Sermon-1 080914

First Message 09/14/08

BAPTIZED—Carmel Valley, September 14, 2008

TEXTS:

Joel 2:28-29
Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit. NRSV

Thomas 70:   Jesus said, If you bring forth that which is in you, that which is in you shall set you free; if you do not bring forth that which is in you, all that is in you shall cease to be.

INTRODUCTION
It is a great pleasure and an honor to be here celebrating Rick’s ministry among you. Occasionally teachers are blessed with students like Rick . He came to United Seminary as an eager learner, but also freely sharing his own spirit, gifts, and insights in that learning process. One example: Rick picked up on a metaphor I used in class for spirituality, leading to extended conversations, his enrichment of that metaphor, and then to shared leadership of workshops and an Elder Hostel course on spirituality as music. Of course, I don’t have to tell you about his gifts in music—gifts which he shared to the great enjoyment of myself and the seminary community. Over the years I have deeply appreciated his open and gentle spirit and am enriched by his friendship. It is good to be here today.

Baptized!

I grew up in a small town Baptist Church in the deep south. The church met in a one-room frame building with handmade wooden bench-like pews.

Until we added a sheet metal classroom building with dirt floors, my Sunday School class gathered on a bench outside under a huge Australian pine -- the dirt in front of the bench grooved by first-grade feet kicking in the sand.

During worship all of us kids would sit on the first several rows in the church, heads upturned to the rough-hewn pulpit and the preacher behind it in his black suit. The sermon always came at the last of the service and included an invitation to give one’s life to Christ as an act of faith.

One Sunday in 1948, when I was nine years old, I could not hold back any longer. During the singing of the last hymn, I made my way to the front of the church and told the pastor that I wanted to give my life to Christ. It was a moment in my life of deep feelings----of emotions I can still feel more than half a century later.

I was in the first group at our church to be baptized inside in a baptistry instead of in the river.
I remember wearing a white shirt and a brand new pair of jeans that my mom had bought me for this occasion. As I went down into the baptismal water, the pastor put his arm around me and immersed me with the words: “Buried in Christ’s death and raised in his resurrection to walk in newness of life.”

Afterwards, when I was changing into dry clothes, I realized that the tail of my shirt and my body, from the waist down, was a beautiful--rich-- royal—blue from my now faded jeans.

I was indeed marked by baptism!

Perhaps few of us here remember our own baptism but we do remember baptism—that moment of being enfolded in loving arms, cradled in the community of faith, and signed with water—immersed in the outpoured Spirit of God.

MARKED BY BAPTISM!

The author of Acts told the story of Pentecost as the fulfillment of the promise of Joel 2:28,29, and the early church understood Baptism as the sign of this outpouring of God’s Spirit—the sign of God’s New Age. All of creation was. . . . . . . .

MARKED BY BAPTISM!

Several years ago I had the opportunity to work on a North American research project that took me -- among a number of other interesting places of ministry -- to the Episcopal Diocese of Upper Michigan.

More than a decade ago churches in that diocese began an experiment aimed at living out a vision of the ministry of baptized communities. There I came to know the Diocesan Bishop Tom Ray, and his successor Bishop Jim Kelsey. Both of these church leaders expressly lamented the conflation of ministry into single persons and the two-fold division of ministries into lay and ordained.

I can still hear Bishop Ray say, in his engaging way:

“We try not to us the “L” word here. . . that is, Laity. I have no idea what ‘ministry of the laity’ means,” except that somehow that ministry is considered inferior, unprepared, inadequate, inevitably second-class. I think you could wash all day and not clean that word up.”

In an exciting paradigm change, Bishops Ray and Kelsey have grounded the churches they serve in a theology of baptism. That theology affirms that ministry is not contained in single and singled-out individuals. Ministry is not of two kinds, ordained and not ordained. Ministry is the spirit-filled activity of the baptized. Ministry is about communities of the Spirit, living out God’s new creation in the world as a foreshadowing of the New Age to come.

Ministry is about each of us together. . .

MARKED BY BAPTISM!

In the diocese of Northern Michigan, churches choose to co-operate in a circle of churches to call a seminary educated missioner.

The missioner --- who may be, but need not be ordained --- functions like a coach, a resident theologian, a teacher---one who evokes and nurtures the ministry of each community of the Spirit.

The missioner does not preach or officiate at the Eucharist in these churches. Rather, all of the ministries of the church—preaching, sacrament, service and care, and outreach—are identified within the local congregation.

Through a discernment process, people are called according to their gifts. They are prepared and authorized by local ordination or commissioning within their congregations for the various ministries to which they are called.

I visited churches where a local congregation would have several authorized preachers, priests, deacons and educators and so forth—all from within the local congregation and all non-salaried—living out their baptismal ministries as a community of the spirit.

All of these churches were small churches driven in large part by financial necessity—but without exception, we heard that while economics initially drove their reform, even with adequate financial resources they would never return to the old paradigm of singular ministry. Churches that once had been depressed, dependent, and without hope, now were exciting, vital, theologically articulate communities of faith. They had been forced to reach down and bring forth that which was within them and the Spirit had set them free—freed from non-being and freed to a new way of being in the world.

MARKED BY BAPTISM!

In the shared ministry or mutual ministry movement, Wesley Frensdorff’s, poetic dream is often quoted as the vision for what a ministering church might look like:

Let us dream of a church
In which the sacraments, free from captivity by a professional elite,
Are available in every congregation regardless of size, culture, location or budget.
. . . .
In which the Word is sacrament too, as dynamically present as bread and wine;
Members, not dependent on professionals, know what’s what
And who’s who in the Bible, and all sheep share in the shepherding.
Let us dream of a church . . . .
Where there is no clerical status and no classes of Christians,
But all together know themselves to be part of
The holy people of God.
A ministering community
Rather than a community gathered around a minister.

Bishop Wesley Frensdorff

I invite you today to look into the waters of your baptism and find yourself bathed in the outpouring of God’s Spirit. As a community of that Spirit, bring forth that which is in you, and let it set you free.

Celebrate and fully embrace the ways in which you already join Rick as a ministering community.

BRING    FORTH    THAT    WHICH    IS    WITHIN    YOU!
Break free of the CON-flationary patterns of ministry locked up in single and singled-out persons. . . .
BRING    FORTH    THAT    WHICH    IS    WITHIN    YOU!
Prophesy!
Prophesy of God’s New Age, where God’s Spirit has been poured out freely upon all Creation. Baptizing without regard. Drenching the rich tapestry of plant and animal, color, gender and orientation, social status, cultures, religions—all beings and things with the giftedness and blessing of the divine.

Dream dreams!
Dream of new models for being a ministering community—gathered in ministry rather than gathered around a minister.

See visions!
Imagine a world where God’s life-giving Spirit flows freely from and to all. Where the Spirit is evoked and shared rather than imposed or held back. A world where the Spirit in Me meets and walks with the Spirit in You, and the Spirit in Us meets and walks with the Spirit in Them, and the Spirit in These meets and walks with the Spirit in all Creation.
BRING    FORTH    THAT    WHICH    IS    WITHIN    YOU!

Continue to the second message by Wayne Robinson, topic Pastor Rick

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