a new way of living, a new ordering of life. Jesus the new human being, the son of Man, is the first-born from the dead, who leads us forth from our tomb-like sins and sorrows into a new day, the day of the Lord, when he will refresh us and bring us this day into Paradise, the new world of God’s promise, the place of peace.

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.

This is the promise of God: enacted at the Jordan river, embodied in Jesus; it is the voice of God, “new things I now declare” – calling to us – to follow Jesus, to become part of the new life, and to bear this forth into the world, to the peoples of the earth, becoming a light to all the nations, bringing the good news of freedom and new life.

Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine: Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21 (BCP)