"You Will Be My Witnesses"

Below is the text of this morning's sermon and here is the video link:http://vimeo.com/97125684

Meditation on Acts 1:1-11

Ascension of our Lord

June 1, 2014

***

     In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over the course of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. ‘This’, he said, ‘is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’

      So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’

***

   The summer weather means that I am enjoying walks again! I think, pray, and listen to music on my IPOD as I walk. One day early last week, I took a break from walking and sat on the glider in the playground. This gave me a good view of the west side of our church building.  I thought about how pretty our church is. How it feels like home to me. And I thought about the kindness of people in our congregation. How I love my church and feel comfortable here.

    As I sat on the glider, I noticed a robin flying toward a nest built in the lower left corner of the sill of one of the stained glass windows. The robin landed and began feeding—beak to beak—another robin that I hadn’t noticed before—sitting on the nest. Then, the bird that came to feed his mate flew away, leaving the bird on the nest sitting silently, her wings spread slightly as she protected the eggs beneath her. How contented she looked—on her nest!

      I felt a connection with the bird on the windowsill of our church. I’m a nester! I like caring for my flock—and sometimes being cared for, too. I am most comfortable with ministry right in my own church and community. This is my “nest.”

      And I am not alone in my thinking and habits. In this area, where many of the same families have lived and farmed for generations, I am in a community of “nesters.” Many people who live here wouldn’t venture far from their own community and extended families to live and work if they had a choice.

     But with the story today of Jesus’s Ascension in Luke and Acts, we are reminded that being “nesters” may actually interfere with Christ’s call to be His witnesses. It was, indeed, a challenge to his earliest disciples, a group of “nesters”—raised as Jews in tight communities of extended families, outside of which they did not eat, worship, go to school, or marry. Jewish people differed from the rest of the world in language and diet and observed rituals and traditions unlike any other people.

      After the risen Christ appears to His disciples for 40 days after His crucifixion, teaching them about the kingdom of God and opening the Scriptures to them, he tells them to return to Jerusalem. Go back to the nest, Jesus says, to wait for the promise of the Father to be fulfilled. They will be, as Luke says in 24:49, “clothed with power on high.” The Holy Spirit is coming and this will be a new kind of baptism—not the familiar water baptism to repentance like John’s. This baptism will mean a whole new way of life.

      Jesus tells them only what they need to know. He doesn’t even give them a specific time when the Spirit will come. He leaves them in suspense, saying, it will be “not many days from now.”

       And they obey; they return to Jerusalem to gather, pray, and wait. Scripture leaves us wondering what they may have been thinking and feeling. Then, in verse 6, we discover that they don’t understand what they are waiting for. After Christ’s crucifixion, the empty tomb, and the resurrection, the disciples still don’t understand the kingdom of God is something that is not of this world! They can’t think beyond the “nest”! They ask Jesus, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom of Israel?” meaning that they want the risen Christ to free them from political oppression and restore Israel’s national independence. They don’t seem to have come much further along from when in Mark 10 and Luke 22 they are captivated by the thought of their positions of authority in Christ’s kingdom. In Mark 10:35-45, James and John believe they should have a seat at Jesus’ “right and his left.” In Luke 22:24-27, the disciples argue which one will be greatest in the kingdom. Jesus tells them that the “greatest must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves.”

    You would think that Jesus might be losing patience by now. But before He ascends to be with God the Father, his words are reassuring, at least the first part of what he says. He tells them, “It’s not for you to worry about. Just know that God is in control.”  They will have all the power they will need to do His work when the Holy Spirit comes upon them. But then comes the scary news. They will have to get out of the nest!

     The gospel must go out from Jerusalem—their beloved Holy City, with the Temple, their house of worship–out into Judea, which isn’t too far from home. But then they must go to Samaria, a place where no Jewish person would ever wish to go. And finally, Jesus says the most amazing thing—that His disciples must bring the good news to strangers way, way far out of the nest—“to the ends of the earth.” The message of salvation belongs to the entire world that God so loves. Christ’s salvation is offered to all people in places of which His disciples could not have imagined in their wildest dreams.

     But then Jesus reassures them that they will be able to do what He asks, with the Spirit to help them. It sounds like a promise when He says, “You will be my witnesses.”  

      Unlike the description of the Ascension at the end of Luke, Jesus doesn’t leave them with a blessing and the disciples worshiping him. We aren’t told that the disciples return to Jerusalem with great joy. The Ascension in Acts ends with two men in white robes, presumably angels, asking them why are they are just standing there looking up, as a cloud takes Jesus out of sight.

     When the angels tell them that Jesus will return the same “way” they saw him go, they don’t mean that Jesus will come to the same place when he returns for His church. This could be a reference to Jesus ascending at Bethany because that is where he made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey. Or it may simply mean that Jesus ascended with power and glory.

     And in power and glory he will return.

 ***

     This week, meditating on the Ascension readings, I thought about the charge Christ gives as He ascends—the call to be His witnesses—to the ends of the earth. And how it is a scary message, challenging us “nesters”!  But how it is also a promise—that the Spirit will empower us to do what Jesus wants us to do, if we seek to be obedient to His call.

     Being a witness means serving Christ by living out the gospel, wherever we are and wherever we are led to go, showing kindness, generosity and compassion for people who are in need. Each person isn’t called to go to every place on earth! But if every Christian obeys the call of Christ and follows the Spirit’s leading, in God’s timing, the gospel will reach everyone—in every place and time. Being a witness also means telling Christ’s story to all you meet and all you know—and telling your own story of what Jesus has done for you!

      Today we will be commissioning a group of youth and adults that will be leaving for a mission trip to Duluth later this month. Although most of them have been to Duluth on vacation before, none have ever gone there with a group from church seeking to serve the Lord by helping people in need.

     Duluth may not sound as exciting as the mission trip that they had hoped to take to South Dakota, but then, at the last minute, were not able to do. But if their hearts are to love and serve God and help people in need wherever they are, then the Spirit will lead them, like the Spirit led Christ’s earliest disciples, to experience the unexpected with people in places they never imagined they would go. We will send them off, reminding them that this is not a vacation or a field trip. This journey is all about making time and space for the Spirit to work in and through them. This mission trip is about opportunities. The youth and the adults who are accompanying them will have opportunities to be servants of the Lord and one another, to share Christ’s story with others, and to share their own stories of what Jesus has done in their lives. And finally, this trip is an opportunity to be obedient to His call.

    We will pray today for our youth and the adults going on the mission trip. And we will pray for them while they are away. May this trip deepen their faith and grow their relationships with one another. May this trip open up to them a whole new way of life.  And may the Spirit empower them—and us—to be obedient to Christ’s call.

    As He promises when He says, “You will be my witnesses!”

Let us pray.

Holy One, we give you thanks and praise for what you are doing in our lives and in the lives of our young people in this congregation. May your Spirit lead and empower them to be Christ’s witnesses—to tell people about His power and glory—and how He was crucified, but then resurrected from the dead. And how He ascended to live with God the Father, then sent His Holy Spirit to be our helper, our guide, and our source of wisdom and comfort. Forgive us, Lord, when we choose to be “nesters” rather than obey your call to make disciples of all the nations, to be Christ’s witnesses beginning in our homes and communities and going out to the end of the earth. In Christ we pray. Amen. 

“So they would search for God”

Meditation on Acts 17:16-34

May 25, 2014

***

      While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there. Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, ‘What does this babbler want to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.’ (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.’ Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new. Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.” 

       Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’

        When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

***

     I can’t believe that today is already the last day of our adult Sunday school class before our summer break. I have mixed emotions. I am sad that my adult class won’t meet again as a group—not officially—until Rally Day in September. Three months seems like a long time to go without meeting for prayer, fellowship and Bible study on Sunday mornings before worship. The group has been such a blessing to me! And I am also joyful because of how hard the class has worked! How much you have grown in Spirit and in the knowledge of the Lord and His Word! And though I can’t take credit for your hard work and the Spirit’s work in and through you—I still want to say, “I am proud of you!” And, “Thank you!”

       I couldn’t help but smile when I would open the door to the fellowship hall and see sometimes 12 or more adults gathered around two tables. And you were smiling, ready and waiting for me! I didn’t mind at all that sometimes it was hard to pull you away from your conversation about tractors, farming, or antique trains! Those conversations led us into a deeper level of fellowship and improved our learning. They made us laugh and feel more at ease with one another.

        Some small, rural churches like ours struggle to keep adult Sunday school classes going, but you have been faithful. You have attended and fully participated, even when you might not have been thrilled with some of the discussion topics. You even trusted me enough to allow me to lead you out of your comfort zone with our study of Islam for four weeks last fall. For many folks, this was their first real exposure to the religion about which most Americans know very little, and yet adherents are growing nationwide. About 2.6 million Muslims worship, learn and pray in about 2,100 mosques and Islamic centers in this country; 900 of these mosques were built in the last 14 years. Are you surprised to hear that 38 of the nation’s mosques or Islamic centers are in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area? And that for every 100,000 people living in Minnesota, 317 of them are Muslim.

     Some who came to study Islam with me had never known a Muslim person by name, though about 2,000 Muslims live as close to us as Willmar! It is my hope that through our study of Islam, and by the leading of the Spirit, we will be empowered to live out the Great Commission—to make disciples of all the nations by developing relationships with our near neighbors of a different faith.

    ***

     The apostle Paul is out of his comfort zone on his first visit to Athens in our Acts reading today.  The city was unrivaled for its architectural magnificence, cultural sophistication, and intellectual resources. But Paul had not originally planned to come to Athens. His friends escorted him to the city by sea when violence led him to flee his last two missionary stops—first Thessalonica, the capital of the province of Macedonia, and then Berea, about 50 miles to the southwest. Now Paul is essentially a tourist, with no purpose for being in Athens, other than waiting for Silas and Timothy to come for him so they may return to Macedonia, where the Spirit has led Paul to bring the gospel.

     Luke, the author of Acts, makes us feel like we are with Paul in Athens when he tells us what he saw, felt, did and said. Paul, well educated in Tarsus and Jerusalem, looks around the city and is not impressed by it golden and marble beauty. All he can see is the idols! The word Luke uses for “idolatry” is found nowhere else in the New Testament and has not been found in Greek literature. He says, “kateidolos,” which the NRSV translates as “full of idols,” but it may be more accurately translated “under” the idols, or perhaps “smothered” or “swamped” by them.

       Paul is “deeply distressed.” The word Luke uses here is “paroxyno,” which is found only in one other place in the New Testament—in 1 Corinthians, when Paul describes love as “not easily angered” or “provoked.”  Paul isn’t feeling pity for the Athenians’ ignorance or fearing for their eternal salvation when he sees the idols. He is horrified by what is so dishonoring to the Lord—who in Exodus 20 verses 3 and 4 says, “You shall have no other gods before Me.  You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.…”

      Paul’s distress stirs him to go and preach the Good News in the synagogues, and to anyone who happens to be in the marketplace every day. This includes Gentiles, such as Epicureans and Stoic philosophers. Paul knows how to speak with them because he has studied these philosophies. Epicurus, the founder of Epicureanism who died in 270 B.C., believed that the gods were so remote that they took no interest in human affairs. Everything that happens in this world is random, due to chance; there is no larger divine plan, no afterlife, no judgment. Epicureans live to pursue pleasure and please only themselves.  Zeno, the founder of Stoicism who died in 265 B.C., believed in a supreme being, but not a loving God. Fate determines the world. Human beings must resign themselves that life is pain to be endured. They must develop self-sufficiency and live in harmony with nature and reason.

    After debating with the philosophers, they say he is advocating foreign gods and insult him, calling him a “seed picker,” which the NRSV translates as “babbler.”  A “seed picker” can be a scavenging bird, but in Athenian slang, it could also be a human being who lives off food picked up from the gutter or a teacher who steals ideas from others, picking up scraps of knowledge here and there, without having an original thought. Then the philosophers ask to hear more from Paul. They bring him to speak in front of the Areopagus, the guardians of the city’s religion, morals and education. 

         Paul begins his argument not by attacking idols, but by complimenting the Athenians that they are “extremely religious.” Next, he uses their accusation that he is advocating for foreign gods as an opportunity to introduce them to a God that they don’t yet know. He has seen an altar in Athens with the inscription, “To an unknown God.” This God is the Creator of all, so He cannot possibly “live in shrines made by human hands.” This God needs nothing from human beings as He is the Giver—the one who “gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.” Paul speaks of this God as also the Father of all people, supporting his claim by quoting a 3^rd century Stoic author, Aratus, from Paul’s hometown, who wrote, “We are his offspring.” This leads to Paul’s conclusion that we should not make idols, as it is ridiculous to think of God the Father of all life in the lifeless form of gold, silver or stone.

     What captures my heart in this argument is right before Paul quotes the Stoic author, when he says God “made all nations to inhabit the whole earth,” allotting “the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live.”  This is certainly not the remote, uncaring God of the pleasure-seeking Epicureans or the fatalistic Stoics! Paul makes what must seem to them to be an incredible statement, implying that God, who already has an intimate relationship with all humanity, desires to be in even closer relationship with each one of us. Paul says that the Lord made human beings “so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.”

***

         Unfortunately, Paul’s preaching in Athens yields few converts. He loses most of his audience when he speaks of the resurrection of the dead—an idea that differed drastically from their belief systems. Some who aren’t persuaded say they want Paul to speak to them some more. Paul does not stay to preach another day, however. He leaves Athens and heads to Corinth.

         But on this unplanned trip to a city “smothered” by idolatry, some who heard Paul speak of the unknown God did become believers. Luke identifies two by name: “Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris.” An ancient historian, Eusebius, reports that Dionysius, a member of the Areopagite court, became the first bishop of Athens. But we don’t know if this true. And we know nothing about Damaris, except that she is a woman whom Luke felt was important enough to be named. She never appears in scripture again.

       Luke identifying two new believers by name—especially people who will be strangers to future generations reading Acts—fits with Paul’s message of our personal God, with intimate knowledge of the human beings He created. The God who desires to be even closer still to each one of us.

         Our Creator God, who has “made all nations to inhabit the whole earth,” has allotted the times and places in which we will live.  Our Father God had a plan for these new believers before he brought Paul to Athens, just as He has plan for each one of us to carry the Good News to people who do not yet know Jesus as their Savior.

         And let this be encouragement to you, that even if only one person that you share the Gospel with becomes a believer, God could use that one person to bring many more people closer to Himself, people like us, who are searching for Him all of our lives. 

        People like us, who will find Him through prayer, by His Spirit, and in His Word. For “indeed, he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.”

Let us pray.

Holy One, Our Creator and Father of All, thank you for knowing us so well and being so intimately involved in our lives. Thank you for being so very close to us—and desiring to be closer still. Draw us near to you and let us hear again your Great Commission with excitement in our hearts. Forgive us for lacking the confidence or courage to share the gospel with all we meet, with all who don’t know you as their Savior. Help us to develop new relationships with people who aren’t our immediate neighbors. Lead us out of our comfort zones to share the Good News of Christ’s Resurrection with people of different faiths, who may seem strange to us, but who are in fact, like us, loved unconditionally and known intimately by you. Remove any prejudice we might harbor in our hearts. And use us to accomplish your kingdom building purposes. In Christ we pray. Amen.

"Like Living Stones"

Meditation on I Peter 2:1-10

May 18, 2014

Here's the video link
https://vimeo.com/95739567

***

        Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

        Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture: ‘See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’ To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner’, and ‘A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.’ They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

      But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

***

     This has been a week of bird watching for me—as the rain tapered off. Have you noticed, too? The spring birds are back! Not just the robins! The Baltimore Orioles! 

    They are one of my favorite birds. Did you know that they are the Maryland state bird? And being from Maryland, originally, I was surprised and happy to find Orioles in Minnesota when we moved here.

     They really are beautiful, aren’t they? The males have bright orange bellies with dark charcoal grey backs and heads and dark grey and white markings on their wings.

       Orioles are also fantastic singers. Like the author of the Birds of Minnesota Field Guide says, you often hear them singing before you see them. And they are social creatures. You don’t usually just see one Oriole without another one nearby. I think we have a family of 4 or 5 or more.

      We didn’t see Orioles the first two summers we lived here, and I wondered why, since other people talked about having them at their feeders in town.  Then a fellow bird-lover told me to put out grape jelly and oranges if I wanted to attract them to our yard. He was right!

      It makes me laugh to watch the Orioles—now plump and a bit overfed—eating the grape jelly and oranges at our feeder. They just look so happy as they suck up the jelly and orange juice and bits in their beaks and hop around, flapping their wings, before bending over and slurping some more. Sometimes they stop eating to throw back their heads and break into song. Other times they fly away mid-slurp, startled by some noise or movement, only to return a few minutes later to happily feed again.

       In my reading about Orioles, I learned the adults teach their young how to find food by bringing them to the feeders with them. Then I saw them do this! Their young have the coloring of the adult females; their bodies and heads are a pale orange and their wings are marked with white and a lighter shade of gray.

     I also learned that Orioles will often return to the same place to nest and feed—year after year.  That means that some of the Orioles who are here now may have been here last year—and some may return here to nest and feed next spring. 

      This is their home, at least for our spring and summer. When they migrate to a warmer place in winter, they must remember the taste of the sweet fruit and jelly and the life in their community of feathered friends they enjoy here—or else why would they come back year after year?

***

    I picture the Baltimore Orioles hungrily and happily consuming the grape jelly and orange slices when I read I Peter 2:2, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk so by it you may grow into salvation.”  

     But what does Peter mean by “pure, spiritual milk”? What is it that we need to grow and thrive and feel well-nourished as believers in this world? 

    Jesus Christ, God’s Word, and our Christian community. 

     To Peter, living a holy life in community and modeling Christ’s self giving, servant love is what being a believer is all about! Peter begins his letter by telling us of our living hope in Christ and how the community suffering various trials is testing the authenticity of its faith. Peter calls believers to live like “obedient children,” and not to live according to their former desires as they did before they knew the hope of Jesus Christ.

       Our passage today begins with an admonition to refrain from attitudes and behaviors that will hurt the Christian community, such as malice, slander, envy, insincerity, and deceit. Then Peter speaks of what Christ is for us—and how the Lord is changing us. But He is doing this as we allow Him to work in us and as we live as God’s people who seek to be pleasing to Him.

     Peter says in verse 4, “Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals, yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

    As Peter describes our lives as believers, his is not an argument of faith verses works, as we find in the writings of Paul or James.  Being a believer means being in relationship with Christ and one another and experiencing the Spirit’s transforming presence in our midst. Our hunger for spiritual nourishment is evidence of our love and commitment to Jesus Christ, as Peter adds to his admonition that we long for pure spiritual milk, “if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

      Peter uses the familiar Old Testament language of “stones” as he seeks to encourage his audience whom he calls “exiles of the Dispersion.” By telling these formerly Jewish believers that they are “living stones,” Peter may be reassuring them that they don’t need the Temple in Jerusalem that is lost to them. A stone building is not needed for worship when Christ is with them as they gather in His name. Like “living stones,” they are being built into “a spiritual house.” Through Christ and not through their works or their birth, they are a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.”

     But I think the stone metaphor goes much deeper than a reassurance that all is not lost because they have no Temple and Christ is still with them in Spirit.

       Stones in the Old Testament are often used as memorials—reminders of God’s faithfulness to His people in the past and the promise of His presence and faithfulness in the future. The Israelites, former slaves in captivity, carried 12 stones from the Jordan River at Joshua’s order—one for each of the tribes of Israel. They crossed the Jordan River as dry ground miraculously appeared, carrying the ark to the promised land.  And Joshua said, “When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the covenant of the Lord. … So these stones shall be to the Israelites a memorial forever.”

     And then there was Samuel, who took a stone and set it up between 
 and Jeshanah in I Samuel 7:12. The men of Israel had gone out of Mizpah and pursued and struck down the Philistines, achieving a victory against all odds. And Samuel said, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” And he named the stone “Ebenezer”—Hebrew for “the stone of help.”

       Given the overwhelming use of stones as memorials in the Old Testament, I think Peter was telling the new believers to be “living memorials” for our living Lord, testifying to God’s love, grace and mercy, shown through His faithfulness to His people throughout the ages—and especially through the sacrifice of His Son.

***

        Today, as our community gathers to welcome Kyra into the Body of Christ through baptism, we pause to remember God’s mercy and lovingkindness. We give Him thanks for what He has done for us through Jesus Christ. We embrace the Spirit’s cleansing, transforming work in us that begins at our baptism and continues throughout our lives. But we must allow the Spirit's work in us by opening our hearts to the Lord, seeking to be in His presence, and seeking to be nourished by Him.

       We pray that Kyra will be like the Orioles, who have begun to make their home here with us, returning again and again to live and be happily nourished in community. May Kyra taste the goodness of the Lord in this place so that she longs for the “pure spiritual milk” that will enable her to “grow into her salvation.” And may she and her family join with us as the Lord lives and works in us, transforming us into Christ’s image. Building us into a spiritual house. Like “living stones.”

  Let us pray.

   Holy One, thank you for your faithfulness to us and to all your people throughout the ages.  We seek to forever be in your presence, Lord, and to be nourished by your pure spiritual milk so that we may grow and mature in the faith. Unite us as a community, make us one in You, built into a spiritual house of living stones. Stir us to be living memorials, testifying by our words and our lives to your love, mercy, and grace, shown to us through your Sacrifice of the One who is the Cornerstone, chosen and precious in your sight. In His name we pray. Amen.