"Living In Love With God" Pentecost May 27, 2007

(First, read the text for this sermon: John 14:8-27)

You and I are on a path to loving God more and more deeply. It’s the path of the baptismal life.

When parents bring children to the baptismal font, this is what is said to them:

As you bring your children to receive the gift of baptism, you are entrusted with responsibilities:
To live with them among God’s faithful people,
bring them to the word of God and the holy supper,
teach them the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments,
place in their hands the holy scriptures,
and nurture them in faith and prayer,
so that your children may learn to trust God,
proclaim Christ through word and deed,
care for others and the world God made,
and work for justice and peace.
Do you promise to help your children grow in the Christian faith and life?”

Why is all of that said to the parents of children at the baptismal font? Is this simply a list of rules to follow, for its own sake? A list of “shoulds” and “oughts?” (After all, many people think that is what religion is: rules of what’s right and what’s wrong.)

What a shame for someone to hold that opinion! Instead, what’s named in the baptismal liturgy are practices of the faith. And the joyous reality is that, through these practices, God forms us into people walking along the baptismal path to loving God more and more deeply.

So, for instance, when we hear the word of God and eat and drink the holy supper over the years, we are drawn to love God deeply. When we live according to the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments over the years, we are drawn to love God deeply.

Can a person be a Christian without “going to church?” Well, I guess you can hold a set of beliefs, even if you don’t assemble with other believers for worship. You can hold yourself to rules of right and wrong. But much more life-giving than that is following the baptismal life of loving God more and more deeply, and that’s done with others, in community.

The baptismal life is not so much getting straight a set of “head trip” beliefs (so you can argue with those who disagree with you, and declare them to be wrong). The baptismal life is certainly not following a bunch of rules for their own sake! Rather, from those waters of the baptismal font, God the Holy Spirit set us off on a path to loving God more and more deeply. That only happens as God the Holy Spirit forms us through the practices of the faith (and we’re back to the list in the liturgy): as we live among God’s faithful people, as we digest the word of God and the holy supper, as we live the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, as we are nurtured in faith and prayer, as we learn to trust God, and to proclaim Christ through word and deed, and to care for others and the world God made, and to work for justice and peace.

Isn’t this what Jesus means, in this morning’s reading in John: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” If this is the way we’re living because we love God so deeply, then they are not “commandments” in the sense of a bunch of rules, imposed from the outside, that we feel we have to follow! Instead, they become part of who we are! We want to live in a certain way – because we love God so deeply. We want to please the One we love!

Then, according to this morning’s verses from John, God lives within and among us, in a mystical way. Philip and Judas are mistaken in their assumptions. Philip asks, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied" – as if God is somewhere “out there,” where we can’t see God! Judas (not Iscariot) says to Jesus, "Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?" – as if God is something “out there” to be revealed!

Instead, listen to what Jesus says: Jesus answered him, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” We walk the baptismal path within the love of God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God draws you and me more and more deeply in love through the practices of the baptismal life.

In the liturgy for Holy Baptism, the promises asked of the parents make it clear that they must be partners with God. Here’s something else that happens in that liturgy for Holy Baptism. The pastor asks this of the assembled congregation: “People of God, do you promise to support Colin Alexander, and pray for him in his new life in Christ?” The assembled worshipers respond, “We do.” Why do we all make promises when we celebrate a baptism? It’s because the baptismal path is not one that we walk alone, on our own. Instead, along the way, we surround each other, with support and nurture and care, as we live in love with God.

And after years of being nurtured and supported in the practices of the faith, the baptized Christian comes to the point of affirming his or her baptism. She comes of age, to make for herself the promises others made for her at the font. This morning, after speaking the words of the Apostles’ Creed, this will be asked of those affirming their baptisms:

You have made public profession of your faith. Do you intend to continue in the covenant God made with you in holy baptism:
to live among God’s faithful people,
to hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s supper,
to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed,
to serve all people, following the example of Jesus,
and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth?

The one affirming his or her baptism responds, “I do, and I ask God to help and guide me.” And then here is the next question asked: “People of God, do you promise to support these sisters and brothers and pray for them in their life in Christ?”; and you assembled worshipers respond (if you’re willing to do this!), “We do, and we ask God to help and guide us.”

And the baptismal life continues. It is a life-long path to loving God more and more deeply. It is a life of practicing the faith along the way, because through those practices God forms us in love. It is life in community, because we so much need each other’s nurture and support and encouragement along the way; because we need each other to hold us to account, as we take the risk each day of letting go, to trust, to love God more and more deeply.

What a joyful path!

Thanks be to God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.


Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

"God Wants To Free Us For Discipleship" May 20, 2007 Easter 7

(First read the text for this sermon: Acts 16:16-34)

What a story we read this morning from the Acts of the Apostles. (Do you know that Acts is written by the same anonymous author of the gospel of Luke? Luke tells the Jesus story, and the Acts of the Apostles carries the story into the first years of the Jesus movement. Acts can be seen as “Part 2!”)

I’ll bet you’ve never encountered such drama, while approaching a building for worship, as in this morning’s story! We read, One day, as we were going to the place of prayer,…

That not only provides the setting for the rest of the story. It also tips us off to something we often forget: that the first followers of Jesus continued to be practicing Jews for generations after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The daily practice of the faith included set times for prayer. The typical schedule included daily prayer in the morning, and at noon, and in the evening. (There are many references to these set times for prayer each day! To give a few of the many passages, see Daniel 6:10; Daniel 9:21; Psalm 55:17; Psalm 5:3; Psalm 59:16; Psalm 88:13; Psalm 141:2; 1 Kings 18:36. St. Benedict based his teaching for monks to pray seven times a day on Psalm 119:164.)

The place of prayer was important, too. In this story, the place of prayer was probably the local synagogue. But when there was no synagogue, the pray-er was to create his own sacred space, orienting his body to face towards the holy city of Jerusalem.

Obviously, this is the basis for the Christian church’s tradition of daily prayer. We’ve simply adopted it from Jewish practice! And so, in our worship books past and current, there are orders for prayer at morning, noon, evening, and also just before bed. This regular, scheduled daily prayer is a fundamental practice of the faith. Without such prayer, many of us are confused about who God is and have a hard time seeing what God is up to in our lives! That’s because without prayer, there is no openness to God.

The story from Acts begins as the Jesus people are approaching the synagogue for one of the daily times for prayer: morning, noon or evening. Here’s what happens: One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, "These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation." She kept doing this for many days.

There’s interesting stuff happening here. The girl is “a slave-girl.” And she describes Paul and the narrator and the other Jesus people as “slaves of the Most High God.”

Slaves are held captive, right? Certainly, the girl is held captive by this spirit, or demon that’s possessing her. (Is it old fashioned to speak of demon-possession? You and I are so enlightened! Today, a trained psychiatrist would make a diagnosis of this girl: schizophrenia or paranoia. Today there are wonderful medications to control mental illnesses. But still – ask anyone who has struggled with a mental illness, such as depression. Ask anyone who has fought to become free of an addiction. They will describe the disease as if it’s something possessing them, something that’s imprisoning them!)

This story from Acts is full of the themes of imprisonment and freedom, even in the language that’s used. There’s the “slave-girl.” Paul and the others are “slaves of the Most High God.” When Paul heals the girl of this most annoying spirit, he frees her of it! (The Holy Spirit is stronger than any lesser spirit!) But, still, the girl is a slave. And her owners are not pleased by what Paul has done. You remember the story. The girl’s owners take Paul and the others to the middle of Duke of Gloucester Street in Merchant Square and make all kinds of loud anti-Semitic accusations. A crowd of people gathers and the people get all worked up, because they themselves are imprisoned by their racist attitudes and by their fear of outsiders. (What if these foreigners are even terrorists?!) And so the magistrates order the Jesus people to be beaten up and thrown into jail. So, as the story has proceeded, Paul and the others are imprisoned, literally.

The theme runs all through the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament: slavery and deliverance, imprisonment and freedom. In the greatest story of the Hebrew Scriptures, Moses led the people out of slavery, into the freedom of the promised land. The center of Jesus’ ministry and Paul’s proclamation is freedom from the religious law of their day that had become so convoluted and restrictive.

In all these Bible stories, why does God want to free God’s people? It is so they can become servants of God. In the New Testament stories, it is so people can become disciples, as Jesus calls them to be. It is so followers of Jesus can be freed from what enslaves them, so they can instead become “slaves of the Most High God.”

What is it that enslaves you? What is it that prevents you from following, from discipleship? Is it a fear that imprisons you – that others will see you to be “too religious?” Is it a standard of living that imprisons you – so that you feel trapped in a job that’s not fulfilling, but which pays the bills you’ve become entangled in? Is it a confusion that imprisons you – that you can’t conceive of how God could use your gifts and talents? (Remember: discipleship does not necessarily mean dropping everything, leaving it behind! Usually it’s a matter of having our eyes of faith opened, to see that God has in fact placed you where you are for ministry!)

God wants to free us for discipleship!

Look at what happens next in the story from Acts. Paul and the other Jesus people are not only in prison. To add to the drama, they are in the innermost cell, and their feet are fastened in the stocks. Remember what happens? About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened.

What a story! Remember how the jailer, enslaved by his sense of responsibility and honor, is about to kill himself (because he feels that the earthquake is his fault, I guess!) – but that Paul and the others assure him that they’re still there; they haven’t escaped? As the story ends, the jailer is so impressed by the Spirit that is motivating these Jesus people that he and his entire household are moved to be baptized!

God wants to free us for discipleship. For some, freedom for discipleship comes as suddenly and as dramatically as an earthquake. It can be a serious illness that causes you to stop spending so much time worrying about things that don’t matter, allowing a new openness to the work God calls you to do! Freedom for discipleship can come through another instance of sudden life change.

For most of us, though, God frees us for discipleship slowly, gradually, as we practice the faith. I think it happens, particularly, through that practice of daily prayer, over time, in openness to receive what God will give. It is in prayer, while listening, that God opens us to what God is doing with us. It is through conversation with a trusted spiritual guide that those insights are tested. And in the process, God frees us from what imprisons us.

God wants to free us for discipleship. What a joyous thing!

In the name of God who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.


Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia

"What Is This Peace?" Easter 6 May 13, 2007

(First, read the texts for this sermon: John 14:23-29; Revelation 21:10, 22 - 22:5; Acts 16:9-15)

Christ is risen! How, then, are we to live, as Easter people? That’s a theme in the stories we read on Sunday mornings during the Easter season.

Last week, for instance, our Senior High youth led us in thinking about this teaching, as from Jesus: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

What if we in the Church actually lived according to this teaching? Instead, in church fights – especially, these days, over homosexuality – followers of Jesus are the best in the world at demonizing those who are on the other side of the debate. Many who are not religious are repelled by religious people, who they see to be intolerant and divisive. It’s an ironic tragedy. The first generations of the Christian movement attracted dramatic numbers of followers because they lived according to Jesus’ model. “See how they love each other!” is what outsiders said about the early Jesus people.

This morning, we read more teaching on love. Jesus answered, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.” In the gospel of John, God’s presence is mystical, and non-physical, and non-apocalyptic. (In other words, there is no waiting for a “final judgment.” Eternal life has begun. And it is easy to see those who have received this eternal life: they are the ones who love God!)

Now, here’s the thing. There are two responses to all of this that are easy to fall into. Many either get judgmental, or they get real naive.

Consider a couple of the verses from this morning’s reading in Revelation, a vision of the holy city after the final judgment has occurred: But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life. And, we read: Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.

It is so easy to take off from verses like this and to use love as a standard for judgment! It’s a judgmentalism that seeks to identify those who don’t love God enough, and who is “unclean,” and who is “accursed”; in other words, who is excluded. What irony: it’s easy to become judgmental over love!

It’s also easy to become naïve. In that case, we imagine that we’re shamefully sinful if we have any disagreements at all about anything. And so, we’re not allowed to get angry in church, right? We’re not “good Christians” if that happens, right?

Is it possible to agree on all things? Of course not! And so I think we’re faithful to these teachings on love when we receive the grace to understand them in this way: in the midst of disagreements, love! (That’s what’s promising about life in a congregation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, where we try to welcome into community those of diverse political view points and racial and sexual and economic backgrounds, where what unites us are our baptisms, and our gathering around the Lord’s table for his supper of salvation. In other words, it is God who gathers us in faith, and who are we to make judgments about that? It is God who gives us our unity, through the sacraments. What a counter-cultural witness to the world that is! In the midst of disagreements, love.)

In the verses from John we Easter people also hear these words: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” What is this peace that Jesus gives? Does “peace” mean retreat to a place where all is bliss, with sunny skies and blue birds? Wouldn’t that be nice? Is it possible? Of course not!

Besides, there’s too much work to do! In fact, this morning’s reading from Acts provides a model of the activism we’re called to. There’s no retreat to safety in these words: During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them. We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. You see the model for Easter people after the resurrection of Jesus. It’s the opposite of hunkering down! It’s moving out, taking risks; it’s bringing into new cultural situations the good news that Christ has entered into our lives of poverty and hunger and death, and now he is risen! Now he brings new possibility, new life!

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” What is this peace? It is a gift of grace in the midst of activism! It is a sign of the eternal life that has already begun.

For instance, consider the civil rights movement during the years of Martin Luther King, Jr. The movement, of course, grew out of the African-American Christian church. It was nourished by the Hebrew prophets’ calls for justice. The demonstrations that carried power were those modeled directly on the example of Jesus. I am so impressed by movement leaders’ sense, during those years, of receiving the grace of peace from God – which gave them courage, even in the face of intense fear and confusion and violence. Martin Luther King Jr. describes how this happened for him, in a dramatic way, when he was 24 years old and leading the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama. Here’s what he writes:

"In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had almost gone, I determined to take my problem to God. My head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud. The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. 'I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid….I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can’t face it alone.'

"At that moment I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never before experienced him. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice, saying, “Stand up for righteousness, stand up for truth. God will be at your side forever.” Almost at once my fears began to pass from me. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything. The outer situation remained the same, but God had given me inner calm.

"Three nights later, our home was bombed. Strangely enough, I accepted the word of the bombing calmly. My experience with God had given me a new strength and trust. I knew now that God is able to give us the interior resources to face the storms and problems of life."

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

Chances are our houses will not be firebombed because of our activism inspired by God the Holy Spirit. (Who knows?) For us, in our lives, what is this peace that Jesus speaks of, in the gospel of John? It is something that you and I receive as grace from God in the midst of our everyday struggles and conflicts.

And so: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you – as you struggle to guide a child or a grandchild who is moving in self-destructive ways.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you – as you struggle to lead a work group of people who are divided and conflicted.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you – as you journey through grief, or as you endure a difficult course of medical treatment.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

What is this peace? It is a sign of the eternal life that has already begun – because Christ is risen! Alleluia!

In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.


Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia