7th Sunday after Pentecost: July 15, 2012

7^th Sunday after Pentecost: July 15, 2012

Isaiah 43:1-7

Song of Solomon 8:6-7

John 11:1-6, 17-35 

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie B. Smith

"Many Waters Cannot Quench Love"

Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Lately I’ve been following the story of a friend on her CaringBridge site. She’s a cyber friend, really—a woman I met through an online support community for infertility and pregnancy loss. Kendrah had a massive stroke in April at just 35 years old. She is still in the hospital, struggling to walk, to talk, and to care for herself. Her three young children are being raised by relatives while she recovers. Her husband , a doctor himself, is at her bedside every moment that he’s not caring for his own patients.

Kendrah’s story has been inspiring to read, and she’s made great strides considering she was not expected to live, much less recover. But the other day her husband wrote that in spite of her physical victories, Kendrah is struggling spiritually. He teased her one day as she was working on her walking exercises: “Come on, have a little faith”, and she snapped right back: “I have no faith…it’s all used up.”

Most weeks, I would have read this and stopped to say a prayer for Kendrah myself. I might have written her an encouraging note, reminding her how God is with her in her struggles, how Jesus knows her pain, and how the Holy Spirit gives us strength beyond measure. 

But this week, her words “I have no faith—it’s all used up” hit too close to home for me. Our faith has surely been tested here at Bethany the last few months. There has been too much sadness, too many funerals, too much cancer, too many young people, gone too soon.

Monday morning I called the Kearns family to let them know I was thinking of them on what would have been Jennifer’s 20^th birthday. And then Monday night, barely 12 hours later, I was in the hospital watching a strong, handsome 18 year old young man lie in a bed that could barely hold his 6 foot 1 inch frame, as a machine breathed for him. I prayed and read Scripture with Connor’s mom and dad, but I could hardly believe it was happening again. Another young life cut short senselessly. Inside, I was crying out: “Why, God?” What is the purpose of so much suffering? How much can one family, one congregation, one community take? How much can one pastor take, for that matter? In the words of Psalm 13:

“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?”

If you came to church today so your pastor could tell you all the answers or explain why this had to happen, I’m afraid you’ll be going home disappointed. I have at least as many questions as you. Here are a few that may sound familiar:

Why do young people die? 

Why should any mother or father have to bury a child?

Why do 8 year old girls get brain tumors?

Why do talented teachers get Parkinson’s and lose the ability to speak?

Why don’t we have a vaccine for cancer or a cure for mental illness?

Most of all, this week, I would like to know: Where were you, God, when Connor was in the water on Monday? 

Believe it or not, seminary didn’t provide me with all these answers. 

As I sat vigil with Jan and Brian at Connor’s bedside this week, I  knew I didn’t possess any good answers or magic prayers. But I did have time, and a Bible—and so I turned to Scripture.

The readings we heard this morning are a few that spoke to me this week, and I hope they might speak to you, too, as we struggle through this grief together.

The first verses I came across were from Isaiah, chapter 43: 

“But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.” 

At first, these verses hit me like a ton of bricks. I wanted to throw them back in God’s face to say: “But, wait! When Connor passed through the waters, they did overwhelm him! Where were you!”

But then I went back to read the first part again: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine.” 

Before Connor was ever in the Fox River, he passed through other waters. Connor was baptized in water right here at Bethany. His mom and dad brought him to this very font when he was 2 years old, and it was there that he heard the words, “Connor Nelson, you are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” And then, as a cross was traced on his forehead he heard the words, “Connor Nelson, child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.”  

In baptism, God called Connor by name. From that day forward, he belonged to Christ. Our faith teaches us that our baptism gives us our identity. It is a great comfort to me to know that no matter what the newspaper headlines say, Connor will never be the “Crystal Lake man pulled from river”, but he is and always will be “Connor Nelson Priesz, child of God.” 

Another Scripture passage that jumped out at me this week is from a rarely-read book of the Bible, the Song of Solomon. This entire book is basically a long love letter, often interpreted as being about the love God has for humankind. From Song of Solomon, chapter 8: 

“Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.” 

“Many waters cannot quench love.” This is most certainly true of the love Connor’s mom and dad had for their son. Jan barely left his side for three days, and Brian’s tenderly written eulogy in yesterday’s service speaks volumes about his love for his son. But this love letter from the Song of Solomon isn’t about parental love—it’s about God’s divine love for us. “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm” says God. In other words: Stick with me. You can even tattoo my name on your arm—because my love isn’t going anywhere. These verses call to mind the words of Romans 8, which proclaim that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

These verses may not explain why the waters overwhelmed Connor that day, but they do reassure me he wasn’t there alone, and God’s love for us is bigger than any river. 

Finally, you heard the story of the raising of Lazarus this morning. It might seem strange for us to hear the story of a man who was raised from the dead by Jesus, when we are grieving the fact that our prayers for healing went unanswered this week. 

And yet, this story has a few things to say to this situation. 

Verse 21 says that even Mary cried out in anger: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!” It is good to know that our anger, our confusion, and even our lack of faith can be laid at Jesus’ feet. 

But it is perhaps even greater comfort to read verse 35 (every Confirmation student’s favorite memorization verse): “Jesus wept.”

Jesus, the son of God, our Lord and Savior, cried real tears at the death of his friend. This fact assures me that we don’t have to approach death with a holier-than-thou, everything will be fine, “It’s ok, he’s with Jesus” attitude. Jesus wept, and so can we.

After turning to Scripture this week, I also turned to my seminary preaching professor, Dr. Craig Satterlee, for some guidance and prayer. I posed the same questions to him: Why? Where was God on Monday? Was God in the water with Connor? 

And this is what he said (via Facebook chat, as I sat in the ICU):

“Jesus was in the water with Connor. "God" is too impersonal for me. Jesus was drowning with Connor. St. Ambrose says Jesus is buried with us, whether we are buried in water or dirt. And Jesus will raise Connor to new life. That Jesus did not do so on Monday is beyond comprehension. So we can only raise our fists to God, who loves us enough to receive our outrage. And we can dare to trust God to raise us from this death to new life. But it comes slowly and takes a long time.”

My only response—after a few tears—was to write to Dr. Satterlee: “Thank you.” Thank you for preaching to me. Thank you for having faith for me when mine was being tested. And thank you for giving me the strength to continue this walk with Connor’s family, and with Bethany, my church family. 

Sisters and brothers, I give thanks to God for each of you, and for the opportunity we have to walk together in our grief, to hold one another in prayer, and to serve the God who has called us each by name, and who never lets us go. Amen.

3rd Sunday after Pentecost: June 17, 2012

3^rd Sunday after Pentecost: June 17, 2012

Mark 4:26-34

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie B. Smith

On this Father’s Day, it seems appropriate to tell a story that at least begins with my father. Therefore I’ll tell you how, in the summers after my freshman and sophomore years in college, my dear Dad kindly arranged a summer job for me, so I wouldn’t be bored sitting around the house. Wasn’t that nice of him? Happy Father’s Day, Dad! I had taught a few piano lessons and had held a job as  Sunday morning pianist at the Freewill Baptist Church in town, but this was my first non-music job—and it was a job working for one of my dad’s friends. No pressure!

But before you feel too sorry for me (I did plenty of that for myself), you should know this summer job was far from the burger-slinging or toddler-chasing I could have been doing. I had no reason to whine, in fact, because what my dad had arranged was a job working in the university botany lab.

Thanks to my dad, I had the privilege of working for eight hours a day in an air-conditioned, sterile, nearly soundless room, carefully placing Arabidopsis thaliana into Petri dishes. In plain language, my job was planting mustard seeds.

If I had known I would one day be a pastor, I might have appreciated the irony of spending the summer planting mustard seeds. As it was, I did appreciate the air-conditioning. But I was a music major, and I therefore understood exactly nothing of what I was going on in that lab.

Pick up seed with tweezers, wash seed in Clorox, set timer for 90 seconds, wait, rinse seed in water, plant seed in Petri dish. Repeat. Seed, after seed, after seed. Mark 4 verse 31 says the mustard seed is “the smallest seed on earth.” I’m sure this isn’t technically true, but let’s just say that mustard seeds are small. Very, very small.

And it was all very strange to me. What was the point? I’m sure I did ask that question, but even the answer was incomprehensible. And so I continued on: picking up seeds, washing them, and planting them. I simply had to trust that somehow, something was happening with those seeds.

On weekends, I was sometimes on watering duty, and it was then I could see the results of my endless hours of tweezing and bleaching and planting. Unlike my sterile planting chamber, this room was packed with mustard plants, and they were growing—like weeds!

Here were the results the professors and students were hoping for. Here were hundreds of flowering plants, growing to maturity from those microscopic seeds. Here was the harvest, mysteriously growing even though I had no idea what I was doing.  Later, I would learn that Arabadopsis thaliana became the first plant to have its entire genome sequenced. 

Jesus says the kingdom is like that: “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” 

We plant seed, after seed, after seed. We teach Sunday school. We’re kind to our neighbors and are active in the community. We smile at the check-out girl and invite her to church. We give our offering checks. We pray: “thy kingdom come, thy will be done”. And some days we wonder if it’s making any difference at all!

It’s especially hard to see the kingdom coming when giving is down, when it’s summer and the pews aren’t filled, and when our young people don’t come to church. It’s hard to see the kingdom at hand when our neighbors are losing their homes, when the cost of insurance means our loved ones can’t see the doctor, or when children are dying of malaria. And yet we trust. We keep planting, and praying, and trusting that the kingdom will indeed come, on earth as it is in heaven. 

And—thanks be to God—it does! While we sleep and rise, the seed sprouts and grows, though we do not know how. The kingdom “is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”

This weekend I had the privilege of attending the Northern Illinois Synod Assembly with your fellow church members Joel Thoreson, Ron and Pat Henning, Shirley Anderson, Karla Malpica, Bethany Gola, Michael Fortin, and Mel Meier. We heard reports from committees, passed the budget, honored retirees and clergy anniversaries, watched promotional videos and celebrated the 25^th year of the ELCA and the Northern Illinois Synod. (we also ate dessert at every meal!)

As fascinating as parliamentary procedures can be, the best moment of the weekend was yesterday when we welcomed Lord of Love Lutheran Church in Galena as a congregation of the ELCA and the Northern Illinois Synod. 

Bishop Wollersheim invited members of the congregation on the stage, and suddenly from behind us we heard the sound of a trumpet, a tambourine, and singing: “Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen!” And here they came: black and white and brown, young and old, singing down the aisle and onto the stage. Lord of Love’s pastor, Dennis Hill, had been ordained the night before, and they were clearly still glowing from that joyous event. 

That sight alone might have been enough to lift our spirits after a lengthy session of historical speeches and Robert’s Rules of Order! And then we heard the story of Lord of Love.

Lord of Love began as an informal group of just thirteen people. Some of had been members of congregations that left the ELCA. Some had been without a church home for years before, or had never felt welcome in one. But in 2009, those 13 believers came to the Synod office and asked if they could become an ELCA congregation. They had a vision of becoming a church for all believers in Christ, where all are welcome regardless of age, disability, gender, nationality, race, religious background, sexual identity or socioeconomic status. In their own words: “At Lord of Love, when we say “All Are Welcome,” we mean it.”

There were some problems to overcome: for one thing, their pastor wasn’t Lutheran, but Baptist! They had no idea what they were doing. As their congregational president said, starting a new church isn’t on anyone’s bucket list! And on that first day, when they opened their doors, they weren’t sure anyone would come to the kind of church they had envisioned and described. For the first few minutes, it was just the thirteen of them, alone. 

But then they started to arrive. Cars drove into the parking lot. Families walked in. Community members they had never seen darken the doors of their old churches were coming to this one.

That was in 2009. This year, at their official organizational meeting, there were more than 125 signers! Lord of Love, which at one time looked like nothing more than a handful of tiny stray seeds, has now grown and put forth large branches, so that the birds of the air—all the birds of the air—can make nests in its shade. 

The thing is, we often expect the kingdom to look like one thing, and it ends up being completely different. We too easily dismiss tiny seeds. We assume nothing is growing if we can’t see it happening.

And yet Jesus tells us to trust. Trust that in spite of our worries or statistics that seemed stacked against us, the kingdom is coming. Trust that in spite of dire predictions that the mainline churches are dying, Christianity has become irrelevant, or the world is going to hell in a handbasket, we have reason to hope. 

Our hope is in the One who said, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand” and “the kingdom of God has come near”. Our hope is in the One who sees in a handful of discarded church members and lonely souls the seeds of a new church. Our hope is in the One who heals girls everyone else thought was dead and who gives blind men sight. Our hope is in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, friend of the friendless, voice of the voiceless, our master gardener, the water of life, our rock and our redeemer. Amen!

2nd Sunday after Pentecost: June 10, 2012

2^nd Sunday after Pentecost: June 10, 2012

Mark 3:20-35

Preacher: Pastor Carrie B. Smith

*Many thanks to Anna Carter Florence and her book "Preaching as Testimony" (Westminster John Knox Press, 2007) for introducing me to the story of Jarena Lee. Thanks also to Dr. Craig Satterlee for his Logjam Appointment which provided the inspiration for this sermon.*

Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jarena Lee was born in Cape May, New Jersey, on February 11, 1783. She was most likely born to free parents, but at the age of seven her family’s poverty meant she was hired out as a servant and would not see her family again for fourteen years. This was effectively a legal form of slavery, and an all-too common African-American story of the time.

As a result of these difficult beginnings, Jarena struggled with depression and feelings of abandonment her whole life, but in 1804, at the age of twenty-one, she moved to Philadelphia to gain a fresh start. Her first order of business was to find a place to worship, and that she did, at the African Methodist Episcopal Church headed by Pastor Richard Allen. Upon finding her church family, she wrote, “This is the people to whom my heart unites.” 

But just three weeks into her time at the A.M.E. church, Jarena experienced a strange thing. Just as the preacher was beginning his Sunday sermon, Jarena writes:

“That moment, though hundreds were present, I did leap to my feet and declare that God, for Christ’s sake, had pardoned the sins of my soul…For a few moments I had the power to exhort sinners, and to tell of the wonders and of the goodness of Him who had clothed me with His salvation. During this time the minister was silent, until my soul felt its duty had been performed, when he declared another witness of the power of Christ to forgive sins on earth, was manifest in my conversion.” 

Now a parishioner leaping to her feet in the middle of a sermon would certainly get our attention today here at Bethany, but in 1804 there were some very good reasons why this would be more than odd—most notably, the fact that Jarena Lee was a woman.

If a man had leaped to his feet in such a manner, one might have expected him to be called in to the pastor’s office, perhaps taken under his wing and nurtured into an assistant preacher. But women were not only forbidden from being preachers in the year 1804—they weren’t even allowed to speak in church. This event, therefore, was for Jarena and her church community nothing more than an exciting anomaly in an otherwise normal Sunday worship service. No one called Jarena into the pastor’s office. No one recommended seminary or suggested she call the candidacy committee. No one took her seriously, because Jarena was a woman, and of course, God doesn’t work that way.

A few years later, however, in 1811, it happened again. Jarena writes:

“On a certain time, an impressive silence fell upon me, and I stood as if some one was about to speak to me, yet I had no such thought in my heart.—But to my utter surprise there seemed to sound a voice which I thought I distinctly heard, and most certainly understand, which said to me, “Go preach the Gospel”! I immediately replied aloud, “No one will believe me.” Again I listened, and again the same voice seemed to say—“Preach the Gospel; I will put words in your mouth, and will turn your enemies to become your friends.”

This time, Jarena began to seriously doubt her sanity. Maybe this was Satan speaking, and not God! After all, there were exactly zero “lady pastors” in her life to act as role models or mentors. Women preachers were as unbelievable as unicorns or the Cubs winning a World Series. How could she be certain this was God calling her? Just to be sure, Jarena went in to visit her pastor, Richard Allen.

Pastor Allen listened carefully as Jarena explained that God had called her to preach. And then he coolly commented that “the Discipline knew nothing at all about it—that it did not call for women preachers.” Call it tradition, call it church authority, call it “good order”, but for Jarena Lee, the answer was, “God doesn’t work that way.” 

So Jarena went home and did what many a frustrated woman preacher has done: she married one instead. Sadly, just six years later her husband, the Reverend Joseph Lee, died, leaving her with two small children. And Jarena couldn’t ignore the call any longer.

So she went back to visit Pastor Allen, and this time he granted her permission to hold “prayer meetings” and to “exhort” but of course never to preach. Why? Because, of course, God doesn’t work that way.

But one Sunday in worship, the preacher stood up and read the text from Jonah and then—in Jarena’s words—he seemed to “lose the Spirit.” So Jarena leaped to her feet and interrupted the preacher. 

“I told them I was like Jonah; for it had been then nearly eight years since the Lord had called me to preach his gospel to the fallen sons and daughters of Adam’s race, but that I had lingered like him, and delayed to go at the bidding of the Lord…During the exhortation, God made manifest his power in a manner sufficient to show the world that I was called to labor according to my ability, and the grace given unto me.”

When she sat down, Jarena braced herself to be thrown out of the church or at least publicly reprimanded. Instead, Pastor Allen stood up and told the congregation that God had changed his mind. He now believed that Jarena was indeed called preach! And really, what choice did he have? There she was: a unicorn; a preaching woman right there in their midst. 

After that day, Jarena went on to become the first woman licensed to preach in the A.M.E. church (a full 150 years before the ELCA, by the way) and to have a thirty year preaching career. She was also only the second African-American woman to have a book published—a book in which she chronicles how she "travelled two thousand three hundred and twenty-five miles, and preached one hundred and seventy-eight sermons.” God does work that way, it turns out.

Jarena Lee’s story highlights the way we so often get caught up in our judgments about how God can and does work in the world. It wasn’t too long ago that our denomination said: “Women can’t preachers! God doesn’t work that way!” And yet here I stand—along with Angela and Mary Carol and a host of other female Lutheran preachers who came before us. 

Women’s ordination is generally a non-issue for us today, but there are certainly others we get hung up on. 

Gay people can’t get married! God doesn’t work that way.

You can’t just welcome everybody to communion! God doesn’t work that way.

You can’t just feed people, because they’ll keep coming back! God doesn’t work that way. 

You can’t heal people on the Sabbath, Jesus! God doesn’t work that way.

You can’t send fishermen to cast out demons, Jesus! God doesn’t work that way. 

You can’t forgive everyone, all their sins, Jesus, and in such a dramatic and public way! God doesn’t work that way.

Most often, of course, when we say “God doesn’t work that way” what we really mean is “the church doesn’t work that way” or “our culture doesn’t work that way” or “our government doesn’t work that way”…or, if we’re honest: “I don’t feel comfortable when God works that way.”

This is what is happening in the scene from Mark chapter 3 which we heard this morning. Jesus was surrounded by the crowds, who were so eager to see him he couldn’t even find time to eat. He was healing people right and left, even on the Sabbath, and even when they were unclean. He was eating with tax collectors and sinners. He was silencing demons and teaching with authority. But others were uncomfortable with Jesus working like this. In fact, his family heard the rumors that he was out of his mind, and they showed up to haul him home. 

And the scribes—well, the scribes were like the pastor and other church authorities who told Jarena Lee “our discipline doesn’t call for woman preachers”. The scribes took one look at what Jesus was doing and said “God doesn’t work that way. This must be Beelzebul. He’s obviously possessed by a demon!” In other words: “You’re making us uncomfortable, Jesus.”

And Jesus’ response is one that should make us sit up and take notice.

There are many sins which we humans might consider to be unforgivable. And yet Jesus has said that the one thing God cannot forgive is blaspheming against the Holy Spirit—which, contrary to what I thought when growing up, has nothing to do with spouting four-letter words. Blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, as seen in this Gospel passage, is denying the work of God. Blaspheming against the Holy Spirit is what happens when we take a look at who Jesus is healing, who God is forgiving, who God is calling to preach the Gospel, or how the Spirit is moving in a place and among a people and say: “Nope. God doesn’t work that way. That must be Satan.”

Jesus directed these strong words to a people who thought they knew everything.  This was very bad news for the scribes and authority figures who thought they had the power to decide how God works and when. For there he was, standing before them: Jesus, son of a carpenter and Son of God; Jesus, healer of our souls; Jesus, friend of the friendless; Jesus, our brother; Jesus Christ, our Savior, come to set the captives free. 

And this Jesus, crucified and risen, reveals to us the Good News that God does indeed work this way:

God forgives beyond our deepest hopes.

God heals against anyone’s rules. 

God creates family where we least expect it. 

God saves us from our own judgments.

God seeks out the lost.

God makes a way out of no way.

God is still speaking—and still shattering our expectations.

Wherever we see healing, wholeness, forgiveness and reconciliation rising out of judgment, fear, and brokenness, we see Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit, and we can say without a doubt, “Yes, indeed God does work that way!”

HOLY TRINITY/BAPTISM SUNDAY

HOLY TRINITY/BAPTISM SUNDAY: June 3, 2012

John 3:1-16

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie B. Smith

Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

  This morning we began worship with some sprinkling and the invitation to “Come to the water and remember your baptism.” For those of you who were baptized as infants—which is the norm among Lutherans—this may seem a strange invitation. How can I remember my baptism, when I was only six weeks old at the time? For that matter, how can I remember my baptism, when most days I can’t remember what I had for breakfast?

Gene Bengston does remember his baptism. He was about 12 years old, and he was baptized at Zion Lutheran in Kewanee, Illinois along with his older brother. These were the years of the Great Depression, and in the view of Gene’s father, if you didn’t have money to put in the offering plate, you didn’t go to church. There was no money, so no church for a long while for Gene and his 13 siblings.

But then it came time for one of the older brothers to get confirmed, and when the pastor learned he wasn’t yet baptized, arrangements were made.  It was done in private—just Gene and his parents and brother, and definitely not on a Sunday morning. Some of you (especially Mr. Bengston’s former 8th grade Confirmation students) may enjoy knowing that his primary concern—in fact, his main thought after this blessed event—was, “Hey…maybe I won’t have to go to Confirmation!” After all, at twelve he must already be old enough to fulfill his baptismal promises on his own. Feel free, confirmands, to ask Mr. Bengston how that conversation went with his pastor.

Mary Ellen Thoreson does not remember her baptism, but she knows the story well. She’s been told many times how she was baptized on Palm Sunday—the only day of the year her family’s Methodist church celebrated baptisms—and there were eleven other babies being dunked that day. Twelve babies sort of makes our “Baptismapalooza” look like small potatoes!

Now I have experienced Mary Ellen to be a thoughtful, kind, and somewhat quiet woman. But on that day, 3 month old Mary Ellen was screaming at the top of her lungs. In fact, she screamed so loud and so long that the pastor had to shout to be heard over her! And then, without warning, Mary Ellen was suddenly quiet—and this left the poor pastor screaming at his parishioners: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!”

We can all remember the baptismal birthday of Marianne and Dick Anderson’s daughter Suzanne, because she was baptized on July 20, 1969, which also happens to be the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. I couldn’t help but wonder if the pastor mentioned the upcoming moonwalk in his sermon that day, but Marianne says no. What a missed opportunity! I realize the moonwalk didn’t happen until later that day, and those famous words had not yet been spoken, but oh, how I would have loved the chance to mention that baptism is “One small splash for humans, but one giant bath of grace for humankind.” Amen?

Here at Bethany we are preparing to meet next week the young man who is our candidate to be Associate Pastor for Youth and Family Ministries. His name is Paul, and as we began the interviewing process I spoke with him on the phone. I had read in his paperwork that Paul was raised in Utah, so one of the first things I asked was, “Do you know anything about Crystal Lake and the Chicagoland area?” I certainly never expected the answer he gave. “Actually, Pastor Carrie…I think I might have been baptized at Bethany!”

And this is most certainly true: Paul Cannon (and his identical twin brother, Neal, as well as two sisters) were all baptized here in this font, in the midst of this community, a few decades ago. Nothing in his profile would have indicated this to the bishop or his staff, and until he asked his parents for sure, even Paul wasn’t certain of it, for he moved away when he was quite young.

And yet, here we are, preparing to meet a young man for whom this community made promises so many years ago. On the day when Paul and his twin brother were brought to the water, this community promised to support Paul and pray for him in his new life in Christ. As a community, you promised to be there for him—praying, providing a Christian education, supporting his family, forgiving, loving, and most of all, showing him how to be the body of Christ in the world. And now it seems he may have the opportunity to fulfill those baptismal promises himself: praying for us, forgiving us, loving us, and helping to provide a quality Christian education for the next generation in this community.

Community is the most common thread in nearly all the baptism stories I heard this week.  Above all else, we most often remember (or have been told) who was there with us on that important day: pastors, parents, godparents, siblings, friends, a church community. And that’s why, sisters and brothers, it is so very appropriate for us to celebrate baptisms on Holy Trinity Sunday. The Holy Trinity, in all its mystery, is perhaps best understood as God in community.

Camillus Lyimo, in the book “African Christian Spirituality”, writes:

“Though for us knowledge of the life of the Trinity is indeed little, yet we can say that the most perfect community or ujamaa is the Trinity. The Trinity establishes God as community. Jesus Christ revealed the Trinity to us. God wished to share with humanity and with the entire creation his own community life in the person of Jesus Christ…Our life is a shared life in the Trinity.”
In our individualistic culture, baptism is often treated as a personal, individual, “Get out of sin free” card. But on Holy Trinity Sunday, we are reminded that the God who is present with us in the water and the Word is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—one in three and three in one, a community in God’s self—making baptism anything but an individual experience. Through baptism, we are united with all the baptized in the one body of Christ, anointed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and joined in God's mission for the life of the world.

Lutherans baptize infants chiefly because we trust in God’s free gift of grace, seen in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and poured out on all the baptized. But because we baptize infants, we also we put our trust in community. We know that Johnathan, Ivana, Reese, Prestyn, Grant, Jackson and Liam do not come to the water of their own accord or with faith in God today. We trust in community—this community—to fulfill the promises of baptism.

In the years to come we will love them, pray for them, place in their hands the Holy Scriptures, and tell them about Abraham and Sarah, David and Goliath, Jonah and Noah, and Mary and Joseph. We will forgive them as Christ forgave us; we will gather with them at the table to share the bread and the wine; and we will watch eagerly to see how God uses them in God’s mission to the world.
And we will help them remember their baptisms.

When bullies try to tell our children who they are, we help them remember they belong to Christ, in whom they were baptized.

When cancer or addiction or depression try to claim our sons and daughters, we help them remember they have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and claimed as sons and daughters of God.

When society labels children as learning disabled, troublemakers, underachievers, or simply “different”, we help them remember they have been marked with the cross of Christ forever.

When any child of God doubts her worth or becomes weighed down by sin and judgment, we help her remember she has been washed clean, once and for all, through water and the Word.

And when, like Nicodemus, our children ask us, “How can these things be?” we will speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen: God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

And all God’s people said: Amen.