Introduction:
This is the Pastor’s Blog for the Service on Sunday Jan 18th at 10:45AM. Included here is the primary Scripture of this message and the Pastor’s notes. Prior to the service it will include an excerpt of the Pastor’s notes and following the service the complete notes will be added. Also following the service a link will be provided at the bottom to Replay this service. We hope you will join us in Worship on Sunday.
Scripture: Hebrews 12:1-2
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God
Pastors Message;
Question 4(a) (UMH p. 34)
“On behalf of the whole church, I ask you:
do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness,
reject the evil powers of this world,
and repent of your sin?”
We are staying close to the water this week, after remembering the story of Jesus’ baptism last Sunday, as well as our own baptisms, or the baptism we might have one day.
When we are baptized in the United Methodist tradition, we make promises about the journey we will take, and the spiritual work we will do on that journey. If we are baptized as a baby, our parents or other loving adults make those vows on our behalf. The congregation is an active participant in baptism as well. We not only witness the baptism, we vow to support and uphold the one being baptized. We also renew our own baptismal vows every time we participate in a baptism. It’s a communal sacrament, just as is holy communion.
The vows we take at baptism are weighty and serious, and we will spend the next few weeks considering those vows, taking them one by one.
The first vow is made up of three parts, the first of which reads like this:
Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?
Weighty indeed.
My mother, who was a United Methodist pastor, used to remark that she thought the language was too strong, considering that young parents with a precious baby were often standing before her on the chancel, offering their sweet little one for baptism. “Spiritual forces of wickedness” and repentance don’t seem very relatable to an infant, do they? Mom was really clear and blunt about what she thought about such language!
Over the years, however, Mom and I had conversations around what that baby might face in their life: what choices and temptations, what challenges might that little one encounter as he or she grows? What injustices might be layered on top of all the other challenges?
When we look around at our current situation – the unrest, the rage, the suffering, and the unsettled nature of our current existence – the language of this first section of vow number 1 takes the world and our current context very seriously. This vow meets the moment
The language calls us to push away sin and the evil powers that surround us.
This vow is about much more than a single evil presence that we might call the devil or Satan. Evil is pervasive and insidious, and is much larger, deeper, wider, and broader than a single presence. The passage in Hebrews we just heard uses vivid language that helps unpack this: sin “clings so closely”, and therefore can disguise itself as the good, the proper, the acceptable, the enshrined, the “way things are.”
We can so easily fall prey to stories and messages that float up out of the status quo and convince us that they are right. Think about it for a few moments: who or what is demanding our attention and asserting itself as right and good or sensible? There are countless answers to that question, aren’t there?
There are some hallmarks of this “sin that clings so closely”:
- The temptation for us to compete, rather than commune
- The use of power that dominates, stratifies, classifies, and limits rather than gentle power that joyfully delights in and shares God’s good abundance and celebrates the diversity of creation
- We can succumb to the voices in our heads that reinforce all of the above, that voice that accuses us of being better-than, less-than, weak, or not worthy
There is a barrage of messages coming from the outside and the inside, and the vows of baptism call us to renounce all this – to give it up and voluntarily put it aside.
How is this possible? We can so easily delude ourselves that we are “good” people, that going to church or being a part of this or that group puts us on the “good” side of the equation, while the others on the other side are the bad and evil ones.
It seems to me that there is an important step we sometimes miss when we make judgements and choices, and it is the step of remembering.
When we remember, we put something back together that was separated, even dismembered. So often what has been dismembered is lodged within our very being. Hard life experiences drive a wedge between how we see ourselves and how God sees us. We can’t forgive ourselves for things we’ve done, stuff we’ve judged as stupid, or naïve, or fill-in-the-blank with whatever word of judgement arises for you.
There is a scene in the movie “Schindler’s List” that portrays this so well – both the heartbreak and disastrous consequences of not remembering.
The murderous commandant of the labor camp, Plaszow, in Krakow, Poland, Amon Georth, stands before a mirror, studying his face. He reaches out to touch the image staring back at him and says “I forgive you.” He pauses a few moments and starts to say it again and stops, disgust on his face. He marches out of his quarters and unleashes a torrent of violent and murderous punishment on the prisoners. He cannot bring himself to remember who he is, or Whose he is.
Our human experience shows us that it’s often just as hard to forgive ourselves as it is to forgive others. Maybe it’s even harder. The weight of shame and self-loathing clings and burdens us, doesn’t it?
The good news here is that the sacrament of baptism is, at its heart, an act of God’s prevenient grace. Y’all may be tired of me repeating this, but I don’t think we can hear it enough: Prevenient grace is that grace which has existed before we were born, before the cosmos was created. Prevenient grace is the grace into which we are born, into which we are baptized. Prevenient grace calls us to remember Who has created us, Who claims us, Who pines for us to rest in that grace.
Prevenient grace is that grace that beckons us before every choice we encounter, every fork in the road on the journey of life and faith. Prevenient grace is present when we look in the mirror and when we look at every other being in creation, if only we allow ourselves to see it.
But we must remember and trust that grace is there, with every step and every breath.
God got it right the first time: the creation of you, the creation of me, the creation of the entire universe. We are awash in grace. God is the primary actor in every baptism, and God gets it right every time and all the time.
We are the ones who doubt that divine rightness. That’s the voice in our heads that says “maybe I can get this right by myself” or “maybe there’s not enough grace to go around” or “maybe there’s not enough grace for me.” That’s the evil at hand that clings so closely.
God’s grace isn’t just the source and the remedy that enables us to renounce evil – it is the refuge in which we can rest and heal.
Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?
In grace, we can say “yes”, again and again.
Let us pray together this prayer of John Wesley:
O God, in you there is an infinite fullness of all that we can want or desire. May we all receive grace upon grace; grace to pardon our sins, to subdue our iniquities; to justify our persons and to sanctify our souls; and to complete that holy change, that renewal of our hearts, which will enable us to be transformed into the blessed image in which you created us. O make us all to be partakers of the inheritance of your saints in light. Amen.
