We’ve been reading, and I’ve been preaching about God’s covenants this Lent—

And, I’ll have to tell you that I think today’s promise is the best—because, of course,

            it’s my favorite Old Testament passage—this reading from Jeremiah 31.

 (my study  Bible falls open to it!)

It may be familiar to those of you who are fairly recently confirmed because it is the Old Testament passage read on Reformation Sunday, the day that our young people affirm their baptisms.

            In my study Bible , I have written two words in the margins by this passage:

            Good. News.

This is the Good News of God, promised to God’s chosen people

            who had broken their covenant with God already. They worshipped idols.

They broke God’s covenant

And the good news was that God did not abandon them

            God did not turn away from them, turn God’s face from them

God did not hold a grudge

God did not withhold a second chance—

In fact, God stopped counting chances!

Instead, God said:  I’m not going to make that kind of a covenant any more—

The kind where humans, frail and imperfect and broken humans have to do something  in order to keep the promise.

No, God says, I ‘m going to do this all a different way.

            I will put my law—my teachings—within them

And I will write it on their hearts.

God will remember us.

            God will place everything we need to know within our very selves and

            God will write this promise on our hearts where it is always available to us—even if we don’t always feel it and have to be reminded of it—

not because of what God is doing, but because we are who we are.

We will know God because God will inscribe Godself on our hearts!

            And just like that—because of what  God did, has done, is doing and will do—

We are God’s people, and God is our God.

            And this would be good enough news for anyone, I think, but there’s more.

            God’s second promise in this passage:

            I will forgive their iniquity

And I will remember their sin no more.

Remember that, sisters and brothers.

God has done this thing.

God also writes this promise on our hearts.

            God promises to forgive us and remember our sin no more—to wipe it away as if it never happened.

            And this is also  good great news.

            So many of us worry over the things we have done and the things we have failed to do.

            And even when we open our hearts to God as we confess our sins before God each week in worship,

                        We’re not altogether sure that that  is all that is needed—

Just that silent confession?

            Just the pastor saying these words?

As a called and ordained minister of the church of Christ and by his authority, I therefore declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

            These are not the words of the pastor—they are the words of truth. God’s words and God’s promises.

we confess our sin, we intend to  turn away, and we want to believe that God forgives our sins

            And yet,

We sometimes say, and act as if God doesn’t forget those sins.

            But the great good news is that God promises to forgive them

And remember them no more.

This past week was my week to bring communion to our homebound members. You might remember that I also promised to  visit the homebound members of Cambridge Lutheran Church while their pastor is on a medical disability leave. I saw a lot of folks this week.

For folks who’d like to hear scripture before receiving communion, I often read one of the lessons for the upcoming Sunday, usually because those passages are on my heart and mind as I go through the week leading up to preaching on Sunday.

And since this Jeremiah passage is my favorite, of course I read it to anyone who wanted to hear it.

Over and over this week, I read:                I will make a new covenant.

And then I went on to speak the words of institution:

Our Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed, took bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to his disciples saying, Take and Eat. This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Again after supper, he took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them saying, take and drink, this cup is the new covenant in my blood shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.

And over and over again, as I shared these sacred words of promise,

 the connection became so clear to me–

God’s promise to be our God is revealed again in the Son—who took on human form—who lived on the earth, walked among us, and then was lifted up on the cross and died for us—who was raised from the dead and then lifted up from earth to heaven—

            In order, the gospel of John says, to lift all people to himself as he was raised up.

God’s promise to forgive our sins is known in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

God’s promise to forgive our sins happens each time we eat this bread and drink from this cup.  

We can’t screw it up. We can’t undo it. 

That’s my favorite promise of all—that we cannot undo God’s promise to be our God,

 to forgive our sins,

 and to remember our sin no more.

Over and over.

Each week, each day, each month—

Over and over.

We are not separated from God; for the knowledge of God is within us, written on our hearts with love, grace and inscribed and bound by forgiveness and mercy.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

    I’m big on baptism.  If you worship with us, you’ll notice that the baptismal font is always at the center of the front of the church. Even if there is not a baptism that day. We are made children of God in our baptisms, and it is the entry into the life of the church….as Martin Luther said, we must remember our baptisms every day!  One of the members here jokes that when I die, they’ll bury me right under that font.  I say, do it! 

   I also say, we can’t undo our baptisms.  This is God’s grace.  God has sealed us with the Holy Spirit and marked us with the cross of Christ forever in our baptims, and we can’t undo it no matter how much we screw up.  God is always waiting, to forgive, to forget our sin, and to remind us that we are His.

    We use a pitcher for baptism that has been in my family for nearly 30 years. When I received it as a gift, I hadn’t realized that there were three persons etched onto its sides….the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  When I received it, I had no idea that some 28 years later I would be ordained and serve in a church where we would use it in every baptism, and each time we give thanksgiving for our own baptisms.

    Coincidence? I think not.

   Remember your baptisms!                                                      

Jesus and the religious authorities are debating again.

This time, the Pharisees are joined by Herodians—likely those who supported a man named Herod Antipas—the one that the Romans appointed ‘King of the Jews.’

The Pharisees who are faithful, pious, law-abiding Jews and can’t accept Jesus because he is not following the law as they understand it, and even worse, because he is claiming to be the Son of God…

            And the Herodians who can’t accept Jesus because he is a threat to Herod’s authority—

Both groups want Jesus to go away, stop preaching, and they want his followers to stop following.

So they challenge him in a clever way. They bring up the tax that the Roman authorities have laid on the people—a tax which is a huge burden to the poor.  They hold up a denarius which has the picture of the emperor inscribed on it—

            Is it lawful to pay taxes to emperor or is it not?

Now the story doesn’t tell you one important thing—that inscription? Underneath the picture are words which claim that the emperor is the son of God!

So, if Jesus agrees that paying taxes is correct, he is affirming the unfair taxation of many poor people, and  he is giving allegiance to the emperor who claims to be divine…

And if he says that it is not right to pay the taxes, then he is an unlawful citizen and advocating civil unrest.

And so, Jesus  answers them

            And once again turns the world upside down.

He names their plan—Why are you putting me to the test you hypocrites? And he demands to see the coin.

And then he simply asks whose head is on the coin, and whose title—why, it’s the emperors, they say.

Then give to the emperor the things that are the emperors and to give to God the things that are God’s.

The conspirators are amazed, and they go away.

So, we hear this some 2000 years later and we puzzle it out—what is this saying to us now?  Is this merely about paying taxes?  (pause) Or is it about who has authority in our lives? Who has our allegiance.

            What are the things of God?

            If the things of the emperor are known by where he places his images and his self-titled inscription,

            then, what are the things of God’s?

            What has God’s image on it?   Because those things are God’s.

(pause)

            Well, we are made in God’s image.  In Genesis 1:26-7, it says

            Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing upon the earth. So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

            We are the things of God.

            Oh, I know, it could  make us feel less special to be labeled a ‘thing’ of God,

 but we do not have a careless God!

  Our God isn’t like a teenager or a sloppy adult—

the things of God are not left in piles on the floor of the bathroom or heaped in the corner of the closet.

The things of God do not collect dust, unremembered and neglected.

            To begin with, God names what is God’s.  All the creatures and the created world were named.  The prophet Isaiah, speaking for God says this:

            But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:

            Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

            I have called you by name, you are mine.

            When you pass through the waters, I will be with you

And through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you;

            When you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

And the flame shall not consume you.

For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

            But  even named things, we fear, can be forgotten.

            We know that we have had friends, close friends from our past—whose names we now have trouble recalling,

            Beloved pets and toys, named and yet lost, or forgotten, or neglected .

            But God has not forgotten.

            Again, the prophet Isaiah speaks:

            But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.”

            [God speaks:] Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?

            Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.

            See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;

            The things of God, created, named and inscribed on the palms of God’s hands.

            Someone said in Bible study this week, ‘Big Hands!’

            What are the things of God?  The Psalmist writes in the 24^th Psalm:

            The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world and those who live in it. I

When Jesus answers the leaders, he uses a Greek word that is translated ‘give’ in our Bible, but it can also mean to give back, to restore or return.

            Give back to the emperor the things that are his….

            Return to God the things that are God’s.

            And those things—they are so much more  than money!

            Give back your heart, your whole self, to God, because you are God’s beloved children.  God has called you by name, you are the Lord’s.

            You are inscribed in the palms of God’s hands…

            Indelible, eternal, beloved.

I believe that Matthew tells us this story to reinforce this eternal truth.

All that the emperor has is his army, his taxes, his man-made power….

And you may return to him his taxes,

            Because you are not his—

You belong to the Lord. 

            In fact, Martin Luther was very clear about this—he called it the idea of the two kingdoms, and encouraged Christians to be responsible citizens and follow the rules of the earthly kingdom.

            The hearts and minds and souls of the Christians—they belong to God. Our allegiance is to the God who created us, redeemed us and sustains us.

            Maybe one of the best ways to remember this is to look at the large picture that is on the east wall by the church entrance (pointing).

            Have you looked at it?

            It’s a picture of Jesus, of course.  But  peer closely at it.  The picture is made up of the hundreds of directory pictures from the 2009 church directory.

            The image is clear. The message is simple.  We are God’s.

We belong to Jesus who loved us all the way to the cross,

where nails were driven though the palms that have our names inscribed on them—

and  he loves us still.

            It is that love and belonging that informs our focus, our decisions, our priorities and our very lives to this day.

            Thanks be to God!     Amen.

I was blessed to spend 4 days at the Lutheran Outdoor Ministries Center (LOMC) near Oregon, IL back in June with our confirmation students, and pastors and students from other area churches. It’s a beautiful site, and staffed by enthusiastic and faithful young people.   I learned so much–about other people, about God, about my own faith journey–and especially about the created world.

You may all know this already, but the aspen tree is one of creation’s most amazing things.  Aspen trees live in colonies–starting from single seedlings and spreading through their root systems.  What affects one, affects all in the colony. You can’t see that from standing in the forest (where I was, with a group of twenty teens, counselors and pastors), but it’s true.

And, you know, our world, the people, we’re like the aspen, too. Oh, we might try to say there are differences–but we all have started from the same place, and we spread through our roots.  Especially the church on earth–the body of Christ in the world. The church spreads through its roots–the Holy Spirit who is active in the world,  our faith–given to us in our baptisms–scripture read, proclaimed and studied—and the love of God shown to us in Christ Jesus.

I’m always thinking about great church names. Aspen  would be a deep and thoughtful name, wouldn’t it?

Blessings,

Pastor Jan

They knew because they cared. There is an interconnectedness to the work of the land that I had not expected. If it matters to one person, it matters to the community. Work, vocation, care for the land and the animals–it also  matters to the people who work in the cities,  run the cafe, and  sort the mail. Some of the retired members of our area routinely help farmers plant and harvest their fields.

This reminds me of the apostle Paul’s writing about the body of Christ–how each of us is a part of the whole–ears, eyes, feet, hands, and so on. No one part is more important or essential–all matter, all are connected, and for all to be in health, Christ must be the head of the body. The parts work together under the direction of the head, who is Christ.  I see this community working together in such a way; caring about each of the parts, knowing that all  work contributes to the whole. I think that God intends for us to be in community, and this is one of the ways that we are, in our care for each other.

Some of you know that my daughter Nora is a bit behind the rest of the teenagers in the area when it comes to taking driver’s ed.  We arrived late in her sophomore year, and I hadn’t allowed her to start classes in Wisconsin before we left (since it costs about $400 there!), she had to wait until her junior year to start—just a few months ago, in fact.  And, there has been this ongoing controversy about learning to drive a manual transmission since that’s what my little Honda civic is.  She’s come around and has been shifting for me as we drive together so that she’s getting the hang of it. Her temps haven’t arrived yet, so she’s not actually driving my car.  But we’re talking about what happens in the engine when you engage the clutch and shift—and what would happen if you shifted without depressing the clutch first, or how the car would react if you accidentally shifted from first to third—or downshifted from fifth to third.

Sometimes the shifting of the gears is smooth—and sometimes it isn’t….and when it isn’t, there are  tangible physical and audible signs that a transition is taking place, that change is coming.

We’ve just remembered and celebrated a story in Jesus’ life that is very dear to us—his triumphant entry into Jerusalem….we try to recreate the excitement of the crowds—calling out ‘Hosanna! Lord save us!”  We bask in the joy that we find in worshipping Jesus and celebrating his triumphant entry.

And then.  We switch gears.

And in writing his gospel, Matthew tried to warn the listeners that it was coming.  Did you notice what he said ?

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?”

Other translations read “the whole city was stirred”….

There were, Matthew tells us, tangible physical signs that a transition is taking place…that things are going to change.

We are switching gears and from what we know from hearing these stories year and year, we know that the transition will not be smooth.

As we move now to the story of Jesus’ passion, I invite you to enter into the story as deeply as you can. It’s not easy to immerse oneself in this story—it is troubling and disturbing.  But we enter in, warned.

The world is being stirred up— As Jesus breathed his last on the cross, the earth itself shook—so that all knew that once again, all of creation was about to switch gears—and enter another transition

but once we begin this transition, we will follow it through to its end— as Christians, we are not people who dwell and remain in the stories of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. We do not remain suspended in the agony of Holy Saturday—the time when Jesus was in the tomb—

We are people of the resurrection—Easter people formed by  these stories of transition, change, fear and trembling—formed by the stirring of the Holy Spirit in the story of Jesus’ life, passion, death and resurrection.

Enter into the story today and this week and allow it to shape and form your daily life. Notice how this stirring up strengthens your faith walk, and how it opens you to be changed by God.

Enter the story—walk into Jerusalem with Jesus this morning and this week—mindful of the shaking of the earth—walking through the turmoil to the changes that God brings about on Easter morning and in our very lives.

Amen.

where we prayed for all for whom we forgot to pray

Because, of course, God knows who they are.

I’ve been thinking, ‘what if?’  What if each prayer of petition that we prayed ended that way….whether it be our personal prayers, the breath prayers we utter as we hear a siren, or as we  become aware of a tragedy like the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the prayers as we gather as a community to meet, to share meals, to worship…? What if we begin to acknowledge those that we forget?  The pastor who taught my worship class in seminary cautioned us that we must never pray a prayer unless we are willing to become the answer to that prayer.

Lord, we pray for those that we have forgotten to pray for. How might God move us to be the answer to that prayer?

Well.  There you have it.  The most impossible command that Jesus has given in this Sermon on the Mount.

Love your enemies.

And our first response might be  to say things like this:

We are human beings, Jesus. We get hurt, we’re misunderstood, and

we sometimes respond by getting angry–

and sometimes we hold grudges. And, we have enemies—people who have done things to betray us, hurt us, or criticize us unfairly–

We are human beings, Jesus.

and we hate our enemies.

we may want to get even. We want justice.

Sometimes we even want revenge.

This is who we are. Humans. Broken. Flawed. Prone to holding on to anger in harmful ways—people who have enemies.

And, here’s what I hear Jesus saying in response:

Yeah, he says in the sermon on the mount—Yeah, I know.

I know that’s how humans are.

That’s why I’m saying this to you.  Because I know all the arguments that you have; I know the ways that you respond to pain, humiliation, betrayal, lying, personal attacks, unfairness, criticism, being shut out and ignored, being neglected and rejected and left out

I know, Jesus says, I know.

And I love you all nonetheless. I love you

and even though you probably don’t want to hear this right now,

I love the ones that hurt you, too. I love you all and I love you deeply enough that I want to talk about that elephant in the room—

the problem that all humans —you  who follow me and those who don’t—have

responded to the hurts from their neighbors, their families, their relatives, their coworkers, strangers, and even members of their faith communities.

The hurts build up. The scars don’t heal. Walls are erected. Enemies are named and kept.

‘And so I have words for all of you’, I think Jesus might be saying.

I’m challenging this: this idea that you would make, and keep  enemies.

How about this idea instead?

Let your enemies bring out the best in you, not the worst.

When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer—

because in this way, you are working out of your true, God-created selves.

That’s how God does it—gives the best of the created world to everyone regardless of whether they’re good or bad….

I’m saying, live life generously and graciously toward others just like God lives toward you. Love your neighbor-everyone who is not you –as yourself. Have no enemies.

(Long pause).

Yes, it’s a struggle.  This is one of the greatest struggles that we have as people of faith—to forgive without being asked and to let go of destructive anger,  hurt feelings and our grudges….

To live generously just as God lives generously towards us.

I want to hold up to you  a story from 2006.  Perhaps you all know it well, but it bears repeating, I think.

In October of  2006, a man came to the West Nickel Mines Amish School in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It’s a one room school house.  He was a husband and father who had lost an infant daughter some years before.  He ordered the adults and boys to leave the schoolhouse, and then he tied up and shot ten young girls before killing himself.  Five of the children died.

The response of the families of the girls and the entire Amish community was, to put it mildly, astounding.

This is how one reporter put it:
In the midst of their grief over this shocking loss, the Amish community didn’t cast blame, they didn’t point fingers, they didn’t hold a press conference with attorneys at their sides. Instead, they reached out with grace and compassion toward the killer’s family.

The afternoon of the shooting an Amish grandfather of one of the girls who was killed expressed forgiveness toward the killer, Charles Roberts.

That same day Amish neighbors visited the Roberts family to comfort them in their sorrow and pain.

Later that week the Roberts family was invited to the funeral of one of the Amish girls who had been killed. And Amish mourners outnumbered the non-Amish at Charles Roberts’ funeral.

It’s ironic that the killer was tormented for nine years by the premature death of his young daughter. He never forgave God for her death. Yet, after he cold-bloodedly shot 10 innocent Amish school girls, the Amish almost immediately forgave him and showed compassion toward his family.

In a world at war and in a society that often points fingers and blames others, this reaction was unheard of. Many reporters and interested followers of the story asked, “How could they forgive such a terrible, unprovoked act of violence against innocent lives?”

The Amish culture closely follows the teachings of Jesus, who taught his followers to forgive one another, to place the needs of others before themselves, and to rest in the knowledge that God is still in control and can bring good out of any situation. Love and compassion toward others is to be life’s theme. Vengeance and revenge is to be left to God.

______________________

The story brings tears to our eyes every time we hear it.  This community of faith was able, with God’s help, to live out their calls as kingdom subjects despite the greatest loss that they may ever have known.

In one sense, they forgave the man because they refused to allow themselves to consider him their enemy.  As our text today said, “Let them—your enemies– bring out the best in you, not the worst.

This is a hard teaching—a difficult discipline—

it goes against our inclinations, our impulses, and our human natures.

We cannot do it by ourselves.

We don’t have to.

God, who is good and gracious, God who loves perfectly

will give us the strength to try each day of our lives.

God gives us the path of responding  with the ‘energies of prayer’ as our translation today puts it….

Striving to  be generous and forgiving the  injustices and indignities of our daily lives

by approaching and accepting the idea that those who hurt us are not our enemies—by praying for them, which brings out the best in us, and changes our lives

and theirs as well.

I know it doesn’t  happen instantly, or even overnight—

this is more of a  daily discipline,

to commit to the practices of forgiveness and graciousness

that let us grow into  being  people of the kingdom of heaven—Jesus people—

responding and  living  in the same way that God lives towards us—

showing a generosity of spirit and reflecting the graciousness of God shown to us in our Lord, Jesus Christ.     Amen.

This is the view out my office window in the church–facing north.  You can see the snow covered field (last summer, soybeans; next will be corn), the white wooden nativity silhouette that has lit up each night of the season for me, and the lovely stained glass angel made for me by one of my parishioners.  Every time I glance up to see it, I think:  “Behold! I bring you great news…..Jesus Christ has come into the world.”  That’s a paraphrase of course–but it encapsulates the message of the now past Christmas season for me–and inspires me to look for the places where I might experience other little epiphanies—where God is revealed to us in the good news of Jesus.

I don’t remember my own baptism, actually. Probably because I was about 3 ½ months old.

There aren’t any pictures of it, either, even though I was the first child in my family.  The date, December 28, 1958 is written in my baby book; and I know it was in Grand Rapids Michigan at Trinity Lutheran Church.

I know the name of the pastor, but I don’t know  what he looked like.

And I do know a story about it, because my mom has told it to me many times over the years. This story hasn’t been written down;  I don’t know the details of what I wore, or if I cried, but I know who was there. My mom says that when she and my dad and the sponsors stood at the font, the pastor looked at all of them. My godparents were Catholic, and they evidently didn’t attend church.  My mom had been raised as a Unitarian.  My dad, Ole, was Lutheran; right out of the Norwegian Lutheran synod in Montana.  The pastor looked at them

and said,

Dad, you’d better hold the baby.

I imagine that if my parents hadn’t lost contact with their friends who were my godparents over the years, I might be able to ask them to tell me their memories of that event.  When I asked my dad a long time ago, he talked about my sparkly eyes and my smile. But the story that remains, for me, is my mom’s. She has a particular memory of this part of the event, and it’s important to her.

My mom is quite a theologian in her own right, although she’d not claim that. She tells me this story to illustrate something of my faith heritage, but the message that I hear, especially now, behind her story, is that none of the details of who was Lutheran, or Catholic, or Unitarian mattered.

Because God did the baptizing–

and in that event,

my faith was created, and the gift of the Holy Spirit was given

I’ve thought about my baptismal story quite a bit this year, and especially in this past week.  Because John the Baptist was struggling a bit with his idea of the ‘right’ way for baptism to be done—

‘No, Jesus, I shouldn’t be baptizing you– I need to be baptized by you!’

And Jesus, who had come out to the Jordan River expressly to be baptized by John, gently redirects him—

‘ Let it be so now because it is proper for us in this way to fulfill God’s right way of doing things.’

In other words, God desires it, and I—and you—will be obedient to God’s desire.

Because, John, it’s not you that does the baptizing—but God.

We need to remember that. God baptized Jesus—

It was God who baptized Jesus

what matters in baptism is the Word of God spoken

and the water, the element, which the Word clings to

and no matter who is there,

no matter where it was done; in the river, the lake, which church—Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, Baptist, nondenominational,

no matter which font,

whether  immersed or splashed or moistened….

What matters is that

God is present in and amongst them all….

the Holy Spirit is present,

and faith is created.

Like us, Jesus was baptized.

And it’s precisely because so many of us don’t actually remember our baptisms—just the stories and the pictures— and even for those of us who do remember them need reminding–

that we work to remember what God has done in our baptisms.

The font—smack in the middle here—serves as a regular visual reminder—

If you take a look at the newest confirmation picture in the back (gesture), you’ll see that the five young people who affirmed their baptismal promises last October had their photo taken while clustered around the font—

the very real and tangible reminder of the fact that they are baptized children of God.

We need not be by a font to remember—

Martin Luther was said to splash water on his face and say to himself, Remember, you are baptized

whenever he found himself plagued by sin, doubt or discouragement….

my first seminary professor suggested that as we shower each day, or wash our faces, or shave in the mirror, that we do the same—

there is something very powerful about the way the water feels on our foreheads when we feel  the sign of the cross traced  there—

I think because we also hear for ourselves the words that God spoke to Jesus in his baptism:

You are my beloved child.

We are God’s beloved children.

Those words, in some form, are used in the service of baptism. After the water is poured, or dipped, three times on the head—with the words, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

The sign of the cross is traced on the forehead with the finger, perhaps in oil,

And these words are said,

Newly baptized, child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.

And as Dave told you this morning ,

we are children of God forever.

We can’t undo our baptisms–

because we do not come to this on our own, by our own will, strength or understanding. God, not us, frees us from sin, anoints us with the Holy Spirit and creates faith through the water and God’s word.

We are made children of God in our baptisms. This is a gift—this is grace.

It is in our baptisms that we become members of the church that is  the body of Christ.

Not the Lutheran church, or the Catholic church, or whatever faith tradition the church where you were baptized happened to be—

In our baptisms, we become children of God and members in the church on earth—the body of Christ.

And then, as Daniel Erlander, the Lutheran pastor who writes the baptismal book that I give to parents puts it,

we spend our lives living wet­­— as baptized children of God.

Our whole lives.

Sealed with the cross of Christ, wet from our baptisms forever.

Amen.