By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, RectorFrom the book of Isaiah we heard, "I have called you by name, you are mine." From the Gospel we heard the voice from Heaven, "You are my child, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased."
The church calendar we observe highlights different parts of Jesus’ life on different Sundays. Today of course, is the Baptism of Christ. Baptism is a way of belonging. It’s choosing a path that we want to walk, that we believe will lead us to God. Almost every group has a form of Baptism, though they may not call it that. There is an attraction to be part of a group. A time of testing or questions, a time of discovery if the group is indeed a match with the individual and a moment of decision in which questions are asked, promises made, and membership is extended. In Baptism, the medium of this process is water and spirit. It symbolizes a washing away of the past and a new beginning along a new path. In Christian baptism, we believe that Jesus showed us a way that is so compelling, that we want to devote our lives to it. We follow that path in different ways, with different amounts of intensity, but we are all given the same assurance in the love of God, "I have called you by name. You are mine."
Yesterday, I came into the church office early and saw part of the bulletin that wasn’t part of the bulletin I proofread. It was a wrap around notice of my 25th anniversary of ordination. I wasn’t sure I was supposed to see it or not, so after I saw the title, I set it down, but my curiosity got the better of me and I read it. Truthfully, I was trying to fly under the radar with this one. I’ve been celebrating so many things over the last few years that I didn’t want to go to the well once too often! I did, however take the liberty of selecting the hymns - most of which were from my ordination service. And I asked my friend Kenneth Ford to sing one of my favorite hymns as an anthem. And I bought my self something really nice, a vestment that I’ve been debating about for the last fifteen years. It’s a little extravagant, but it’s also very nice. I’ll show it to you and we’ll bless it later after we bless the icons. And there’s a special coffee hour that’s been arranged. So much for flying under the radar!
I felt called to be a priest while I was in High School. I kept it to myself, along with my other secret, because it was not a cool thing. And we always need to be cool. Unlike so many people I talk to, church was always a safe place for me. I did not grow up with a judgmental, angry, or passive aggressive church. It was loving and supporting. I believe children form their views of God based on their early church experiences, and so I have always felt the loving presence of God. That’s one of the reasons I feel it’s so important to provide the environment for our children here that I hope and believe we have.
But I felt that growing up and it was to church I went when struggling with the adolescent angst of being gay. Now, I didn’t tell anyone, but I sat with God in the silence of the church. Sometimes crying in fear for an unknown future, or confusion about why I was different, sometimes angry and in pain, because this was definitely not cool. But never once, in all my existential angst did I ever feel condemned by God, even while I feared it from all others. I had a sense of what Isaiah wrote, as though God was telling me, I have called you by name, you are mine. I often hear that preachers have one sermon they deliver in a thousand ways. If that is true, and I think it has a lot of truth in it, then mine is how much we are loved by God, no matter what. Church was my spiritual home, it was also where I knew everyone and they knew me. I loved being part of it and felt a call to be part of it in this way.
I was ordained 25 years ago this coming Tuesday in Grace Church in Newark. The hymns I selected then and today sang the words that continue to frame my prayer: Be thou my vision, which we just sang is, I know, is a favorite of many of yours as well. One coming up says Come my way, my truth my life, such a way as gives us breath, such a truth as ends all strife, such a life that killeth death. I was 27 years old and on my way.
Twenty five years is a long way to look back, even though it doesn’t seem to have taken that long to get here. As far as I know my journey, while similar in some ways to others, is unique. I’m the only one who has done all the things that I have done. That makes me unique. Just like every one else. We are all unique. All of us are the collection of the experiences that only we have had, and the lessons we’ve learned from them.
We’ve shared parts of the journey with others, but the whole of it is ours alone. For me there have been great stretches of joy and successes. There have also been plenty of stretches of pain, mistakes and sadness. I’ve come to value even the pain, since it has given me a strength I didn’t have before and a compassion that I’ve needed, even glimpses of humility - from a distance.
The nice thing about recollection and retrospective is that we begin to see how our lives seem to go in a direction, even when we don’t see it clearly. I believe our spirits are responding to a call.
It’s a call we’ve heard from our very beginnings. God has called us by name. And we struggle in our various ways to follow. The institutional church has been wonderful to some and yet done horrible damage to others who now reject the face of God those churches portrayed and yet I hope respond to God’s call by another path as part of their healing.
When I baptize a baby I look at the parents and say "Name this child." It’s a way of recognizing that they have been called by name, and that they are God’s forever. We pour the water over their sleeping or screaming heads and clean them up for the trip. It’s symbolic and important, and spiritually real. Our spirits embrace theirs as fellow travelers, and we welcome them to join us.
Jesus was baptized by John and he showed how much God wanted to become one with us, and show us the way. He was and is the light that shines a path of love and truth, of healing and warmth, of justice and inclusion.
Like John, we baptize with water, but Jesus has baptized us with the Holy Spirit and fire. A spirit to love and be loved and a fire that moves us forward. The baptism we enter is a life of commitment that we make to God, to ourselves and to our neighbors. We have an expression about pools - whether we’re dipping our toes in or diving in the deep end. And this too is a baptismal image. That’s how we enter our lives. Cautiously and testing or act first and ask questions later. Whatever our approach to the degree that we consciously live the commitments we make, God will infuse our good works with the Spirit of love and the fire or passion to see it through.
Next week we’ll honor Dr. King and take inspiration from the deep waters of his commitment and the spirit and fire with which God led him in the passion for Civil Rights. This past week I was among some of our members from St. George’s and hundreds of others in Trenton advocating for marriage equality. There was much spirit and fire there too, also for civil rights. The deeper we enter into our baptismal vows the deeper God meets us, and calls us even deeper. Whether it’s the causes we fight for or the relationships we develop God calls us ever deeper. And it’s not a general invitation. He calls us by name. We are His children, and He is well pleased. Amen.
©2010 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ
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