the Paradox of Perfect Freedom

Blessed be God who animates our lives and receives us into the household of all saints that we might know perfect freedom. AMEN

It seems particularly appropriate that on this Sunday we return to in person worship we do so in the context of our baptism. We intentionally wrote the protocols for reopening with the theology of baptism as our guide: to respect the dignity of every human being and to love our neighbor as ourself and to work perpetually for justice.

Paul’s letter to the Romans meets us at that moment where we were and are and ever will be baptized into Christ’s death. And moreover he reminds us that that death by baptism is always and only linked with the resurrection. 

As we look around us in the world today, death and gasping for one’s last breath are in high relief. Whether in the pandemic of COVID or the more clearly identified virus of racial injustice, breathing actually and metaphorically is in the forefront of our lives together. Individual breath and communal breath. The air we breathe to live on this earth and the Breath of God we know as the Holy Spirit breathing in and through us. 

We have been baptized into the death of Christ which also means by theological extension that we will forever be sustained and inspired by the breath of the Holy Spirit. That is the promise; that is the sacred covenant which is intended to guide our lives. 

And furthermore the Trinity: God three in One, the Creator redeemer and sanctifier, is the divine process which gives meaning to Paul’s words: we have already been united with God in death and will be united with Him in a like resurrection. 

Many of us like to think of baptism as a birth and a cleansing. It certainly is all that. But in todays’ world amplified by today’s readings we would be missing at least half the significance if we choose one aspect of Baptism.

Like God Baptism is a sacrament which defies total meaning: it is at least a cleansing, at least a rebirth, at least a joining and membership, at least a welcome AND it is also a death and resurrection. It is our ticket to eternal hope.

And so in this troubled world we pause and remember who and whose we are. We pause and consider where we have been over the last three months as well as where we are going. And we draw all that into this moment; with gratitude; with a different kind of communion; with reverence and devotion. 

In this moment every single one of us has experienced either knowingly or unknowingly a death and resurrection. We have in accord with Matthew’s guidance lost our life and are refinding it. Not much is the same. Certainly not worship; certainly not the way we gather; certainly not even the prohibition to singing. 

But in God’s time which we know is not our chronological time we are offered unseen and seen opportunities. In fact one of the definitions of kairos is a fullness of all that is possible. 

When I worked with a certain autistic boy at the nursery school and when he would object to changes in routine since they were so very important to him, we would say Ben, it is different but it is ok. He gradually came to calm with that mantra.

God is saying to us: It is different but it is ok. The losses and the deaths may cause us to realize new ways of living. The systemic injustices are being addressed in more intense and different ways and that too is ok. Even in the brokenness and injuries there is the Kairotic holy opportunity to redeem and repair. 

Paul and Matthew are calling us to take nothing for granted. Things are not what they appear to be. Even labels and relationships must be reexamined that we might return to God and realize perfect freedom. It is a spiritual process of contemplation and prayer. And it is consistent with the paradoxical nature of this entire life, lectionary and lesson.

When we lose our lives or aspects of our lives we realize the freedom in resurrection; we touch the face of God. In those moments we are acting in a way consistent with our Baptismal covenant, with mercy and respect for all creation. When that opportunity is realized, well, we have glimpsed perfect freedom. 

May every creature great and small, of all colors, sizes, ages and abilities, be lifted out of oppression to know this freedom. And may we the baptized be the instruments of that peace. AMEN