Baptismal Prayer

 

God, You sang and surfed over the watery chaos in the beginning.  Sing to the places and spaces that slosh and surge with chaos within and around me.  God, You set a rainbow as a promise in the midst of the flood, let Your colors of creations remind me of Your presence as I try to keep my head above water.  You wrestled with Jacob and blessed him (and set his hip out of place), but bless me in our holy wrestling God, even as I limp right now.  Sea parting, tree planting by waters, weeping, always washing over us God, let Your baptismal love drench me right now.  Saturate and soak me in ways that renew me to be full of Your love.  When the voices of my inner critic start to clamor, help me breathe.  When the world out there seems too uncontrollable and chaotic, help me be.  When I want to run away, help me be a presence in the world in a way that shines and shares the truth that You are not finished.  Meet me in this moment and every moment in the days to come.  Remind me that You call each of us, “Beloved” to our aching hearts and wanting souls and less than glimmer lives.  Let each of us rest in You now and in the days to come.  Amen. 

A Baptismal Blessing for You

 

As we continue to hold and be held by our baptism, I invite you today to hear these prayerful and powerful words of Jan Richardson:

 

As if we could call you
anything other than
beloved
and blessed

drenched as we are
in our love for you

washed as we are
by our delight in you

born anew as we are
by the grace that flows
from the heart of the one
who bore you to us.

Beginning with Beloved ~ A Blessing

Begin here:

Beloved.

Is there any other word needs saying,
any other blessing could compare with this name,
this knowing?

Beloved.

Comes like a mercy to the ear that has never heard it.
Comes like a river to the body that has never seen such grace.

Beloved.

Comes holy to the heart aching to be new.
Comes healing to the soul wanting to begin again.

Beloved.

Keep saying it and though it may sound strange at first,
watch how it becomes part of you,
how it becomes you, as if you never could have known yourself anything else,
as if you could ever have been other than this:

Beloved.

 

May this truth of who and whose you are wash over you this day and throughout the rest of the year.  Amen.

Baptismal Belovedness Part 3

 

We have been to the wilderness, waded in the Jordon with Mark and Luke so far this week to hear of Jesus’ baptism.  Today, we lean in and listen to Matthew who expands on the narrative of this sacred ritual.  From Matthew 3

 

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.  John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”  But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him.  And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

 

I love how Matthew has John the Baptizer protest that the roles need to be reversed.  There are many moments in our lives that we can feel in over our heads or like an imposture.  We can feel like everyone else got the manual for life and apparently, we were absent that day from school (darn chicken pox!!).  In a culture that thrives on comparison and competition and who can post the best photo/video to social media to increase likes and followers, it feels like we are skimming the surface of life in many ways. 

 

Today, I invite you to take a coffee cup or glass or Tupperware container ~ anything where there is an outside and inside.  Think about the names/roles/ways you are perceived and received by the world.  If I had a sharpie, I could write on the outside of my mug words like, “Husband”, “Father”, “Pastor”, “Writer”, “Jogger”, “Amateur Photographer”, “Wannabe Poet”, etc.  But what to write on the inside?  This is where it goes a bit more personal, even uncomfortable.  Because I might write words like, “Addicted to work”, “Sometimes I feel like God’s employee not God’s beloved”, “Thirsty for joy”, “Longing for peace”, “Hungry for hope”, and “Praying for God’s love to turn the world right side up.”  We all live on the inside edge of life, with one foot facing outward to others and one foot firmly on an internal world we are not sure we can share with others.  Today, hold your one wild and precious life.  Or better yet, go to the water, to be buoyed by your first, middle, and last name, “Beloved” which is how God sees you and hold you every day.  Amen.

Baptismal Belovedness Part 2

 

This week we are exploring, and I pray experiencing afresh, our baptismal truth that claims our life.  We are prayerfully seeking to live our belovedness ~ as our first, middle and last name.  Yesterday, we waded in the water with Mark’s telling of Jesus’ baptism.  Today, we turn to Luke 3:21-22 ~ But before John’s imprisonment, when he was still preaching and ritually cleansing through baptism the people in the Jordan River, Jesus also came to him to be baptized. As Jesus prayed, the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit came upon Him in a physical manifestation that resembled a dove. A voice echoed out from heaven. “You are My Son, the Son I love, and in You I take great pleasure.”

 

One detail that leaps off the screen and lands in my heart is that baptism is a ritual for cleansing.  We know that water cleans our bodies, countertops, clothes, and dishes.  We know water renews and restores the earth through rain.  We know water hydrates and is essential for all life (from the smallest snail sneaking along the sidewalk to the manatee swimming in the ocean).  Every time we encounter water both externally and drink to nourish us internally ~ this is a ritual of cleansing.  Is there a place right now you long for renewal or reconciliation?  Last week we held the central scriptural passage about loving God, others, and self.  What if today, you took time to write down where you long for healing with yourself, another, and God.  Maybe your inner critic has been cracking a whip demanding and decreeing you get going on those New Years resolutions.  Maybe you are pushing yourself so hard, to the point of exhaustion.  Maybe your anger at another featherless biped, with whom you share DNA, keeps consuming your thoughts ~ spinning like a hamster on a wheel.  Maybe you are angry with God that the world is unjust and why doesn’t God swoop in and save us because we could use a little help here! 

 

Let your life speak to you.  Let your heart, soul, body, and mind come together like a choir to sing ~ even if they are out of tune.  And hold where you, like Christ, long to gather at the river to be renewed as we approach the halfway point of the first month of this year.  May you open your heart/ears/life to hear God saying, “You are my beloved” and may you and I live from this place of truth.  Amen.

Baptismal Belovedness

 

I remember my brown corduroy jacket with patches on the elbows.  I remember the ruby red shag carpet in the sanctuary and the dark wood.  I remember the sun streaming in through the large stained-glass window of surfer Jesus (with blue eyes, white skin, looking and gazing heavenward with long, flowing brown hair) praying in the garden of Gethsemane.  I remember my parents, brother, aunt, and uncle all standing around me at the age of eleven, as I was sprinkled with the baptismal water.  There was no booming James Earl Jones heavenly voice that moment.  There were no doves swooping and soaring around.  I don’t remember feeling different after my baptism but seared into my soul in that morning was God’s love.  I am not sure why my parents waited until I was eleven to part-take in this ritual.  I belong to a tradition where usually this sacrament is celebrated soon after the child is born.  In many ways, I am grateful I have that moment etched in my heart.

 

When I hear from Mark, “At this time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. The moment he came out of the water, he saw the sky split open and God’s Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him. Along with the Spirit, a voice: “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.””  God claims Jesus in the Jordon as he is cradled in John the Baptizer’s arms.  As they wade in the water (which is a reference to Genesis 1 where God surfs and sings in a duet with the watery chaos or in the time of Noah or wrestling with Jacob by the riverside).  Water is a sacred site.  Jordan is even more holy because that was where Joshua parted the waters, and the people of God crossed over into the promised land. 

 

There is the delicious detail in Mark about the sky splitting open and a Spirit descending.  Is there a place right now where your life is feeling split open?  This can be in life-giving or life-draining ways.  The splitting can be a shattering of a relationship/health/faith/community/family and so many more ways.  The splitting can be a holy opening that wasn’t there before, the proverbial window that opens when the door you wanted to use was locked tight.  Thirteen days into 2025, what is shifting, splitting, stirring within you?  How might God be amid that chaotic movement, just as God was in the beginning?  I encourage you to go to the waters today and maybe even wade in those waters (unless it is below 60 degrees, then just sit by the pool in the sun and imagine this).  As you listen to the water, maybe even splash some on your face, or take a bit of water and make the sign of the cross on your forehead.  Remember your baptism, maybe not literally, but that moment of God’s claim.  God says to everyone, “You are my beloved ~ my joy, with you I am well pleased.”  This is the truth from which we live our lives moment by moment.  May the God who meets you in the waters with grace and love that never lets you go surround and soak and saturate your life today.  Amen.

Prayer

 

This week, I invited you to let the passage from Matthew about loving God, loving others, and loving self, sing to your soul and shape your everyday life.  There are thousands of practices and ways of letting this scripture passage sink into our souls and steer the ship of our lives.  You can practice the examen where at the end of the day you name where God showed up (one specific place), where God felt distant, where you wish you’d done something different (word or action), and one intention for the next day.  For example, God showed up for me this week in Bible Study, felt distant at a meeting which is also where I said something I wish I had not, and I set an intention to breathe before I speak, to pause before I pontificate!  Or you can continue to ask yourself, where did you feel like a fountain this week and where did life feel like it was going down the drain?  What filled you with energy and what left you gasping for air?  Or you can name and notice how family shared God’s love and where they pushed the nuclear code and set the tiny vein in your neck pulsing ~ because those closest to us often have the secret key to our emotions.  Keep turning and twisting this one verse of scripture of in these words is God’s wisdom for our lives.  Let us pray:

God of love that is found in the rising of the sun to the going down of the same.  God who is a genius at play, help us be more playful as we are prayerful.  Help us recover the child-like wonder of trees swaying or hearing birds singing or seeing a butterfly flash before our eyes.  Slow us down to listen and lean in to music that stirs our souls and conversations that warm our hearts.  Help us be present to this day, for in the hours ahead is exactly where You wait for us and You are here right now with the dirty dishes piled in the sink and the long to-do list and the feelings of loneliness and emotions that are all over the map.  On this 10^th day of a New Year, God, we need thee every hour, come and abide and fill us with Your power, help us in the moments when life turns lemon-sour, and always help us sense Your love like a flower.  Help make our verses rhyme, even it seems silly at the time.  Let Your grace and love be what feeds and fuels our lives every day.  Amen.  

Circle of Others

 

Yesterday, I offered a few questions to help you explore the mystery of your life.  One of the questions was about five important people.  Today, I invite you to pick one and write that person a love letter.  Don’t worry, you don’t have to send it.  There is no “should” or “have to” or earning a badge for your heavenly sash.  This is a chance to let loose the love in your heart for another person.  You can write to a person who is alive or in God’s eternal embrace.  I do encourage you to write the letter by hand.  I know that is old school.  Don’t worry, I am not asking you to go buy a feather quill and ink or fancy paper made from Egyptian plant fibers ~ I mean if you want to, go ahead.  Know that the back of an envelope will do, or you may need several.  You could start this letter by expressing gratitude for ways this person shared God’s love with you.  I encourage you to be specific.  Thank the person for making you laugh so hard, especially that one time at school when milk spurted out your nose.  Thank the person for handing your hand and not trying to fix/solve/dismiss or diminish your pain when the marriage ended.  Thank the person for giving you that gift you treasure or going with you on that car trip to see the biggest ball of twine.  Or maybe you thought of someone who you have a rocky relationship with, who you love, but sometimes frustrated you.  Ask for forgiveness for your participation and let go of the pain (note this is rarely a one and done process ~ often it is the slow ripening of the soul that forgives bit by bit each day).  Maybe you want to tell this person about an ordinary day you just had.  Your letter doesn’t have to be spectacular; it probably won’t be published or the Smithsonian probably won’t ask you for your letter to store in their archives.  This is a chance to be honest, open, and willing (that is where HOW is a acronym for living life ~ H for honest, O for open, and W for willing).  And prayer practices like writing letters to people who left fingerprints upon your heart help remind us how love shows up in our lives.  With God’s love to each of you.  Amen.