St. Paul’s United
Church Sunday, January 21, 2007
Speaking of Sin: The Waters of Life
Mark 1:4-11
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She was a committed Sunday School teacher, a
young mom with three children. We ended up in one of those chance conversations
that start out casually and become more thoughtful as the talking continues.
She told me it was a priority that her children grow up in faith. It was
also really important that they not hear a whole lot about sin and hell as they
grew up in the church. She didn’t explain what motivated this concern. Perhaps
this had been her experience as a child, and wanted to protect her children from
messages that were overly negative.
Since this incident occurred at least fifteen years ago, I feel safe in
telling you that while her children were three blonde-haired, cherubic looking
boys – I baptized one of them -- looks were deceiving. For a period of
their young lives they were what is affectionately
called “little hellions.” It may have crossed my mind that a little fear of God
would come in handy!
Sometimes I find the right words at the right time but more often than
not I think of them later. Later it occurred to me that I could have told her
that up to that point in my ministry I had never preached a sermon on hell and
never used it is a threat in any conversation. Nor have I preached one in the
years since and you will be relieved to know that this isn’t going to be my
first.
I commented last week that there aren’t many occasions when we speak of
sin in our congregation and it was the same back then. The Children’s Time
never focussed on the sins of the kids and no one was
called a sinner. Ever.
For the people who describe the United Church as “soft on sin” this
might be another sign of our wishy-washy approach, but it was the reality. What
was it she hoped to spare her children from?
For those of you who are visiting today you may be disappointed to hear
that while I won’t talk about hell, I am going to speak about sin as the second
in a series on this almost forgotten topic. I’m sure some of you are thinking, “I
just wanted to come and be supportive and now I’m going to get a load of guilt!”
I want to reassure you that I will be reasonably gentle this
morning, but as you heard a few moments ago, the language of sin and repentance
is part of the story of the baptism of Jesus. A prophetic figure named John was
baptizing people in the river Jordan, immersing them in the waters and bringing them back up again
with the encouragement that with God they could begin again. When John baptized
Jesus, he felt unworthy to do so, but
In the earliest church there were
no baptisms of infants and other children. There isn’t a single mention of
infant baptism in the New Testament. Believers were baptized as Jesus had been
and they did so as a sign of new life in Christ. There has always been a sense
of leaving behind the old life and entering a relationship with God which is
life-changing. Over the centuries the Christian community has always baptized
adults, but it has also chosen to baptize babies and young children. Of course
they have no understanding of what is happening, but both parents and congregation
make the commitment to supporting each family in this process of Christian
growth.
One of the questions we were all asked in our baptism liturgy was: Desiring
the freedom of new life in Christ, do you seek to resist evil, and to live in
love and justice? And we answered I
will, God being my helper!
So what do the waters of baptismal life have to do with our concept of
sin and renewal? It might help to know that in Hebrew, which is the language of
the Old Testament, there are several different words for sin, but the one used most often can be
translated into English as “missing the mark” as an archer might miss
the mark with an arrow. This is the same concept which carries forward into the
New Testament.
I think we can appreciate this
with our children because we spend a lot of time encouraging them so that, with
practice, their aim will be true. The legend in our country is of the father
and son whose “practice made perfect” at hitting the mark, or close to it. Even
if we don’t follow hockey we have probably heard about the backyard rink that
Walter Gretzky made for his boys, including son Wayne. And of the hours they
spent on that rink,
working on Wayne’s passing and shooting skills. Of course he went on to become
arguably the greatest hockey player Canada has produced.
Those of us who are parents or teachers or coaches have offered our
encouragement and instruction understand what this is like in our work with
children. If we coach soccer or just yell encouragement from the sidelines we
want them to find the goal. When we watch our kids in dance or gymnastics we
quietly pray that they will remember their routines.
This extends into the life of Christian faith and discipleship as well.
While we may not expect our children to be spiritual and moral superstars, we
want them to come as close to the mark as they can. It’s almost universal that
parents want their children to grow up with certain values including honesty,
and fairness and kindness
and generosity. We say that we are instilling these values, which
means we repeat them and, hopefully model them so that they will “hit the
target” and be God’s people.
We know that along the way there will be the stumbles and the misses.
Still, it can be discouraging the first time we realize that some change has
been stolen from the dresser in the bedroom, or we find out that we have been
told a lie to get out of an awkward situation, or we’re informed that our child
has been part of a group that has been cruel to someone in the schoolyard. It
doesn’t mean that they are bad individuals, but we have to come to grips with
the fact that they are not perfect people. While we probably wouldn’t describe
these acts as sin, we challenge them to do better.
And of course we are proud when children make choices which embody those
moral and ethical values we do our best to instill in
them. A few months ago a grandmother arrived at the church with some boxes of
canned goods and other items to go as part of our support for the Salvation
Army. She was bursting with pride because the food came from her grandson’s
birthday party. He had asked his friends to bring food for others rather than
gifts for himself.
Just before Christmas, at the end of the Children’s Time during worship,
one of the girls stopped for a moment and showed me her Sunday School envelope. She pointed to the amount, twenty dollars,
and I thought “her parents have been generous this week.” It turns out
that she was the one who was generous, although her parents were a part of the
process because she worked extra household chores to make the money.
She wanted to contribute to a cause bigger than herself.
Both of these young people were aiming for the mark as they understood
it and their choices are worthy of celebration and encouragement.
As our children grow into young adults, we want them to be able to make
the increasingly complex decisions which will lead them away from temptation.
When I was a teen and I asked my parents about doing something with friends,
only to have permission denied, I would say, “but their parents are
letting them do it!” What was the answer my parents gave me? It must have
been in the parents manual because it gets used all
the time: “Well, if their parents told them they could jump off a bridge,
would you jump off a bridge?” My answer would be a rather dejected “No!” Now, my younger brother was always a little
different. His answer was probably “Depends. How high is the bridge and how
deep is the water?”
What my parents were trying to get across to us was that we were
attempting to live by a different set of values – Christian values – in a
society that often didn’t want to put much energy into morals and ethics.
William Willimon has written a book on baptism
called Remember Who You Are in which he points out that while we tend to
romanticize the notion of water as something positive and life-giving, it can
also be dangerous and death-dealing. When we participate in baptism, we remind
ourselves that Christ is with us as we swim for safety. And we spend a lifetime
remembering who we are as Christ’s people, not as a form of drudgery but as the
way to life.
Some of you may be wondering if we really need faith and religion to
help us turn away from wrongdoing and develop strong morals. Do the children
who were baptized today and the rest of our children need this Christian community
to become the people we would like them to be and God wants them to be? If we’re honest there are plenty of examples
of religion encouraging hatred and deception in the name of God.
But people do remember who they are and make choices that are life-giving. Some of you may have seen the CBC program the fifth estate this past week which looked at last year’s terrorist plot, which was all the more disturbing because it involved several young people born in this country who were acting out of misplaced religious fervour. It became very clear though, that the attacks were thwarted because of a young man who is a devout Muslim and sought the counsel of his spiritual elders. Mubin Shaikh realized that his scriptures would not justify taking innocent lives. To use his own words, “God says in the Koran that if you save one life justly, it is as if you saved all of humankind.”
He made the choice for life and we make the choice for life in the small things and the big things of each day. We are convinced that we can only do this with God’s help along the way. Once again this morning we have said that we desire freedom in Christ and we have made the commitment to live faithfully and full, and to help others do so.
There is an African American spiritual which speaks of the joy of sin
overcome and life restored and I’ll leave you with it today:
Oh wasn’t that a happy day,
I know that the Lord’s laid his hands on me,
when Jesus wash’d
my sins away?
I know that the Lord’s laid his hands on me.
Some seek the Lord and don’t seek him right,
I know that the Lord’s laid his hands on me.
They fool all day and pray at night.
I know
the Lord’s laid his hands on me.
My Lord’s done just what he said.
I know the Lord’s laid his hands on me.
He’s healed the sick and rais’d
the dead.
I know the Lord’s laid his hands on me.
We thank God for the waters of life!