A friend starts a new ministry

With joy for her and saddness for us I report that the Rev. Heather McCain has taken a new call. Heather has been a personal friend to me as well as to many in the congregation. This past summer she preached and celebrated at several of our 5 pm services. For several years Heather has been a real friend to St. Christopher's including officiating at Shirley and my wedding.



Heather's new call is one of the greatest challenges a priest can accept. She will be a "Church Planter". She will be the lead person in the founding of a new Episcopal Church. All the material of that ministry stresses that the single most important need for a church planter is a strong and reliable prayer support team. In the name of all of us, I have committed St. Christopher's to pray regularly for Heather and her ministry.

Responding

Last Sunday was our first "First Responders Sunday". We heard about and thanked the police officers, fire fighters, Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc. who respond when we are in need.

The guess sermons helped with our focus. We were reminded that God calls us all to be responders. We should be alert for the needs of other people and respond to them. Usually it is something small: baby sitting while the mother visits a relative in the hospital, a dinner for a harried person, mowing a neighbor's lawn. "Responding" is not always, in fact seldom is as dramatic as giving CPR!

That said, we do owe a debt to those people who arrive in the moment of major crisis. Let us pray: Gracious and loving God, we scream in terror to you after a heart attack, or house fire, or stroke or other event. We scream in terror to you and you respond by sending these people to minister in your name. We lift them up to you with thanks and ask that your blessings be upon them at all times. amen

Why not say something?

A busy, very busy week. The memorial service for Lewis Brandon will be Saturday, 11 am at St. Mary's. (Lewis and Margaret have columbarium niches at St. Mary's.)

Why not say something?
Through this week I have been challenged with the question of why so many of us are so hesitant to say anything about God, much less our faith. Well, at least anything positive about God!

Don't give me that "I don't want to offend" stuff. I see people driving around with signs for their football team or NASCAR driver. People will get in a fist fight over whether the school with royal blue or the school with washed out blue is the better school! (OK -- that was a deliberate attempt to get people excited!)

Or offend someone by our political stands? We are willing to speak favorably about this or that candidate even if it offends -- but about God? Why is that so hard?

We make excuses --- "Oh ,that is private." but I am not asking why we don't insult someone else's faith, just why we don't mention our faith.

"Oh, I don't know what to say." --- OK, that one may be fair, at first glance anyway. But if we have nothing to say about God than --------- I am not sure what! But I am sure it is not good.

Maybe it is easier to say something about our church than about God. OK. But we seldom do that anyway. And when we do we normally mention the non-religious factors. They are important, just not necessarily religious. "Oh, everyone is so nice." --- OK, but I can get that at the civic group. "Oh, the music is so good." --- OK, but I can listen to a CD while driving my kids to soccer practice.

Don't mis-understand ! You would not want a group, especially a church, where the people are nasty and the music stinks!!

But a church needs to offer something else so we need to speak about other things -- too. Did the Bible lesson speak to you? Did the sermon touch you? Did the music touch you?

When we get the question: "How was your weekend?" can we respond: "Good, went to the kids soccer games on Saturday. Then at church heard a fascinating talk on forgiveness -- that's hard! Then watched Dallas and Buffalo. Good stuff." If the person wants to follow up, they can. Most likely they won't but maybe after a time or two they might trust us enough to ask a question.

Or when something special goes on at the church respond: "We had 'First Responders Sunday' with fire fighters, police, sheriff, ambulance ... just lots of people!"

Or mention the Christmas carrol sing or Easter Egg hunt or youth group mission trip. None of that is insulting to the other person but it might open the door for some conversation.

Of course, none of that actually speaks about OUR faith but it does open the door.

Final reason why we don't say something --- "What if they ask me a question I cannot answer?" Actually, nothing would be better !!! Say, "Good question and one I wonder about. What don't we get together and ask about it?"

Full immersion baptism in the Episcopal Church

Note: I have finally posted the last couple sermons so we are up to date (until Sunday!) Go to www.st-christopher.org/sermon.html to get the list and links.

This article is by and about a friend, colleague and all around good person!

(note: this article is from the September 9, 2007 issue of The Living Church and although reprinted with permission it is copywrited.)

Immersion
Death and resurrection are made especially plain when an infant is baptized by immersion.By Lisa G. Fischbeck

The way we worship, what we do in the liturgy, both expresses what we believe and shapes what we believe.

I was 41 years old and had been ordained as a priest for five years before I witnessed a baptism by immersion. This despite the long-standing practice of baptism by immersion in the ancient church, despite the practice in many American protestant traditions, despite rubrics for baptism in the Book of Common Prayer. Baptisms by immersion are not common in The Episcopal Church.

In part, this is because of our church architecture. We are the inheritors of baptismal fonts designed to hold bowls of water, not tubs. Throughout the 19th century, when Victorian propriety and formality were in full bloom, baptisms became formal, private, family affairs. The practice of a light, symbolic, sprinkling of water evolved, for infants and adults alike.

Form followed function. Many of the churches we worship in today were built in that Victorian era, and in the century that followed. These churches were built with relatively small baptismal fonts near the pulpit, or by the west door, at the point of entry, so that the family could easily gather around. Gone from Episcopal and Anglican church architecture for a century or more were the baptistries, the pools in which immersion could take place.

Then the liturgical renewal movement of the mid-20th century got Anglicans and most of the rest of Christendom looking back at our liturgical past, bringing back things that made liturgical and theological sense, including baptism by immersion. Those who studied the liturgy realized that, in the move from immersion to sprinkling, something big had been lost.

In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul writes: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his (Rom. 6:3-5).

Death and resurrection are made especially plain when an infant is baptized by immersion.

The baptismal pool is filled with warm water. The entire congregation gathers round, with the children at the water’s edge. The parents are a bit nervous, perhaps even scared. They are about to hand their precious and vulnerable infant into the hands of a priest who is going to put that infant under water. There is a sense of possible drowning in the minds of the parents, and those who are gathered — especially those who have never witnessed a baptism by immersion before.

Theologically, at least, drowning is exactly what happens when we are baptized. And baptism is indeed about vulnerability, and about death, and about giving ourselves to God and to the Church.

This is made very real when nervous and fearful parents unwrap the towels from around their infant and hand the naked child to the priest. The priest, declaring the name of the child, sweeps the child through the water, saying:“I baptize you in the Name of the Father …”On first pass, the infant is startled by the water, especially if it’s cold. Its eyes pop wide open, then close tightly shut. Most often, at this point, the infant lets out a scream. The trusting yet frightened mother holds her breath.

“And of the Son …” On the second pass, all alarms inside the infant and parents and much of the congregation go off. This is counter-intuitive. It seems almost cruel. What are we doing here?

“And of the Holy Spirit ...”On its back, head first, deeper into the water goes the startled and frightened child. All that is known and comforting and familiar is stripped away. The priest and all watching see the head go down into the water. It is only for a passing second, yet it seems frozen in time. Death is what happens in that moment.

In our baptism we die to the ways of sin, to all that would strive to separate us from God and from one another. We die to the forces of wickedness that conspire to claim us. That is what Jesus made real for us when he willingly went to his death on a cross.

But Jesus did not stay on the cross. He did not stay in the grave. And the infant does not stay in the water. The three days pass. The moment passes. The infant is passed through the water, and the waters of death become the waters of birth. We do not drown in the waters of baptism. We pass through. And as we do, we are born anew. “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

Here the imagery is breathtaking (literally). The people, the parents, see the baby on this third sweep. Eyes are closed tight, fists are clenched, as the infant goes through the water. A few weeks ago this same infant was passing naked through the waters of birth, emerging from its mother’s womb.

Baptism is being born into Christ’s resurrection, being born into the new life, being born in the body of Christ, the Church.

In that moment, something else the church teaches becomes profoundly real: Through our baptism, each of us who has been baptized does in fact, become a member of the body. We are, in fact, brothers and sisters in Christ. We have all emerged from the same womb. We have all passed through the same birthing waters. We have all become one body.

The baby is lifted high, and the gathered congregation shouts “Amen!”

Oil is poured over the infant’s head, and the infant is marked with the sign of the cross as Christ’s own forever, wrapped in fresh white towels, and given to the loving arms of its parents, or, better yet, its godparents.

The newly baptized is welcomed, the Peace of the Lord is shared, and the celebrant, using the pool as aspergillium, casts water upon the congregation, reminding them that they, too, are baptized.

The imagery is vivid in the baptism of an infant by immersion. Imagery not lost, perhaps, but certainly diminished in small bowls, sprinkled water, and fine gowns.

And it doesn’t stop there. Once we have witnessed such a baptism by immersion, it carries over into the Eucharist, the gathering of the baptized at the altar of God, Sunday after Sunday. There we see brothers and sisters, born of the same womb as we were, members of the one body, which is Jesus Christ our Lord.

The way we worship, what we do in the liturgy, is an expression of what we believe and shapes what we believe. Baptizing infants by immersion can profoundly express and shape what we believe about ourselves as baptized people, born again. The Rev. Lisa G. Fischbeck is the vicar of the Church of the Advocate, Carrboro, N.C.