Pentecost 15

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer (Psalm 19:14)


SEASON: Pentecost 15
PROPER: 20 B
ST. JOHN’S CHURCH
DATE: September 21,2003

TEXT: Mark 9:30-37 – “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me by the one who sent me.”

ISSUE: The way we regard children today is very different from the time of Jesus. To refer to an adult as a child was a serious insult. Children had no rights, and were considered slaves, with no status or honor. In drastic situations, children were saved last before adult family members. But Jesus honors them, and teaches his disciples who are arguing over who will be the greatest, that unless they reach out to the very least of God’s children, they have no greatness at all. Perhaps from the early stages of our children, from their entrance into the church through baptism, we might begin then and there to teach them what is true greatness.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
One of the marks of my ministry from its very beginning has been for some forty years now, to stress the importance and the meaning of Holy Baptism. Both through my early training and continuing study, I have along with the wider church attempted to reform and recover the true and basic meaning of this Sacrament that the Christian Church has always honored, and proclaimed as a basic sacrament in Christianity.
In the history of the church and its emphasis on this basic sacrament familiarity seemed to eventually breed contempt. It became what you do to little babies and children shortly after they are born, and hopefully before they died for fear of what might become of an un-baptized child. (Actually the belief that un-baptized children, or adults for that matter, are doomed is hardly an appreciation and affirmation of the God of Love.) Deeply ingrained in the early church and its members was the belief that children were basically evil. In the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Proverbs, and in the Apocrypha’s book of Sirach, there are a number of passages that make it clear that a parent that doesn’t severely discipline a child can be in big trouble in the future. Spare the rod and spoil the child is the essence of these Hebrew Scripture teachings. Even in Roman culture of Jesus’ time, a father had the right to execute his own child, if he so wished. Of course, we have had a long tradition that children were the continual offspring of Adam and Eve, thereby being sinful, and the sacrament became a kind of washing up baby from its evil ways by virtue of its nature.
Baptism has also had a kind of magical mystique as time passed. Through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism there was a kind of zapping mechanism that was believed to take place. Through the pouring of the water on the child or adult person they became magically transformed into good Christians, and an on going relationship with Christ’s church was not often honored. The magic was enough. In the Christendom period, up until a few years ago, children were exposed to some kind of folksy patriotic religious training. In public school many of us, and many youngster with little formal religious training in the church, learned the Lord’s Prayer, some of Psalms (especially the 23rd Psalm), and the pledge of allegiance to the flag, under God. Christian religious training seemed to come through a form of cultural osmosis for many people. We call it folk religion from a culture nominally Christian, but a Christianity often without much depth or sense of responsible Christian community. Of course, today we do not have that Christian majority and popularity in an age of so many other religions, fads, and philosophies that are sometimes a challenge to Christianity.
The original call for Holy Baptism in the Christian Scriptures comes from conclusion of Matthew’s 28:19 Gospel account: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo I am with you always to the close of the age.” It really does not say anything about baptizing infants for their being evil, or for the purpose of saving them from hell. The commission does call for training, that is, teaching all people what Jesus taught his disciples. They are to be immersed into the name of the God of love, the Son of forgiveness, and the sustaining Spirit of love and hope. Baptism calls for the immersion, the literal dipping the world into the uncanny grace of God that says I love you just for the person that you are. The disciples are to be the servants with Christ to proclaim the good news of hope and love to the least, the last, and the lost. It is the call to immerse the world into that attitude and way of life.
In this gospel reading for this morning Jesus has already taught his disciples, still another time, that he will face suffering and persecution, death on the cross, as the result of his challenges to the culture of the time, and rise again in hope. Jesus is the Great Reversal in thinking and doing. The disciples have a very hard time getting it. They begin to argue in terms of who is the greatest among them, that is, who will have the most honor among them. What will be the pecking order among the disciples? Every body likes to be a hotshot sometime, who gets the prestige. The disciples who have traveled with Jesus simply cannot understand the concept of his suffering servant mentality, which is calling people to death of old ways and to the recovery of a new realm, dominion kingdom.
To demonstrate once again, Jesus takes a child and sets the child in their midst. We have to understand that the place of children in Jesus time is nothing like we think of them today. Strict sometimes very severe discipline was imposed. Most children died before the age of 16 years from unconquered disease and more especially from poor hygiene. Thirty percent of children died at birth. It was for children a time of terror. They experienced severe pain and suffering. Until the time of maturity, children had no rights and were considered as slaves, without the right of inheritance. Thus, when you hear the early church’s call for Christians to care for the widows and orphans, you have to remember that children who couldn’t inherit and were left penniless continued to live a life of suffering and poverty. Starkly different from our time, if a man had to save his family from a fire or other tragedy, the order was clear. He would save his father first, his mother secondly, his wife thirdly, and then the children. In a time of famine, children were fed last. People loved their children, especially the boys but for reasons of carrying on the family name, maintaining the family business, and being family servants. And a daughter-in-law that did not provide the family with a son was never accepted fully into the family.
Why did Jesus get crucified? From our standpoint, why would a nice guy like Jesus who used children in his illustrations for being saved from harm, or in his use of allowing children sit with him when he was teaching. From our point of view, Jesus was a nice guy in that regard. However, from his own time, what Jesus was saying to the early community, unless you put the last first and serve them you are not a follower of me. Children symbolized the vulnerable, the last, the least, often the lost by virtue of becoming orphans. The very fact that we now baptize little children, and have such respect for our children, and work so hard for their well being, and our hope that they will grow up to be free and liberated and special unique individuals comes from a Great Reversal, started by Jesus in the 1st Century. “Whoever welcomes a child [one of the least, last, and lost] in my name [Jesus] welcomes me, [and abides in a whole new way of life] and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me. [The Almighty God of Love, Caring, Compassion, Keeper of the Disenfranchised and Inclusion.]”
The Holy Baptism of our children is loaded with profound symbolism. The baptism and acceptance of a child into our church implies the acceptance of the last, least, and lost into the Family of God, the church. Those who can essentially do nothing for themselves belong to God, and are ours to train in Christ’s commission of caring and serving one another. They become a full part of the family worthy to sit down and the table of the Lord, and participate in the Lord’s Supper. Children often cry, scream, and yell in church. How ought we to see that behavior? There are times when many of us see such behavior as that of a bad kid. Not so. It is the cries and screams of the world, the last, the least, the lost the lonely who are in need. They are in need of food, or in need of being removed from the poop of injustice, poverty, cruelty, and violence. They cry out for attention, and they simply cry out because they are there, and the church if it is true to it’s Lord must unquestionably pay attention!
We immerse them in fresh cleansing water, and present them faultless before the Lord God. We drown them to the old ways of thinking of oppression, suppression, slavery, phony honor, and raise them up to a new life of love and hope. We put a garment upon them; we clothe them for their ministry dressed in the white robe of the resurrected Christ. We anoint them, sign them, mark them, as Christ’s own forever, and make them a worthy part of the royal priesthood of Christ. We give them a lighted candle, a burning banner of signifying their partnership with Jesus Christ. We feed them with the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ that they may never know a time when they were not welcomed at the table of the Lord.
When we receive these children into the church by virtue of their Holy Baptism, we are beginning their training in the servanthood ministry. As priest, parents, Godparents (or sponsors) and congregation with Jesus Christ, we are all renewed in our own significance as those marked and anointed as Christ’s own forever, and forever his caring compassionate servants in the world bringing dignity and hope to every human being. The main rationale of the church of God is that it fulfill Christ’s mission of training, dying to itself, and with Christ raising up everyone that is fallen, disenfranchised, or excluded, and immersing the nations and the world’s factions into the Love of God.
So! Today, Olivia, Elise, Matthew, Emmett, and Amelia are accepted for themselves, and for all they symbolize. They remind us clergy, parents, grandparents, Godparents, and the wider church community of our responsibility to train them for a servanthood mission with Christ and for an understanding of their own great dignity and worth. We are all reminded of the great commission to reach out to all human beings and the human needs of the world in the spirit of providing hope, dignity, justice, respect, and love. These are the very stuff of which the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, the Realm, the Dominion of God is made.





September 18, 2003
Thanksgiving Prayer after the Communion
(The congregation kneels. Selected persons offer the following prayers of thanksgiving standing with the priest near the altar.)
O God, you have bound us together for a time as priest and people to work for the advancement of your kingdom in St. John’s Parish: We give you humble and hearty thanks for the ministry which we have shared in these years now past. Amen.
We thank you, Lord, for your patience with us despite our blindness and slowness of heart. We thank you for your forgiveness and mercy in the face of things in which we may have been slow or failed to accomplish. Amen.
Especially we thank you, Lord, for your never-failing presence with us through these years, and for the deeper knowledge of you and of each other, which we have attained. Amen.
We thank you, Lord, for those who have been joined to this part of Christ’s family through Holy Baptism, Holy Confirmation, and for all who have come from other places. We thank you for opening our hearts and minds again and again to your Word, and for feeding us abundantly with the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of your Son. Amen.
Now, we pray, be with David who leaves and with us who stay; and grant that all of us, by drawing ever nearer to you may always be close to each other in the communion of your saints. All this we ask for the sake of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. Amen.
(The priest and the congregation offer the following prayer together.)
Almighty God, we thank you for feeding us with the holy food of the Body and Blood of your Son, and for uniting us through him in the fellowship of your Holy Spirit. We thank you for raising up among us faithful servants of your Word and Sacraments. We thank you especially for the work of David among us, and the presence of his family. Grant that both he and we may serve you in the days ahead, and always rejoice in your glory, and come at length in to your heavenly kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(The priest offers the following blessing.)
May God, who has led us in the paths of justice and truth, lead us still, and keep us in his ways. Amen.
May God, whose Son has loved us and given himself for us, love us still, and establish us in peace. Amen.
May God whose Spirit unites us and fills our hearts with joy, illumine us still, and strengthen us for the years to come. Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be among you, and remain with you always. Amen.
(The Recessional Hymn follows.)
THE CELEBRATION AND
BLESSING OF A MARRIAGE

The Prelude
The Processional
The Exhortation p. 423
The Declaration of Consent p. 424

The Congregational response to the priest:
Priest: Will all of you witnessing these promises do all in your power to uphold these two persons in their marriage?
People: We will. p. 425

The Ministry of the Word
The Wedding Collect p. 425
Hebrew Scripture: Song of Solomon 2:10-13; 8:6-7
(A selection of music may take place here.)
The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 13
(A selection of music may take place here.)
The Holy Gospel: Mark 10:6-9, 13-16
The Homily by The Rev. David S. Remington, Rector
(A selection of music may take place here.)
The Marriage
The exchange of vows and blessing of rings. p. 427
The pronouncement of husband and wife. p. 428
The Prayers
The Lord’s Prayer p. 428
The Wedding Prayers p. 429
A prayer in loving memory of Tom’s mother, Norma Ellena.
(A selection of music may take place here.)
The Blessing of the Marriage
The Blessings p. 430
The Kiss of Peace p .431

The Recessional

The page numbers in the Wedding Service outline refer to The Book of Common Prayer. (The Red Prayer Book in the pew racks.)