I give thanks to God for standing before you as your friend in Christ, and also a priest in the Church of God.
I am very grateful to those of you who were able and stubborn enough to drag yourselves to our Cathedral on that evening of such awful weather. To those who held me in prayer, who wished me well, who thought of me at the time.
I am very grateful to this congregation. Here I was welcomed and affirmed and embraced in my vocation, gifts, and loyalties. Bishop Terry, you have been a pastor, a teacher, and a friend. Thank you. I am yours, and this ministry of mine cannot be understood apart from whence I have come to it.
And these are not just expressions of my true gratefulness to you and the rest of the Church, but in fact an expression of a sacramental reality of my priestly ministry. It is sustained by a covenant-like relationship, of obedience, communion, and love in Christ, with God, and the bishop, the church, which is all of you, my friends.
Now, as for the Lectionary for today …
In our gospel reading, Saint Mark presents the events concerning the coming of John the Baptist, his baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, Jesus’ time spent in the desert, the arrest of John the Baptist, and the beginning of Jesus’ ministry -all in one single swoop of narrative.
As we read or listen to this early bit in the gospel, we can sense that Mark is going at full speed, it would seem, and such a pace of story-telling conveys the dynamism and urgency of Jesus’ ministry and mission, proclaiming and sharing the good news, the evangelion, the gospel, of the reign of God.
The Gospel of Mark is very peculiar in this regard. The rather elaborate narratives we find in the other gospels in our Bibles only make more evident the brevity and directedness of Mark’s style.
And this might be particularly appropriate in this our first Sunday in the liturgical season of Lent, the forty days in which, to put it one way, we move on as we learn and worship, in prayer and sacrament, as one body, following Jesus to Calvary and the Easter Garden.
Lent is a season for us to be shaped after the words and events concerning the ministry, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, as we seek to be the church, in this our own time and place.
And I want to continue reflecting with you about this notion of covenant I was referring to before, of the ordained ministry of the church with each and all church communities, because there is some of that theme running through the readings for this First Sunday in Lent.
In fact, the reading from the book of Genesis we heard earlier contains the first reference to the concept of a covenant in the whole of our Old Testament of the Bible. And here is not just a covenant, the legal term for a curated relationship, and as we most often encounter, but even a covenanted promise, offered by God to all of God’s creatures, and in the case of the covenant with Noah and his family, a covenant in which we, Gods children, are deemed accountable for the well-being of other people, and other forms of life. Indeed, while later notions of biblical covenant will tend toward the ritualistic, filled with symbol and narrative poetry, this first mention of the covenant between God and God’s creation is also spelled out in a much wider ecological sense.
This initial covenant resolutely links the well-being of humans to that of the rest of creation, and vice versa, and symbolically so by means of a rainbow, the token of that covenanted relationship.
Our ability to respond to the love of God is conditioned here to our willingness to care and be responsible for other forms of life.
But our being willful participants of a covenant, also entails the willingness to bear the consequences of such a choice.
In this sense, the author of the Epistle of Peter identifies suffering as one of the potential consequences of sharing in the covenant, the testament, of Jesus the Christ.
For example, in verses fifteen and sixteen, the author of this epistle writes:
“Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you” and “Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.”
But our share in this covenant in Christ is not passive, and is not even limited to defending ourselves, but goes on to move us and empower us to give a daily, coherent witness of our calling, our vocation. To let others know of what hope moves our lives, warts and all, and how that hope has power and grace to change not only our own lives, but that of the whole of Creation.To preach the Gospel at all times, as St Francis teaches us, and to use words, when necessary. And Peter goes on to address the primordial covenant of our faith, our baptism.
A covenant grounded on the promise of the life we have known in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In our celebrating and remembering of our baptismal promises, we recognize the potential consequences of standing on the side of Christ, who cries for justice and life for all.
We recognize that Christ, indeed, died, for the sins of the world, in the fulfillment of a covenant which stands forever. And we cannot but name the sins of the world as injustice, hunger, oppression, and violence. In advancing and embracing these foundations of the reign of God, we look up to Christ as our example and goal to follow.
The Church gathers to enact and celebrate the sacraments, the covenants, of our faith, primarily through baptizing new Christians, and celebrating the Holy Communion, the sacrament and covenant of our redemption.
And we also gather to cultivate and harvest the fruits of such spiritual commitments, as we witness to and serve Christ in the world. We participate, in an active fashion, in the daily translation of our faith into actions which seeks to proclaim the coming of the reign of God, for the here and the now of each one who listens in.
Our sacramental life and our mission and service are one, however, rather than two or more separate realities. The hands that set up the altar, brew our coffee, clean our floor, take our phone calls and pray over our gifts are equally as beautiful and holy to God, who rejoices in each of us in our gifts and unique ways for service.
In Lent, we are led by Christ to follow as He fulfills the covenant enacted in his ministry, speaking truth, working justice, and practicing love. It is a season of penitence because we are called to discern, as people of faith, that which may prevent us from not only clearly hearing such truths in the Gospel, but from seeking to enact them in the world around us.
From the immediacy of our partner, friend, colleague, and neighbor, to the seemingly anonymity of any person who suffers in this our own time in the world of our own age. Penance is a healthy work of the soul, and it cannot but help us see Jesus more clearly, both in the promise of the sacraments, and the reality of those who lack.
It is only fair to also ask ourselves, how to lead others to such joy, to this mutuality of the covenant of God in Christ? How to be clearer, gentler icons of the joy of that life we confess is to be found in Christ and, even more daringly so, in the fellowship of Christ’s church? This Church?
It is in our service where the words of the gospel are able to become more of themselves, whether that service is worship, witness, assistance to anyone who lacks, presence, or proclamation. We enact the covenant of God in Christ in everything we do which recognizes that covenant, that promised embrace, of our being Christ in the world.
Thanks be to God.
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