You need to know, like most students that ever needed to title something, I wrestled with the title for quite a while. When most of the work was completed, the title came to me. Clear as day; “Keeping the Covenant.” The full title is “Keeping the Covenant: the creation of best practices when terminating a lay employee in the Episcopal Church.” Its focus is on how we, as believers, keep our baptismal covenant in situations that are often riddled with emotion, fear, uneasiness, and anxiety.
The model that I came up with, put together by much research and discovery evaluates the practices that surround employment termination against the baptismal covenant. The oath that we take on when we become Christians. The baptismal covenant that says because we believe, we will renounce evil and turn to Jesus…
Turn to Jesus and swear an oath to trust, obey, worship, persevere, proclaim, seek, serve, love, strive, and respect. Isn’t that what we are supposed to do as Christians? The whole Christian ethic surrounds baptism and is based on what we do after we say that we believe. It is our beliefs brought forth into action. Maybe that’s why I like to phrase from St. Francis, “Preach the Gospel at all times, when necessary, use words." You’ve heard me use that one before. It’s more than merely claiming Jesus is Lord. It’s showing others he is Lord by our actions. It’s putting meaning and action to what we are saying.
Now, please don’t misunderstand. This has nothing to do with works righteousness. We can’t earn an ounce of our salvation by anything that we do. Jesus did all that for us. Nor does this make us perfect or better than anyone else in the world. Because the good Lord knows we are as broken and flawed as anyone else. And it also doesn’t mean that we live our lives by some puritan ethic or standard that is neither realistic nor attainable.
We know covenant is much more than just laws, moral principles, or empty promises. A Covenant with God means living in a bound relationship, sealed by an oath. A covenant made with God that says we will continue to strive to be formed, informed, and transformed by following in Jesus' way. By letting Jesus guide and strengthen our lives, by choosing the good and right and not being guided by our personal prejudice or selfishness. The covenantal promise made at our baptism is the superglue of our salvation. A bond to God that is often tested but cannot be broken.
And yes, we test them. We test the covenantal promises every time we get rattled, every time we get upset, every time we are pushed to the edge. Those are the times we need to check ourselves and make sure we are holding up our end of the covenant. Because we know that God is keeping up God’s end - always loving us, never forsaking us.
2020 was a rough year with all its loss and challenge (challenges politically, racially, socially, medically, and mentally). We are still in the midst of the horrible COVID virus that has stood the world on its head, and unfortunately, friends, it’s not over yet.
2021 has just started off with its own challenges as we watched those who did not get their way act out with violence and selfishness. Threatening the very core process that keeps our country free. Our baptismal covenant has received a workout this week.
The questions asked at our baptism: Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? Will you seek and serve Christ in ALL persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among ALL people and respect the dignity of every human being? We say WE WILL with God’s help! We will, we will, we will - but have we?
When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River by John, the heavens were opened, they were torn apart, and the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus, and the voice of God spoke, “you are my son, the beloved, with you, I am well pleased.” There on the bank of the Jordan, Jesus began his earthly ministry. At his baptism, Jesus forged for us a renewed covenant with God in living flesh, and blood lived out in a relationship.
Lived out in flesh and bone. Forged with water rather than stone. A practice that we use in the church to begin again. Baptism into a new life and a new way. Jesus enters the waters as a human being and emerges from the waters with the unshakable assurance that he is God’s Son, the Beloved.
The attention in the story from Mark’s gospel then shifts from John to Jesus. It is Jesus who sees the Spirit in physical form – that like a dove – and it is Jesus alone who hears the words, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you, I am well pleased.”
With the baptism of Jesus, everything becomes new and different. The Spirit of God is no longer a future promise, no longer a prophetic dream of what is to come. But it is there in flesh and blood. It is a present, living reality, in the flesh. Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit and is here to baptize all who come to him with God’s Spirit and seal them as Christ’s own forever.
As John baptized with water, Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit. The great gift of God - God’s Spirit upon us – becomes ours for the asking. God's totality is revealed through Jesus to all the new believers in the Acts of the Apostles. That same Christ comes to us now through the power of the Holy Spirit. “Receive the Holy Spirit” becomes the gift that Christ’s disciples offer those who confess the name of Jesus. And then the world is transformed.
That is the story that Luke tells us in today’s portion of Acts. That even those who may not have heard, or who may not recognize the words, the Holy Spirit is given as a gift from God. Paul arrives in Ephesus to find believers who have been baptized. He asks them: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit?” Although they are believers, they really don’t understand his words.
Then Paul asks a significant question: “Into what then were you baptized?” “Into John’s baptism,” they answered. Paul does not discount John or his baptism but explains how John’s baptism was completed by the coming of Jesus. Our repentance, our change of heart and mind, the transformation of our thinking about God are all completed by the baptism of Jesus and the Holy Spirit's arrival.
Paul lays his hands on the believers in Ephesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit is given to them. And on and on through the years, the story continues. We are now, here today, standing in the realm of that great mystery. Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection makes it possible for all of humanity to learn of God’s love and to receive the gift of God’s Spirit.
As baptized persons, we are bearers of that Holy Spirit. And it is a great and awesome power. And, as I have said before, with great power comes great responsibility.
We have said we believe, and we have received God’s holy spirit. Now what? Our entire Christian life boils down to what we do after we say we believe. Have we kept the covenantal promises we made at our baptism? Have we lived out those promises as purveyors of God’s kingdom, bringing others into the covenant? Into a life lived in the power of that relationship?
Going forth from the font, after we have received the waters of rebirth and been made new in the power of the Holy Spirit, how then shall we live?
We should live out our baptism today and every day. We should live as someone who has been crucified with Christ. So it is no longer we who live, but the Christ who lives within us. Live as someone dead to selfishness, ambition, and conceit. We should live for the good of others and for the glory of God.
Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
Will you seek and serve Christ in ALL persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
Will you strive for justice and peace among ALL people and respect the dignity of every human being?
WE WILL with God’s help…
We have the chance to measure everything in our lives, everything we do, by the covenant oath that we swore at our baptism. Sometimes, we are challenged, and it’s difficult. But it’s in the toughest of times we must continue resisting evil and turn to Jesus. Turn to Jesus and trust, obey, worship, persevere, proclaim, seek, serve, love, strive, and respect.
Now, brothers and sisters, let us stand and renew the solemn promises and vows that we made at our Holy Baptism when we first renounced Satan and all his works and then turned to God and promised to serve God faithfully.
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