jesus – Wandering and Wondering

Blessing for a Baptismal Font

The church I am serving has only a small silver bowl as their baptismal font, which regularly gets locked up following a baptism not to be seen again until the next baptism. For me, baptismal fonts are meant to be in view at all times. They are meant not just to baptize people, but also to constantly remind us of that baptism.

I love the story that I was told in seminary of the reformer Martin Luther often walking around saying, “I am baptized. I am baptized. I am baptized.” as a way to find his grounding and remembering his courage which was not just in him but beyond him.

One of my mentors, Rev. Wendy Miller-Olapade, shared with me that each time she washes her hands, she is reminded of her baptism. She takes these simple and mundane times as sacred, and, long ago, she encouraged me to do the same.

Baptism is not an act for a single day, but an invitation into and an outward act symbolizing the beginning of living a faith filled life. Therefore, for this congregation, I have been on the hunt for baptismal font.

I finally found one that another congregation was re-homing as their congregation was dissolving. They sought new life for as much of their liturgical tools and furniture as possible. I had to arrange or transportation, but they were happy to find it a new home where it would be loved and used.

This week, we will bless it and welcome it into use in our congregation. Next Sunday, it will get to be used to welcome its first little one in our congregation into the life of Christ.

The challenge that I found was liturgy. I wanted to offer the font some official blessing into service, but I could not find much. So I offer you here what I created and think will work well in our context. I wanted the time of blessing to be significant, but not too long. I wanted to honor its past spiritual home just as we do with new members, and I wanted to include the kids in the blessing so it will be done during Chancel steps and they will join me in dotting it with some sacred oil.

Blessing of a Baptismal Font

Pastor: As we accept this baptismal font into our church as a tool to be used for one of our sacraments, let us take a moment to bless it:

For what is was,

For what it will be . . .

People: We welcome this font in our household of faith.

Pastor: For what it symbolizes,

For the hopes it contains,

People: We welcome this font into our household of faith.

Pastor: Holy God,

Pour down your Spirit upon this font.

May it hold your blessed waters.

May it feed your faithful people.

May it bless us with happy memories

and hold us fast to your hopes.

May it signify a continuation of the family of faith which extends far outside these walls in both space and time.

Each time we see it, may we feel the inner tug of all that has been promised in these waters, whether they were poured here or elsewhere or even if only in someone’s heart.

We honor the journey of this font as it found its way to us and give thanks for our sister church in South Acton, MA in the many ways she sought to lay seeds in the ground even as her own congregation was scattered with the wind and her singular congregation is no more.

We give thanks for their generous hearts that they gifted this font to our congregation that it might continue to serve You.

May this font bring many smiles and joyful moments to this church.

May it signify the tie that binds when in times of trouble.

We pray all of this in your name, O God. AMEN

Blessing with oil – We bless you and set you into service in the name of our creator, son, and holy spirit. AMEN

Impermanence

Today in our mid-week meditation group we made prayer bracelets.

The process was gift and the reminder I found in prepping for the class was worthy.

A while ago, I found this book “A String and A Prayer” on my bookshelf and began reading it in preparation for this class. I used some of the prayers in the back as our opening and shared some of its insights during our class:

-The word bead is an offshoot from its Old English origin “bede” which means prayer.

-In Sanskrit the name of a pray bead chain is called a mala.

-That the practice of putting together prayer beads can be a spiritually significant as the practice of praying with them.

-It is said the the Desert Mothers and Fathers would carry a specified number of beads in their pockets with they would drop to the earth throughout the course of their day as they prayed.

And then finally –

-All prayer bead jewelry will eventually fall apart.

This final one sounds depressing, but it is real. It perhaps struck me especially funny because at our our last confirmation meeting when we created the Protestant equivalent to prayer bead rosaries (which by the way are named such because the beads were apparently made out of crushed rose petals) we worked very hard at crimping and trying to secure our creations so that they would be indestructible. Impermanence is not something that we like to think about much. In Christianity, with the exception of Ash Wednesday and perhaps Good Friday, we have a tendency to focus on the eternal and ever-lasting, brushing aside the reality that life here is guaranteed to end. Perhaps though, the reality of our relatively short mortals lives and the reality of our impermanence might be a gift that might allow us to more fully stop and take in the world around us, celebrating the beauty and appreciating the relationships. Recognizing our impermanence may not be a morbid thought that freezes us in fear, but instead a freeing realization that allows us to better notice the many blessings that abound.

Whether or not you choose to create a prayer bracelet yourself, I hope that you might ponder their impermanence and yours as well. Your life may be all the richer having done so.

A Prayer of Gratitude for the Limitedness of our Lives

Holy One,

We are thankful for this time you have granted us on earth. Let us not waste it, nor take it for granted. Let us have clear view of its limits that we might be all the more thankful for the time we have. Grant us the insight that each breath we take is a blessing.

And when at last our time is short and we can feel the true fragility of life coming our way, let us be able to say that we were thankful for the opportunity, that we were thankful for the friends that we met, and that we were thankful for the time we had.

We give you thanks for each breath, each moment, and for our very life however long or short it might be. AMEN

Economic Justice Sunday

This Sunday we are holding an Economic Justice Sunday as we kick-off our drive for our mission trip to Maine this summer to repair houses through MATE.

For that worship service, here is a Call to Worship and an Invocation:

CALL TO WORSHIP – Based Psalm 69

Pastor: Save us, O God. The water is up to our neck.

People: We are sinking with nowhere to place our feet.

Pastor: The water is deep

People: and our voice is being drowned out in the tumult.

Pastor: Hear, O God, our cumulative cries.

People: Respond to those in peril and send angels to their sides.

Pastor: If we are among the troubled, bring us peace and justice.

People: If we are among those already in peace, bring us purpose and perspective.

INVOCATION: –

Holy One, In our time together this morning, press open our hearts to the pain and pressures of life that others are bearing. Let us hear the cries of those being overwhelmed by the world around them. Shake us from complacency. Move us to action. Forgive us when we justify inequity. Inspire us to act as your emissaries in this world, and let us become a part of your healing balm. Be with us as we are awakened to and reminded of the harsh realities that exist in world today. AMEN

And they went home by another way

Balthazar as he prepared for his journey.

Meet Balthazar.

Balthazar is by tradition the name of one of the Magi that visited Jesus when he was born (The Bible does not actually tell us their names names or even how many their actually was of them.). In our church, Balthazar has been quite busy over the past several weeks. He has been out on an epic adventure. It was anyone’s guess if he would manage to return in a timely fashion for our Epiphany celebration (Even I was not 100% sure).

On the first Sunday of Advent, we set him out on his journey by handing him to one of the children during chancel steps. Since then he has been traveling from family to family. As each person received him, they signed the card and then passed him along to someone else. Each signature was like a passport stamp for all the different households that Balthazar traveled through to make it to the Nativity.

The card was used not only to record Balthazar’s travels, but also to offer the instructions about returning Balthazar. He is supposed to return to church on the Sunday closest to Epiphany (January 6th). This year, that meant yesterday, the 5th of January. Sure enough and miracle of miracles, he did return this past Sunday. All the Magi, both the beautiful ceramic set and their Playmobil counterparts, arrived on time to bestow their gifts to Jesus. This is clearly going to be a new tradition. The kids were thrilled to be a part of the telling of the Christmas story. The return of Balthazar to the Nativity set ranked up there with the placing of baby Jesus in the manger at the 5pm Christmas Eve worship service.

I am very thankful that my colleague, Pastor Karen Fournier, for sharing this idea with me. New ideas are but one of the many blessings that a pastor can gain by fostering strong collegial bonds. And now I offer this idea to you. I can’t wait to hear about all of Balthazar’s travels.

NOTES:

This particular figure is from Playmobil. It came with the other wise men, a camel, frankincense, gold, and myrrh. I liked this figurine because it was durable, easily transportable, and replaceable if necessary. Apparently, you can now also just buy the three wise men from them too without all the accessories. Fisher Price has a set as well which apparently comes from the bigger Nativity set.

This is also the day that we handed out the star words that I shared about earlier in the week.