This homily was delivered at Christ Episcopal Church in Yankton, South Dakota on February 18, 2018 on the First Sunday in Lent.
Not being raised an Episcopalian, one of the prayers that caught my attention when Kathy and I joined this church occurred when we witnessed our first baptism here.
The prayer goes like this:
Heavenly
Father, we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit you have bestowed upon
these your servants the forgiveness of sin, and have raised them to new life of
grace. Sustain them, O Lord, in your
Holy Spirit. Give them an inquiring and
discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to
love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.[1]
This quickly became one of my favorite prayers in The
Book of Common Prayer. Lex orandi, lex
credendi (what we pray reflects our deepest beliefs), as intimated in this
prayer, acknowledges that the heart is shaped by what it seeks and especially
by what it finds to be true.
Questioning has not been held in high regard
throughout much of the church’s history and remains so in some Christian
churches. Yet in the Anglican tradition,
our tradition, we have a unique theological perspective that shapes our
identity as Episcopalians. The 16th
century English Theologian, Richard Hooker, wrote:
“What
scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and
obedience are due; the next whereunto, is what a man can necessarily conclude
by force of Reason; after this, the voice of the church succeedeth”.[2]
This has become known as the three-legged stool upon
which Anglican theological perspective is derived: Scripture, Reason, and
Tradition. There were few Christian
denominations at that time and since that time that have given human reason, by
itself, a place of prominence in theological discernment and discourse. What
makes us unique among the Christian family of denominations is that we honor
the human faculty of reason as essential in discerning the will of God in the
light of Scripture and by its reflective wisdom embedded in our traditions.
Two individuals baptized as Anglicans came to mind
as I thought about this prayer: Charles
Darwin and Thomas Merton; both examples of individuals with an inquiring and
discerning heart.
CHARLES
DARWIN
Born to a free thinking father and a Unitarian
mother, Charles was baptized in the Church of England, the Anglican
Communion. Before taking his fateful
journey aboard the Beagle in which he weighed the plethora of possibilities why
so many diverse life forms in the world exist, Darwin had seriously considered
taking Holy Orders and becoming a curate in the Church of England. In reading his life story, I came to
appreciate the struggle he had with the knowledge he acquired; whether to
publish his findings that he knew would cause controversy and put him in a
spotlight he did not seek. He sat on
the knowledge his experiences gave him for decades and only published his
famous “Origen of the Species” when friends pleaded with him to do so. The weight of his reasoned discoveries and
the inner conflict it caused him took a toll on his health.
Our understanding of the world was forever changed
by his reasoning mind; his inquiring and discerning heart. Advances in the field of medical science are
largely traced to what he revealed.
Charles Darwin not only broadened our understanding of who we are and
how we came to be and the world we live in, he also broadened our understanding
of God. While that may not have been his
intent nor would he have thought it a result of his work, it certainly was an
outcome of it; traceable to God’s intent working through him. His findings
brought many religious communities, including our own, to rediscover the deeper
meaning of their scriptures and their traditions in a new and brighter light.
In 2011, when Kathy and I took our daughters on a
post-graduation tour of Ireland and Great Britain, we visited West Minister
Abbey in London. Appropriately, Charles
Darwin, an admitted agnostic in later life, was laid to rest in its hallowed
nave by a supporting church faithful in its vow to support him at his baptism.
As I stood looking down on his tomb, a few steps from the elaborate tomb of Sir
Isaac Newton in the north aisle, marked by a single marble slab bearing his
name, I could not help but think of him as a saint; a person who gifted us with
a deeper appreciation of the joy and wonder of God’s work in all creation. Fortunately for us, Charles Darwin found the
courage to will and persevere, whose integrity in speaking the truth of his
experience reflected the integrity of God’s truth expressed in all creation.
THOMAS
MERTON
Thomas Merton was the 20th Century
Trappist Monk who reintroduced Western Christianity to contemplative practices.
Merton was baptized an Anglican in the Pyrenees of South France. Educated in France and in Cambridge England,
he didn’t seem drawn to religion in his early life. At one point in his life, he claimed to be an
agnostic and fathered a child out of wedlock.
It wasn’t until some years later that he met a Hindu
monk, Brahmachari, who sparked his interest in religious life, but instead of
pointing Thomas to Hinduism, he pointed him back to his own religious roots,
Christianity, and told him to start there.
Merton eventually became a Trappist monk at the Abbey of Gethsemane in
Indiana. His books on contemplative prayer and his life journey are considered
Christian classics. His groundbreaking
work in interfaith dialogue with Buddhists, like Thich Nhat Hanh, helped Christians
everywhere better understand our scriptures and traditions through the lens of
what others have to offer.
My reason for briefly sharing their stories is that
we don’t know what wonders God will perform through those baptized into Christ
or where their journey will lead them and us.
Both Darwin and Merton encountered experiences that drew out a faith
that shattered previous held beliefs for them and for us. Both demonstrated what I would call the
integrity of faith by embracing their experiences, learning from them, and
sharing the knowledge garnered from them with the world.
BAPTISM
In the ritual of baptism we witness a symbolic
reorientation to one’s original state of grace – the death of a prejudicial
worldview that only sees sin and a sinner; a presentation of the clean slate
that every newborn and every reborn represents.
Baptism is a symbolic reset of creation to the goodness that it is. This is Christ’s mission in the world; a
mission we share. In that reset, we
honor the creative Spirit of God that each of us has been proportioned; the
inquiring and discerning heart that in its individuality is uniquely in sync
with the mind of Christ and the will of God in ways that stretch the
imagination.
I have come to see baptism as something that should
change how we see the person being baptized; a wiping away of our prejudicial
biases; to look at the recipient of this ritual sacrament as a grace filled
child of God who is set on a journey of inquiry and discernment, no matter what
their age or the circumstances they come from.
We need to remember that regardless of where that journey leads them, we
have pledged them our support. In this
baptismal prayer, the path to knowing and loving God in the joy and wonder of
creation is opened in ways for the baptized that we cannot see or understand at
the time.
DISCERNING
THE WAY FORWARD
This prayer also reminds me of the journey this
congregation is currently on. We are all headed towards something; an ending
that is likely a beginning whether we like it or know what that means and
nothing brings this to the forefront of a congregation’s awareness than when it
loses a pastor and is faced with searching for someone to shepherd its flock.
Now is the time for using our inquiring and
discerning hearts.
Now is the time to find the courage to will and
persevere.
Discernment is a unique process that asks us to
listen deeply to the heart of this congregation in order to find the mind of
Christ in our journey forward. Anyone
who has experienced a discernment process for ministry knows that it is not so
much about exercising one’s will as it is about letting go of it and letting
God lead the way forward.
Thomas Merton wrote what is probably one of the best
personal prayers regarding discerning the way forward which I am paraphrasing
for our collective use:
OUR LORD GOD, We have no idea where we are going. We do not see the road ahead of us. We cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do we really know ourselves, and the fact that we think that we are following your will does not mean that we are actually doing so. But we believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And we hope we have that desire in all that we are doing. We hope that we will never do anything apart from that desire. And we know that if we do this you will lead us by the right road though we may know nothing about it. Therefore, will we trust you always though we may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. We will not fear, for you are ever with us, and you will never leave us to face our perils alone.[3]
Amen.
[1]
“The Book of Common Prayer,” The Church
Hymnal Corporation, New York, 1979, pg. 308
[2]
Richard Hooker in “Laws of Ecclesial Polity.”
[3] Thomas Merton, (paraphrased) see original version From “Through the Year with Thomas Merton”
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