Living Wet
January 08, 2012
Rev. Susan E. Gilbert Zencka
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: Mark 1:4-11, Isaiah 55:1-13
In 1984, Robert Duvall won an Oscar for Best Actor for his role in the 1983 film, Tender Mercies, one of my favorite movies. He played Mac Sledge, a country singer who had drunk himself out of a career and a marriage before the movie begins. The film concerns his redemption and new life, which come as he builds a relationship with a younger widowed mother, Rosa Lee, played by Tess Harper. At one point, Rosa Lee’s son, called Sonny, and Mack both decide to get baptized, and as they drive home after church, Sonny asks Mack, “You feel any different?”
“No,” answers Mack.
“Me neither,” responds Sonny.
Perhaps they expected too much from the moment… but I think probably most of us make the opposite mistake as Mack and Sonny – we don’t expect too much from baptism, we expect too little.
Baptism and Communion are the two sacraments that Presbyterians celebrate – in the Catholic Church there are seven sacraments, and as Protestants we need to remember that our maiden name was Catholic – in the 2000-year history of Christianity, Protestants were Catholic for the first 1500+ years. So let’s remember that Catholic originally meant universal, as we discuss our common history. As I said, in the Catholic Church, there are seven sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Penance (which used to be called confession and is now called the sacrament of reconciliation), Last Rites (which is Anointing, also called a sacrament of healing), Marriage, Ordination, and the Lord’s Supper (also called communion, or Eucharist). Most Protestants only celebrate two sacraments: baptism and communion. We celebrate the others in one form or other, but we don’t call them sacraments formally, we call them rites (R-I-T-E-S, which you could think of as prayerful rituals) and ordinances -- that is, they are rituals that are part of the way we order our lives together
So what are sacraments? Sacraments are “sacred moments”. In that sense there could be thousands of sacraments -- perhaps you experienced the grace of God in the birth of your child -- in that sense it was a sacrament for you. Perhaps growing up you experienced the love of God through sharing your family stories together and realizing how God had gifted you with each other -- so storytelling was sacramental for your family. Perhaps being outside in nature has become sacramental to you -- you experience a sense of awe around God as creator through your experience of nature. In earlier times, people were more aware of God’s presence through their everyday experiences than we are in our modern, more secular world. St. Augustine had a list of 304 sacraments. In the twelfth century, in an effort to bring uniformity and order, and in an effort to make sure that the sacraments weren’t trivialized, the church defined the seven sacraments I listed earlier. And these sacraments have certain elements in common. First, they were part of the ministry of Jesus in one way or another. And second, they bring us into unity with both Christ and the community of faith -- they are not private moments between God and a person. We may have private experiences as part of the sacrament, but they are not purely private moments.
As we look at the cross, we see the vertical dimension, and that can remind us of our relationship with God through Christ. And there is also the horizontal dimension, which reminds us of our relationship with each other as sisters and brothers in Christ. The definition we learned in seminary is that a sacrament as “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” The outward sign is water, or bread and juice -- it is physical and can be perceived by the senses. The inward part is spiritual – we experience God’s love – which we may have a feeling around or not. When we act in baptism, our actions are both outward -- we physically experience the water, and inward -- we respond in faith to God’s claim on us. As Protestants developed their own institutions that were not part of the Catholic Church, we rejected many of the Church’s hierarchy and traditions, and part of that was a narrowing of the list of sacraments to the two we celebrate. An important thing for Protestants is that the sacrament that calls us to ministry is not ordination – for us, ordination is not a sacrament. The sacrament that calls us to ministry is baptism – each of us is called and claimed by God in baptism. The Protestant phrase “the ministry of all believers” is a reminder that each of us is called to be part of God’s work in the world.
In recent years, when I visited churches in Tanzania, Colombia, and in Bethlehem on the West Bank in Israel, I was so aware that in some ways, our brothers and sisters in less affluent parts of the world have some real advantages over us in experiencing the spiritual dimensions of life. In the affluent West, we build our lives around our jobs, our hobbies, and the things we have. Yes, we have relationships, and we have faith, but these often do not define our lives the way they do in Tanzania, Colombia and Palestine. Again and again I observed the church’s in these less-advantaged parts of the world experiencing deep loving relationships with one another, a real sense that they were called to a different kind of living than the culture that surrounded them, a profound sense of trust in God, and a joy that transcended the poverty (and in Colombia and Palestine, the violence) in their communities. There was no question but that their faith in God and their love for one another defined their lives in ways that I rarely observe here, at least in the mainline churches. And these were not churches that we would call evangelical – at least not conservative evangelical. In Colombia, the Iglesia Presbiteriana de Colombia is as welcoming and inclusive as is our church – and these churches were busy every day of the week. The church we visited in Bethlehem on the West Bank has a vibrant peacemaking mission, art studios, and child care. Our brothers and sisters in the churches in Colombia, Tanzania, and on the West Bank in Israel share each others’ lives in a way that strengthens each of them, and the community as a whole.
Baptism is a sign and symbol of the quality of life that God intends for us – we are called into the rich community of people of God, to engage with God, with each other, with all people, and with God’s creation in a way that includes deep, mutual relationships, following God’s ways, forgiving others and being forgiven, delighting in the gifts of God’s creation in a non-exploitive way, experiencing a richness and abundance that can only come through the spiritual dimension of life. Our affluence cannot provide it. Listen to the reading from Isaiah 55 – it describes that kind of rich, abundant, joyous life that God intends for us. [Read Isaiah 55:1-13.]
As I said, I think that many of us expect too little from our faith – we are the community of the baptized, and we are called to a quality of life that flows from our trust in God and our relationships with one another, and in which our jobs and our hobbies are part of the way we respond to God. How does our faith define our lives? How does it make us different than we would be otherwise? It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re in church every day – many of our members live out their commitment to God in other places – by helping the hungry through Operation Bootstrap or our own Frame Feeds meals, by caring for folks through volunteering through Justiceworks or tutoring kids or visiting our members who are in need. We should not wall ourselves off from the world in the church – our life in church should lead us to engagement with the world. And as we plant ourselves in one another and in God’s work in the world, we begin to harvest the joy that God intends for us all.
Baptism is a ritual that we enact to welcome people into the full, rich life of the community of faith. Like anything else, our church involvement can only deepen and energize our lives when we deepen and energize our commitment to the church, to God, and to each other. In baptism, we join ourselves to the mission of God in the world, and to the community of the baptized. . Fundamentally, baptism declares that our faith is not a private matter but that in our life in God, we are bound to one another in essential, life-giving ways.
Baptism isn’t magic. It is a sign of the commitment we make to God and to God’s people through the church. Baptism has only as much power as we give it in our lives. Sonny and Mack likely wouldn’t feel the difference from their baptism until they began living as the baptized and deepening their commitment to their faith. In a few moments, we will reaffirm our baptism – we will again choose to follow Christ, and to reject evil, and during communion we will have an opportunity to dip our hands in the waters of baptism, and if we choose, to remind ourselves of our own baptism by marking a cross on our foreheads with the water. I was baptized as a teenager, and I remember the feeling of the water on my face. Maybe reaffirming our baptism can be an opportunity for each of us to feel that water, to remember and recommit to being the baptized, to begin to live wet – as those whose lives are marked by the waters of baptism. Each person has the task of defining the meaning of their lives and the living out of that meaning – in baptism, we declare that the meaning of our lives is found in God, and that we are joined to God’s mission of sharing love, establishing justice, caring for each other and God’s creation.
Ho – come to the waters! Amen.
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: Mark 1:4-11, Isaiah 55:1-13
In 1984, Robert Duvall won an Oscar for Best Actor for his role in the 1983 film, Tender Mercies, one of my favorite movies. He played Mac Sledge, a country singer who had drunk himself out of a career and a marriage before the movie begins. The film concerns his redemption and new life, which come as he builds a relationship with a younger widowed mother, Rosa Lee, played by Tess Harper. At one point, Rosa Lee’s son, called Sonny, and Mack both decide to get baptized, and as they drive home after church, Sonny asks Mack, “You feel any different?”
“No,” answers Mack.
“Me neither,” responds Sonny.
Perhaps they expected too much from the moment… but I think probably most of us make the opposite mistake as Mack and Sonny – we don’t expect too much from baptism, we expect too little.
Baptism and Communion are the two sacraments that Presbyterians celebrate – in the Catholic Church there are seven sacraments, and as Protestants we need to remember that our maiden name was Catholic – in the 2000-year history of Christianity, Protestants were Catholic for the first 1500+ years. So let’s remember that Catholic originally meant universal, as we discuss our common history. As I said, in the Catholic Church, there are seven sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Penance (which used to be called confession and is now called the sacrament of reconciliation), Last Rites (which is Anointing, also called a sacrament of healing), Marriage, Ordination, and the Lord’s Supper (also called communion, or Eucharist). Most Protestants only celebrate two sacraments: baptism and communion. We celebrate the others in one form or other, but we don’t call them sacraments formally, we call them rites (R-I-T-E-S, which you could think of as prayerful rituals) and ordinances -- that is, they are rituals that are part of the way we order our lives together
So what are sacraments? Sacraments are “sacred moments”. In that sense there could be thousands of sacraments -- perhaps you experienced the grace of God in the birth of your child -- in that sense it was a sacrament for you. Perhaps growing up you experienced the love of God through sharing your family stories together and realizing how God had gifted you with each other -- so storytelling was sacramental for your family. Perhaps being outside in nature has become sacramental to you -- you experience a sense of awe around God as creator through your experience of nature. In earlier times, people were more aware of God’s presence through their everyday experiences than we are in our modern, more secular world. St. Augustine had a list of 304 sacraments. In the twelfth century, in an effort to bring uniformity and order, and in an effort to make sure that the sacraments weren’t trivialized, the church defined the seven sacraments I listed earlier. And these sacraments have certain elements in common. First, they were part of the ministry of Jesus in one way or another. And second, they bring us into unity with both Christ and the community of faith -- they are not private moments between God and a person. We may have private experiences as part of the sacrament, but they are not purely private moments.
As we look at the cross, we see the vertical dimension, and that can remind us of our relationship with God through Christ. And there is also the horizontal dimension, which reminds us of our relationship with each other as sisters and brothers in Christ. The definition we learned in seminary is that a sacrament as “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” The outward sign is water, or bread and juice -- it is physical and can be perceived by the senses. The inward part is spiritual – we experience God’s love – which we may have a feeling around or not. When we act in baptism, our actions are both outward -- we physically experience the water, and inward -- we respond in faith to God’s claim on us. As Protestants developed their own institutions that were not part of the Catholic Church, we rejected many of the Church’s hierarchy and traditions, and part of that was a narrowing of the list of sacraments to the two we celebrate. An important thing for Protestants is that the sacrament that calls us to ministry is not ordination – for us, ordination is not a sacrament. The sacrament that calls us to ministry is baptism – each of us is called and claimed by God in baptism. The Protestant phrase “the ministry of all believers” is a reminder that each of us is called to be part of God’s work in the world.
In recent years, when I visited churches in Tanzania, Colombia, and in Bethlehem on the West Bank in Israel, I was so aware that in some ways, our brothers and sisters in less affluent parts of the world have some real advantages over us in experiencing the spiritual dimensions of life. In the affluent West, we build our lives around our jobs, our hobbies, and the things we have. Yes, we have relationships, and we have faith, but these often do not define our lives the way they do in Tanzania, Colombia and Palestine. Again and again I observed the church’s in these less-advantaged parts of the world experiencing deep loving relationships with one another, a real sense that they were called to a different kind of living than the culture that surrounded them, a profound sense of trust in God, and a joy that transcended the poverty (and in Colombia and Palestine, the violence) in their communities. There was no question but that their faith in God and their love for one another defined their lives in ways that I rarely observe here, at least in the mainline churches. And these were not churches that we would call evangelical – at least not conservative evangelical. In Colombia, the Iglesia Presbiteriana de Colombia is as welcoming and inclusive as is our church – and these churches were busy every day of the week. The church we visited in Bethlehem on the West Bank has a vibrant peacemaking mission, art studios, and child care. Our brothers and sisters in the churches in Colombia, Tanzania, and on the West Bank in Israel share each others’ lives in a way that strengthens each of them, and the community as a whole.
Baptism is a sign and symbol of the quality of life that God intends for us – we are called into the rich community of people of God, to engage with God, with each other, with all people, and with God’s creation in a way that includes deep, mutual relationships, following God’s ways, forgiving others and being forgiven, delighting in the gifts of God’s creation in a non-exploitive way, experiencing a richness and abundance that can only come through the spiritual dimension of life. Our affluence cannot provide it. Listen to the reading from Isaiah 55 – it describes that kind of rich, abundant, joyous life that God intends for us. [Read Isaiah 55:1-13.]
As I said, I think that many of us expect too little from our faith – we are the community of the baptized, and we are called to a quality of life that flows from our trust in God and our relationships with one another, and in which our jobs and our hobbies are part of the way we respond to God. How does our faith define our lives? How does it make us different than we would be otherwise? It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re in church every day – many of our members live out their commitment to God in other places – by helping the hungry through Operation Bootstrap or our own Frame Feeds meals, by caring for folks through volunteering through Justiceworks or tutoring kids or visiting our members who are in need. We should not wall ourselves off from the world in the church – our life in church should lead us to engagement with the world. And as we plant ourselves in one another and in God’s work in the world, we begin to harvest the joy that God intends for us all.
Baptism is a ritual that we enact to welcome people into the full, rich life of the community of faith. Like anything else, our church involvement can only deepen and energize our lives when we deepen and energize our commitment to the church, to God, and to each other. In baptism, we join ourselves to the mission of God in the world, and to the community of the baptized. . Fundamentally, baptism declares that our faith is not a private matter but that in our life in God, we are bound to one another in essential, life-giving ways.
Baptism isn’t magic. It is a sign of the commitment we make to God and to God’s people through the church. Baptism has only as much power as we give it in our lives. Sonny and Mack likely wouldn’t feel the difference from their baptism until they began living as the baptized and deepening their commitment to their faith. In a few moments, we will reaffirm our baptism – we will again choose to follow Christ, and to reject evil, and during communion we will have an opportunity to dip our hands in the waters of baptism, and if we choose, to remind ourselves of our own baptism by marking a cross on our foreheads with the water. I was baptized as a teenager, and I remember the feeling of the water on my face. Maybe reaffirming our baptism can be an opportunity for each of us to feel that water, to remember and recommit to being the baptized, to begin to live wet – as those whose lives are marked by the waters of baptism. Each person has the task of defining the meaning of their lives and the living out of that meaning – in baptism, we declare that the meaning of our lives is found in God, and that we are joined to God’s mission of sharing love, establishing justice, caring for each other and God’s creation.
Ho – come to the waters! Amen.