Thank you for letting me join you in worship today. I’m looking forward to getting to know you, and to telling you about what I’m up to over in West Park. And today’s readings are a great place to start.
For the last three weeks we’ve been celebrating Jesus as an infant. Now, suddenly, he’s a man. We don’t know what his life was like between infancy and his baptism by John. There are lovely stories about his life growing up in Nazareth, and some students speculate that he was a disciple of John’s before he went out on his own, but we don’t really know. As far as the Gospel writers are concerned, it didn’t matter. What matters is what happened to him in these few short last years of his life. And they all agree that it started on the banks of the Jordan.
The Gospels don’t agree about who saw or heard what at the baptism. Matthew and Mark say that Jesus saw the heavens opened and heard a voice, but they don’t suggest that others saw it. Luke makes it a little ambiguous, but it sounds like others saw and heard something. And John? Well, John is big on signs and testimony. He presents John himself testifying, saying “I saw the dove, I heard the voice. He’s the one.”
Now, why does this matter to us? I think it’s important because it reminds us how ambiguous and hidden a call from God can be, even when the one called is Jesus. Was that God, or indigestion? Or neurosis? Or full-out insanity?
We are called throughout our lives. God’s dream involves all of us. Some calls are big and obvious and showy, but most are just a matter of daily faithfulness in living.
Still, there are specific times when we, like Jesus, like the servant in the Isaiah passage, are commissioned. We are sent forth with others, with God, as co-missioners from God’s heart to the world.
Baptism is the first time we’re commissioned. Baptism is incorporation into the body of Christ, and the covenant we affirm there is in fact a commission. God is sending us out to do what we have promised, what others have promised for us. Jesus’ baptism was not the end, not a completion, but a beginning. And so it is for us.
Confirmation, too, is a beginning. It’s not graduation. It opens us up to adult life in Christ. We commit to continue in habits of worship and prayer, to persevere in resisting evil, to proclaim the Good News of God’s love, to seek and serve all persons, and to work for justice and peace. That’s a big commission!
But it’s not the only time we are commissioned as adults. A tour through the Prayer Book shows us lots of commissions.
Marriage is a commission to the couple to live as a sign of God’s love. That is why the Prayer Book says that marriage is “not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately.”
Ordination is a commission to particular ministries in the Church. Monastic vows outline the shape of the commission for monks and nuns. We commission lay readers, missionaries, Sunday School teachers, all sorts of workers in and out of church. Actually, God does the commissioning - we pray for the commission and for the strength to be faithful to it.
I have not always lived up to my commissions. But my awareness that I have been commissioned helps me be better than I would be otherwise. And because commissions always come from a community, I am surrounded and supported by others.
And that brings me to a crucial truth about God’s commissions:
They always flow out of God’s love for us.
They are not a matter of earning God’s love. They are not a system of ranking and comparing calls.
Jesus’ commission grew out of God’s love for him. And so does ours.
We are all the beloved one, children of God. We are beloved from our birth, just as Jesus was. The moment of commissioning is when we hear clearly, in our hearts and through others, the shape of our response to that love. Some of us will be parents, some will be teachers, some will foster growth in others in a variety of ways. But we are all commissioned to show God’s love for the world.
I think this is hard to get. I didn’t really get it until 2005. On this same Sunday, I heard a sermon. I was already a nun. I was serving as a lay assistant in a local parish. I could tell others they were loved. But on this day, I heard it. I heard that I am God’s beloved. And I knew that that is what I am supposed to tell others. My commission is to tell you that God is crazy about you.
And that brings me to the Companions of Mary the Apostle. We began when four of us found out we were all hungry for intentional life in community, a life that witnessed to contemporary people in and out of the Church. We wanted to especially empower women’s leadership, lay and ordained. We chose Mary Magdalene as our patron because she was first to the tomb on Easter; she is known as the “Apostle to the Apostles” in the Eastern churches because she brought the news of the resurrection to the men - who didn’t listen! And eventually we knew that our desire was God speaking in our hearts. We were commissioned.
We are commissioned to be a sign of God’s love by living in community, sharing our possessions, loving God above all others, and listening to one another with reverence, as the voice of God among us. Our ministries grow out of the daily life of prayer and and mutual commitment. I look forward to telling you more about us at coffee hour.
But here, I want most for you to know this:
You are God’s beloved.
Really.
Before you do anything.
Being loved does carry implications. Being loved and being commissioned are inseparable. But nothing can separate you from that love.
So rejoice today. Revel in being loved. Go home, take a bath, and hear the words: “This is my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
God bless you and keep you, today and always.
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