Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior? Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love? Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord? BCP - Baptism service Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior trusting in his grace and love? Will you be Christ's faithful disciple obeying his word and showing his love? BCW - Baptism service
These are the vows we, as Episcopalians and Presbyterians make in Baptism. Actually many of us did not make these vows, our parents or godparents made them for us in the trust that we would accept their truth for ourselves. Many of us have done that knowing that if someone asks us what it means to be a Christian, we will be able to say, at the core, this is what it means, acceptance, trust, and obedience. Our responses, our life decisions, and our ethics ought to derive from both the comfort and challenge of these vows, the comfort of his grace and love and the challenge to follow him who had no place to rest his head.
I have found myself incredibly privileged over the last decade to work with two congregations, in which so many people really do take these vows seriously and really do consider the lead and example of Jesus in the ordering of their lives. Not only does your trust in and obedience to Jesus help inform your personal lives it spills over into your politics and your service to the community. An incomplete list of the activities you, individually or collectively have been involved in the last year includes, support for the WIC program, anti-racism work, lesbian/gay and transgender rights work, support for people in Iraq, Turkey, India, Palestine, Nigeria, Latin America, the Dominican Republic and Haiti. You work with the Corner Health center, Ozone house, Big Brother/Big Sisters, and the scouts.
You have worked for world peace and understanding and tried to shut down the School of the Americas. You have worked for better sheltering for the homeless, food for the hungry, health kits for disaster victims and school supplies for flood victims, some of you are working on issues that support mental health clients, others support for the disabled. You have built an elevator, housed the homeless, fed the hungry, built a Habitat House and provided support for homeless teens. You influence spreads as you teach, heal, counsel and work in any number of ways to make the lives of others better.
And now it is Lent, or very shortly it will be, that season for preparation, penitence, and reflection. On March 8th we begin the season during which we prepare to receive the risen Christ into hour hearts, having walked once again the way of sorrows. I think it is also time to rest a bit, to take time to aid our "doing" with enriched ways of listening. Are we sometimes so busy obeying that we scarcely have time to listen to and reflect with the one we are to obey?
Please make plans to attend the Wednesday night Lenten soup suppers (March 15 through April 12). The program each night will be dedicated to prayer and ways we might enrich our prayer lives, find ways to be still with God, listen to Jesus, walk in God's presence.
The soup will be ample, the fellowship good and the attention to God's conversation with us should provide us with both refreshment and refueling for our busy and often over committed lives.
I give thanks for the activity in which you engage and also invite you into this time of refreshment. Faithfully, Susan
ICPJ Annual Meeting
The annual meeting of the Interfaith Council for Peace & Justice will focus on "Seattle's Drama of Democracy" with Ed Miller (of the Mott Foundation) and Thom Saffold, speaking about their experiences at the WTO meeting/protests.
DATE/TIME: Saturday, March 11th, at 6:30 pm (multi-ethnic potluck supper) and 7:30 pm (program including Saffold & Miller, plus music and storytelling by LaRon Williams).
PLACE: Brown Chapel AME Church, 1043 West Michigan Avenue, Ypsi. (just east of Hewitt & Ellsworth).
RIDES AVAILABLE from UM campus; contact Tobi Hanna-Davies at: icpj@umich.edu or 663-1870.
