August/September 2009

In today’s scripture readings, Jeremiah lambastes those who call themselves shepherds but who have managed to scatter and drive away the sheep entrusted to their care, and the promise that God will raise up shepherds who will re-gather and welcome the lost ones: “they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing”; this is followed by the gospel account of Jesus doing exactly that, going out to the lost and forgotten, bringing healing and restoration to those who had been shunned and banished. In the second reading Paul insists that this is the timeless ministry of Christ, to break down the walls that divide and the hostility that poisons, that in Christ those who were once far off are always brought near, those who were once aliens and strangers are made citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

This is the church I want my daughter to grow up in, one passionately committed to all those who are victimized and persecuted, who are demeaned and dismissed and demonized, those of every generation who can do little more than reach through the crowd to merely touch the hem of Jesus’ garment; a church radically committed to including, not excluding, more committed to dismantling walls and divisions than creating them, a church that echoes in our time the ancient cry of the prophets to set God’s people free; a church that will affirm her by expanding the horizons of her mind and heart, stretching and challenging her to recognize and honor and receive Christ in every one of her sisters and brothers; a church where she herself will not be diminished and demeaned, where her baptism is sufficient statement of her dignity and equality and worth, and where no ministry and no possibility will be denied her because of who she is, or what she is, or where she came from.

Last weekend, at Peasant Market, once again we declared to ourselves, and to anyone else with the eyes to see, who we are: a community of young and old, male and female, gay and straight, single and married, about as diverse a group as one can muster in a Vermont country town, who are about so much more than themselves, who because they gather at the table of the Lord every week, are themselves committed to feeding the hungry and housing the homeless and redressing injustice and alleviating poverty, locally and globally, a community sure of its own identity and mission, open hearted and open handed and open minded, and secure enough not merely to tolerate but – with joy and delight and wonder – to welcome into its generous embrace this baby and her family.

And so today Chiara becomes that rarest of God’s children, a cradle Episcopalian. She will be graced to know from the beginning of her journey this community that so many of us searched for, and suffered to find, a place where Christ is present not only in bread and wine, in water and oil, but just as surely revealed and reverenced in those who gather here to worship. Today she takes her baptismal candle and assumes her place at the front of this long procession which is our church, the newest member of a band consciously and sometimes painfully striving to realize here on earth the reign of God, creating, by degrees, a society where there is no more Jew or Greek, no more male or female, no more slave or free, but an icon of that heavenly city where all are invited, where all are welcome, where all who have been baptized have clothed themselves in Christ, that Christ who does not turn his face from any of God’s children, who does not cast any of us aside.

TPG+

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