Sermon: “Assumptions that Divide; Baptisms that Bind”, Matthew 3 (January 8, 2023 - Baptism of the Lord Sunday)

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Baptism is one of the most recognizable Christian rituals, possibly because it’s also one of the oldest. The form and function of many of our other traditions – hymn singing, corporate prayer, marriages, funerals, the liturgical year, and so on – are all relatively new; they’ve developed into their current form only after centuries of theological discernment and identity building. Baptism, on the other hand, has been practiced since the days of the Bible, with its form remaining more or less unchanged from what was handed down to us in Matthew’s gospel: we baptize with water (as demonstrated at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Matthew 3) and in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (as established towards the end, in Matthew 28). There remain, of course, plenty of disputes throughout modern Christendom about the specific prayers included, the age required to be baptized, and whether to sprinkle, dunk, or immerse, but the basic elements have remained largely unchanged for over 2000 years.

Rock of Ages: Maundy Thursday 2019

For the last six weeks, our Lenten theme has been "Rock of Ages". One of the ways we explored this theme was by building a "Prayer Cairn" in the Narthex: people were invited to bring in stones from their homes, their sidewalks, the park, or wherever they found them and put them together in a pile. Each stone represented a particular prayer of the person who brought it in.

People got so creative with their rocks!

I had some stones available if folks forgot to bring theirs in, but I was impressed by how many people remembered, week after week. I also really enjoyed the fact that many people make a point to show me their stones before adding them to the cairn, saying, "Isn't this rock so cool?!?" Personally, I chose my stones based on what caught my eye as I was thinking about a person or situation. I feel like every time I had a prayer on my heart, there'd be a stone lying in the path right ahead of me. It was pretty incredible.

Ashes to Ashes

I love Lent.

It's the most visceral of the liturgical seasons; the one I most readily feel in my bones. I love how I have the opportunity to connect with Christ on every level of my being--mind, body, and spirit--through the study, ritual, and reflection that characterizes Lent. There's something about Lent that forces me to STOP and BE and FEEL and UNDERSTAND that the craziness of secular Christmas and the busyness of Advent don't allow.

This is also why I make sure that our services involve some participatory ritual as often as possible.

This year for our Ash Wednesday worship service, we reflected on

where are you divided?

and

where are you being killed?

...Indeed!

Friends, the impossible has happened. Christ is risen! Thanks be to God!

If you read my last post, you remember the ritual that we did involving washing dirty pottery shards. We invited people to take their pieces home as a reminder of our call to serve others, but several people chose the alternative of leaving the pottery that they washed with us. Well, it may not surprise you, but God is able to take the broken and make them new.

For the Love of Symbols

So, in case you didn't know, today is (was) Maundy Thursday.

Traditionally, Maundy Thursday is the day during Holy Week that we commemorate Jesus washing his disciples' feet and commanding them to do the same to others ("Maundy" comes from the Latin word for "command"). Many churches do this by washing one another's feet.

My church does not.