This sermon was preached for Sunday, January 20, 2021 for a joint St. Andrew's and St. Michael's online service. The texts for this sermon were: Genesis 1:1-5, Acts 19:1-7, Mark 1:4-11, and Psalm 29.
We are a covenantal people. Since the publication of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the Episcopal Church has made it our practice to regularly return to the fundamental oath of our faith: the Baptismal Covenant. We say it whenever we participate in a baptism or confirmation. We rise to recite it year after year on the most special of Sundays: Easter, Pentecost, All Saints’ Day, and today, the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord.
As Episcopalians, the baptismal covenant constitutes the heart of what we believe it means to be Christian. We begin at this statement of faith, at these five questions. This is where the Gospel of Mark begins, too. Not with the baby in the manager, but with Jesus’ baptism. The voice crying out in the wilderness is the voice calling us to return to our own baptismal waters, to right relationship with God. When we stand to reaffirm to our baptismal vows, we begin again from the foundational principles that guide our lives. We define again who we are meant to be: beloved and called to love.
The beauty of these words and these questions is that they do not change from that last time we recited them. Their changelessness reveals how much we have been changed by the challenges and experiences we have endured. Their sameness illumines the needs of this particular time: this day’s prayers to pray, evils to resist, Good News to proclaim, people to serve, and human dignities to protect.
The reaffirmation of our baptismal vows is our moment to answer John the Baptist’s invitation to repentance. It is our chance to reckon with how we have grown to meet our promises, and how we have stumbled in their fulfillment. Our hope lies in our determination to renew our relationship to God and one another.
The thing is we haven’t reaffirmed our baptismal vows as either parish community since we stopped gathering in person. In fact, the last time I remember doing so with St. Andrew’s was at our last parish baptism together way back in February. So I wanted to invite you to reaffirm your baptismal vows today. It will feel different than before. We won’t be rising up shoulder to shoulder, we won’t get to hear our voices mingle and join together. We’ll need to trust that our communities, separate as we are in space and time, are still joined by the Holy Spirit.
As we do this together, notice those differences, yes, but also take time to weigh each question in your mind. How have these sacred promises grown, deepened, and changed since we affirmed them together? How has this strange time of our Christian life, these challenges and experiences, shifted their meaning for you?
In just ten days, our nation will gather virtually to witness another ritual oath-taking. Our new president will be sworn in using the same words presidents have used for hundreds of years, the same ritual we undertook as a country just four years ago. But that sameness will strikingly reveal how much we have changed as a nation—not only in these last four years, but in these last four days. The sacred inaugural words will be uttered in the shadows of Wednesday’s horrific attack at the heart of our nation.
The images of violation and desecration from January 6th: the parading of the confederate flag through the rotunda, the raising of a noose and gallows in the plaza, zip-ties, assault rifles, and bear spray, the shattered glass and ransacked offices painted a vivid picture of the brokenness of that oath, and of our most sacred promises to one another. The attempt of the Capitol invaders to interrupt constitutional processes represented, in the words of our presiding bishop Michael Curry, a threat to the “integrity of our democracy.” If we are indeed a covenantal people, what do we do when sacred ties that bind us are so violently severed?
The Bishop of Massachusetts Alan Gates wrote in a reflection to the Diocese yesterday:
"In the past few days many expressions of dismay and outrage have included some version of the cry, 'This is not who we are!' I understand this cry as an expression of aspiration: 'This is not who we aspire to be.' 'This does not represent the values we espouse.' But if we are to move forward as a nation with determination and hope, we cannot begin with a categorical denial–'This is not who we are!'–which is manifestly not true. Rather, we must look ourselves in the mirror and say, 'This is part of who we are; let us repent and change.'"
Presiding Bishop Curry reminded us in his Friday address that moments of national crisis and danger are moments of decision-making, when we as a people ask ourselves anew: “Who shall will be? What kind of nation, what kind of people shall we be?”
This is an enormous and difficult question that our nation will struggle with for a long time. But as Christians we can start today. And we knew where to start. Our answer begins from, and is grounded in, our baptismal promises: our belovedness and our calling to love.
There is no better moment to commit ourselves again to the praying of prayers, the resisting of evils, and the proclaiming of Good News. There is no better day to pledge to love our neighbor as ourselves, to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being. In this time of physical separateness, we can lean on the community of these shared words. We can choose to trust that enough of us are standing together to make a change. We can have faith that we do all this with God’s help. We can know that these promises are not just old, oft-repeated words. They are who we aspire to be: beloved and called to love.
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| "Trump supporters erect wooden gallows near the Capitol Reflecting Pool, just one example of the racist and anti-Semitic imagery on display at the riot on Wednesday. The noose is a symbol of the lynching of Black Americans." - Elaine Godfrey, The Atlantic, January 9, 2021 SHAY HORSE / NURPHOTO / GETTY |
I invite you now to join with Rev. Margaret as she leads us in reaffirming our baptismal vows.
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