Easter IV - Skip Windsor

1 Peter 2:19-25

The Face of Christ

Let us pray: Almighty God, sustain us through your Holy Spirit. Let our words be more than words so that what we say we will do in deed and set our hearts on fire to serve your people and further glorify your Holy Name. All this we ask in the name of your Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Not long ago, the Bishop of Connecticut, Ian Douglas, was at the Episcopal Divinity School to speak to students and alums about the current state of The Episcopal Church and his new role in the governance of the Church.

According to a clergy colleague, Bishop Ian talked about visiting congregations and reported his conversations that went something like this: “Oh, bishop, we’re so glad you’re here. We want you to help us grow.”

“Why,” asked the Bishop?

“What?”

“Why do you want to grow?”

“Well… isn’t that what we are supposed to do?”

“Well, why?”

“Well… so the church can have more members.”

“Why?”

“So the church can grow.”

“Why?”

“Well, more members means more pledges and more pledges means we can grow.”

The Bishop went on to say that the church – the people – does not exist to tend to itself but to care for others; and that the mission of the church is being about the business of catching up with what God is already doing in the world and to join God’s mission in the world.

“The ministry of the church is to be about the business of catching up with what God is already doing in the world.” Now that is quite a mission statement!

I do not think anyone here would disagree that a church that adds more members to the shared life in Christ is doing a good thing. Jesus’ charge in the Great Commission reinforces such community growth when he gives the command to the disciples to baptize all people in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; and that is exactly what you and I are celebrating this morning

Today, we will witness and celebrate the baptism of Elyn Grace into the Household of God. She will be our newest Christian and it is a time to rejoice. As Elyn grows and matures, she will learn about God and what it means to be called a Christian. Sometime in the future, if it is God’s will and hers, she will re-affirm her baptismal vows in confirmation.

My hope is that she will see her confirmation not as a graduation that relieves her of her Christian responsibilities; but she sees confirmation as an inauguration. Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and through the power of the Holy Spirit, Elyn will see herself as an ambassador of Christ sent forth to be a healer, reconciler and witness of God’s love.

In this ceremony of baptism, you and I are going to re-affirm our own baptismal vows prior to her baptism. The words, taken from the Creeds, are the tokens of our Christian faith; and as we recite together our Baptismal Covenant, it is an apt time for us to reflect upon who we are and whose we are.

The famous theologian, Karl Barth, once said the word of God is not in the Bible but to be discovered through the Bible. In scripture, we know that God sent forth his purpose through the divine spirit at creation, through Abraham and Sarah to a new homeland, through Moses out of Egypt, through the prophets and sages of Israel, and through Jesus who said, “Just as the Father has sent me so I send you.”

Through salvation history, God is seen as a missionary God. God is a sending god. God sends forth people to be missionary people. If they are to be followers of God they are to be a sent people. It is said that ‘the church exists by mission just as fire exists by burning.’

Mission is central to the life of the church because mission is central to God. And the mission is not to draft or recruit people into “our denomination” nor bolster church membership; rather, it is to alert and awaken people to God’s purpose in the world.

You and I live, move and have our being as the Church – the Laos, the people of God - in order to try and make the Kingdom of God more real, more visible, to the world. As God’s hands in the world, we are to help transform people into a new life in Christ. We are able to do this because the Church is the place where God’s love is expressed and shared.

To see ourselves as a sent people, a missionary people, by a sending God is to be freed from the worries and attachments of trying to be “like the world” with business plans, gap analysis, and marketing plans. As St. Paul writes, “we are in this world but not of this world.” To be mission people is a counterintuitive life that threatens the current ethos of a secular society and startles the top-down governance of the institutional church.

I believe it requires seeing ourselves as empowered by God as a sent people that frees us from spending time and energy in the wrong places.

In the dynamic tension between church maintenance and church mission, Jesus’s mandate is to valorize mission.

If we can do that first and foremost then the church will have the human and financial resources to maintain the buildings, to strengthen programs and meet the expenses needed to keep the lights on.

Jesus’ call to us as the sent ones of God belongs to us all by virtue of our baptisms. It is the mission of the church – the mission of you and me - to seek and serve Christ loving our neighbor as ourselves. I believe if we can rediscover a renewed sense of mission we will be a transformed church; and one that is relevant and meaningful for the people of today. As Dr. Elwin Semrod of Harvard Medical School once said, “people will return where they find help.”

I have this image of the missionary church. It is not of a big cathedral; nor is it of soaring towers. It is not of committee meetings nor strategic plans nor even an Every Member Canvass. For these things merely serve as a means to an end. Rather, the picture of the church I have is of people formed of one flesh in Christ, weaving a circle, threading hands. Not standing still. Moving. Dancing. They are men and women, boys and girls. They are people like you and me.

They rejoice being together in community –helping, serving, caring, and forgiving one another – but they do not look inwardly. Rather, they face outwards; ready to be sent forth, looking for others in need and being in solidarity with the least, the last, the lost and the lonely. This is the missionary church. It is the face of Christ.

Shakespeare once wrote that we are the stuff dreams are made of. As we prepare to witness and celebrate Elyn’s baptism and re-affirm our own, let us dream the good dreams of God; and with God’s help, we shall grow in faith, grow our church, and grow more and more into the full stature of Christ.