The Rev. Cannon Kimberly Reinholz - June 7, 2015

June 7, 2015
Mark 3:20-35

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I imagine that if I were to call my mother and tell her: 

I’ve met a man.  He claims to be the son of God.  He’s a carpenter by trade, but he hangs out with fishermen, tax collectors and sinners.  He offers forgiveness of my sins and says that this isn’t blasphemous because he is in fact God.  I am planning to follow him for the rest of his life, or mine, whichever comes first.  The plan is to visit the places where the religious authorities gather, question them, explain the law as we understand it, heal people and perform other miracles along the way.  I know that you have raised me to be responsible, to care for you and my siblings, and that someday I would marry and have my own family but I truly feel that this is my calling instead. 

In 10 seconds she would track me down, with some extra muscle my father, my uncles, my brother in law, maybe even my sisters, and drag me home kicking and screaming.  My mother in all her maternal wisdom certainly wouldn’t want me following some guy who abandoned his responsibilities to his own family, disrupts the status quo, and claims to be God, that guy sounds crazy. 

However, when my mother and father had me baptized when I was a month old, they doomed me to follow a crazy man—or at least a person who by all human accounts seems to be a crazy preacher man. 

They did this because they knew God, they knew Christ, and they knew the Holy Spirit.  They promised to raise me to know God, and love God, and follow God even when following God means not necessarily doing what they want or expect me to do.  It's a strange thing to be baptized, because by being baptized we relinquish our autonomy, for an adult or an older child it can be seen as a counter cultural action.

In baptism, we affirm our belief in God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  We enter knowingly into a covenantal relationship with God and the congregation to love one another, serve one another and live with one another through sin and brokenness into wholeness and reconciliation.  This I can understand, as an adult who has confirmed her faith and been ordained to the royal priesthood, I can respect and admire those who make these promises at a later age.  Deciding to follow Jesus is a huge leap of faith. 

But as a parent, and a parent who had her child baptized last summer, I’ll admit that it’s crazy to consider what it means to have my child baptized.   Basically I have given Audrey over to God, to the community of faith, and expect her in all good conscience with the help of her father, her godparents and all the people of the Church to discern where she is called. 

My expectations for her no longer matter.  My dreams, hopes and fears for her, are secondary to the call which Jesus has placed in her heart.  I still hold on to them.  I wonder what she will be when she grows up, maybe an actress, or a writer, a painter or a priest.  I have hopes and dreams for her and I will strive to keep her healthy and safe and protected throughout her life.  But she will do what she will do.  Some days she will go out in to the world and do things that I wish she wouldn’t.  Some days she will do things of which I am incredibly proud.  But every day I hope she will be following that crazy carpenter. 

Because this is what it means to be a Christian:

It means that you can call anywhere home--because no matter where you are you will be surrounded by the love of God, the teachings of Jesus and the companionship of the Holy Spirit.  You do not have to stay where you were born and conform to a predestined expectation.  Just because your father is a carpenter you don’t have to be a carpenter.

It means you can call any one a brother or a sister- because no matter if you are an only child, or one of a dozen through baptism we are all adopted into God’s family  .You do not have to consider biology or marital relationship in order to be related to one another.  Just because you have a brother or sister doesn’t make you a brother or sister.  You are a child of God and as children of God we are all siblings. 

It means you can question authority- because the only true authority is that of God.  You do not have to align yourself to a political ideology, party or practice.  Just because your mother is a democrat and your father is a libertarian doesn’t mean that you have to be a democrat or a libertarian.  You are called to follow the Truth, and that Truth is beyond all measure and politics. 

When we are baptized, when we are marked as Christ’s own forever, when we are called brothers and sisters in Christ, when we relinquish our autonomy or our authority as parents, we are doing something that the world sees as insane.  The world sees Jesus as an itinerant carpenter who lived 2000 years ago, who lead a failed uprising of the Jewish people against Rome.  The world seeds a failed leader, who was executed for his treasonous behaviors.  The world sees Jesus a man who may have had some interesting things to teach about love and compassion, mercy and faithfulness, but other than that he really doesn’t have any kind of impact on our daily life and work.

Brothers and Sisters, we don’t believe that Jesus was a failed revolutionary.  We don’t believe that the story ended with his execution in Jerusalem.  We believe that Jesus rose from the dead, ascended into heaven and is present here with us now, through the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist.  We believe that in this place and in this time we know Christ, we do not know of Him, but we know Him. 

It is not in our practice as Episcopalians to use phrases like, “I know Jesus as my Lord and Savior” to our detriment, we let our Pentecostal and evangelical brothers and sisters use those kinds of phrases.  Instead we tend to teach people about Jesus, we offer forums and discussion topics, we have lecturers and classes on church history and dogma and theology and all of these things are wonderful.  But what we need to remember is that we are not a community that knows about God as creator, redeemer and sustainer.  Rather we are a community that knows God as creator, redeemer and sustainer.

In knowing God, we strive to trust God to call us to serve in places where our parents might not have expected and if we are doing this Christianity thing right, I wouldn’t be surprised if our mothers come out looking for us, because it is a dangerous thing to leave home, to call strangers siblings and to question authority.  It is a dangerous thing to follow this Jesus fellow, because what he does, by all worldly accounts is crazy.  If you are going to follow the Son of God, then by all means do it, but don’t be surprised if the world thinks your nuts, after all they think that Jesus’ revolution ended 2000 years ago, and we know different.  Amen.