SPEAKER_09: Hallelujah, Christ is risen.
SPEAKER_09: There is one body and one spirit.
SPEAKER_09: One Lord, one faith, one baptism.
SPEAKER_09: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_09: Almighty God.
SPEAKER_06: And from you.
SPEAKER_06: Cleanseth us by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_06: And you may be perfectly loving you.
SPEAKER_06: And perfectly.
SPEAKER_09: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_09: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_09: Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_09: Grant that all who are baptized into his name may keep the covenant they have made and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior, who with you in the Holy Spirit lives and reigns one God in glory everlasting.
SPEAKER_09: Amen.
SPEAKER_09: As you're being seated, our children are invited to children's church in the back.
SPEAKER_10: While a wind from God swept over the face of the water.
SPEAKER_10: Then God said, Let there be light.
SPEAKER_10: And there was light.
SPEAKER_10: And God saw that the light was good.
SPEAKER_10: And God separated the light from the darkness.
SPEAKER_10: God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.
SPEAKER_10: And there was evening and there was morning the first day.
SPEAKER_10: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_10: And the portion of the Psalter appointed for death today is Psalm 29.
SPEAKER_10: Ascribe to the Lord you gods.
SPEAKER_07: Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
SPEAKER_10: Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to the holy name.
SPEAKER_01: Worship the Lord and be the holiness.
SPEAKER_10: The voice of the Lord is upon the waters.
SPEAKER_10: The God of glory thunders.
SPEAKER_10: The Lord is upon the mighty voice.
SPEAKER_10: The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice.
SPEAKER_10: The voice of the Lord is a voice of splendor.
SPEAKER_10: The voice of the Lord breaks the cedar trees.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.
SPEAKER_10: The Lord makes Lebanon skip like a calf.
SPEAKER_07: And murmur like a young wild ox.
SPEAKER_10: The voice of the Lord splits the flames of fire.
SPEAKER_10: The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness.
SPEAKER_10: The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kayash.
SPEAKER_10: The voice of the Lord makes the oak trees writhe.
SPEAKER_07: And the spirits of air.
SPEAKER_10: And in the temple of the Lord, all our crying glory.
SPEAKER_10: The Lord sits enthroned above the flood.
SPEAKER_07: The Lord sits enthroned and is sovereign forevermore.
SPEAKER_10: The Lord shall give strength to the chosen people.
SPEAKER_02: He said to them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?
SPEAKER_02: They replied, No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Then he said, Into what then were you baptized?
SPEAKER_02: They answered, Into John's baptism.
SPEAKER_02: Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.
SPEAKER_02: Altogether, they were about twelve.
SPEAKER_02: Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.
SPEAKER_09: John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_09: People from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
SPEAKER_09: John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.
SPEAKER_09: He proclaimed, The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me.
SPEAKER_09: I'm not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.
SPEAKER_09: I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_09: In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
SPEAKER_09: And just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart, and the Spirit descending like a dove on him, and a voice came from heaven.
SPEAKER_09: You are my son, the beloved.
SPEAKER_09: With you I am well pleased.
SPEAKER_09: The gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_09: So as I mentioned to you, it may not be that God's turned a light bulb on, it's that we've seen that light for the first time.
SPEAKER_09: And I want to do something a little bit uh maybe strange and suggest this story is not just a light turning on for us, but I invite you to consider the light bulb that turns on in Jesus' life and ministry in this story.
SPEAKER_09: So let me back into that a little bit.
SPEAKER_09: You know, I I'm super grateful for this.
SPEAKER_09: It's been here now about five and a half years, and uh it's amazing.
SPEAKER_09: I don't know if you realize that's a real shell.
SPEAKER_09: Uh it took who knows how many decades to grow that shell.
SPEAKER_09: It's about 175 pounds.
SPEAKER_09: And uh what I love about our font, even though of course you know we only baptize about four or five times a year, is that it's up there all of the time.
SPEAKER_09: And being on the water is sort of incredible.
SPEAKER_09: And shell iconography is not original to the John the Baptist story.
SPEAKER_09: I'll tell you about that in a second, but it's this sort of visceral reminder of what baptism can offer us.
SPEAKER_09: And that's what I want to talk about because every time you look at it, I hope you hear something from today's thinking that can continue to inform and refresh and touch your heart.
SPEAKER_09: It starts with water.
SPEAKER_09: And we get to hear this in Genesis.
SPEAKER_09: The creation story begins when God started working, there was already stuff.
SPEAKER_09: Now there's an idea that God created ex nichelo out of nothing.
SPEAKER_09: That idea came from a Jewish scholar known as the Rambam or Moses Maimonides in the 11th century.
SPEAKER_09: Ex nichelo from nothing.
SPEAKER_09: That's not where Genesis begins.
SPEAKER_09: Do you notice?
SPEAKER_09: When God starts creating, there's water, there's water over the surface of the planet, and it's kind of a mess.
SPEAKER_09: And one of the things we don't always recognize is that in the Hebrew Bible, water is a symbol for chaos.
SPEAKER_09: We all know we need water to grow crops, especially in an arid environment like Israel.
SPEAKER_09: But water can be chaotic in an environment like that, because if you don't get it, the crops die, you don't get enough rain.
SPEAKER_09: And if you get too much rain, this still happens in like La Jolla, California, where homes average cost$3 million.
SPEAKER_09: Too much rain, homes literally just slide right down the hill because decomposed granite does not do well in a flood.
SPEAKER_09: Same thing.
SPEAKER_09: San Diego, Israel, same climate zone, same kind of soil.
SPEAKER_09: Too much water, you lose everything, not enough, you get nothing.
SPEAKER_09: Chaos.
SPEAKER_09: And in the story, Maimonides aside, the rabbis hear this as look, originally, sure, God made whatever, but that's not where the story starts.
SPEAKER_09: God starts with a mess, and what God does in Genesis is makes order out of chaos.
SPEAKER_09: God makes room for the land to be itself and not mixed up with the water.
SPEAKER_09: God makes room for there to be a sky, so it's not just all mixed up.
SPEAKER_09: God made room for you and for I to be different and not to be all mixed up.
SPEAKER_09: So when God sees chaos, the story tells you God is able to create beauty and order out of it.
SPEAKER_09: And that leads us up to what's happening before the story.
SPEAKER_09: See, about 200 years archaeologically, we have evidence for this before John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_09: People started getting really concerned not with the science of cleanliness, but with the mystery of it.
SPEAKER_09: So, look, ancient people were not dumb.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes we we think they were.
SPEAKER_09: When we hear about baptism, let's not immediately put it to a medical category.
SPEAKER_09: I want to talk about the non-medical residues we encounter.
SPEAKER_09: So look, we all understand if you touch something that's got germs on it and you wash your hands with antibacterial soap, you're pretty much good, right?
SPEAKER_09: As long as you wash them correctly.
SPEAKER_09: I've got a physician in the house right now.
SPEAKER_09: If I touch something not good, Julia, and I wash my hands with antibacterial soap for 15 seconds, I'm good, right?
SPEAKER_09: I have to sing happy birthday or the alphabet twice or whatever, right?
SPEAKER_09: Okay, we all hear that.
SPEAKER_09: Let's be honest.
SPEAKER_09: There are things that if you touch, you, me, touch, and you do that, you're still not gonna feel clean.
SPEAKER_09: I don't know what those things are for you.
SPEAKER_09: For many people, the idea of touching a dead body is one of those things.
SPEAKER_09: Like if I touch a dead body, there's no amount of washing that's gonna make me feel great.
SPEAKER_09: Even though we know in our head the science says germ's gone.
SPEAKER_09: Like I said, it could be different for everybody, but most of us were alive in the early 90s when there was an AIDS epidemic, and it was scary.
SPEAKER_09: Even if you knew the science, it was scary, and no amount of washing satisfied our gut, even if it didn't satisfy our head.
SPEAKER_09: Ancient people aren't silly, they're honest about that.
SPEAKER_09: We've got our thinking, and we've also got our limbic system with instinctually is afraid of like unclean stuff.
SPEAKER_09: Once upon a time, I wrestled in high school, and look, you know, you get sweaty, but I I will tell you I wrestled somebody one time who is arguably the smelliest person I've ever encountered in my life.
SPEAKER_09: And um, I used the soap, and I don't want to play into any germophobia because look, the first time did it, but I got out of the shower and I was like, I can still smell that.
SPEAKER_09: I can still smell, and and I don't know if I really could.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, the science says I got it off my body, but I got took two more of those showers, and I still wasn't sure.
SPEAKER_09: So, what was happening 200 years before John is that people had these kind of residues.
SPEAKER_09: Like they they came in counter with things they weren't sure that regular washing was gonna get off.
SPEAKER_09: And so there was a service created called a mikveh, which is a ritual bath.
SPEAKER_09: And there's we find these in archaeology under people's homes outside, ritual baths, not hygienic ones.
SPEAKER_09: The idea is I need to wash those residues off of me, like spiritual quality residues, not microbes.
SPEAKER_09: Mikvas had to be filled with living water.
SPEAKER_09: Living water in the Bible means water that moves by itself, rain, rivers.
SPEAKER_09: So they would fill up either these pools or they would fill up like a 50-gallon drum.
SPEAKER_09: You'll hear that story next week.
SPEAKER_09: It's important to hear it now when we talk about what Jesus does at the wedding.
SPEAKER_09: They would fill these things up, and anytime they were not sure about whether they had residues, they would get in to wash the residues off.
SPEAKER_09: Now, priests were doing this like five times a day.
SPEAKER_09: And so some people say, wow, if priests need to do it, we all need to do it five times a day.
SPEAKER_09: That's probably on a good day.
SPEAKER_09: There's days where I could do it like 50 times.
SPEAKER_09: So then John the Baptist shows up and he does something really novel.
SPEAKER_09: He says, let's do it one time for good.
SPEAKER_09: That's novel.
SPEAKER_09: Like one time is gonna remove all of the residues from me, past, present, and future?
SPEAKER_09: And Baptist is a deceiving word.
SPEAKER_09: See, in Greek Baptist, it it means dunker.
SPEAKER_09: So why did we invent the word Baptist?
SPEAKER_09: Because we were baptizing babies and we know better than to dunk them.
SPEAKER_09: That's a health risk.
SPEAKER_09: But just so you hear, King James invented that word in 1611.
SPEAKER_09: This is true, because babies were being sprinkled so that they didn't die.
SPEAKER_09: But what John did is he took people and he shoved them under the water.
SPEAKER_09: His name in Greek on the immerser or John the Dunker.
SPEAKER_09: And of course, you see symbolically what he's doing.
SPEAKER_09: He's saying, you're surrounded by chaos, so let's just go ahead and go under it so God can reorder your life.
SPEAKER_09: And once will do.
SPEAKER_09: This is interesting, right?
SPEAKER_09: Because let me tell you, I am completely convinced that God does not need this service.
SPEAKER_09: John does this for our sake.
SPEAKER_09: We receive it for our sake.
SPEAKER_09: It's a gift to us.
SPEAKER_09: The other thing that's important to hear in the Jesus story, right?
SPEAKER_09: Mark is really clear.
SPEAKER_09: This is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin.
SPEAKER_09: Jesus is like us in every way, but without.
SPEAKER_09: So why is he getting baptized?
SPEAKER_09: Well, I would like to make a suggestion as to why he might be interested in this.
SPEAKER_09: And the first is we so often take that word sin and only use about one quarter of what it means in the Bible.
SPEAKER_09: Usually, when you hear the word sin, you think about willful, volitional evil.
SPEAKER_09: And hopefully it's helpful to hear that sin has two root definitions in Hebrew.
SPEAKER_09: The first half means it comes from archery, and it means I'm aiming at a target and I don't hit what I was hoping to hit.
SPEAKER_09: That may not even be moral evil.
SPEAKER_09: I I went on a marathon run hoping I was gonna get a certain time, and I didn't get that time.
SPEAKER_09: That was sinful, but it wasn't wrong.
SPEAKER_09: The other half of the word sin in Hebrew means carrying a heavy weight.
SPEAKER_09: I have to be honest with you, when I think about the sin that keeps me up at night, it is not the decision I made in sixth grade to turn in work that was not mine.
SPEAKER_09: I did that.
SPEAKER_09: I don't lose sleep over that.
SPEAKER_09: The things I lose sleep over, to be honest, are things like regrets or anxieties that do not even belong in the moral category.
SPEAKER_09: Like, should I have put my son in the public school or the private school?
SPEAKER_09: Of course that's not a moral decision.
SPEAKER_09: It's a decision that I made.
SPEAKER_09: And it still sometimes shows up as a weight, as a burden.
SPEAKER_09: Was Jesus carrying around burdens?
SPEAKER_09: If he wasn't, the incarnation has no value for us.
SPEAKER_09: I say that only because.
SPEAKER_09: If Jesus became like us in every way, which the scriptures promise, surely he had doubts and anxieties and burdens that he carried.
SPEAKER_09: And Father Jim gave me one of them just two weeks ago.
SPEAKER_09: There's a book Father Jim recommended to me called The Gospel According to Jesus.
SPEAKER_09: And let's be really clear: the guy was born out of wedlock.
SPEAKER_09: Which meant he probably heard all of his childhood, adolescent, and adult life by people who knew the circumstances of his birth, that he was an illegitimate child.
SPEAKER_09: We have a name for that in English.
SPEAKER_09: It used to be weighty.
SPEAKER_09: Unfortunately, it insults women, so I'm not really like super happy with it.
SPEAKER_09: The B word.
SPEAKER_09: Did he carry that weight his life?
SPEAKER_09: How could he not?
SPEAKER_09: Did that get cast onto his mother Mary by people who knew her?
SPEAKER_09: They did not venerate the woman.
SPEAKER_09: She had a child out of wedlock.
SPEAKER_09: Did she carry a weight around?
SPEAKER_09: You better believe she did.
SPEAKER_09: And here in the Gospels later we're going to hear Jesus say, Come unto me, all ye who are heavy burdened, who are carrying sin around.
SPEAKER_09: For my burden is easy, and my yoke is light, and I will give rest for your soul.
SPEAKER_09: So I've got to tell you, I've got no doubt, Jesus carried burdens to the Jordan River that he wanted to lay down.
SPEAKER_09: Just so I can go further on this.
SPEAKER_09: Sorry, that was like bland.
SPEAKER_09: But do you know, um, I've got my own idiosyncrasies.
SPEAKER_09: I don't even mean just in the way I talk, like the way I stand, or like what I do with my hands.
SPEAKER_09: Like if I'm sitting listening to a lecture, usually my foot starts tapping.
SPEAKER_09: And look, that's not morally wrong, it's just something that I do.
SPEAKER_09: I had a professor in seminary all joked about this because he'd be in the middle of thinking and he would start to do this with his hand.
SPEAKER_09: Or even sometimes he would be like, hmm.
SPEAKER_09: Maybe he itched.
SPEAKER_09: Actually, you know, there's a lot of research that says when you're thinking, touching your face helps you pay attention.
SPEAKER_09: So you'll notice like people do touch their face when you're talking because it's like a verbal, it's like a physical cue to like refocus.
SPEAKER_09: I hope, I hope we can imagine Jesus had idiosyncrasies.
SPEAKER_09: You know, like when he walks with the disciples to the Emmaus Road and he talks to them for like hours, they don't know who he is until he tears bread.
SPEAKER_09: So, like, maybe he did that in a weird way.
SPEAKER_09: Like maybe he used his teeth, and they're like, oh man, only Jesus would do that.
SPEAKER_09: That was him.
SPEAKER_09: And why are we afraid of Jesus having idiosyncrasies?
SPEAKER_09: Because we're afraid of our own.
SPEAKER_09: And man, I would love to lay that burden down, wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_09: Wouldn't you love to have that washed away?
SPEAKER_09: So Jesus shows up because he's got burdens like we all do, and the promise is let's wash that away for good, for your sake, because God's already dealt with it.
SPEAKER_09: And there's this amazing thing that happens in the gospel.
SPEAKER_09: Jesus goes under the water, and then he starts to come into, you know, in Genesis style, he comes out from whatever chaos he's brought to the river, and God continues to create order and beauty in him.
SPEAKER_09: And the place has a couple things happen.
SPEAKER_09: Mark is the only gospel that uses this word.
SPEAKER_09: In Greek, it's the word schizo.
SPEAKER_09: The heavens are ripped apart, torn, like in the word schizophrenic, torn between different ways of being.
SPEAKER_09: Ripped.
SPEAKER_09: This is like a thin place.
SPEAKER_09: You ever been to a thin place?
SPEAKER_09: A place, usually for us, it's like in the mountains or like you see a glacier cave, and you're like, oh, the veil between heaven and earth is very thin.
SPEAKER_09: It's sort of like that, where you realize, oh, God's been here all along, and I just didn't notice it.
SPEAKER_09: The heavens and the earth, whatever boundary we thought there was, has been torn apart.
SPEAKER_09: Here is heaven in all of its presence, and he hears a voice, which the Psalm says the voice of God is like a hurricane.
SPEAKER_09: Like it blasts cedars, it blasts oak trees apart.
SPEAKER_09: Like that's the power of the voice.
SPEAKER_09: And the voice says, This is my child, my beloved, with you I'm well pleased.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes we make a mistake thinking that voice is only for Jesus.
SPEAKER_09: But I want you to consider that this is the first thing that happens in the Gospel of Mark.
SPEAKER_09: Jesus has done nothing helpful.
SPEAKER_09: He did not heal anybody, he did not write a book, he did not have a group of disciples, he did no teaching.
SPEAKER_09: He showed up and got dumped.
SPEAKER_09: And before he did anything, God said, I love you just like you are, I'm well pleased in you, I'm delighted.
SPEAKER_09: This is the kind of line that Desmond Tutu made his famous phrase about.
SPEAKER_09: Maybe you've heard this before.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes we don't realize how low God's standards are, they are really low.
SPEAKER_09: There is nothing we can do to make God love us any less, and there is nothing we can do to make God love us any more.
SPEAKER_09: Now, look, if Jesus was incarnate and he's like you and me in every way, maybe this is the first time he realized that was true.
SPEAKER_09: Maybe he, like you and I, wondered, am I lovable like I am?
SPEAKER_09: I hope that's true.
SPEAKER_09: Because then there's hope for me.
SPEAKER_09: And he comes out of the Jordan and hears, you are utterly loved by God exactly like you are, and then he goes and does ministry.
SPEAKER_09: And ministry comes not to earn God's affection, but because we already have it.
SPEAKER_09: And that's how he lives his life.
SPEAKER_09: Now, we've changed how we do all of this.
SPEAKER_09: I mentioned infants.
SPEAKER_09: That has more to do with St.
SPEAKER_09: Augustine than it does with the Bible.
SPEAKER_09: And for the first couple hundred years, if you wanted to be baptized, you had to be an adult and you had to be observed and interviewed for like two years to make sure you were worth it.
SPEAKER_09: Sometime around the year 400, Augustine got this idea that we're born bad and that baptism is how we wash away that fundamental badness.
SPEAKER_09: Now look, Augustine's on to something feeling-wise.
SPEAKER_09: I often feel like there's something wrong with me, but he's wrong regarding the truth.
SPEAKER_09: If you can look at an infant child and say there's something inherently wrong with that child, I'm not even sure you're a mammal because we've evolved to take care of children.
SPEAKER_09: And I'm pretty sure we baptize children not to get rid of something wrong with them, because it's easy to see everything that's right with them.
SPEAKER_09: It is easy to see in a child the beauty and the awe and the wonder that God holds for us.
SPEAKER_09: Shells came into being around 450.
SPEAKER_09: The Jordan River is uh is clean water, so the shells you find in it are like that big.
SPEAKER_09: The shell came because people who lived in the Middle East and people who lived in Europe went on the longest pilgrimage of the time, Santiago de Compostela, where they walked to Spain, which was thought to be the edge of the world.
SPEAKER_09: Like when people thought the world was flat, Spain's here, and you fall off.
SPEAKER_09: So they went to the end of the world on a pilgrimage, and they brought back a scallop shell.
SPEAKER_09: That was their souvenir from the end of the world.
SPEAKER_09: And they brought it back to their villages or their hamlets and said, Look, priest, a shell from the end of the world.
SPEAKER_09: What great theology, because baptism is when we go past the limits of our world.
SPEAKER_09: Even better here at the parish, the patent that we serve the bread off went to outer space.
SPEAKER_09: It is out of this world.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, that's the theology of baptism.
SPEAKER_09: So people brought the shells back when we started using them in church, but that's not original, like we started doing it.
SPEAKER_09: And I love that we have the shell because of everything that it represents.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, again, consider when you see a baby here, pearls in God's oyster.
SPEAKER_09: Pearls in God's oyster.
SPEAKER_09: You ever seen the birth of Venus, that Renaissance art, you know?
SPEAKER_09: The lady comes up out of the shell.
SPEAKER_09: Saint Athanasius said, you know, the whole reason of the incarnation is that God became a human so that humans could be fully with God.
SPEAKER_09: Baptism is hopefully this moment where we say, like, oh, God's fully present in you.
SPEAKER_09: God's fully present in you.
SPEAKER_09: You're not deficient.
SPEAKER_09: God's fully present in you.
SPEAKER_09: And maybe it's just a little easier to see in a baby.
SPEAKER_09: And man, wouldn't it be great if we took that practice next time we were with a difficult person and said, Oh, I see the little baby Jesus in you.
SPEAKER_09: This is meant to help us.
SPEAKER_09: And you know the other thing that's great about a shell that I don't do really well?
SPEAKER_09: You know what a shell does when something gets to bothering it, like irritates it?
SPEAKER_09: It turns it into a pearl.
SPEAKER_09: Man, I wish we could love each other like God loves.
SPEAKER_09: That's the way God loves us.
SPEAKER_09: When something irritates, God turns it into beautiful.
SPEAKER_09: If you've ever been to a funeral, or if you've been married to somebody for more than about two and a half years, there's this transformation that happens in love where we don't love somebody in spite of their idiosyncrasies.
SPEAKER_09: We love them because of them.
SPEAKER_09: And particularly at a funeral, you start to realize what I'm going to miss was that weird way he did this, or that particular way she did that.
SPEAKER_09: It was so her.
SPEAKER_09: And I'm going to miss it because at times it was irritating like a grand sand, but I've realized the beauty in it.
SPEAKER_09: The pearl.
SPEAKER_09: The presence of God.
SPEAKER_09: I have trouble trusting that God has done this once and for all.
SPEAKER_09: I do, I have trouble.
SPEAKER_09: And that's why I'll tell you, I miss having that holy water font that was in the back.
SPEAKER_09: We can't have it because of COVID.
SPEAKER_09: But you know, there's this great reminder.
SPEAKER_09: Anytime we go in and out when that thing's there, it's like, I get to remember my baptism.
SPEAKER_09: I get to remember I'm a pearl in God's oyster.
SPEAKER_09: I get to remember the things that agitate me most about myself are beautiful to God.
SPEAKER_09: I get to remember I'm called the love like God loves.
SPEAKER_09: You know, water does a couple of really interesting things.
SPEAKER_09: We need it to grow.
SPEAKER_09: And of course, water is one of those physics where you say, like, I just need to get a clean start, even if it's at the gut level.
SPEAKER_09: And folks, if you're like me, I'm carrying stuff in this morning.
SPEAKER_09: I wish I could wash off.
SPEAKER_09: And we heard a great speaker, if you were here on Thursday.
SPEAKER_09: The speaker said, Look, you know, pain is natural.
SPEAKER_09: We have pain.
SPEAKER_09: And when you grow, it's painful.
SPEAKER_09: I've got a nine-year-old.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes the knees hurt, right?
SPEAKER_09: Because the body's growing.
SPEAKER_09: But there is a difference between pain and suffering.
SPEAKER_09: Suffering is when the pain sort of becomes internalized.
SPEAKER_09: And it's ongoing.
SPEAKER_09: And I put value to it and I separate myself from other people, or I separate myself from God.
SPEAKER_09: And this is part of why we do what we're getting ready to do.
SPEAKER_09: It's an opportunity to say, look, God likes you to lay that burden down.
SPEAKER_09: And it would be great, don't you think, as a parish, if we were able to say, like, hey, in the middle of your insecurity, don't worry, you're pearling God's oyster.
SPEAKER_09: I see the beauty in you.
SPEAKER_09: I see it.
SPEAKER_09: And if I can help you lay that burden down, I'd like to.
SPEAKER_09: That's why we've got the sacraments.
SPEAKER_09: God gave them to us to help us.
SPEAKER_09: We were not created for them.
SPEAKER_09: We're offered them to share so that we can live into the way God already feels about us.
SPEAKER_09: In Acts, we hear about people who did the thing but they don't have the assurance.
SPEAKER_09: I got baptized when I was 10 because, in my tradition, baptism was only for adults.
SPEAKER_09: I was an adult at 10, apparently.
SPEAKER_09: I sure knew what I was doing with the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_09: One of the things that John Wesley writes about baptism that I really appreciate is he talks about different kinds of grace.
SPEAKER_09: And one of the grace he names is prevenient grace, which means God's grace that enshrouds us before we're aware of it.
SPEAKER_09: There's no way that we can, frankly, get it to go away.
SPEAKER_09: And it's so good we can't even insult it.
SPEAKER_09: Like it's so good you can't even insult it even if you tried.
SPEAKER_09: And John Wesley said, that's why we baptize babies who don't agree to it, don't know what's happening.
SPEAKER_09: It's a symbol that God's got you even if you don't want it.
SPEAKER_09: And of course, you realize the baby probably doesn't know what's happening, and that baptism is probably more for everybody else in the room than it is for the baby.
SPEAKER_09: Because we get to say, when it happens, we'll do everything in our power to support you in your life in Christ.
SPEAKER_09: We'll do that.
SPEAKER_09: We renew our vows often for a child that can't even make them.
SPEAKER_09: This is how it comes back to us at the community.
SPEAKER_09: We're invited to do like Jesus and first lay some of our burdens down.
SPEAKER_09: Second, help other people lay some of their burdens down.
SPEAKER_09: This is how we hold one another in our life in Christ.
SPEAKER_09: The burdens not just about I touch a thing and I got a weird feeling.
SPEAKER_09: The burdens about not being blank enough.
SPEAKER_09: I'm not blank enough.
SPEAKER_09: You fill in your blank.
SPEAKER_09: I'm not smart enough.
SPEAKER_09: I'm not beautiful enough.
SPEAKER_09: I'm not healthy enough.
SPEAKER_09: I'm not holy enough.
SPEAKER_09: I'm bad.
SPEAKER_09: Those are burdens I'm confident God wants you to lay down.
SPEAKER_09: And if it would help you, let's wash some of those burdens off.
SPEAKER_09: Once definitively is good, which is why I'm going to remind you of what's already happened today with some water we pulled out of the Jordan River.
SPEAKER_09: It's not magic, but we did go there, and there's some people that I put down in the water here, and somebody here put me down in the water too.
SPEAKER_09: And I got to tell you, I need it as much as everybody else.
SPEAKER_09: The memory of what God has already done.
SPEAKER_09: Because I'm fickle and I forget.
SPEAKER_09: And sometimes I forget to trust that God's already done it.
SPEAKER_09: So let's renew it.
SPEAKER_09: Let's renew it.
SPEAKER_09: God wants us to live into ourselves.
SPEAKER_09: God wants us to enjoy the lives that we have and create joy for one another.
SPEAKER_09: When you start losing sleep at night about, oh gosh, I wish I could have put my kid in a different school, or man, I really hate my eyebrows.
SPEAKER_09: I just wish they weren't so long.
SPEAKER_09: God would be delighted for us to lay those burdens down.
SPEAKER_09: So I'm going to fling some water on you in just a second as a reminder.
SPEAKER_09: The more we can see ourselves the way God sees us, the more we can do like Jesus and do ministry from a point of love and security instead of trying to get something out of God.
SPEAKER_09: The good news is God's already given you everything God's going to give you.
SPEAKER_09: You don't get any more love.
SPEAKER_09: You don't get any more acceptance than you already have.
SPEAKER_09: We just need, or shall I say, have the opportunity to enjoy more deeply the gifts our God has already given.
SPEAKER_09: And this is the way we make baptism holy, and this is the way we live into it.
SPEAKER_09: We hear that voice.
SPEAKER_09: With you I'm well pleased.
SPEAKER_09: You are my daughter, my beloved.
SPEAKER_09: With you, I am well pleased.
SPEAKER_09: So I'm going to invite you to stand with me, and we're going to renew our baptismal covenant.
SPEAKER_09: I'm going to pray for us, and then we're going to have some water as a reminder.
SPEAKER_09: Do you believe in God the Father?
unknown: I believe in God the Lord, created heaven and earth.
SPEAKER_09: Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
SPEAKER_07: I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of the Lord.
SPEAKER_09: Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_07: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit of the church, the community of the saints, the previous sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life of Christ.
SPEAKER_09: Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers?
SPEAKER_09: I will with God's father.
SPEAKER_09: Will you persevere in resisting evil?
SPEAKER_09: And whenever you fall into sin or pick up some new burden, repent and return to the Lord.
SPEAKER_09: I will with God's common.
SPEAKER_09: Will you proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ?
unknown: I will with God's common.
SPEAKER_09: Will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being?
SPEAKER_09: And now I didn't print these in the bulletin, but there's a series of prayers for us as we renew our baptismal vows.
SPEAKER_09: Your line is, Lord, hear our prayer.
SPEAKER_09: Deliver us, O Lord, from the ways of sin and death.
SPEAKER_09: Open our hearts to your grace and truth.
SPEAKER_06: Lord, hear our prayer.
SPEAKER_09: Help us be aware of the fullness of your holy and life-giving spirit in our lives.
SPEAKER_06: Lord, hear our prayer.
SPEAKER_09: Keep us in the faith and communion of your holy church.
SPEAKER_09: Teach us to love others in the power of the Spirit.
unknown: Lord, hear our prayer.
SPEAKER_09: Send us into the world as witnesses to your love.
SPEAKER_09: Lord, hear our prayer.
SPEAKER_09: Continue to bring us to the fullness of your peace and glory.
SPEAKER_09: Lord, hear our prayer.
SPEAKER_09: Grant, O Lord, that all who are baptized into the death of Jesus Christ, your Son, may live in the power of his resurrection and look for him to come again in glory who lives and reigns now and forever.
SPEAKER_09: Amen.
SPEAKER_09: The peace of the Lord be always with you.
SPEAKER_09: Good morning, and thank you for worshiping with us at St.
SPEAKER_09: Thomas today, in spite uh the drastically cold weather.
SPEAKER_09: Thanks for being faithful and showing up.
SPEAKER_09: Uh, a few announcements I want to call to your attention.
SPEAKER_09: Um many of these were in your your Wednesday e-news.
SPEAKER_09: Uh first is today from one to three, here in the Christ hall, is the meeting of the Episcopal Church Women, also called ECW.
SPEAKER_09: And the goal of this group is to create connections for spiritual, professional, parental, uh, and social growth among women.
SPEAKER_09: So uh the meeting is geared toward creating some mentorships and some strong interpersonal relationships.
SPEAKER_09: If you can't make it for the whole time, you're welcome to come and go as you please.
SPEAKER_09: But that's the ECW Church Women.
SPEAKER_09: Sorry, gentlemen, uh this is this is a ladies and only uh here in the Christ Hall from one to three today.
SPEAKER_09: Um this Thursday is our second presenter in our Epiphanies of Respect series.
SPEAKER_09: So um if you were here this past Thursday, Dr.
SPEAKER_09: Stephen Cherry from UHCL came and presented his story with Tibetan Buddhism.
SPEAKER_09: It was fabulous.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, my opinion, it was really fantastic.
SPEAKER_09: Um and if you missed it and you're interested, I can give you a link to the video, but per our presenter's request, I can't put that on YouTube.
SPEAKER_09: So you can see it.
SPEAKER_09: If you email me, I'll give you a link to the video, but I can't publicly post it.
SPEAKER_09: This is all with permission.
SPEAKER_09: Um fascinating to put a face and a and a story to something I usually just associate with the Dalai Lama.
SPEAKER_09: So that was a gift this week.
SPEAKER_09: This coming week, Thursday night, and that's going to be the 20th of January.
SPEAKER_09: Uh, our speaker will be Imam Ibrahim Eskahir, who is an Imam at the Clear Lake Islamic Center, lives in this neighborhood, lives in Nassau Bay.
SPEAKER_09: Um, lovely guy.
SPEAKER_09: I've known him for quite a while, and he's going to present to us his experience with Sunite Islam, and of course, there'll be time for questions.
SPEAKER_09: Ibrahim can also speak to Shiite Islam as well.
SPEAKER_09: Many of us know there's two major traditions, there's a few others.
SPEAKER_09: Um, but but he'll feel questions as you're interested.
SPEAKER_09: You can either come here from 6 to 7 in person, distance and mask, like we're doing now, we'll stream it on YouTube, live stream from 6 to 7, and you can put questions in the chat on YouTube, and we'll answer them if we have time.
SPEAKER_09: We ran out of time this week.
SPEAKER_09: Um and if this appeals to you, that's what we're doing.
SPEAKER_09: Um, next Thursday, the 27th, will be Rabbi Stuart Federo from Temple Harshela, Congregation Harshalom.
SPEAKER_09: Um, he's a conserve conservative Jewish rabbi if he will be here.
SPEAKER_09: So um, again, if this appeals to you, that's what's happening on Thursday.
SPEAKER_09: Um, reminder that our next fresh food distribution will be at the end of the month.
SPEAKER_09: They were closed at the beginning, so we're doing it at the end.
SPEAKER_09: That's on January 29th.
SPEAKER_09: So Saturday the 29th, that's two weeks from yesterday, uh, we'll have our next fresh food distribution from 745 to 10.
SPEAKER_09: A couple of housekeeping issues for us.
SPEAKER_09: If you asked for envelopes with your pledge card, offering envelopes, we have them in the Narthex.
SPEAKER_09: They're alphabetized by name, so just grab them.
SPEAKER_09: Uh, we'll have them there for a week or two, and then we'll mail them out.
SPEAKER_09: If you realize, oh, I wish I had envelopes, and I didn't ask for any, we have a couple extra sets, so so just let me know.
SPEAKER_09: But those those are there today.
SPEAKER_09: Um, also reminder that two weeks from today, uh, right before this service, is our parish annual meeting.
SPEAKER_09: So the annual meeting, we elect our our vestry, our representatives to diocesan council, which is kind of like the vestry meeting for the diocese, and uh we approve our budget, and we also have an opportunity to kind of hear the vision for the year, interact, ask questions, and it's important this year because the first time in our 57-year history, you have a priest going on sabbatical, so it might be nice to know what that's going to look like.
SPEAKER_09: So happy to talk about that at the annual meeting.
SPEAKER_09: Of course, I'll talk to you about it any time you want, but we'll do this publicly at the annual meeting as well.
SPEAKER_09: So that'll be from 9.15 to 10.15 on Sunday, January the 30th.
SPEAKER_09: So those are the I think the immediate opportunities upcoming.
SPEAKER_09: Last one, uh we're celebrating the funeral for our second oldest parishioner, JB Fox, this Tuesday at 11.
SPEAKER_09: And many of you don't know JB, uh but we'll do it here and and and we'll we'll stream it as well.
SPEAKER_09: And the interesting thing about JB, if you didn't know him, a guy was a World War II vet, he was early on in NASA, and he was a grumpy man.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, he was a grump.
SPEAKER_09: And he had a heart of gold.
SPEAKER_09: He had a heart of gold, and it's so interesting.
SPEAKER_09: Like, if you could just withstand five seconds of grumpiness, you saw it in a second, you know?
SPEAKER_09: And I'm gonna miss his grumpiness.
SPEAKER_09: I'm gonna miss it because it was him, and it led right in to this beautiful, soft heart.
SPEAKER_09: And man, God is making a pearl out of those things, and we get to do that too and continue to walk in love as Christ first loved us and gave himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God.
SPEAKER_07: His father's calling to obey, and John baptized him, and the Lord God said, This is the way.
SPEAKER_09: All things come of you, O Lord.
SPEAKER_09: This is the table not of the church, but of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_09: It is made ready for those who love him, and those who want to love him more, so come.
SPEAKER_09: You who have much faith and you who have little, you who have been here often, and you who have not been for a long time or ever before.
SPEAKER_09: You who have tried to follow and you who have failed, come.
SPEAKER_09: Not because the church invites you, it is Christ, and he invites you to meet him here.
SPEAKER_09: Our service continues on page 361 of your red prayer book.
SPEAKER_09: Page 361.
SPEAKER_05: The Lord be with you.
SPEAKER_05: I'm also with you.
SPEAKER_04: Let us give thanks to the Lord of God.
SPEAKER_07: It is cause to give God thanks and praise.
SPEAKER_09: It is right and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you.
SPEAKER_09: Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, because in the mystery of the word made flesh you have caused a new light to shine in our hearts, to give the knowledge of your glory in the face of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_09: Therefore we praise you, joining our voices with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, who forever say this hymn to proclaim the glory of your name.
SPEAKER_06: Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of glory, holy Satan in the highest.
SPEAKER_06: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, holy Satan in the highest.
SPEAKER_09: Holy and gracious Father, in your infinite love, you made us from yourself.
SPEAKER_09: And when we'd fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death, you in your mercy sent Jesus Christ, your only and eternal Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all.
SPEAKER_09: He stretched out his arms upon the cross and offered himself, in obedience to your will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.
SPEAKER_09: On the night he was handed over to suffering and death, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread.
SPEAKER_09: And when he given thanks to you, he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, Take, eat.
SPEAKER_09: This is my body which is given for you.
SPEAKER_09: Do this for the remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_09: After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, and when he given thanks, he gave it to them and said, Drink this all of you.
SPEAKER_09: This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for all for the forgiveness of sin.
SPEAKER_09: Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_09: Therefore we proclaim the mystery of faith.
SPEAKER_09: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
SPEAKER_09: We celebrate the memorial of our redemption, O Father, in this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, recalling his death, resurrection, and ascension, we offer to you these gifts.
SPEAKER_09: Sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the body and blood of your Son, the holy food and drink of new and unending life in Him.
SPEAKER_09: Sanctify us also that we may faithfully receive this holy sacrament, and serve you in unity, in constancy, and peace.
SPEAKER_09: And at the last day, bring us with all your saints into the joy of your eternal kingdom.
SPEAKER_09: All this we ask through your Son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_09: By him and with him and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and forever.
SPEAKER_09: Amen.
SPEAKER_09: And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray.
SPEAKER_06: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
SPEAKER_01: And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_06: For thine is the kingdom and the power and glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_06: Amen.
SPEAKER_04: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_04: Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
SPEAKER_04: These are the gifts of God for you, the people of God.
SPEAKER_09: Feed on them in your hearts by faith and with thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_06: Send us now into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with blindness and simpleness of heart through Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_09: Amen.
SPEAKER_09: May God the Father, who has redeemed us and made us children of God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, bestow upon you new joy, the riches of God's favor.
SPEAKER_09: Amen.
SPEAKER_09: May the Holy Spirit, who through the waters of baptism has raised us from sin and into newness of life, lead you into the mission and holiness of being God's own forever.
SPEAKER_09: Amen.
SPEAKER_09: May Jesus, who has brought us out of bondage to sin, into true and lasting freedom as our Redeemer, guide you to live into your eternal inheritance.
SPEAKER_09: And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be upon you this day, remain with you forever.