baptism — Andy James

Loving and Troubling Waters

January 10, 2016 By Andy James

a sermon on Isaiah 43:1-7 and Luke 3:1-21
preached on January 10, 2016, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

You’ve gotta love John the Baptist. He bucks every trend in the book. His parents had so given up on having a child that his father directly questioned the messenger of God who brought this news and ended up mute for nine months. John himself took an old Jewish tradition of ritual washing and put new meaning on it by inviting people to venture out into the wilderness to repent and find forgiveness for their sins. He offered a message compelling enough to draw people out of the villages and cities to come hear him preach in the wilderness. And he managed to amass such a large group of followers that he still had a pretty big group left after calling them all a “brood of vipers” and suggesting that they were trees who would be cut down if they did not bear good fruit.

The people left behind took his words seriously and asked him what this repentance would look like in their lives. First, the told the general crowds that they should share from their abundance with those who are in need. Then, he instructed the tax collectors to be fair in their collections. Finally, when soldiers came, John told them to end extortion, treat people fairly, and be satisfied with their wages. People clearly thought that John was something important—they were “filled with expectation” and “questioning in their hearts concerning John”—but they couldn’t tell what he was really up to. Had he come to offer a new prophecy for their new time and their new challenges as a people under Roman rule? Had he come to lead a political rebellion against these strange overlords? Or had he come to be the Messiah, blending these political and religious roles to guide them out of this terrible morass and save them from all the difficulty that was before them?

According to Luke, John did not see himself as the Messiah. In his view, his baptism and his message were surely important, but there was something more coming up ahead:

I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

John’s message was unmistakable—the old way of doing things that benefited only a few had to be set aside, and a new way of living had to emerge. Some would find hope in this new day, especially those who had little hope in the present, but others would find this new path far more challenging, with their power and privilege drawn into question along the way. This message had immediate and real consequences for John. There were some who were truly threatened by this way of life, and so the puppet king Herod threw John into prison because he had condemned several of Herod’s actions.

But somewhere along the way, it seems that John the Baptist had encountered Jesus. While all four gospels record an encounter between these two figures of renewal, our reading from Luke this morning is very vague about exactly what happened. “When all the people were baptized,” Jesus also “had been baptized.” Somehow Jesus was brought into John’s tradition, following in the footsteps of this one who had come “crying out in the wilderness” preparing the way of the Lord, offering himself to receive this baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, and claiming this connection with John and his troubling words at the beginning of his own ministry.

But we don’t usually think of baptism as in any way troubling. The brutal honesty of John the Baptist at the Jordan River in this reading is usually eclipsed at our modern-day baptismal font by a beautiful baby and smiling parents. These are generally not people that we would think of as a brood of vipers! Based on my conversations with them over the years, parents presenting their children for baptism are usually not concerned that their child needs to flee from any wrath ahead. And when approach baptism, we generally do not worry that we must bear good fruit or face the threat of being thrown into the fire. The troubling words of John the Baptist at the Jordan are likely replaced with something more like the gentle and hopeful words of the prophet Isaiah when we gather at the font:

Thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name,
you are mine.

When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;

and through the rivers,
they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire
you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.

Surprisingly, in this case it is the Old Testament that gives us comfort and the New Testament that strikes fear into our bones!

But this strange mix of loving and troubling words is probably the most faithful thing we can carry when we come to the waters of baptism. There is great love revealed to us in these waters, the love of one who welcomes us no matter who we are, the love of one who stays with us when we feel like we are being overwhelmed, the love of one who gathers us in to show us the pathway to new life. But this great love also shows us that we have responsibility, too—responsibility to set aside the things that might get in the way of us embracing the fullness of this love, responsibility to care for those others who journey with us on this way, even if they do not venture into these waters themselves, even responsibility to examine ourselves to find ways that we can bear greater fruit as we follow the example of Jesus through these waters into new life.

Every time we approach these waters, we must carry all these words with us. Whether we come to the font to be baptized or to reaffirm the promises of the baptismal covenant, we are asked to reject sin, profess our faith in Christ Jesus, and confess the faith of the church, to honor John’s challenging words as we embrace his call to repentance and new life. But then we are even more reminded that these waters are a gift to us, a place that shows us how we are created for God’s glory, an opportunity to experience everything that we need to go forth in justice, love, and peace. These loving and troubling waters remind us of the depth and breadth of God’s care for us and presence with us and the real call and challenge that God gives us as we respond to all that we have received. And these loving and troubling waters express the deep wonder of God’s gifts to us, gifts that remind us that God loves us so much that God is not satisfied with the way things are now, gifts that invite us to respond to God’s love in our lives by joining in the transformation of our troubled world.

So as we reaffirm the promises of the baptismal covenant and remember our baptism today, may we experience God’s grace and mercy in these loving and troubling waters as we are assured of God’s love for us and empowered to join in God’s transformation of our broken and fearful world until Christ comes to make all things new. Lord, come quickly! Alleluia! Amen.

Playing in the Water

August 30, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Exodus 2:1-10 and Galatians 3:23-29
preached on August 30, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

In my ten years as pastor here, I have enjoyed bringing many new and different ideas to our worship, but any time I have done something new around baptism, I am certain to hear about it. When the time comes to baptize someone of whatever age, when someone realizes that Baptism of the Lord Sunday is coming up, or even when one of you notices that the cover is off the baptismal font before worship, I have this vision of someone rolling his eyes, saying, “There Andy goes again, playing in the water in church.” I guess you could say I have a bit of a reputation of playing in the water—and I must say that I am just a little bit proud of it!

Interest in remembering baptism is not everywhere in the church. In far too many churches, the baptismal font is shoved over to the side. We don’t use it all that much, the logic goes, so why should it get in the way of everything else that we are doing? After all, the only time this piece of furniture matters is when we are baptizing someone, and when that happens, we can put it where we need it. There’s no need to play in the water until then.

But baptism is where everything begins for us. These strange waters are where each of us begins our life of faith. This simple font is the place where we see God’s grace poured out for everyone. These wonderful waters give us confidence and hope for every step of our journey. If we take baptism seriously, we can’t push the baptismal font off to the side, because baptism becomes an integral part of our worship week after week, whether we are welcoming someone new to our community in this sacrament, remembering and recommitting ourselves to the covenant God makes with us in these waters, or simply living out our faith with confidence because we know that our journey has taken us through these waters. God calls us to be people who love to play in the water.

Our two scripture readings this morning remind us of how important it is to play in the water. First, our Old Testament lesson gives us a glimpse of what can happen when someone is drawn out of the water. This story about the birth of Moses recounts a time when Egypt’s frustration with the Israelites hit its highest point. The Pharaoh was so afraid of the Israelites’ increasing power that he ordered that all their sons to be killed at birth, first by the midwives who delivered them and then by drowning them in the Nile. In the face of this edict, Moses’ mother hid him for as long as she could, but eventually she had to set him out on the river in a papyrus basket, hoping that someone would save him. The daughter of Pharaoh found the baby in the river as she went down to bathe in it, and she showed mercy to him. She asked her Hebrew maid—who just happened to be the baby’s sister!—to find a nurse for the boy, then when he was weaned, Pharaoh’s daughter raised Moses as her own son. “She named him Moses, ‘because,’ she said, ‘I drew him out of the water.”

Moses—the largest figure in the history of Judaism, the one to whom the first five books of the Bible are attributed, one of the only humans to speak directly to God and survive—Moses is drawn up out of the water, water that could have been the death of him but that in the end gave him a pathway to new life. This was just the first time that water mattered to Moses. The waters of the Nile were center stage as he gave voice to God’s plagues upon the people of Egypt. The waters of the sea parted at Moses’ command so that the Israelites could go through on dry land. Even the waters of another river, the Jordan, framed Moses’ first and last view of the promised land as his days came to an end. Moses knew as well as anyone the importance of playing in the water.

But Moses was not alone there. The apostle Paul, in our second reading from his letter to the churches of Galatia, shows us that the early church was also quite good at playing in the water. In Galatians, Paul set out to help this early church deal with some people who came to them to tell them that Gentile converts to Christianity needed to be circumcised—to become Jews—before they could be full members of the Christian community. Paul uses what was likely a familiar statement from the liturgy of the early church to make his point:

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
There is no longer Jew or Greek,
there is no longer slave or free,
there is no longer male and female;
for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

For Paul, baptism makes it clear that all the things that attempt to divide us in this world do not matter to God. These three divisions of ethnic background (“Jew or Greek”), socioeconomic status (“slave or free”), and gender (“male and female”) may not directly cover all the categories of the world that we use to divide ourselves, but in lifting up these three divisions, Paul shows that no other divisions carry any weight in light of the gift of God in Jesus Christ. In baptism, God places a sign and seal upon us so that we can remember that we are children of God, that we have been clothed with Christ, and that all our human divisions cannot and will not divide us from God. These are incredible and wondrous waters that change us and make us new—why would we choose not to play here?

We can and should play in the waters of baptism anytime, remembering our baptism each and every day, but these waters of baptism belong to the life of worship, and we are called to play in them here. Baptism is not a private rite of passage or confirmation of faith but a very public moment when we recognize that God is at work among us. In baptism, God gives us an outward sign of the very inward seal of grace that has touched us long before the first drop of water touches our bodies. In baptism, God offers us a way to touch and feel God’s love entering our lives. And in baptism, God grants us a very physical glimpse of the divine mercy that sustains us each and every day. When we welcome a new sister or brother into the community through baptism, we do it together, gathering at the same place where we came to see and hear and touch the grace of God so that we can give thanks for this incredible gift even as we pray that God will seal it anew on yet another who is seeking to know God’s promise in their lives. Everything that we do in worship connects to the love, grace, and mercy of God that we find every time we come and play in these waters.

Sometimes our little font isn’t the best at showing us the wonder of these waters. The other day, I had the chance to see the newly-renovated sanctuary at St. Luke’s Church here in Whitestone—and especially their new baptismal font. Their font is made of beautiful granite, featuring two levels, with a waterfall between them so that the sound of moving water echoes throughout the church. It is large enough that a baby can be fully immersed in it, or an adult can step in up to her ankles and then have water poured over her head. Now I don’t expect that we’ll be installing anything quite like that anytime soon, but whatever it looks like, however large or small it may be, the place where we share the waters of baptism reminds us of the gift that we enjoy anytime we can come to play in these waters.

While each one of us receives this sacrament only once, that should never keep us from playing in these waters again and again. When we play in the waters of baptism, we remember how God claims us as God’s own here. When we play in these waters, we are reminded of the abundance of God’s love. And when we play in these waters, we remember how much we need God’s amazing grace to continue to wash over us and make us new. So every time we gather, may we remember the joy and wonder of baptism as we are united with all our sisters and brothers who play in these waters as we celebrate God making all things new in Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Over the Face of the Waters

January 11, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Genesis 1:1-5 and Mark 1:4-14
preached on January 11, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Beginnings are important moments. How you tell the beginning of a story changes how the rest of it is heard. If I start with “Once upon a time,” it will be really hard for you to hear anything I say as much more than a fairy tale. If I start with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” you’ll expect me to launch into Charles Dickens. And if I start with “So-and-so was born on such-and-such date,” then you’ll be ready for me to give you a full biography.

The beginnings of moments in our lives are important, too. First impressions can make a huge difference in how we interact with one another over the long term. The first time we do something, we set a pattern for how it is done that is often very hard to shake later on. And more and more we are learning how the things we do in the earliest months and years of our lives make a difference throughout all our days.

So today, our texts point us to two beginnings in the Bible—first the beginning of the beginning, the opening words of Genesis that tell of God’s creation of the world, and then the beginning of the story of Jesus, the dramatic shift of a relatively ordinary guy from a relatively ordinary town in the backwaters of the Roman empire to being the one who proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God and was executed for doing so. More than anything, these beginnings set the stage for how the rest of the story is told and heard, and we do well to let them shape our thinking and understanding of everything that follows.

The beginning of the creation story in Genesis sets the stage for the rest of the Bible. This story seems far less concerned with the exact details or process of creation and far more concerned with making it clear that God is at work in all of it. In this beginning, God creates light where there was none, the first step in the process of transforming the formless void of the earth into something new. And that is the real point of this beginning, to show how God acts to make something out of nothing, how God is in the business of transformation from the very beginning, how the world begins when the voice of God sweeps over the face of the waters.

And so the beginning of the story of Jesus in Mark also sets the stage for everything else that follows in the story of Jesus’ life. This beginning is much like the beginning of Genesis, as both point us to the transformative power of God that becomes so very clear when the voice of God sweeps over the face of the waters.

As he begins his story, Mark skips over so much of the stuff that we usually associate with the beginning of the Jesus story. There’s no mention of angels, shepherds, kings, or even Mary and Joseph. Jesus’ background and upbringing are unimportant and perhaps even distracting to Mark’s version of this story. Instead, in Mark’s telling, Jesus just sort of appears out of nowhere to be baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. John himself had just appeared in the wilderness to proclaim a message of baptism for the forgiveness of sins. People quickly identified him as a prophet, but John knew that his biggest role was to point forward to another who was still to come:

The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

And so when Jesus was baptized by John, God’s transformative power was revealed once again. The heavens were torn apart, and the Spirit descended like a dove upon Jesus. Then a voice moved over the face of the waters, announcing to Jesus,

You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Jesus’ beginning was not quite over yet, either. After a brief interlude of forty days of temptation in the wilderness that we’ll hear more about in a few weeks, Mark continues setting the stage for everything else in his story of Jesus. “After John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God,” bringing a message of transformation:

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.

As the one whom John said was coming after him, Jesus took John’s message of repentance one step further. There was more than an individual change of heart going on here—God’s transformative power was coming into its fullness in Jesus’ presence, and everyone was called to join in. All this became clear for Jesus in the waters of his baptism, in that moment when John held him under waters of the muddy Jordan River to symbolize repentance and new life. It was then, as he came up out of the water, that all the dots of his life connected for the first time. When Jesus experienced the heavens torn apart, the Spirit descending like a dove upon him, and a voice proclaiming his identity once and for all, he understood his mission and call in a new and complete way. This was not a total surprise to him, but as that voice called out over the face of those waters, he entered fully and completely into the work of fulfilling the time and embodying the kingdom of God.

In the waters of our baptism, we see much the same thing emerging around us. There is certainly nothing magical in those waters even as they mark the beginning of our lives of faith, and we are very unlikely to have a vision of heavens torn apart and a dive-bombing Spirit dove, let alone a heavenly voice offering a loud and clear declaration of our beloved status. But when our very human voices move over these waters to affirm the vows of repentance and new life for ourselves and to pray for God’s presence, the heavens are torn apart as God joins us here, the Spirit descends upon us to seal God’s love and grace upon us in a new and different way, and a voice moves over the waters to tell us that we too are beloved children of God. And so we too are called with Jesus to join in fulfilling the time and embodying the kingdom of God.

From his baptism, as the voice moved over those waters, Jesus was called to live this kind of life of transformation, to declare and embody God’s reign. This was not an entirely new thing. Jesus followed after a long line of those who had prepared the way. Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Miriam, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and countless other women and men carried God’s message across the generations. And Jesus followed very much in the footsteps of John the Baptist and even other similar, now-unknown prophets of his own day who were setting the stage for this message and this life. From the beginning, Jesus was called to proclaim and live the fullness of God’s new thing that already had been taking hold for generations, guiding others to the light of this new day so that they too could live in justice, peace, love, hope, and grace each and every day.

And so we also are called by the voice of God over the waters of our baptism to live lives of transformation as we declare and embody God’s reign in our lives and our world. We too follow in a long line of prophets and saints who have gone before us to prepare the way and make it clear that we are not doing this all alone. We too have companions on this journey who set the stage for the message and life of transformation that stand at the center of the coming reign of God. And ultimately, as our story begins at this font, we too are called to proclaim and live the fullness of God’s new thing that had been taking hold for generations, guiding others to the light of this new day so that they too could live in justice, peace, love, hope, and grace each and every day.

So today as we remember Jesus’ baptism and reaffirm the promises made in our own baptisms, may God’s voice move over these waters once again to remind us that we are God’s beloved children and to encourage us to continue proclaiming and living the reign of God until all things are made new in Jesus Christ our Lord. Lord, come quickly! Amen.

A Widow’s Welcome

June 9, 2013 By Andy James

a sermon on 1 Kings 17:8-16 for the 10th Sunday of Ordinary Time
preached on June 9, 2013, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

Hospitality has always been one of the great marks of the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone. When I first came here eight years ago, I quickly learned how you make outsiders feel welcome. We have spent some time together over the years working to improve the welcome we offer to one another and our community, and by all the reports I hear, even adjusted for the inherent bias in many of them and the work we still have to do, we are still quite a welcoming church! Yet we can still be challenged by scripture readings like this one this morning that give us a glimpse into the power of hospitality.

In the midst of a drought, God had commanded Elijah to travel from Israel to a neighboring land and promised that a widow would feed him and take care of him. When Elijah arrived there, he saw a widow on the outskirts of town, collecting sticks for a fire, so he asked her for some water to quench his thirst at the end of a long journey. Before she could get completely out of earshot, he called out to her again: “I’m hungry too, so bring me some bread while you’re at it.” It was the kind of request that would seem somewhat normal under most circumstances—I’ve done it before, and I suspect you have too!—but here it was anything but normal.

Elijah’s request stopped her in her tracks. She clearly wanted to help him—she was willing to get him some water, after all—but this was more than she could offer. The breadbox was empty. The cupboard was bare. Her oil was almost gone. Water was hard enough to come by in the drought, but bread was just too much even for her, let alone a guest. She turned to him and explained her predicament: “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” Not only had Elijah asked for a gift out of her poverty—he had asked her to give him what would be her very last meal!

It was a strange moment of hospitality. Even though she couldn’t give him the bread he wanted, she offered her guest a strange bit of honesty about her situation and explained why she could not deepen her generosity. So Elijah shifted from being a demanding and exhausted traveler to a gentle and kind prophet. He directed her to set aside her fears and share a bit of meal with him, for God would provide for all of them: “The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth.” If she would join him in a show of confidence for God’s presence, together they would witness a miracle.

Somehow, some way, they pulled it off—they, of course, being mostly God. Beginning with this simple act of a widow’s welcome, first offering the prophet a drink of water, then granting him her confidence and finally a place to stay, as she turned from her fear of not having enough to a new confidence that God would provide, they received everything that they needed to get through the challenges of the drought. And in the end, God offered this widow a lot more: when her son later became sick and died, God revived him amidst Elijah’s prayers, and she was all the more grateful for the prophet’s presence and gift to her amidst her hospitality.

Hospitality like what this widow showed to Elijah can be truly transformative even now. We don’t ever know when a simple act like offering someone a glass of water will bring us more than a simple thank you. We don’t know who might show up and what might happen when we throw open the doors of the church and invite everyone in. And we don’t know what God has in store for us when we reach out in unexpected ways to the world around us. But ultimately this hospitality requires something of us. It certainly requires a little bit of work to get everything in place, to make sure that we can offer an extra measure of what we have to all who come our way, and to prepare a warm and welcoming space for those who will join us.

But it also requires us to listen to Elijah’s first words to the widow: “Do not be afraid.” True hospitality requires us to step outside of our comfort zone, to set aside our hopes and our fears about the other and the new, and to open ourselves to the change that inevitably comes when we stop being only who we have been. Most of all, it requires us to trust that God will provide—not so much that God will magically make things happen if we don’t try or extend our resources beyond what is reasonable but rather that God will turn what we think is nothing into something far beyond our imagination.

As the widow at Zarephath demonstrated when she offered Elijah a cup of water, God’s welcome is bound to surprise us. It will look different in every time and place, yet it extends to all people in unexpected ways, not because we expect something unusual to happen but because we trust that God works beyond our means and our understanding to extend our welcome beyond these walls. We make this welcome real every Sunday as we open our doors and give space for anyone and everyone to join us here, but the ultimate sign and seal of God’s welcome to us comes whenever we gather at this font. As we make our way here today to celebrate this sacrament and officially welcome Drew to the family of faith, we get the best possible glimpse of the strange and wonderful things that God can do in us and through us when we embody God’s grace and show God’s love.

So may the witness of this faithful widow inspire us as we extend God’s welcome to all who look for a stop on their spiritual journey, whether just for water or for something far more, as we walk together on the road of new life. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Wet

March 17, 2013 By Andy James

a sermon on Isaiah 43:16-21 and Psalm 126 for the Fifth Sunday in Lent
preached on March 17, 2013, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

The other day, I met a friend in Manhattan for a cup of coffee after work. He needed to run a couple errands, so I joined him in wandering around Manhattan as we talked. Most days at this time of year, this would have been a refreshing way to spend a late afternoon, with a gentle, crisp breeze to keep things cool but not cold and the late afternoon sunshine taking the edge off the wind.

But sun was not in the cards for us that afternoon—it was overcast and gray. Even worse, though, it was a drizzling and misting day, raining just lightly enough that you didn’t really need an umbrella most of the time, but as we walked along, we ended up getting soaking wet—not just our coats, not just our shoes, but everything, soaked to the bone.

As I pondered this text over the last few days, this soaking mist kept coming back to me. Usually we think of waters much like we hear in our reading from Isaiah today, rushing around, pouring into our lives, changing things quickly. We look for waters that will quench our thirst and bring us a taste of new life. We seek the full promise of Isaiah’s prophecy:

I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

We long for new springs that will not damage us or destroy us, hoping for the presence of God to bring waters that will make a way where there was no way, quench the thirst of a dry land, and refresh the people of God. We look to be refreshed and renewed by the memory of who God has been and what God has done, to once again set aside the former ways of destruction, the frustrations of exile, the mourning and crying and pain of the past, so that we can embrace this new thing, a way opening up through the wilderness, the possibility of new life breaking through into the weariness of our world. We seek something so easy and so dramatic that everything changes, that everyone stops and takes notice—like in Isaiah’s world, where even the wild animals pay attention, give their honor, and share the gift of life in this new water, and all people are enabled to declare great praise.

But when we look around us, when we stop and wander around in hope of finding something that has eluded us, more often than finding gushing springs of new life, we find what seems to be a dreary mist—yet before we know it, we are soaked through and through. And we just don’t know what to do with that—while I know of few people who don’t appreciate a good wet shower or a nice rainstorm from inside, most of the time we’re just ready to dry off and dry out already! Yet God’s new thing is sinking into us anyway, soaking us like a drizzly New York day, getting us wet whether we like it or not, calling us to set aside where we have been and keep our focus on where we are going.

I love these words from Isaiah, but something is missing in them. When I read more closely, I realize that Isaiah isn’t worried about convincing people that this is the right thing. He doesn’t seem to be concerned that they might be anxious about taking a new path. He certainly doesn’t worry that God’s people will share the emotions that I feel almost every time I face a new way—that strange blend of deep and real and true excitement mixed with a healthy and honest dose of fear. And he doesn’t spend a lot of time wondering how to get them to accept this challenge—it seems almost a given that they would welcome this new way.

And that makes a lot of sense in the original context of the prophet’s words. The people of Israel were desperate to be back in control of their own destiny, to set aside foreign leadership and feel that they had power again, to come back home and get things back to normal once again. They were ready to sing songs of praise and joy, as in our psalm for today—they were like those who dream, with mouths filled with laughter, tongues with shouts of joy, and praises echoing among the nations.

Yet for us, the promise of something new is not always so joyful. Since we are generally well-off and without difficulty, change means that something that has at least felt settled in our world will have to be made new. We are afraid of what this new thing will mean for the past and present that we know and love—or that we just know and expect to not love! We struggle to change our plans and our ways to make space for something more than what we have always known. And we wonder how much we will have to change in order to adapt to the new thing. How soaked will we be when this drizzle ends, and how much drying off will we have to do? Can we just stay a little dry and keep even a little of this new thing out of our lives? Or even better, can things change without getting us wet at all?

The reality is that God’s new way changes everything about us. We spend these forty days of Lent preparing for Easter not because we like to beat ourselves up, not because we need to know what it is like to be thirsty every now and then, and not even because we are sinful people who need to change our ways. No, we set aside this time of penitence and preparation because the new thing ahead—the Easter of joy and gladness, this new day of resurrection—inaugurates a new way of life in our world, and we have the opportunity to join in.

When the new thing that God is doing really sinks in, when the little drizzle of grace that we sometimes even struggle to feel on our faces starts to soak us through and through, when we recognize how the waters of baptism have seeped into us and changed us as much as we might have tried to resist them, we start to perceive what God is doing in our midst. We start to see the way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. We see a new path emerging just where we thought we were staring into an abyss. We watch as God opens unexpected doors, offers us unusual opportunities to give honor and praise, and shares the crisp gift of the water of life with us all.

So as we make our way through these final Lenten days, as tomorrow night we begin conversations about our future as a congregation and wonder what new path God may offer us, as we look for a way forward for our congregation and even more for the life of faith in the midst of a world that is changing even as it is longing for something new, may God’s amazing grace soak us through and through so that we may be a part of the springs of new life in our weary world, the way of hope in the wilderness of our lives, the rivers of justice in the desert of our world, and the gift of the water of new life for all those who seek something new.

So may we be wet with the abundant mercy of God’s love, now and always.

Amen.