The Second Sunday after Epiphany, Year A

Come and See

Readings: Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42

Invitations come in many shapes and sizes. They may come in the mail, or by email. They may come by telephone or by word of mouth. They even come on street corners, or in unexpected ways. Some are personal, almost intimate. That first date kind of invitation! Whatever the form, invitations always ask the same question, “Why don’t you come and see?”

“Come and see,” is almost the first thing that Jesus says in John’s gospel. He says it to two of John’s disciples. They had gone out into the desert to see John the Baptist, to hear him preach, to be baptised by him. He had announced the Messiah to them. “Look! The lamb of God!” he had said of Jesus.

And so they went looking for Jesus. “What are you looking for?” Jesus asked them.

“Where are you staying?” was their response.

And then the relationship really begins. For that is when Jesus issues the invitation. “Come and see!” Isn’t that a wonderful way to begin a relationship? With an invitation? Isn’t that the way a truly good relationship unfolds? “Leave behind whatever you have to leave behind,” Jesus is saying. There is always something that needs to be abandoned. “Come, leave your nets and boat,” Jesus said to James and John. “Leave your counting table and ledgers,” he said to the tax collector, Matthew. “Leave everything you have and follow me,” he said to a young wealthy man. “Leave your past. Leave your home, your friends, your enemies, and come and follow me. Come and see what lies ahead.”

Why do we come? What are we seeking? What are we willing to leave behind? ‘Come and see’ is an invitation that is offered to each of us over and over in our lives. Come and see what lies ahead. Leave your work, leave school, leave retirement. Leave your old self behind, because the fact is, you cannot take any of it with you. What’s more, you probably won’t need it when you get to where you are going. Abandon your accustomed world of IPhones, computers and coffee cups.

“Come and see” invites us into an alternative world, a place we have never been. And after all, you cannot have one foot in Leamington and the other in some far away, exotic South Sea Island. You cannot begin the journey without leaving. That is why “come and see” is such an amazing invitation.

I consider the times that I have accepted that invitation to come and see. As a young teacher it took me up to James Bay where I taught for Indian Affairs in a Residential School. What a journey that was! I look back on that first experience of teaching and realize that God was in it, preparing me for a lifetime of listening and responding to God’s call. I had so many new experiences. I got a wider perspective of the diversity of our country. I was able to use my gifts and talents as I responded in faith.

But it was not an easy place to be. It was a lonely experience for a teenager away from home for the first time. I often went weeks at a time without hearing from family or friends. I was teaching children who were lonely, far away from their homes, grieving their loss of language and culture. Later on as we began to hear of the abuses of the residential school system and the history of our First Nations People began to be told, it became a source of great pain to me that I had been a part of that abuse. That too, led to a new invitation to come and see. During the Truth and Reconciliation process I became an Ambassador for the Anglican Church of Canada. I learned so much in that process about the history of our First Nations People, about all that they suffered. I began to do workshops and to do what I could to right the wrongs of the past. I was able through listening to their stories to find a place of reconciliation for myself.

My call to ordained ministry was certainly a call to come and see. I left behind many facets of my life – my teaching, a good salary, music, my home down on the lake in Etobicoke. I took up the uncertainty of becoming a student once again. There was even the uncertainty of whether or not I would ever be ordained. It is a long and involved process of discernment. I knew that it was not just something that I thought should happen, that I wanted to do. It was something that needed to be discerned by the wider church. But I had a sense of trust that whatever God was calling me to come and see was a part of the journey that I needed to experience. Indeed, perhaps the most important thing I learned was to be the best Ann I could be.

We need to learn and discern about out call. Yet there is another, perhaps even more important aspect to the invitation. It is an invitation that we as Christians need to offer to others. Jesus says ‘come and see’ through us. A simple invitation can be life changing. Come and see … That invitation can come in so many ways. It might be in a letter, or a look, or a simple act of unselfish love. When we invite others to faith, we invite them to encounter Christ, to join us on our faith journey.

“Come and see the Lord,” we are saying. “He will show us new ways of loving. He will show us new ways of living. He will give us a new identity as a Christian. He will show us the way to God. Come and see …”

How have you influenced others to become Christ-like? Have you extended them acts of love? Have you invited them to join you at church? Have you offered to pick them up and bring them to church? Have you invited them to stay for coffee and meet others in the congregation? Have you shared your own faith journey?

The story begins as it did for the disciples who wanted to meet Jesus. “Come and see,” Jesus said to them. And they followed him.

This whole congregation needs to be alert to the needs of those who come to see, those who are seeking Christ. That is our job as Christians. Is this a welcoming community of faith? Have you made an honest assessment of how welcoming you are? Our churches can be so inaccessible to people. There are many barriers to overcome. I was speaking to someone some time ago and I invited her to come to church with me. She told me she wouldn’t know what to wear. What keeps people from coming here?

What about once someone enters an Anglican church? How user friendly is our service? First of all there are the acronyms that we use so freely. The BAS, the BCP, PWRDF, the ACW. It must be very confusing for someone who comes to church for the first time. Then we flip pages. And as if that is not enough we have not one, but two books to handle. Are you attentive to those who are visiting or who are checking the church out? Do you make sure they know their way around the service?

What about where you sit? Do you always sit in the same seat? What if you happen to come in and someone is sitting in your place? What do you do? A little story about one of the churches that I served in. It was a tiny church in a village that was growing rapidly. The church also was experiencing great growth, especially young families with children. A long-time member of the church came in, looked around, and then searched me out. “There are people sitting in my pew,” she said to me. I turned to the sidespeople and asked them to find her a place to sit. I continued to get ready for the service. When I entered the church, I was flabbergasted to see that she was sitting in her pew by herself, while the family were on chairs at the back. That is a pretty extreme example, but does it happen here? What if you were to sit in different places just to get to know other parishioners? Would it give you a new perspective?

How do you make coffee hour more welcoming to newcomers? There is an excitement in this congregation as you chat with one another. It is wonderful. There is no doubt that it is a friendly place. But that can be intimidating to someone new. It can feel like a club. I challenge you to talk to someone each week that you have never spoken to before.

God uses us, each one of us, to communicate the faith. Every day of our lives, that welcoming message needs to come across loud and clear. “Come and see! Come and see where God is leading you. Come and see what wonderful things God has in store for your life. Come and see Jesus. Come and get to know him. Come and see…”

The Baptism of the Lord, Year A

Marked By Baptism

Readings: Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17

When I left my teaching position to study Theology, my good friend and colleague gave me a lovely gift, a glass swan on a mirror. She called it a marker, something to mark a significant event in my life as I made the transition from teaching to ordained ministry. I still have her gift. I consider it to be a treasure. But on reflection I realized that I already had a marker in my life. Through the sacrament of baptism I became a child of God, God’s beloved. “I sign you with the sign of the cross and mark you as Christ’s own for ever,” we say as we make the sign of the cross on the child’s forehead. I have that marker in my life.

John foretells the imminent arrival of the Coming One. Then Jesus, that very one, appears at the Jordan River to be baptized by him. John objects. “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?”

Jesus’ response may seem at first glance to be strange. “It is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness,” he says to John. And John then consents to the baptism. By his baptism, Jesus identifies himself with humankind in all of our sinfulness. Yet if anyone is fulfilling righteousness already it is Jesus. What Jesus is saying, I think, is that God’s work, putting things right, is coming together in this baptism at this time. It is for Jesus the beginning of his earthly ministry. He is making a public declaration about where he stands in terms of God’s justice. His ministry is about righting the wrongs and lifting the burdens from the oppressed. He is being called by God to shine the light of God’s truth into all the dark places of the world.

And isn’t that exactly what Jesus did? Of course, the world responded as it always does by trying to stifle the goodness and light that Jesus brought. Humankind does not take kindly to criticism or to having one’s deeds exposed. And so Jesus was labelled a criminal and executed. That means that we who have been baptised sharing in Jesus’ baptism cannot stand by and approve of what happens in the world. It means we must strive to fulfill righteousness. We too must go about doing God’s work of justice, of putting things right, of shining the light of God’s truth into the dark places of the world.

And yet as I reflect on justice, I realize that our version of justice has often simply spread the darkness further through the world. Too often justice is brought about through vengeance, through force, through hostility, rather than through compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation. How do we let the light of the gospel shine through us into the darkness around us?

All of that is reflected in our Baptismal Covenant which we will renew this morning in place of the usual affirmation of our faith. What did baptism mean to you? After all, for most of us here this morning it was likely a rite undertaken on our behalf when we were babies. That is the norm for an Anglican. How then does baptism become meaningful in our lives?

My baptism was as an infant. It was on May 24th, a Sunday afternoon. I was a few weeks old, so I don’t remember the day. But I can recount it to you, because my parents and sponsors made certain that I heard the story. They told me about the service. They gathered in the little church in Byng, my father’s first parish, on a beautiful sunny day. There were my older siblings, my parents and sponsors, my aunt and uncle and a good friend of the family, Aunt Alice Francis. My father performed the baptism. I was sprinkled with water. My brother was immersed and my mother put her foot down about the rest of us. She wasn’t going to have us drowned. A party followed the baptism and, since it was the long weekend, there were fireworks down by the river. I have pictures that were taken that day in the little church. I have my baptismal certificate and the tiny silver cross that my Godmother gave me. More than that, I have the recognition that something momentous happened in my life that day. That is because my parents brought me up in the faith. As I came to understand God’s significance in my life, I assumed the responsibility for my own spiritual life. I began to take my baptismal covenant seriously. In effect, I entered into ministry. Not ordained ministry – that came much later – but ministry nevertheless.

Grace is given at baptism. That has great significance. But as we grow into adulthood, we need to take responsibility for our spiritual lives. Baptism is something to be lived every day. When we were baptised God said over us as God said over Jesus, “This is my beloved.” We need to live every day knowing that by baptism we are beloved of God.

Being beloved of God carries with it an enormous responsibility. It is in the Scripture readings today. It is in the Baptismal Covenant that we will renew later in the service.

"Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers?" I will say, and hopefully you will all answer, “We will with God’s help.” We get our spiritual nurturing by meeting as a community for fellowship and prayer. We hear the Word spoken and preached. We share bread and wine as we remember God's great gift to us.

"Will you persevere in resisting evil and, whenever you fall into sin repent and return to the Lord?" We will continue. A friend of mine has argued with me over the years about the need to confess our sins and to seek absolution. "You confess your sins every Sunday and then you go out and sin again," he said to me. "It just gives you permission to be a sinner. All those 'good' Christians coming sanctimoniously to church, getting down on their knees and repenting, and then going out of church with permission to do the same thing over again! What is the sense of all that!”

I reminded him that confession is good for the soul. It is part and parcel of our human nature to need reminders that we fall short of the grace that God so freely bestows on us. We need to know that no matter how many times we fail, God is there reaching out to us. But we need to know that it is our responsibility to live the Christian life. We can't simply say 'the devil made me do it'. And above all, if we are to be forgiving we need to know that we are forgiven.

I will ask you, "Will you continue by word and example the good news of God in Christ?" Most of us are not good at 'wearing' our faith. It is ‘unanglican’. It is not something we talk about too freely. Truly talking is not the most important evangelistic tool that we have. It is by living the Christian life that we share the good news. “Preach the gospel,” says St. Francis. “Use words if necessary.”

"Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbour as yourself?" We are redeemed and reconciled by the Spirit. We are called to follow Jesus. We have the task Isaiah put before the people of Israel and that we see fulfilled in the life of Jesus Christ. We are called to be light to the nations, to open blind eyes, to bring prisoners out of bondage, and to feed and clothe the poor and hungry. It is our call as part of the human race. It is our responsibility as Christians.

"Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?" How inclusive are we as a community? Are we advocates for the poor and those in need? The vocation of the Christian life and witness is to shed light on issues of justice. It is the great commandment once again. It is about our call to love God and to love neighbour.

And finally, one that is not in the BAS, but has been wisely added in recent years by General Synod. “Will you strive to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation, and respect, sustain and renew the life of the Earth?” In light of the ecological problems the world faces – wild fires, floods, drought, famine – that may be our most important call as Christians. What do we do personally to change our footprint, to use less of the world’s resources in a country blessed with so much? How do we become environmental advocates and activists when so many of our politicians and world leaders deny climate change? Do we simply give up thinking that we can do nothing, or do we demand the change that is needed and do something about it in our own lives?

If we take our Baptismal Covenant seriously – and I hope and pray that we do – then God’s justice must be our justice. The heart of the Christian faith is that by baptism each of us is brought into intimate relationship with a loving God. The simple fact is that I am God’s beloved daughter. You are God’s beloved son or daughter. It is for each of us to claim it and to live in the joy and confidence of it. The consequence of our baptism is that we emulate Christ, through witness in word and deed, and through communicating the love of God to all of humankind. There is a marker in your life. You are marked with the sign of the cross. Go out and be God’s light in a world of darkness. Amen.