Welcome to the Church, Olivia!
Pamela L. Werntz, Priest-in-Charge

O God of compassion, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Those of you who know me, know that I love to critique the way Bible readings are appointed for Sundays – especially which verses get included and which get skipped.  (For those of you who don’t regularly speak Episcopal-ese, the schedule of readings is called the Lectionary, and I often have something to complain about when it comes to lectionary assignments.)  Today, you might have noticed that the Gospel reading skips almost twenty verses – two whole stories as a matter of fact.

In the Gospel of Mark, our reading is in the first half of the Gospel which tells about Jesus’ public ministry in the Galilee, where he was teaching and healing, calming various personal and cosmic storms, sending people out to spread the Good News about the extravagant love of God and about always using the buddy system!  And Jesus and his followers have been enjoying considerable success in their ministries of healing and reconciliation.  Jesus gathers everyone around and says, “listen, why don’t we take a break?  You all are exhausted.”  That sounds so good doesn’t it?  Turns out, though, that there is no deserted place when Jesus is around because the crowds want to be wherever he is, and Jesus had compassion for the crowds because they were like sheep without a shepherd (in other words, lost).

The next story, which for us is skipped, is about how five thousand men were fed with two fish and five loaves miraculously seated “on the green grass” in groups of “hundreds and of fifties.”  After that, the story is about how the disciples were in the boat at night in a windstorm, and Jesus walked on water to calm them and the wind down.  And then we pick up the story at verse 53, with everyone getting out of the boat and encountering crowds from the whole region, who all want to touch Jesus, even the fringe of his garment.

Now I have no idea why the two miracle stories aren’t read in sequence – but I like it.  Take the miracles out that give post-enlightenment skeptics (in other words, the people of this congregation) such a hard time, and we have text about the need for rest; about compassion for all who are hurting or, in whatever way, lost; and about how even the least little contact with Jesus of Nazareth was profoundly healing.

The instruction to rest – indeed the Biblical mandate for rest – has always been counter-cultural.  And today we have a glimpse of how difficult it was even for faithful Jews like Jesus and his followers to take time to rest.  Nevertheless, Jesus is reported to have recognized the need for rest for himself and for his followers, and in the stories of his ministry, there’s evidence that he continues to try to find time away for refreshment and renewal, even in the face of enormous demands for his time and resources.

Compassion – is one of the major themes of the stories of the Exodus, when the people understood that the Holy One had compassion for those in distress, enslaved and oppressed.  Compassion, feeling with, feeling great affection and suffering with, is a fundamental attribute of God and a fundamental value of Jewish tradition.  And in the Gospels, every time the word for compassion is used, a basic human need is present and plain.  Compassion, I would argue, is at the heart of the Gospel message too. 

And then there’s the part about the fringe of Jesus’ garment.  The word can mean the hem or the border.  It’s the same word for edge or outer limit.  And it’s the same word for the tassels worn by Jews to remind them to observe the commandments.1  The central, the most important commandment in the Torah, is to listen deeply, to hear profoundly that the name too holy to be said aloud is our God and that God is One.  The Torah teaches that the consequence of listening that deeply is loving -- loving God and loving others.  To touch the fringe of Jesus’ garment is to be reminded that loving God, loving others, living in love, is deeply healing.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I don’t actually thing that compassion can be sustained without regular rest, so I’m grateful to the lectionary for beginning with those verses where Jesus invites his followers to have a little retreat, away from the crowds (even if it isn’t completely successful).  And compassion can completely miss the mark when we are feeling moved, feeling empathic, but we are not listening deeply for the Holy One.  It seems to me that regular rest, compassion for all who are least, and last and lost around us, and on the healing that can come from the fringe, all point to how vitally important it is for faithful people to be always moving toward the margins – always moving out from the safe and comfortable  center toward the counter-cultural fringes.

The Episcopal Church, meeting in General Convention for the past two weeks, just took some big steps toward the margins.  It’s so wonderful, to me, to be welcoming Olivia Rose, through baptism, into this Church which, at last, “has intentionally, thoughtfully and lovingly put its feet on the last section of path towards the full inclusion of LGBT people”2 in every part of our Church (not just Emmanuel, or just the Diocese of Massachusetts). The Episcopal Church, this week, overwhelmingly affirmed that partnered gay people are called by God to all orders of ministry in this Church, and has encouraged bishops to extend pastoral generosity with regard to LGBT folks.  General Convention resolved to begin formally collecting liturgicaland theological material for same-sex marriage or blessing ceremonies.  And theGeneral Convention pledged to work to dismantle DOMA laws, and to protect Transgender people from discrimination. 

But it wasn’t all about queer theology and politics at General Convention, although you might think that from the headlines.  General Convention also committed to improve the lives of people who are incarcerated and their families; recommitted the Church to anti-racism work and  to the eradication of poverty and hunger; resolved to work for economic justice for immigrants, and to minister to disabled and wounded soldiers and veterans; and reaffirmed the tithe as the minimum standard of giving.  And if that isn’t counter-cultural, or moving toward the fringe, I don’t know what is!     

So in a few minutes we are going to have a formal “welcome to the Church” ceremony for Olivia Rose.  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, when the news from General Convention is good and when it is not so good.

What messages will Olivia hear and what will she experience in the behavior of Jesus-followers as she grows up?  Here’s what I’m hoping for.  I’m hoping that anyone who does not know the love of God will come to know the love of God because of Olivia and the rest of us.  I’m hoping that we will all continue to grow as people who relate to each other with respect, with compassion and justice.

I’m hoping that Olivia will learn that, as misguided and hard-hearted as the Church can be, the community of Jesus-followers with all our differences and disagreements is still the best 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.

I’m hoping that Olivia will learn what Jesus taught, that none of us can do it alone.  I want Olivia 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 – to work for peace with justice.  We need companions to encourage us when we are afraid and to spell us when we need rest.  We need opportunities to receive all of the God’s 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 Olivia to know that the basis for community is not agreement, but showing up.  As Bishop Desmond 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.

So I want Olivia to know that we will need her to show up – to be in community with us – and I want us 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 Olivia – that is really wonderful.  Some of you had no idea that Olivia 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 Olivia to know that she’s had an Episcopal initiation into Christianity and that we’re practicing.  Practicing Episcopalians, practicing Christians.  We don’t have it down yet, but we keep working on it together.  That’s why we answer the baptismal covenant questions with an acknowledgement that we need God’s help.

I want Olivia to know that God will help.  I want Olivia to know that whether or not she ever believes in God, the Gospel promise is that God believes in her.  The Gospel promise is that God believes in Olivia and her mothers, Kate and Melanie, 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.

1. See Numbers 15:38-41 or Deuteronomy 22:12

2. IntegrityUSA blog entry from 7/18/09, “Walking with Integrity,” by Caroline Hall

Updated July 27, 2009