I Will Be With You

Baptism of the Lord Sunday

Luke 3:21-22, Acts 8:14-17, Isaiah 43:1-7

Dedication of Cody.

Baptism of Derrick.

• I read a statistic that said there are over two billion Christians in the world – that’s nearly a third of the world – and there are about a billion Catholics in the world,
and about a third of the world’s Christians live in the Americas. (http://www.pewforum.org/christian/global-christianity-exec.aspx)

Some folks will hear those statistics and be amazed (started with 12), some excited that there’s so many Christians, some will say we’ve got a lot of work to do.

          And as long as there have been people following Christ, there have been differences in belief and practice. People hear the same words and respond to them differently, people encounter God in different ways and come to different conclusions about how the Bible is to be interpreted and how the life of faith carried out.

          I want to talk a little bit about denominations.  I read one figure that said there were over 40,000 denominations. That’s 40K divisions in the body of Christ, and I think a good number of those divisions happen over one of two questions:

what is believed, and who has authority.

What happens in communion, who may partake, who may celebrate, what happens in baptism, who may receive, who may perform, those are some questions of belief.

Who can be a pastor, who can ordain a pastor, who can define exactly what it is the church believes and practices, who owns the church building, those are some questions of authority.

• One of the largest and earliest divisions in the church happened about a thousand years ago, and had to do with both belief and authority. Churches in east and southeast Europe held that the bishop of the church in Rome was “first among equals” – that is, the pope did not have authority over other regional bishops – and churches in central and west Europe believed the bishop of the church in Rome DID have authority over other bishops. This question of authority was a major contributor to the splitting of the church into the RCC and the EOC.

          Another major contributor to this split had to do with a question of belief, specifically the origin of the Holy Spirit. In the East, they said the HS comes from the Father, and in the West, from the Father AND the Son. And the church divided.

• You may think those are petty reasons for the church to be divided, but who has authority and what is believed have caused thousands of divisions.

          By the way, I’m not sure all church divisions are bad, or that denominations are upsetting, any more than there are different kinds of music and sports and food and you get the point. There is a kind of beauty in diversity, and there is certainly beauty when groups that differ on specifics can celebrate the things they have in common.

“In essentials, unity; 

   in non-essentials, liberty; 

   in all things, charity”

• Some unique things about The UMC, by the way: who has authority? In all official matters of doctrine and church law, the clergy and the laity have equal voice, and we have elected bishops who oversee the churches of a region; the bishops are co-equals. The property, by the way, though it is bought and paid for by the local congregation, belongs to the conference.

• And now baptism. One of the questions surrounding baptism is who should be baptized. Should baptism be reserved for individuals who can make a choice, or can infants be baptized. The UMC is one of many denominations that teach infant baptism… basically, it’s “allowed” as recognition that God’s redemptive work in Christ is available to all, including infants.

          AND there are people who hold that baptism is the individual’s profession of faith, and just as Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the Temple as a baby, some parents choose to dedicate their children, allowing them to choose baptism when they’re old enough to make that decision on their own.

          The hope and prayer of “both kinds” is that the dedicated or baptized child will someday profess their own faith in God. Parents and congregations then work together to teach and disciple.

• In all of this, we as people seek to know God better, to discern God’s will while recognizing that God is bigger than any of our human understandings and that we are utterly unable to fully define or understand God. We cannot put God in a box, and when we try, we take away from the fullness of God.

• From today’s scripture lessons we take this:

   -              That God delights in people.
          The Shack: "I am especially fond of that one."
          If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.
          God delights in his son, Jesus, and God delights in all his children.

   -              God works through people (Acts 8, the disciples, also parents and cong.)
          God works in people (bringing us to faith)

   -              God gives the HS to empower faithful living

   -              God chose and chooses, God promised and promises to be with us. Always.

• Maybe you’d like to make a commitment to God, to embrace the life that He has planned for you, maybe you’d like to know more about Jesus and how it is that he gives salvation, maybe you recognize the bad in your life and don’t know how but you want to leave it behind you. You can tell God you’re ready to take the next step, you want to receive forgiveness, you want to receive the Holy Spirit, you want to walk in newness of life… (pray) (if you prayed, talk to me or someone near you, or write a note… )

• praise team: Prince of Peace