Garrett, Samantha, Charlotte, gathered friends, family, and visitors: we are gathered here today in the sight of God and of one another to bear witness to the promises made between the Holy Trinity and these three young disciples who are now stepping into making this faith their own. We are gathered for this rite, this affirmation of Baptism, on a very strange day: The festival of the Holy Trinity. A great mystery. Our best attempt at putting words and language on this God who is far too great to fit into our language, but who really wants to be known. This God who stumbles along with us as we live in relationship together with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What a great day to celebrate that we don’t have all the answers, and never will, but that God keeps showing up and enticing us anyway. God is sometimes a terrible tease, a horrendous flirt, dazzling us with this marvelous creation, playing hide-and-seek, catch-and-keep, where only God ever ends up the winner, but loves us so much that when God wins, we do, too.
And so, Charlotte, Samantha, and Garrett, today you three are affirming the Baptismal promises your parents and godparents made on your behalf when you were still in diapers. Today we celebrate with you that you have been brought up in the faith, and for the past two years you have studied more intensively the basic Christian foundations of the Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, Baptism and Communion. We celebrate that after all of that you have come to decide that this whole thing is worth spending the rest of your life learning about and living with. Because it will take your entire life to struggle with and learn to love this God who is revealed to us in Scripture and worship, made known by the Spirit in the person of Jesus, and your entire life will be enriched by this struggle and this love.
This is not, in other words, graduation. It’s more like your wedding day, more like, as cheesy as it sounds, the first day of the rest of your life. And we are glad you are here to share your celebration with us, because we need your witness among us. You can bet that no matter what happens in your life and faith from here on out God isn’t done with you yet, and you are part of us, and we are in this struggle of faith and life together.
Which brings us to the readings for today. Because it’s all connected, you know. What today’s celebration in particular has to do with these stories is that you are not suddenly setting off into the world on your own, like a lone soldier or cowboy or stand-alone superhero fighting against the world. It feels good to stand against the world and survive and win and it’s kind of the American dream to be that lone cowboy, that resplendent diva who makes it big on her own. We like to be strong. And rites of passage into adulthood tend to make us think we’re now expected to be self-sufficient and responsible and don’t need any one else any more. But as Christians we know that’s not true. Our Scriptures are full of real relationships, our identifying stories are all about people and God working together for the greater resurrection story.
The resurrection story is necessary, vital, a life-and-death deal because of this big lie we’ve believed. There is no bigger lie than the lie that we are alone, that nobody is listening, that in the whole universe no one understands, that there isn’t a soul alive or dead who would love us or need us or take care about us. For some reason we’ve come to rely on our own power to make ourselves ‘worthy’ of belonging, but by virtue of our creation we already belong, and don’t have to fight for a place at the table. Seven whole days of creating a world of ecosystems so diverse and interconnected and somehow we’ve come to believe God would make us completely separate from and independent from it all? That’s not how this works! We are part of this world, like it or not, warts and all.
See, just because you take this step today of growing up in the eyes of the church, of becoming an adult, voting member of this community, with voice and authority in the decisions we make and the ministries we share, does not mean you suddenly have all the answers and can stand alone and apart, or even ought to. We don’t have all the answers. What today’s rite of passage does mean is that God, who created, calls, and sends you into your everyday life, is faithful. And the promises you make today remind us all of that truth. We talk of this God as triune because we understand God in relationship, and that loving relationship is so big and so central to who God is that God’s own self is defined by a relationship we call the Holy Trinity.
This is the best language we have, as confusing as it is. A great mystery, this is the God to whom you will be giving your heart once again in just a few minutes, when I ask you about who you believe in. This is the God who has already given his heart to you, who will never stop loving you, who will always be as close as the air you breathe and as complicated as nuclear physics and calculus and ancient languages and romantic love all wrapped up together in an enigma full of symbols and metaphor. But together - as we have been given to each other, washed in the same Baptismal waters, fed by the same Eucharist, gathered and sent by the same love - together we learn and reflect more of this God whose love is big enough to create the entire universe and close enough to walk in it with us. Together we realize that God is in our midst, as Jesus has promised: "I am with you always, to the end of the age." Amen.
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