When Maja and Paul Currier came to speak with me a few months back about arranging to have their daughter Brigitte baptized at Christmas time, I thought that it was such a lovely idea. We’d be in the chapel. Family and friends of Brigitte’s would be able to be present. It would be an intimate gathering on the second day of Christmas with carols and the poinsettia blooms would still be fresh. It would be lovely. As this last week of December approached, in the midst of extra services and holiday parties, end of year parish administration, cookie baking, sermon writing and present wrapping, I kept an eye on the weather reports, vaguely worried that our baptism plans might be felled by a Sunday blizzard. I didn’t give the readings a second thought. And it wasn’t until I’d finished my sermon for Christmas Eve on Friday afternoon that I turned to read the Bible lessons for today.

Why didn’t I see these readings coming? (I think it’s something about denial not just being the name of a river in Egypt!) Here are three readings that do not at all seem to call for responses like “Thanks be to God” and “Praise to you Lord Christ.” The passage from Isaiah is set in the context of a poem about divine vengeance. The Hebrews reading is about the efficacious suffering of Jesus. And the Gospel includes the report of Herod’s slaughter of all children under the age of two in the little town of Bethlehem. The sleeping in heavenly peace certainly did not last long. The Christmas story has turned ugly. This is not the way I want to welcome a beautiful child into the Church.

And yet, these readings present themselves as compelling evidence that the renunciations made and vows taken in baptism are not trivial and they are not just for show. There are powerful forces that rebel against God, forces that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God and draw us from the love of God. There are Herods of the world (and Herods in our own psyches) who would insist on tyrannical ruling no matter what the consequences, and who stop at nothing to stir up fear, kindle resentment, and kill hope. There are Herods who, by design, keep us tired and discouraged and desperate, stuck, complacent; or worse, who would enlist us in acts of aggression or self-destruction by convincing us about the lesser of evils or the justification of violence.

Our Gospel reading this morning abruptly reminds us that Jesus was not born into a world of glittery Christmas wrapping or fuzzy spiritual sentimentality. Jesus entered a world of real danger, of serious dysfunction, a world of deep brokenness and political oppression and military might. He was born of a surprise pregnancy, and according to the Gospel of Matthew, an outcast, a homeless person, a refugee. He died a victim of capital punishment. During his life we know that he amassed quite a collection of nuisances and nobodies for followers. In fact, he has been collecting them ever since! During his life he demonstrated again and again the essential message that tyrants are no match for the faithfulness of our God and that, in the end, love is always stronger than death.

My grandmother is fond of saying that old age is not for sissies. Well I’m here to tell you that baptism is not for sissies. It takes guts to be a part of a church – well a church like this one anyway. We are not a collection of people who have it all worked out, who know the answers, who look and act alike, who have no problems or conflicts. Rather, this is a community of folks who are broken and needy. Some of you know that I like to think of us as the Island of Misfit Toys from the old Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer holiday show. We are a collection of people who are damaged and who have caused damage and who acknowledge that we cannot stand up to internal and external tyrants alone – that we need the help of one another and of God.

So what is it that we are helping each other to do? Well first, quite simply, to relate to one another – inside this particular faith community and out there – wherever we go – with respect and compassion and justice, even, and maybe especially, when we disagree with one another. Second, we are helping one another to mirror the mutuality and reciprocity of Jesus’ own relationship with God, especially when it comes to those more vulnerable than we are – those who are outcast, homeless, and refugees of all kinds. You know, evangelism is not about one person telling another person what the answers are. Evangelism is about one beggar showing another beggar where some bread is. And if that’s not hard enough, we are helping each other to communicate the love of God to the rest of the world – not with words as much as with our actions.

I want to remind you that as misguided and hard-hearted as the Church (capital C) can be, that is, even with all of the warts on the face of the Church, the wider community of Jesus-followers with all our differences and disagreements is still extremely good at feeding hungry people, healing hurting people, liberating imprisoned people, loving the hard-to-love people, and proclaiming that those who are hungry and hurting and trapped and hard to love are made in God’s image too.

What Jesus came to know as he grew up, and what I want Brigitte to come to know, is that God’s help comes in the form of community. I want Brigitte to know that we need community to feed us when we are hungry, to heal us when we are hurting, to free us when we are trapped, and to love us when we are hard to love. We need community so that we have strength in numbers – support and solidarity and leverage – to work for peace with justice. We need companions to encourage us when we are afraid. We need opportunities to receive all of these gifts and we need opportunities to give them too, in order to live into the fullness of life that is God’s desire for us.

I want Brigitte to know that the basis for community, for oneness, is not agreement, but showing up. As Bishop Tutu says, the glue that holds the Anglican Communion together is that we meet.  Now as glue, this might sound pretty thin, but what if someone says, “I won’t meet.” “I won’t show up.” That is serious beyond words in the damage that it does to the community.

I want Brigitte to know that we hope that she will grow up to be in community with us – and I want us to continue to show up for her as she grows into her life in Christ. I am grateful for every single person who has shown up today. Some of you are here specifically because of Brigitte – that is really wonderful. Some of you had no idea that Brigitte was going to be baptized today – you showed up for other reasons. Turns out that is really wonderful too! It’s a little bit sad to have a formal “welcome to the community” ceremony when the community doesn’t show up. One of the things about showing up is that you never know before hand, and sometimes you don’t even know afterwards, for whom it made a difference, how much it matters – but I can guarantee you that it matters a great deal.

I want Brigitte to know that we’re practicing Episcopalians. We are practicing Christians. We don’t have it down yet, but we’re going to keep working on it together. That’s why we answer the baptismal vow questions with an acknowledgement that we need God’s help.

I want Brigitte to know that God will help. I don’t know how, but I’ve seen it. I want Brigitte to know that whether or not she ever believes in God, God believes in her. God believes in Brigitte and God believes in each one of the rest of us. That’s what Jesus showed us with his life and his love – and that’s what Jesus was hoping we would show one another.

So in a few minutes we are going to have a formal “welcome to the Church” ceremony for Brigitte. She’s not going to remember it. She will have to rely on others as she grows up to tell her, and more importantly, to show her, what it means to be a part of the Church, a follower of Jesus.

My prayer for Brigitte Elizabeth Currier on the day of her baptism into the community of faith called Christianity, and my prayer for all of us on this second day of Christmas is: that we keep finding ways to band together, to encourage one another to show up and stand up to the Herods of this world, and to embolden one another to enact mercy and kindness wherever we go.