The Rev. Canon Kimberly Reinholz
Cathedral Church of the Nativity
April 19, 2015 - Easter 3 B
In the end, we are all children, as we are in the beginning. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his philosophical work Act and Being describes baptism as the sacrament, which makes us all children of God.[1] What Bonhoeffer and John seem to agree on is that the love of God and our covenantal relationship we are by nature and in deed childlike.
So what does discipleship look like in the context of childhood?
Luke’s gospel reading today concludes with the statement that we are called to be witnesses of these things, of the death and resurrection of the Messiah, and of the promise of forgiveness in the response to repentance. But John tells us that the world does not know us because the world did not know him, which is true. To the world what we proclaim as truth seems irrational and juvenile.
How often have you heard—so you believe that there is some all-powerful, all knowing, all seeing guy with white hair sitting in the clouds controlling everything you do? Or some variation of that theme…
To the world believing in any God, never the less one God who became incarnate from a virgin, who walked on water, turned water into wine, healed the sick, ate with sinners an tax collectors, was executed as a criminal, rose from the dead and has ascended into heaven, seems more myth and fairytale than real. You would have to be a child to believe in such a thing- like Santa Clause, the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny.
To those who say that, I agree. You have to be a child to believe in such a thing. Because believing in the Trinity, believing that God loves humanity so much that he was willing to empty himself of all divinity and serve as the servant of servants rather than remain in heaven as the lord of lords, believing that Jesus loves each and every one of us does require a certain amount of child-like faith.
And our witness to these things is childlike. Imagine a child, learning to walk; unsteady on their feet, but fearless and passionate, likewise we in our journey of faith from the font to the table, from the table into the world, are called to be fearless and passionate no matter how unsteady we may be in our faith.
The truth is that we will stumble. We will fall. We will pull others down with us when we fall at times. But when we stumble, through the grace of God, the love of Christ and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we are able to get up, dust ourselves off and start again on the journey.
It is when we forget that we are subject to God’s law of eternal love that we fall into the lawlessness that John describes. It is when we try to break out on our own; when we forget that we are not subjects of this world, but of the kingdom of God, that we find ourselves falling into sin.
Sin is not something to feel guilty about; it is something that happens, throughout our lives. While sin is unavoidable, it is not unforgiveable. Like that toddler who fearlessly goes out into the world one foot in front of the other as fast as their little legs can carry them will inevitably fall. When they fall they can sometimes bounce right back up, they can sometimes use a little help from a friend or sibling, or they can need a little more help and a good cuddle from their parent. When we fall into sin, we can also sometimes find ourselves repenting and returning to a right relationship with God, with little to no help from anyone else, we recognize we have fallen, we dust ourselves off and return to the table seeking forgiveness and it is received without reproach. At other times we may need our brothers and sisters in Christ to call us back into relationship, to invite us back into the community of faith when we have strayed. And sometimes it quite literally takes an act of God to bring us back into our natural state as children of God. We call this act of God, the sacrament of reconciliation or confession, and as our tradition is oft to say about this rite, “all may, none must, some should.” However, sometimes when we fall we feel that we are so irreparably hurt that we cannot get up; we cannot return to the community, we cannot be reconciled to God. This is the ultimate deception, which John warns against, none of us are so damaged that we cannot be healed. The love of God is so much larger than anything we can even begin to understand.
Our comprehension of God’s love is also like the comprehension of a child. We describe God through our experiences only. We understand what we have been told in bits and pieces. We are cobbling together the stories and the experiences and the knowledge we amass over the course of our lifetimes, but each of us only have our own lives to use as the basis for our understanding and as such we cannot begin to understand God. But we are invited, not only invited, but expected to act as a witness to the love of God in the world which seeks to deny Jesus’ very existence.
So we maintain hope. We maintain hope that God loves us, that God has adopted us as children and our faith sets us apart from this world which is lawless and sinful. We maintain the expectation that who we are called to be has not yet been revealed, and we rest assured in faith that Jesus, the incarnate God, died, rose from the dead, and calls each of us to be a witness to this resurrection in our life and work.
So go into the world, and be a witness, go passionately, go fearlessly. You will fall, but you will get back up. You will dust yourself off, or you will get help from one of your siblings (all of us here are your brothers or sisters), or you will seek the sacrament of reconciliation and God will provide the means of grace, which will soothe your soul and reunite you with your divine parent.
Beloved, you are a child of God. It doesn’t matter how old you are. It doesn’t matter if you walk on four legs, or two, or three. It doesn’t matter if you were baptized as an infant or an adult or anywhere in between. What matters is that you are beloved by God and marked as Christ’s own forever. What matters is that you witness to the resurrection in the world by sharing the love that you know, the love that God has shared with you, with those whom you come to know, those who know God and those who do not know God. What matters is that you walk in faith as best you can from this day forward, and when you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord. This is the absolute gift of the Resurrection, that you know, in the most simple and childlike way that you can, that God loves you, God died for you, God forgives you. No matter what, Amen.
Cathedral Church of the Nativity
April 19, 2015 - Easter 3 B
In the end, we are all children, as we are in the beginning. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his philosophical work Act and Being describes baptism as the sacrament, which makes us all children of God.[1] What Bonhoeffer and John seem to agree on is that the love of God and our covenantal relationship we are by nature and in deed childlike.
So what does discipleship look like in the context of childhood?
Luke’s gospel reading today concludes with the statement that we are called to be witnesses of these things, of the death and resurrection of the Messiah, and of the promise of forgiveness in the response to repentance. But John tells us that the world does not know us because the world did not know him, which is true. To the world what we proclaim as truth seems irrational and juvenile.
How often have you heard—so you believe that there is some all-powerful, all knowing, all seeing guy with white hair sitting in the clouds controlling everything you do? Or some variation of that theme…
To the world believing in any God, never the less one God who became incarnate from a virgin, who walked on water, turned water into wine, healed the sick, ate with sinners an tax collectors, was executed as a criminal, rose from the dead and has ascended into heaven, seems more myth and fairytale than real. You would have to be a child to believe in such a thing- like Santa Clause, the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny.
To those who say that, I agree. You have to be a child to believe in such a thing. Because believing in the Trinity, believing that God loves humanity so much that he was willing to empty himself of all divinity and serve as the servant of servants rather than remain in heaven as the lord of lords, believing that Jesus loves each and every one of us does require a certain amount of child-like faith.
And our witness to these things is childlike. Imagine a child, learning to walk; unsteady on their feet, but fearless and passionate, likewise we in our journey of faith from the font to the table, from the table into the world, are called to be fearless and passionate no matter how unsteady we may be in our faith.
The truth is that we will stumble. We will fall. We will pull others down with us when we fall at times. But when we stumble, through the grace of God, the love of Christ and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we are able to get up, dust ourselves off and start again on the journey.
It is when we forget that we are subject to God’s law of eternal love that we fall into the lawlessness that John describes. It is when we try to break out on our own; when we forget that we are not subjects of this world, but of the kingdom of God, that we find ourselves falling into sin.
Sin is not something to feel guilty about; it is something that happens, throughout our lives. While sin is unavoidable, it is not unforgiveable. Like that toddler who fearlessly goes out into the world one foot in front of the other as fast as their little legs can carry them will inevitably fall. When they fall they can sometimes bounce right back up, they can sometimes use a little help from a friend or sibling, or they can need a little more help and a good cuddle from their parent. When we fall into sin, we can also sometimes find ourselves repenting and returning to a right relationship with God, with little to no help from anyone else, we recognize we have fallen, we dust ourselves off and return to the table seeking forgiveness and it is received without reproach. At other times we may need our brothers and sisters in Christ to call us back into relationship, to invite us back into the community of faith when we have strayed. And sometimes it quite literally takes an act of God to bring us back into our natural state as children of God. We call this act of God, the sacrament of reconciliation or confession, and as our tradition is oft to say about this rite, “all may, none must, some should.” However, sometimes when we fall we feel that we are so irreparably hurt that we cannot get up; we cannot return to the community, we cannot be reconciled to God. This is the ultimate deception, which John warns against, none of us are so damaged that we cannot be healed. The love of God is so much larger than anything we can even begin to understand.
Our comprehension of God’s love is also like the comprehension of a child. We describe God through our experiences only. We understand what we have been told in bits and pieces. We are cobbling together the stories and the experiences and the knowledge we amass over the course of our lifetimes, but each of us only have our own lives to use as the basis for our understanding and as such we cannot begin to understand God. But we are invited, not only invited, but expected to act as a witness to the love of God in the world which seeks to deny Jesus’ very existence.
So we maintain hope. We maintain hope that God loves us, that God has adopted us as children and our faith sets us apart from this world which is lawless and sinful. We maintain the expectation that who we are called to be has not yet been revealed, and we rest assured in faith that Jesus, the incarnate God, died, rose from the dead, and calls each of us to be a witness to this resurrection in our life and work.
So go into the world, and be a witness, go passionately, go fearlessly. You will fall, but you will get back up. You will dust yourself off, or you will get help from one of your siblings (all of us here are your brothers or sisters), or you will seek the sacrament of reconciliation and God will provide the means of grace, which will soothe your soul and reunite you with your divine parent.
Beloved, you are a child of God. It doesn’t matter how old you are. It doesn’t matter if you walk on four legs, or two, or three. It doesn’t matter if you were baptized as an infant or an adult or anywhere in between. What matters is that you are beloved by God and marked as Christ’s own forever. What matters is that you witness to the resurrection in the world by sharing the love that you know, the love that God has shared with you, with those whom you come to know, those who know God and those who do not know God. What matters is that you walk in faith as best you can from this day forward, and when you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord. This is the absolute gift of the Resurrection, that you know, in the most simple and childlike way that you can, that God loves you, God died for you, God forgives you. No matter what, Amen.
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