Introduction
This is the sermon I preached at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Beatrice, Neb., on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 29-30, 2009, the weekend of the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
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Readings
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9
Psalm 15 (1)
James 1:17-27
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
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Prayer
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation[s] of [our] heart[s]
be acceptable to you,
O LORD, [our] rock and [our] redeemer.” Amen. (Psalm 19:14, NRSV)
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Message
A few weeks ago,
our niece visited with us for a couple of days.
She brought her two children with her.
Her son, Ethan, the older of the two, is five.
And one day, I saw him walking across the living room,
and there was something familiar about the scene.
Then I realized he had on a baseball cap
and was carrying a pop bottle in his right hand.
And the way he dangled the bottle from its neck—
so casually and naturally—
was exactly the same way his dad does.
It made me chuckle to myself
to see how this little man
had adopted his dad’s mannerism.
This gesture passed between generations,
becoming a tradition,
a kind of baton handed off
between parent and child
in the relay race of life.
It’s not surprising,
because children are the most amazing mimes,
the most adept mimics.
And even babies will respond to our facial expressions,
mirroring us with their own interpretations of those faces.
And so, we can always trust
that those who are younger than we are
will look to us as examples, as models.
They are watching us,
and they will adopt our habits,
emulate our actions,
take on our ways.
There’s nothing new to this,
nothing newer really than the bonds
between parents and children,
between elders and youth.
So it makes all the sense in the world
when Moses tells the people of Israel
gathered on the plains of Moab
to pay attention to their thoughts and actions
and to pass them on to future generations:
“But take care and watch yourselves closely,
so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen
nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life;
make them known to your children and your children’s children….”
(Deuteronomy 4:9, NRSV)
In those days,
people had only their memories
to rely on for help in recalling their own lives and their histories.
Written records, if there were any, were rare.
There were no photographs, no tapes or recordings.
And so that’s why Moses calls the people
to remember their own history.
They have a duty to keep it fresh,
and to pass it on faithfully
to the younger generations.
This keeps the tradition alive.
In fact, the word tradition
comes from two words meaning
“to hand over.”
And just like a baton in a relay race,
God’s people have handed on
the tradition of faith
from generation to generation.
It began with Adam and Eve,
and Sarah and Abraham,
and the rest of the patriarchs and matriarchs,
and then went to Moses and his sister Miriam,
and continued through the people of Israel
to Mary and Joseph and Jesus.
And then it was passed on through the apostles
and into the Church
and down the years and centuries
until that tradition
comes to rest in our hands.
And just as we have been brought into the faith
by those who have come before us—
our parents and other elders—
we now have the joy and the task
of passing that faith on to the next generation.
And this weekend,
we are doing just that.
[On Sunday/In this service],
we are gathering around the font
to witness the baptism of Isaak Jeremy.
In this washing with water
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
we will see God welcome a new brother into his family.
He will join Isaak with us in that communion,
and bless him with new life in Christ.
And at the same time,
Isaak’s parents and sponsors are committing themselves
to carry out the task Moses gave the people so long ago:
making the faith known to a child.
But they do not do this alone.
We make a promise as well,
for ourselves and for the whole Church.
“We welcome you into the Lord’s family.
We receive you as a fellow member of the body of Christ,
a child of the same heavenly Father,
and a worker with us in the kingdom of God.” (LBW, p. 125)
We now have responsibilities for one another.
We share our faith in God,
so that when one of us weakens,
that one may lean on the faith of others.
We remind one another
of the traditions, the history, the teachings,
the commandments, the morality,
the mission, the promises, and the hopes
that we all share as part of the Lord’s family.
This is our lifelong responsibility
for one another.
Isaak’s part in this family of God tradition
begins this weekend.
And it will continue in the years ahead.
And in just a few quick years,
he will come to the time in his life
that Kirsten and Cajun mark [on Sunday/this morning],
when they gather to prepare for their First Communion.
This is how we work together,
as a community of faith,
to keep the promise we make
in the liturgy of Holy Baptism,
to “…provide for [each child’s] instruction in the Christian faith….” (LBW, p. 121).
And as each one of us “grows in years,”
whether we are children or adults,
we join the people of faith
in worship in “the services of God’s house,”
in learning about “the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments,”
in opening our eyes and minds and hearts to “the Holy Scriptures.” (LBW, p. 121)
Eventually we reach the age
when we leave the homes of our parents,
and make our own ways in the world.
Many of us then start our own families,
and perhaps raise our own children.
But we never grow too old to be children in God’s family;
we never move out of God’s house.
Instead, we come together,
to remind ourselves and one another
of the tradition we have received,
so that we do not “…forget the things that []our eyes have seen
[]or let them slip from []our minds all the days of []our li[ves]….” (Deuteronomy 4:9, NRSV)
When we live this way,
in this family,
then, by God’s grace,
we will live among those to whom the Psalmist points
when he asks and answers a question,
“O LORD, who may abide in your tent?
Who may dwell on your holy hill?
Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right,
and speak the truth from their heart….
Those who do these things shall never be moved.” (Psalm 15:1-2, 5b, NRSV)
This is the tradition we have received,
the baton of faith passed into our hands
from those who have gone before us in the faith.
By God’s grace, we can in obedience
hand on what we have received,
becoming models of the Christian life,
people worthy of imitation by our children,
because in each of us beats a heart dedicated to God. Amen.