The Baptism Of Jesus
Sermon
The Culture Of Disbelief
Gospel Sermons For Lent/Easter
When it comes to the Christian sacraments, Baptism or Eucharist, or those beyond these two central ones, we live in a world where, "Somebody done turn the wine into water," as Jim Forbes puts it. "Somebody done turn the wine into water."
The sacraments haven't quite the power they had when the dove descended from heaven and told Jesus that God was deeply pleased with him. "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."
The sacraments are diluted for many of us. Instead of the straw being spun into gold, we have a situation where the gold is spun into straw. We have misuse, overuse, underuse, and abuse when it comes to the sacraments. Perhaps we can find our way to them today. We can find our way back in our own hunger for rich wine, in our own passion for gold, in our own urgencies for a blessing.
How many of us have longed for the word "beloved" from our earthly fathers or mothers! We have hungered for them. How many of us have been near jealousy for a blessing the size of a sacramental blessing! How many of us would like to know what John knew when he left the baptismal waters. Straight, he went, full of the good news of repentance for all, out to preach it to the world. Jesus' baptismal water and blessing bubbles over in John. There is nothing diluted about John the Baptist. This man is full strength.
Some scholars argue that the sacraments are a little too rich for our blood.1 Why? Why do we dilute religious meaning at the same time that we hunger for it desperately? The answer may be as simple as peer pressure. We may be looking laterally for guidance about how to bless each other, how to baptize, how to commune with each other, instead of vertically. We may be looking across, humanistically, instead of up and down, theologically. We may think the sacraments have to do with what other people see in us when we eat bread or drink wine together. We may think the sacraments have to do with having the baby "done" and how sumptuous the baptismal gown is rather than with the baby's direct relationship to a God of blessing and rich broth.
We may need to have both more privacy and less privacy in our sacramental life. At the table and at the font, it may be most important to be by ourselves with God. It may be important to forget about the congregation. Then it may also be important to return to the congregation "full" and "fully" as a person, among others, bathed in blessing.
I think of John Lasco's liturgy of public repentance in the Church of Scotland's Book of Common Order. There we pray to get beyond any sect's interpretation of the sacraments on behalf of the sacrament the One true God had in mind.
Lutherans still accuse Zwingli's people of denying the luminous nature of the Eucharist. Calvinists deplore the predominantly retrospective view of the Lord's Supper, and on and on, in a much too human conversation about what is right and wrong in the sacraments. Who cares, especially if the original blessing is denied in the argument? The dilution comes from the bickering.
A good friend wants to know why, since God created most of us as originals, so many of us come up as carbon copies? The same pattern is seen in the dilution of the power of the sacraments. Is it truly as an unknown poet argues, "The destiny of a morning star to be drowned in the clear light of noonday"? As time goes on, the shine does go off of many things.
Still, why can we not protect the Eucharist or Baptism from the dulling of time? Why can't we stay away from the bickering?
The Christian year of Advent and Lent and the Seasons of Pentecost and Trinity all but disappeared in the Reformed churches. Why? Because as the denominations fragmented into smaller and smaller groups, they couldn't agree on when to start and stop which season! Thus, we became a people who couldn't even enjoy the ashes of Ash Wednesday. Now, the Revised Common Lectionary (in which most denominations read the same texts on a three year cycle) has accelerated liturgical renewal and hymn writing, and even some Protestants wash feet on Maunday Thursday and give each other ashes on Ash Wednesday. We are inching our way back to original, sacramental observances -- and God is fully prepared to receive our return!
What all faiths hope for is a renewal or reunion of Word and Sacrament, a profound linking of pulpit and table. We know that we need all the access possible to the blessing God gives us.
These lines of Philip Schaff of the Mercersburg communion, a small Reformed expression, tell of our hunger for the sacramental experience and how deep and ancient it is. In connecting our sacraments to Jewish festivals and feasts, we find ourselves much less "private" in our hunger for the sacraments. We need to go deep and wide at the same time. Deep toward God, and wide toward each other. Schaff says:
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth ... Present yourselves on the altar of the gospel, in union with his glorious merits. Consecrating ourselves on the altar of the gospel, in soul and body, property and life, to Thy most blessed service and praise.
In soul and body, ancient and contemporary modes, in full connection with each other and even fuller connection with our God, we receive the sacrament.
Obviously, it is not possible to speak of degrees of Christ's presence. John the Baptist knew one degree, one level of concentration. We know another.
Theologian Hageman says, "Word and Sacrament are only different media for the same reality of Christ's coming in to the midst of his people." How does Christ come to us today? He comes in rich, original blessing, which we may find our way to by means of water, bread, wine, or just waiting for the dove.
The dove wants to come and pronounce a blessing on us as well. That blessing will remind us of our baptism and send us out into the world, with the vigor of the Baptist. It will be a rich broth, especially if we receive it from God, mediated by each other.
_________________
1. In Communion in Pulpit, Table and Song: Essays in Celebration of Howard G. Hageman, edited by Heather Murray Elkins and Edward C. Zaragoza, 1996, Drew University, the point is made that the sacraments scare us.
The sacraments haven't quite the power they had when the dove descended from heaven and told Jesus that God was deeply pleased with him. "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."
The sacraments are diluted for many of us. Instead of the straw being spun into gold, we have a situation where the gold is spun into straw. We have misuse, overuse, underuse, and abuse when it comes to the sacraments. Perhaps we can find our way to them today. We can find our way back in our own hunger for rich wine, in our own passion for gold, in our own urgencies for a blessing.
How many of us have longed for the word "beloved" from our earthly fathers or mothers! We have hungered for them. How many of us have been near jealousy for a blessing the size of a sacramental blessing! How many of us would like to know what John knew when he left the baptismal waters. Straight, he went, full of the good news of repentance for all, out to preach it to the world. Jesus' baptismal water and blessing bubbles over in John. There is nothing diluted about John the Baptist. This man is full strength.
Some scholars argue that the sacraments are a little too rich for our blood.1 Why? Why do we dilute religious meaning at the same time that we hunger for it desperately? The answer may be as simple as peer pressure. We may be looking laterally for guidance about how to bless each other, how to baptize, how to commune with each other, instead of vertically. We may be looking across, humanistically, instead of up and down, theologically. We may think the sacraments have to do with what other people see in us when we eat bread or drink wine together. We may think the sacraments have to do with having the baby "done" and how sumptuous the baptismal gown is rather than with the baby's direct relationship to a God of blessing and rich broth.
We may need to have both more privacy and less privacy in our sacramental life. At the table and at the font, it may be most important to be by ourselves with God. It may be important to forget about the congregation. Then it may also be important to return to the congregation "full" and "fully" as a person, among others, bathed in blessing.
I think of John Lasco's liturgy of public repentance in the Church of Scotland's Book of Common Order. There we pray to get beyond any sect's interpretation of the sacraments on behalf of the sacrament the One true God had in mind.
Lutherans still accuse Zwingli's people of denying the luminous nature of the Eucharist. Calvinists deplore the predominantly retrospective view of the Lord's Supper, and on and on, in a much too human conversation about what is right and wrong in the sacraments. Who cares, especially if the original blessing is denied in the argument? The dilution comes from the bickering.
A good friend wants to know why, since God created most of us as originals, so many of us come up as carbon copies? The same pattern is seen in the dilution of the power of the sacraments. Is it truly as an unknown poet argues, "The destiny of a morning star to be drowned in the clear light of noonday"? As time goes on, the shine does go off of many things.
Still, why can we not protect the Eucharist or Baptism from the dulling of time? Why can't we stay away from the bickering?
The Christian year of Advent and Lent and the Seasons of Pentecost and Trinity all but disappeared in the Reformed churches. Why? Because as the denominations fragmented into smaller and smaller groups, they couldn't agree on when to start and stop which season! Thus, we became a people who couldn't even enjoy the ashes of Ash Wednesday. Now, the Revised Common Lectionary (in which most denominations read the same texts on a three year cycle) has accelerated liturgical renewal and hymn writing, and even some Protestants wash feet on Maunday Thursday and give each other ashes on Ash Wednesday. We are inching our way back to original, sacramental observances -- and God is fully prepared to receive our return!
What all faiths hope for is a renewal or reunion of Word and Sacrament, a profound linking of pulpit and table. We know that we need all the access possible to the blessing God gives us.
These lines of Philip Schaff of the Mercersburg communion, a small Reformed expression, tell of our hunger for the sacramental experience and how deep and ancient it is. In connecting our sacraments to Jewish festivals and feasts, we find ourselves much less "private" in our hunger for the sacraments. We need to go deep and wide at the same time. Deep toward God, and wide toward each other. Schaff says:
Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth ... Present yourselves on the altar of the gospel, in union with his glorious merits. Consecrating ourselves on the altar of the gospel, in soul and body, property and life, to Thy most blessed service and praise.
In soul and body, ancient and contemporary modes, in full connection with each other and even fuller connection with our God, we receive the sacrament.
Obviously, it is not possible to speak of degrees of Christ's presence. John the Baptist knew one degree, one level of concentration. We know another.
Theologian Hageman says, "Word and Sacrament are only different media for the same reality of Christ's coming in to the midst of his people." How does Christ come to us today? He comes in rich, original blessing, which we may find our way to by means of water, bread, wine, or just waiting for the dove.
The dove wants to come and pronounce a blessing on us as well. That blessing will remind us of our baptism and send us out into the world, with the vigor of the Baptist. It will be a rich broth, especially if we receive it from God, mediated by each other.
_________________
1. In Communion in Pulpit, Table and Song: Essays in Celebration of Howard G. Hageman, edited by Heather Murray Elkins and Edward C. Zaragoza, 1996, Drew University, the point is made that the sacraments scare us.
