A Baptized One

God speaks aloud only twice in the synoptic gospels. The first time God speaks aloud from the heavens is at the baptism of Jesus. The second and final time God speaks is when Jesus is transfigured on top of a mountain in the presence of Peter, James and John. In both utterances, God says basically the same thing.

At Jesus' baptism, God pronounces, "You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased."

On the mountain of the transfiguration, God pronounces, "This is my son, my chosen, listen to him!"

In both utterances, God is announcing that Jesus belongs to God. God is saying, "YOU ARE MINE."

When a person is baptized, this is what God says to that person. "You are mine. I claim you as my own forever." Immediately after each baptism, the priest is to anoint the child or adult with holy oil and to pronounce these words, "You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ's own forever." Marked as Christ's own forever.

In the book of Revelation, it says that the souls of the faithful have marks on their foreheads. We are branded as baptized ones.

That means that when someone asks you who you are, the first thing that should come to your mind is this: "I am a baptized one." Not "I am a lawyer or a business man or a nurse." Not even "I am a wife or a husband or a son or daughter." Before you are any of these important things, you are first and foremost a baptized one.

I was given an eye-opening article this week. It was in Boston magazine. It was written by a brilliant woman, a Harvard graduate who is a writer, a wife and mother of two children. She is also what she calls a NONE. This is a new term, none, it means that the person has absolutely no religious affiliation. They are not Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or Sikh. They are not even atheist or agnostic. They just don't care. They are nothing. Nones. And they are proud.

Sadly, this woman has memories of being in the very church that I grew up in, Trinity Church-on-the-Green in New Haven, Connecticut. She actually really liked it there but never was baptized and never made a commitment. She goes to religious gatherings occasionally to see if anything appeals to her, as if she is buying a bar of soap or seeing a movie. She invests in sports and even Chinese lessons for her children after school but sees no value in any kind of religious instruction. Her children went to a Jewish Sedar and when asked what they were thankful for, one of them said he was thankful for Jesus, because he had heard something about Jesus in school and had no idea that Christians worship Jesus and Jews do not.

One of our members brought her unchurched granddaughter to the Cathedral a few weeks ago. The girl looked at the nativity scene and said, "Oh, look! There is baby Gino!!"

The article in Boston magazine reported that the nones are growing (that's N-O-N-E not N-U-N). That means that more and more children are being raised with absolutely no religious affiliation. What does this mean? It means that baptism is becoming more rare and more of a choice. Today, as we baptize these children, and they are marked as God's own forever, they will take an action that defines them more than it has in previous generations. To belong to God in a day and age and in a country which is rapidly becoming more secular is to identify yourself with Jesus is a powerful way.

And you will take important vows today as parents and as a congregation. You will vow to raise these children as Christians. That means that they are to come to church. Parents, do not neglect to bring these children to this place, for we cannot fulfill our vow to them if they are not here. They will grow learning the story of Jesus, being a part of a community that is focused on something more than just making them happy or well-educated or fit. They will learn that they are part of something larger, a vision for a kingdom where there is true peace and joy. They will learn that they are not to serve only themselves in this life but that their first and most important priority must always be God. For they belong to God from this moment on.

And most importantly, and most mysteriously, today these children enter into eternal life. They need never be afraid of dying, of pain, of anything. God has claimed them and welcomed them home. They are members of heaven and the gates are open to them, all they have to do is follow the path that leads through those doors.

And every time they have to make a decision in life, the first question that they should ask is this, "What would God have me do?" or I love the popular phrase, "What would Jesus do?"

Our whole lives, from the moment that we are baptized to this very moment, are spent in response to that question. For we are the baptized ones.

Who are you?

Say it with me, proclaim it to the hilltops!

I AM A BAPTIZED ONE.

Wisdom and the Parking Space

A few years ago, I served a church in Wichita, Kansas. The church, St. James, sat on the main drag through the city. Next to us, on the same side of the road, was the Roman Catholic Church. Our parking lots were divided only by a small side street.

It did not take long for me to realize that there was a war going on between the Roman Catholics and the Episcopalians over parking spaces. One Sunday morning, a woman rushed into church late and looking red in the race. After the service was over, I asked her if she was OK. She told me what had happened to her...

She was running late and couldn't find a good parking space. The service at the Catholic Church had already started and she noticed that there were a number of parking spaces open, so she decided to park there. She was pulling in, a couple got out of their car nearby and stared at her. She got out of her car.

"Which church are you going to?" they asked.

"I am going to worship at the Episcopal Church. I noticed that you had a few parking spaces open. I thought no one would mind."

The woman glared at her. And this is what she said, "Well... I MIND."

Not wanting to get into a fist fight, she got into her car and drove to find a space somewhere else.

The Catholics started talking about putting pictures of the Pope on our cars if they found an Episcopal car in their parking lot. Our folks talked about putting The Episcopal Church Welcomes You bumper stickers on their cars. Finally the Roman Catholic priest and I met. We talked about putting up signs that said something like..."Didn't Jesus say something about loving your neighbor? That DOES apply to parking spaces..." Or even "Thou shalt share thy parking spaces."

We are so concerned about reserving a spot for ourselves in life. What is my role? Do people like or respect me? What is my place in society, in my career, in my family? Where is my PLACE? People from both churches obsessed about the past, how the Catholics parked in our spaces before. Or they mused about the future: if they take our parking spaces, maybe we will have none left... All of this caused nothing but division and discord.

Today the Wise men finally arrive at the manger. We call this day The Epiphany. It is the final day of the Christmas season.

We do not know for sure how many Wise Men there were. We do not know that they were kings. There is a lot of folklore surrounding the story. What the gospels actually say is that they came from the east and they were wise. There could have been two, or four or fifty of them. They brought gifts fit for a king: three gifts to be precise, which is why we assume that there were three of them. They brought gold, frankencense and myr. That's all we know.

The only adjective used to describe these men is the word WISE. They were WISE.

What does it mean to be wise? How can you and I be wise? The implication is that it was their wisdom that enabled them to find Jesus. I want to be wise so I can find Christ too...

Let's look at what these wise men did.

They watched the skies. They lived in the present moment, asking themselves, what is God doing now? It was their awareness and their attention to the skies that enabled them to see Christ. They were, quite simply, awake. And not at all concerned about their parking spaces.

This is an incredible lesson. You cannot get wise by examining the past or by predicting the future. The Wise Men were wise because they were paying attention. They were aware, awake in the present moment. And they were willing to leave behind their parking spaces and follow the light of a star.

Have you ever spoken to a sailor who has navigated by the stars? It is rarely done these days. Following the stars means constant vigilance. There are no other landmarks. You must constantly place yourself in reference to the cosmic event that you are observing. You are in a living and moving relationship with the stars, for your place with them is ever shifting and changing. You cannot fall asleep. You must keep your eyes open.

We really have two options in life. We can focus on where we are parked and where we will park or we can let go of our parking spaces and move out into the unknown darkness of the present moment. God does not move in the past or in the future, remember. God's name is not I WAS or I WILL BE. It is I AM. So to see God, to find God, you must be present in this very moment and you cannot hold onto anything. To find God means to be truly awake.

We have a parishioner who has been given a difficult diagnosis. His name is Ken Wilburn. Doctors say that Ken has a rare brain disease. The doctors predict that he will live for about six months. So we are praying for a miracle. He wants to ask you to join me in praying. And so far, he seems to be defying all the expectations of the doctors.

Another miracle has happened to Ken and to his wife Sharon in this period. They have become wise. You see, this diagnosis has pushed Ken to live in the present moment. He cherishes every single little thing: the beautiful sky outside his house, his granddaughters artwork, his music. He is alive and present more than ever before. We do not know what God will do, but we do know one thing. Ken is awake. He is teaching us how to live. And what does he love to do? He loves to come here, to this Cathedral, with a cross around his neck and talk to people about God.

They say that in the time of the birth of Jesus three stars merged to create a cosmic event that was spectacular. It makes me wonder. Why were there not huge populations of people who left their homes to follow that magnificent event? Why were there not whole crowds?

I guess too many folks were scared of loosing their parking spaces.

There is an old Indian folk tale about awareness. In the tale, a man is running from a tiger. The tiger chases him and he runs off a precipice. As he is falling down, the man grabs hold of the roots of a tree that protrude out of the earth. He holds on for dear life and looks up to see the tiger pacing and growling above him. He looks down to see a cobra slithering and hissing in the grass below. He looks at the tree roots and notices that a small mouse is nibbling at the roots. And right above him, hanging on a branch, is a honeycomb. The honey drips quietly onto the back of his hand. The man licks the honey and it is so sweet.

That is the story of our lives. Our past is the tiger, who hunts us down and paces around, hoping to seize our minds and devour them with all the mistakes we made or with a voracious longing for the way things were. The future is the cobra, who slithers around waiting to wrap us up in fears and hopes and plans for tomorrow. Even the present moment is nibbled away by the mouse. But in this very NOW, the sweetness of God is available for us to savor. It comes to us as a free gift, sweet and rare and beautiful. It is up to us to taste it.

Do you want to be WISE? Do you want to find God? Then wake up. Be aware. The light of a star is shining upon you.

Courage at Christmas

Three hundred years after Jesus, a man posed an experiment. His name was Augustine and he wrote this experiment down in a book. People would read this book and ask themselves this question for hundreds and hundreds of years. The dilemma would shape our understanding of God and of how we are saved. This is the experiment:

Imagine that God offers you a deal. God offers you everything: power, pleasure, wealth, honor, freedom, even peace. Nothing will be a sin, nothing will be forbidden or impossible for you. You will never be bored and you will never die. And there is only one condition...if you accept all this, you will never see the face of God.

What would you choose? Would you choose to live your life comfortably and pleasurably for all eternity and never see God's face? Would you?

You see, ever since we fell from God's grace, we have suffered. And the only way back to God, the only way to be saved is to move through suffering and even death. There is no other way to God but through the cross, through pain. And there is nothing that we are more afraid of than pain except perhaps death.

When my father-in-law found out that he had cancer, I don't know how scared he was but we were sure scared. For one thing, he had to shave his head. We all cried together in the hotel room that day. Everything seemed so unknown. I didn't want him to feel pain. I did not know what to say, what the future might hold.

I remember vividly how my husband walked into the bathroom to help his father shave his head. They ran the water in the sink. My father-in-law sat down in a chair in front of the mirror and his son stood behind him. My father-in-law took off his shirt. So did my husband.

"What are you doing, son?" he asked.

"Dad, I can't make this cancer go away but I can be there with you. I am here with you, every step of the way."

And my husband began to shave his head.

The Middle East is exploding. Egypt is burning. Syria is suffering. There is starvation and deprivation all over the world. People are homeless on the streets of Jacksonville and there is talk of a financial cliff. But all this did not touch us directly. It was hard but it was far away or it might not happen or it was the pain of unfortunate people whose lives were somehow different than ours.

But then, a young man walked into an elementary school with guns and shot children as they cried and cowered in a corner. He shot teachers, principals, counselors, little blond girls who were just learning to read, a disabled boy, a playful first-grader, and he looked like any of us. He could live right down the street from our schools from our children. We try to make sense of it, but no one can even begin to imagine any kind of mental illness that could take you that far into evil. No one can even begin to understand why. This is our country. This is our backyard. And we are afraid. That little town in Connecticut had no idea that horror was about to visit them. They had no idea. And neither do we.

Mary was so young. She was only 13 or 14. She had never had a baby before but I'm sure she knew that many women died that way. Giving birth was dangerous, it could be deadly. When we are afraid, we long for familiar settings, for something we know. But Mary had no idea where she was. She had never traveled this far away from home. This was the land of her husband's ancestry. This was Bethlehem. And she didn't have a home.

She could feel the pains coming. They couldn't find a room. She must have felt her fear mounting. Where could she have this baby? How could they stay warm? Would they all die?

The Romans could kill Jews for no reason. King Herod was paranoid and afraid of the coming of a Jewish Messiah. The land was tense, it was about to explode with violence. And Mary was bringing a baby into all this mess.

Mary was afraid. To be human is to be afraid. We do not know how we got here, we do not know when we will die. We dont know why God made us exactly as we are and we dont know when God will take us home. When someone is dying, I tell them that it is so much like birth. You never know when it might happen.

We are not in control of our lives. And we are afraid, deep down inside, afraid of what we do not understand. So we numb ourselves with routines and schedules and comfort foods and rituals and belongings, pretending that we do have control, that our lives are up to us, but the truth is that we are fragile. This entire earth teeters in a balance between good and evil and we never know what is coming next. No matter how much we plan and save, we do not know know what will happen tomorrow.

What does a mother do when her baby cries out in the night, afraid of the darkness? She goes to the child. She is there with the baby. She cannot make the night go away, she cannot make the darkness go away, but she can stand there with that child in the midst of the darkness.

That is why God became human tonight, because we were afraid. Because we still are afraid and we live in a broken world, where we do not know what will happen next. We do not know when a man will walk into our schools with a gun and kill our children. And so Jesus came, not to fix it all, for we must try to do that ourselves, but just to be with us.

And Mary, on that holy night, did not give into her fear. She lived for something more than that. She entered into the pain and the darkness and brought Christ into it and that is what we are called to do.

It is OK that you are afraid. I am too. It is OK to be lonely or sad or frightened. Mary was too. Don't try to erase your fears by drinking or getting really mad or trying too hard to control everything. Just be scared. Let fear knock on your door. But don't let it have the last word. It did not have the last word on that holy night you know, and it didn't have the last word when my father-in-law had to shave his head, or even when those children died. Fear does not win the day. Church bells will ring, Jesus will come.

Do you want to see the face of God? Begin by looking at that baby and then watch him grow. Model your life on his life, do as he did. Give your life to him and you will see the face of God, you will.

Amen.

The Truth about Christmas

After Friday morning's tragedy, is there anyone here who does not believe that this world has fallen from God's grace? Is there anyone who still thinks that there is no such thing as sin or brokenness? Is there anyone who does not think that there is such a thing as evil?

Like you, I have spent the past forty-eight hours in shock and sadness and prayer. I cannot fathom how anyone could walk into a school and shoot children. It is a horror like the brutality of Nazi Germany. I cannot get my mind around it. It is the slaughter of the truly innocent.

All over Facebook and the news, people have started to try to reason and explain it. If it we only had for gun control...we should have better locks on our schools...and people have pondered how this young man must have been mentally ill as if we should be feeling sorry for him, as if we are heartless if we don't feel that way.

I know that Jesus calls us to pray for our enemies, but I have not gotten there yet. There is a time and a place to mark atrocity, to say, with every ounce of our being, that this was EVIL and WRONG and that nothing can change that. Nothing can take away the horror of this event. It is a scar that will mark us forever. There is no understanding it, no justifying it, no reasoning can approach it. It is...horror.

I overheard a man in a store say, "Yeah, and all this happened at Christmas! It just wrecks Christmas!"

We have tried so hard to makes Christmas into a sweet and fuzzy holiday, compete with pretty wrapping paper and snow covered hills. We do with Christmas what we do with Christianity and with Christ himself, we domesticate them and try to use them as comfort blankets. But Christ cannot be tamed. The event of the incarnation was not a fairytale.

Remember that Jesus came into a world where King Herod was killing babies. Remember that he was born in the dirt. And remember that there was a man who came before Jesus to get us ready. John the Baptist.

Into our broken world, John comes screaming. He does not tell us to get out our stockings and our decorations, he tells us that the world is about to be torn apart. Torn apart!! He likens Christ coming to an ax being laid to the root of a tree. We will all perish unless we change our lives and follow him.

To be Christian means to stand against everything that happened on Friday morning. It means to devote yourself, body, mind and soul, to serving God and to protecting the innocent. You have been baptized with the fire of the Holy Spirit. The ax is lying at the root of the tree and you must decide for yourself: are you in or are you out? Will you bear fruit for God?

Do you want to be part of a community that devotes itself to trying to help solve issues of violence? Then get on board. Do you want to teach children that they are loved by God and that, no matter what, Jesus loves them? Then join us. But don't think for one second that you can just come here on Sunday and go home and be comfortable. Because once you are baptized with fire, God has invited you into a radical new kind of life, a life in which you are no longer the first priority. God must come first. You must give of yourself, all of yourself. Your life is no longer your own, for we cannot sit still so long as tragedies of this nature continue to occur.

I know that there are many political views in this country right now, but let us not misunderstand that most good Americans are trying to stand for justice and we all want what's best for our children. Our enemies are not those who disagree with us, we have a much larger, darker, and more broken world to focus on. Let us not waste time on our political arguments and neglect the true issues that surround us.

When the crowd asks John the Baptist what they should do to be ready, he talks all about money and stuff. Give up your extra cloak, collect no more taxes than the amount prescribed, give away food, be satisfied with your wages. Live a just and generous life. Live a just and generous life.

And focus on love. At the same time as we stand up to the horror at this tragedy, let us look to the doctors, nurses, counselors, fellow parents, teachers, firefighters and all others who are in the trenches serving and loving the wounded and the grieving. Let us remember that the world is not so full of darkness that there is no light. Love is real and it is all around us.

In a moment, Father Perry will bless the marriage of two people who found one another in times darkness. Liesl was a drinker who loved parties. Paul had suffered in a terrible car accident and had been in a coma for six months. Half of Pauls brain no longer functions. Liesl saw in him a man who was struggling to be whole again. And she found peace in loving him and helping him. By loving Paul, Liesl found herself again.

That is the miracle of the Christian life, that when you give your life away, God gives it back, and a much better version.

When that little baby is born in a manger, remember that you belong to Him. We are the followers of a holy child and we will strive to serve children and the poor, those less fortunate, those vulnerable and helpless- because we see that little baby within them. And he calls us every single day of our lives asking us to help make this world a better place.

Practice Awareness

About seven years ago, a cat wandered into our driveway. At least, that is what Jacob, my son, tells me. We took the cat to the vet and the vet told us that she was a fine cat. We named her Cocoa.

Cocoa was loving and sweet but she had one terrible habit. She liked to pee in the corner of the living room. What a horrible stench! I ran to the grocery to stock up on cleaning supplies but she would not stop.

One evening, Jacob called me to my bedroom. He had cocoa on her back, happy and purring. He pointed to a distinctly male looking private part.

"Mom, what is that?" he asked.

"Jacob, the vet said that cocoa was a girl."

"Well, then what is that?"

"I have no idea..." I said.

Jacob called his dad in and JD too reiterated that the vet told us she was female. JD too had no idea what that thing was.

Finally, out of desperation and now convinced that the stench in our house would prevent anyone from coming the visit again, I returned to the vet.

"Oops!" he said. "Actually Cocoa is a boy. And he needs to be neutered. That will stop the spraying."

So we had Cocoa neutered. And now we call him THE COCONATOR.

And we no longer go to that vet.

What is Advent? The word means The Coming. It is the four week period before Jesus comes into the world. It is four weeks of waiting. Advent has everything to do with how we see the world and whether or not we are really awake and looking at life itself.

You see many of us live our lives without really looking at each moment with an open heart and mind. We think that we know how our lives should proceed, so we live mostly unconsciously, unaware of God's ever-changing presence around us.

While the rest of the world rushes on with their Christmas carols and jolly songs, ancient Christians used to pause and wait. They would read stories from the Old Testament, stories that promised that a Messiah would come to save then and adopt them as His own. They would hold onto those stories for dear life. They would look up, expecting that, at any moment, Christ could walk through the door and call them home. It was a wholly different way of living.

To wait in this life means to admit that you do not belong here. It is to admit that you find this world beautiful and meaningful but that it is not home, that we don't belong here, that we are waiting for something better. We wait for a place where there is true peace, where we can see God face to face.

Many of us don't realize that we are waiting until our bodies begin to fail. Once our bones begin to crumble or our heart is weakened, we begin to wonder of God might have something more complete in mind for us, a place without pain or hunger. To be a Christian means to wait.

I have begun to believe that the quality of our awareness is as important as faith itself. I would not ask a person, "Are you saved?" as much as I would ask them, "Are you awake to God's presence?"

Are you waiting for a day when you can see God face to face? Are you waiting for a kingdom in which there is no hunger or fear or poverty or suffering? Do you long for that? If you do long for it, how do you wait?

Christian waiting is not passive. We don't simply believe that Christ will come and rescue us. Jesus was quite specific when he told us that we must be alert, that his coming will happen quickly. We must practice awareness of his presence now if we are to run into his arms in the day to come.

There is nothing that puts us to sleep more than our own business. We plan out our days and schedule everything. We know exactly what each moment is supposed to look like. And we no longer see anything.

That is why we must practice awareness. It is essential, in this day and age, to schedule time with God alone. Sit down alone and listen for God. Picture Christ walking towards you. Read scripture. Like physical exercise, the heart must be trained to unburden itself of worries and distraction if we are to be alert to Christ's coming. You must practice your faith daily by praying, by listening to God. It is imperative.

Carinette is just one of fifty-seven dark-skinned, bright-eyed, Creole-speaking children who live at the orphanage in Haiti. She is seven. She eats mainly rice and beans. She plays with the rest of the kids. She sleeps under a tin roof with the other girls. She hears the Haitian rain pounding on the tin roof at night. But she is unlike all the other children. Carinette has been adopted.

Carinette's parents came to meet her. They are Americans who raised three children and decided to adopt another. They came giving her a bear, photos of their family, cookies and granola bars. She stored the teddy with the director so it wouldn't be ruined (toys don't last that long at the orphanage). She shared the granola bars and cookies. And she walks about clutching the pictures. Her parents had to return to the States to finalize the paperwork. They should come for her in a month, maybe two. So Carinette lives looking up. She is awake and alert. She has a home and they are coming for her. It could be any moment and she will be going home.

That is how we Christians must live, just like Carinette. We must cling to the pictures that we have been given, the stories from Scripture, the promises that Jesus made. We must be alert and awake, for we do not belong here. Our Lord is coming to take us home. What kind of pictures can you carry with you to remind you to look for the coming of Christ? Can you practice daily thanking God? Can you sit alone in silence? Can you watch the sun rise every morning and strive to really see it?

Be on guard that your hearts are not weighed down, Jesus says, or that day will catch you unexpectedly.
Practice awareness. It is the only way.