September 6, 2020
Rev. Debra McKnight
As we break this bread and as we light our candles in our own unique spaces, we remember that Jesus journeyed in community and that His baptism was the very launch point of this work. So let us pray.
Gracious and Generous God, you call us into life in unexpected ways, through unexpected moments in spaces that are entirely ordinary: water, sand, bread, wheat, grain - all of the things that you spoke about, much mended nets - seeds landing in the ground. Grant us the courage to find what is extraordinary in every ordinary moment, that we might live into the call of our baptism, that we might follow with love and gratitude and abundance. May it be so. Amen.
Scripture - Luke 4:16-21
This scripture is sort of a bold move on Jesus’ part. It’s like, “mission accomplished,” mic is dropped. Done. And the people respond with, “isn’t that Joseph’s boy? Uhh, who does he think he is?” The baptism invites us into these sorts of unusual places. It has this kind of work within us. And when we think about baptism, we think about water - this kind of part of us, that we are made of water, we exist in water, water is essential to life. Water is a sacred expression in so many religious traditions, particularly our own. And so we gather here at this space of water, in this space that means a lot to me - this space where I have been hanging out off and on since I was six or so. (Lila from the background, “Nine!”) Well, first, mom & dad bought this lot and we would swim here and then, when I was nine or ten, we moved here. [Thank you for the clarification. For those of you who didn’t hear it, Lila fixed what I said was wrong. She’ll get her own mic in the future, but not yet]. So this is a space of care and it’s a space where you can see of privilege and not just privilege in this space of getting to grow up in this space of nature and this space, but this privilege of having parents like Jim and Sandy McKnight. And this space was a space of hospitality. Not was, is (Covid is hard). This space was this kind of hosting base for my parents over and over and over. They invited everyone to come anytime; to swim anytime. My family, my cousins, came all the time. And then when I was in high school, they started hosting the entire marching band. The entire high school marching band came here at least once a summer. They’ve hosted baseball teams and softball teams, not just for their kids, but for their grandkids. They have hosted all kinds of people, even our summers of Japanese exchange students who went to College of Saint Mary and came down here and my dad would get everyone in the water and run around on the boat with tubes and skis and knee boards and whatever else.
And my dad, in this work of hosting, in this work of hospitality, cared very much about safety. And that is a gift. When I was growing up, when we moved here, if we didn’t join the swim team and then prove that you could swim across the lake and back, just to be in the backyard, you had to wear a life jacket. At leas that was the proposal. It really encouraged us to swim and to get really good at swimming. Of course, not being five foot ever, meant that when I got trophies for swim team, they were more like the “110%” award or “Most Improved.” But, trying really hard was just fine. And we wore life jackets all the time. We wore life jackets on the boat. We wore life jackets everywhere. My dad is like the Oprah Winfrey of life jackets. He’s got a wall of life jackets. “You get a life jacket! And you get a life jacket! And you get a life jacket!” He’s got life jackets for babies. He’s got life jackets for toddlers. He has five choices. If you’re in middle school and you’re not sure which one’s quite right for your body because it’s changing, it’s fine. There are choices. We will try them all on. Life jackets for everybody. Everybody in the boat needed a life jacket. And my dad wore his life jacket. It wasn’t just “you should wear a life jacket,” he wore a life jacket all the time. He wore a life jacket driving the boat - didn’t matter how hot it was, didn’t matter how slow they were going - because, he clarified, that if we really needed the life jacket, it wasn’t gonna help us sitting on the chair next to us. So my dad wore a life jacket all the time. And I got older and I started to notice that none of the other dads wore life jackets in their boats and I started to be aware that just because my life jacket was like, hot pink and teal like my prom dress in the 90s, didn’t mean that it was cool. This kind of awareness of like, our deep-rooted nerdiness showing up for everybody to see.
But the gift of life jackets, the gift of this kind of care taking and hospitality and protection; this gift allows you to do things that you wouldn’t otherwise do. And it keeps you safe while you try something new. It keeps you safe when you’re being pulled behind a boat and being flung this way and that. It gives you a space to try and try and try again at skiing. It gives you space to kind of float and rest and relax; it is a space of safety and care. And so here at the McKnight house, we wear life jackets all the time. And when I think about this space and when I think about this work of baptism, how when we are in community with one another, we become like this safety net. We make this safe space for each other. We offer each other this kind of extra lift, this extra ability to float, this extra protection if things get too unsure and too wild. See, baptism is about us committing to a life together, us committing to do work together, us committing to community. When I talk to children about baptism and they ask questions, I will say that baptism makes us a family with a bunch of aunts and a bunch of uncles and, just like a family, maybe we don’t always get along. Maybe sometimes we disagree. But we are family. Josephine and Everett (the two babies who were baptized during this service) gain this big, wild extended family. And the gift of it is that we guard one another’s hopes and dreams, that we make this protective space, this safe space.
See, life jackets allow you to do something really hard, really even risky. And the Christian tradition asks us to do things that are hard and risky. This scripture is Jesus’ mission statement. He comes back after his baptism after being drawn into the wilderness, after being tested and tempted, and his first thing is proclaiming release and recovery and healing and care for all people. They are tangible. They are hard. They are upsetting to the status quo. Nobody will like them. See, this moment ends with Jesus being run out of his hometown. That’s how popular Christianity is. This work of baptism, it asks us to invite one another into those spaces that are hard and to stand side by side as we do work that is risky and challenging and unsure and uncertain every step of the way.
May we have the courage. May it be so. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment