Ordinary 17

The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Genesis 18:20-32; Psalm 138; Colossians 2:12-14; Luke 11:1=13

I began my tenure as pastor at Saint Mary’s on Ash Wednesday. The day begins with the words of the prophet Joel which I yearn to hear each year:

“Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart,rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to your God. For gracious and merciful is God, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment…and leaves behind a blessing…” [Joel 2: 12–13]

It is a call to return to our beginnings. Don’t we all at times want to leave the present and past behind and start all over again?

Wedding and ordination anniversaries do that; they invite us back to reflect on our beginnings; our initial call, the first time a couple met, on commitments made. Does not the Fourth of July invite us to return to the values upon which our nation was founded? Can not a serious illness, a deeply painful and broken relationship call us back to the reality of our mortality and to God? A challenging word or a gentle nudge can cause a person to return to their spiritual roots, their familial commitments, or their true responsibilities.

The words of the prophet Joel invite Christians back to our beginnings; life in and with God.

And where did this life in God begin? The Lenten Season culminates in the night of the Easter Vigil when we recall our Baptism and renew our Baptismal Promises: “Do you reject sin…do you believe in the creator God…in the Only – Begotten Son who died and rose from the dead…in the Holy Spirit, the Giver of all Life…”

It is in Baptism that we began life in and with God. In Baptism we participate in a real and authentic way in the death, burial [an act which confirms death] and resurrection of Christ.

The Funeral Mass begins with our beginnings. “In baptism George died with Christ and rose with Christ to new life…” and concludes with the baptismal experience, “Let us take our sister to her place of rest”.  Death, burial and hope of new and eternal life are all present.

Our Christian life begins, is lived out and ends in and through the Baptismal experience.

We are continually called to live each day in Christ. We find ourselves in experiences that call us to die: putting aside our day for an elderly parent, a parishioner who is dying, a crying child who has accidentally broken a favourite item of yours, an annoying [from our perspective] neighbor, a needy co-worker, someone looking for a handout on the street… We become buried in the soil of their lives and concerns from which, depending on how we respond, we rise with them to a newness of life. Baptism is not a past event we recall but a daily way of living.

This invitation to return to our beginnings, to recommit ourselves, not only occurs in the Church’s annual retreat and renewal in the Lent – Easter Season but consider… Every time we enter a church and bless ourselves with baptismal waters is an invitation to our beginning in Christ. Every sunrise with the beginning of a new day [even more so when the sun is behind the clouds] and praise God in our morning prayers is a time to return to our beginnings. Every confession [what the Fathers called ‘a second Baptism’] that deeply reflects on our relationship with God and our neighbor brings us to our beginning in Christ. Every Eucharist at which we gather and enter into with full hearts and minds and a voice raised in praise and thanksgiving is a return to that baptismal experience.

All of these sacred experiences participate and renew in some form that initial act of Baptism when God acts for us like a defense lawyer “destroying the bond against us, with its legal claims which was opposed to us”.  Paul poses the question in his Letter to the Romans, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” [Romans 8:31] Often it seems we work against ourselves and blame God.

Baptism, like all of the Sacraments, is not our doing but are encounters with Christ, initiated by Christ in God through the Holy Spirit. It is our gracious and merciful God, who is slow to anger, and rich in kindness that acts.

Listen carefully to Paul’s words to the Church of Colossae:

“you were raised with Christ in the power of God…”

“Even when you were dead in sin, God brought you to life…”

“God has forgiven us all our sins…”

“God has destroyed the bond against us and nailed it to the cross.”

Regretfully too many Christians still think God works against us, tests us, seeks to trip us up, and catch us in the act. No! These images and ideas of God are not what God has told us or shown us. God always acts for us. God saves us. God revives us. God forgives us. God destroys the obstacles between us. Why? Our God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in kindness.

I arrived on Ash Wednesday. I will be leaving with the Feast of the Transfiguration. On that day while in prayer Jesus’ face, clothing and whole being is revealed as Son; as what we are called to be through Baptism, daughters and sons. And we will hear the Father’s declaration, “This is my chosen Son, listen to him.” And in that declaration God also says to you and me, this is my chosen daughter, this is my chosen son. That is Baptism, being plunged into the life of God.