Proper
13A 2014
Father Adam Trambley
Aug 3, 2014 St.John’s Sharon
Baptismal Covenant
Questions, Part 1
For the past three weeks we have been looking at the basic
elements of our faith as laid out in the Apostles’ Creed, which we use during
our baptismal service. Each week we have
also been using the Baptismal Covenant, which includes the Apostles’ Creed, in
place of the Nicene Creed we normally use for Eucharistic services. As we renew our Baptismal Covenant each week,
after the portions of the Creed, we answer five practical questions about how
we plan to live out the faith we have just professed.
These five specific questions were included for the first
time in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.
Their roots, however, go back to the 1662 English Book of CommonPrayer. After the affirmation of faith,
the minister asked: Wilt thou then
obediently keep God’s holy will and commandments, and walk in the same all the
days of thy life?[1]
During the Prayer Book revision, some
liturgical committee or other decided that it might be helpful to spell out
what it meant to “obediently keep God’s holy will and commandments” and make
“walk in the same all the days of thy life” more comprehensible to the modern
ear. What they came up with were the
following questions, all of which are answered with “I will, with God’s help.”
·
Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and
fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
·
Will you persevere in resisting evil, and,
whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
·
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?
Today we’ll look at the first question, because it has four
parts, and then explore the final four next week.
The first question is taken directly from scripture. On Pentecost, Peter receives the Holy Spirit
and begins to preach to the crowds. He
exhorted the crowds to “repent and be baptized…in the name of Jesus Christ so
that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy
Spirit.” Of those listening, three
thousand welcomed his message and were baptized. Once they were baptized, scripture says,
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and the prayers.”
Since these activities were what the first convents did on the “Birthday
of the Church,” they seem like good ideas for all of us.
The first element is continuing in the apostles’
teaching. This point probably looks
different than it did two thousand years ago.
Those who came to Christ on Pentecost got together with the apostles and
listened to whatever they had to say. The apostles were the people who had a
personal relationship with the man Jesus before he died, who met with him after
the resurrection, and received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. They knew what Jesus taught. They experienced his miracles. They felt his love even when he was tired and
cranky and disappointed in them. They
saw him pray and pour himself out in compassion on crowds when all he wanted to
do was to be left alone for a while.
They saw him go to the cross and forgive his murders. If you wanted to know Jesus, and understand
how he wanted you to live your life, the apostles were the ones that could tell
you.
Now, of course, we have a slight problem here. The last apostle who spent years walking the
dusty roads of Galilee with him, John, son of Zebedee, died over nineteen
hundred years ago. We can’t just text
the apostles a quick “What would Jesus do?” about whatever life questions
currently befuddle us. Providentially,
however, God provided two other avenues for us to receive the apostles’
teaching. The first is scripture and the
second is the church. Both are
important, and both are handed down to us from the apostles.
The New Testament was written either by the apostles,
including Saint Paul who became an apostle through slightly different means, or
by those who worked with the apostles.
We believe that the crucial teachings and activities of Jesus’ life,
death and resurrection were recorded for us in scripture and are enough for us
to enter into a saving relationship with him.
At the same time, the apostles set up the church as the community of
faith that would carry on the traditions that Jesus had established and handed
on to them, and that would develop those traditions as necessary for the good
of the people of God. Some of these
important apostolic teachings are the Creeds, which are not found in scripture,
but which are important to us. The
Sacraments are also important elements of faith that come to us through the
church. Even though the sacraments are found in
Scripture, much of their practice has come down through the Church.
To continue in the apostles’ teaching, then, means to read
our Bibles regularly and learn what the church teaches us. We to finding out what we need be the
Christian men and women God calls us to be.
Then we commit to “fellowship.” Fellowship means all of those things that
help us create the bonds of love between one another. Fellowship allows us to live as a real church
family that can be as strong when necessary as a biological family. We aren’t always aware how important a church
family can be to people who are turning their lives around and starting over
through Baptism. Think about the depth
of fellowship they need in order to start over.
Or think about people who need to know real Christian love in their
lives, and have never really received that from their other family or friends. Christian fellowship is meant to help all of
us in any of those positions, as well as whatever our own difficulties are with
feeling loved and accepted by God and one another.
Continuing in fellowship means coffee hour and church
dinners. But fellowship also means sharing
meals; it means hospital visits; it means offering each other’s children
playmates and places that are safe and supervised to play; it means the daily
phone calls to make sure people in failing health are OK; it means the
casseroles delivered in stressful times; it means celebrating together or
crying together, or both, during major life transitions; it means giving
somebody else something to do that doesn’t involve what we would now call “at
risk” behaviors but that they used to call “sinful”; it means being available
by phone or text or whatever in the middle of the night when there is a crisis,
or late in the evening when loneliness and isolation hits, or during the day
just to touch base; it means inviting people from church to something that we
might be doing anyway. Continuing in
fellowship means taking the time to love the brothers and sisters who are part
of our church family in whatever ways we can, even when doing so is
inconvenient or a struggle. We need to
continue in fellowship to allow ourselves to give and receive the depth of love
Jesus wants us to be able to share, and others need us to continue in
fellowship so they can experience that depth of love, as well.
I’d just note here that St. John’s can live into this depth
of fellowship. When and where we have,
we have usually incorporated new people and touched their lives. When we haven’t given I that much attention,
we usually have had the opposite experience.
In the next part of the question, we agree to continue in
the breaking of bread. This phrase
refers to weekly participation in the Eucharist. On the night before he died, Jesus broke
bread with his disciples and told us to continue in memory of him. So we do.
By coming to communion we receive the body and blood of Christ in a way
that incorporates us and those around us more fully into Christ’s body, forgives of ours sins, strengths us in our
weakness, and provides a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. We have talked more specifically about the
Eucharist at other times, and I’m happy to answer any additional questions
people have. In the context of the
baptismal covenant today, we are recognizing our commitment to continue in
regularly being part of our Eucharistic weekly worship.
Then the last part of this question is continuing in the
prayers. Prayer is how we grow closer to
God, how we let the Holy Spirit into our hearts and lives to heal us and smooth
out our rough edges, how we encounter Christ until we are slowly transformed in
someone who looks and acts like Christ, and how we do the spiritual work of
lifting up our brothers and sisters to God so that their spiritual and other
needs are met. Probably nothing is more
foundational to our Christian life than our willingness to encounter God in
prayer on a daily basis.
Prayer can take many forms.
God knows that we are all different, and he provides different ways that
we all can reach out to him. Prayer can
be meditating on scripture; it can be reciting memorized prayers that give our
mind something to do while our heart reaches out to God; it can be the daily
offices of morning and evening prayer or compline; it can be singing; it can be dancing; it can be
centering prayer or contemplative prayer or just sitting in silence before God,
maybe with an icon or a candle; it can be thanking God for every good thing
that happened today or repenting of everything done wrong today; it can be
picturing our loved ones surrounded by God’s golden light or telling God
conversationally what we hope he will do for them; it can be done on our knees
beside our beds or sitting in our favorite chair or standing up and walking
around our neighborhood; it can be done by ourselves, or with our family, or
with others, and ideally is done each of those ways; it can be done while
waiting for a red light, but needs to be done more often than only when waiting
in traffic.
The kind of prayer isn’t so important. What is essential is that we pray, and that
we pray every day. Ideally, we all
probably need to pray at least a half hour each day, and more in times of
crises or if we are in church or other leadership where there are people
depending on us. In those cases, we
should be praying for all those people every day. Prayer is the beginning of everything else
important that happens in our spiritual lives, and in the rest of our
lives. As we are baptized into our Lord
Jesus Christ, we need to spend time with him, and prayer is the primary way we
do that. If you have questions about
prayer or types of prayer, please ask me and I’ll be happy to answer them.
Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship,
in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
I will, with God’s help.
No comments:
Post a Comment