Today is All Saints Sunday a day when we recognize all the people who have gone before from this faith community. We say prayers about being connected to them, we reaffirm our baptismal covenant which says we are connected to this community, and we remember the vows we took from our original baptism where we said we would support each other in the life of this community. The question is do we really? Do we really keep supporting one another? As we change and grow, losing some people by death or moving and then gaining new ones in do we notice our vow to support this person in their faith journey?
First how do we support one another? Certainly by praying, but do we reach out and let them know this? Do we call and tool them we think of them, send a card? How do we tangibly do this? I don't think we even think about it again once we give our pledge in church. The baptized person goes there own way and we have nothing else to do with it.
I'm reading the book Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O'Donohue, in it he speaks of the interconnectedness with all of creation that the Celts had. This transferred into their very being, their friendships, all of life. There were prayers for every chore during the day, there was support for your neighbor from birth to grave, there was a recognition that we cannot survive alone. Independence and self-sufficiency has done us no favors. We are as interconnected today as we were then, we just like to think we are not.
Jesus mirrors this by calling twelve disciples, by having close friends such as Mary and Martha who needed their brother Lazarus. Jesus in John's gospel gives us the greatest example of encourage and support for these disciples who will now struggle with his death by instructing and praying for them from chapters 14-17. Telling the disciples how they are connected one to another as a vine to the branch. Just as we do in baptism, even in our opening hymn, there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, we who are many are one in baptism.
We need to recognize our interdependence on one another in faith, in growth, in trust. It is the only way we are different from the world because we don't look out for just ourselves, we look out for one another. We have been made apart of one another in the human family through faith, no matter how long we have attended, no matter how often, no matter what we have been made apart of one another thorough Christ. All our lives is to learn this and keep acting on this and keep trying to reach outside of ourselves and be apart of the community.
Today we reaffirm these vows, today we claim we are connected to the saints because of our connection into the waters of baptism and we will feel those waters today. Today we say we are one just as Christ and the early community was one, no matter what political party, no matter what color our skin, no matter what sexual orientation we have been made one in Christ because the most important thing is that we love one another as Christ has loved us.
Those first disciples lived this by living together in radical community. Now we don't have this type of community, yet still we are supposed to be different than the world. We are to show this difference in our very lives. So let us shine this out to a world which needs this. We are not divided by what we believe, but united by Christ.
So today we ask you to come to the waters, those wonderful waters, these waters which have had wonderful songs written about them, talking about this strange and united community: "As I went down to the river to pray, shall we gather at the river, deep and wide, deep and wide there's a fountain flowing deep and wide, on Jordan's bank the Baptist cries," we are united. So come to the waters and take a name on the shell, not your own name, someone else's name and pray for them this week. You can call or write them if you wish, but try to encourage one another in this. Come and take a name and pray and if you see a difference maybe we can find new ways to be the united community of faith. Amen.
First how do we support one another? Certainly by praying, but do we reach out and let them know this? Do we call and tool them we think of them, send a card? How do we tangibly do this? I don't think we even think about it again once we give our pledge in church. The baptized person goes there own way and we have nothing else to do with it.
I'm reading the book Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O'Donohue, in it he speaks of the interconnectedness with all of creation that the Celts had. This transferred into their very being, their friendships, all of life. There were prayers for every chore during the day, there was support for your neighbor from birth to grave, there was a recognition that we cannot survive alone. Independence and self-sufficiency has done us no favors. We are as interconnected today as we were then, we just like to think we are not.
Jesus mirrors this by calling twelve disciples, by having close friends such as Mary and Martha who needed their brother Lazarus. Jesus in John's gospel gives us the greatest example of encourage and support for these disciples who will now struggle with his death by instructing and praying for them from chapters 14-17. Telling the disciples how they are connected one to another as a vine to the branch. Just as we do in baptism, even in our opening hymn, there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, we who are many are one in baptism.
We need to recognize our interdependence on one another in faith, in growth, in trust. It is the only way we are different from the world because we don't look out for just ourselves, we look out for one another. We have been made apart of one another in the human family through faith, no matter how long we have attended, no matter how often, no matter what we have been made apart of one another thorough Christ. All our lives is to learn this and keep acting on this and keep trying to reach outside of ourselves and be apart of the community.
Today we reaffirm these vows, today we claim we are connected to the saints because of our connection into the waters of baptism and we will feel those waters today. Today we say we are one just as Christ and the early community was one, no matter what political party, no matter what color our skin, no matter what sexual orientation we have been made one in Christ because the most important thing is that we love one another as Christ has loved us.
Those first disciples lived this by living together in radical community. Now we don't have this type of community, yet still we are supposed to be different than the world. We are to show this difference in our very lives. So let us shine this out to a world which needs this. We are not divided by what we believe, but united by Christ.
So today we ask you to come to the waters, those wonderful waters, these waters which have had wonderful songs written about them, talking about this strange and united community: "As I went down to the river to pray, shall we gather at the river, deep and wide, deep and wide there's a fountain flowing deep and wide, on Jordan's bank the Baptist cries," we are united. So come to the waters and take a name on the shell, not your own name, someone else's name and pray for them this week. You can call or write them if you wish, but try to encourage one another in this. Come and take a name and pray and if you see a difference maybe we can find new ways to be the united community of faith. Amen.
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