Crisis, Covenant, and Grace
Crisis, Covenant, and Grace
“So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict…You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.”
There was a time in The Episcopal Church when Baptism mostly involved an infant being baptized at a private family service on Sunday afternoon. Today, the instructions, or rubrics in our 1979 prayer book state that “Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body, the Church,” and therefore “is appropriately administered within the Eucharist as the chief service on a Sunday.” Of course, in those earlier days, the set readings for Baptism actually mentioned baptism. But when it takes place in the chief Sunday service, then you take the readings for that Sunday that are given to you. And even the more apocalyptic readings like today’s Gospel have more of a connection to Baptism than you might think.
There are transitional events in the cycle of life that are marked by some liturgy, some more religious than others: Birth (in this case, new birth), Graduation, Retirement, Burial. Then there are Crisis liturgies, which facilitate and mark a life-altering decision. And back when being a Christian could be a death sentence in the Roman Empire, Holy Baptism was one of those liturgies. Before their baptism, catechumens fasted from all eating on Good Friday and Holy Saturday into the predawn hours of Easter Sunday. When the time came for baptism, they stripped naked and walked into the water where the deacon or deaconess pushed them underwater three times. In that water they truly were buried with Christ in his death so that by that water they would share in his resurrection.
With all the renunciations and turnings and covenantal vows in our baptismal service, we recall the crisis, the life-altering choice that in this case is being made for Greta Duhaut Bell today, and that hopefully she will make for herself later.
So the Gospel for this next to last Sunday after Pentecost, in the third year of our cycle of Bible readings, is the one given to Greta and her sponsors. Today they vow to bring her up in the Baptismal Covenant: to share her with her new family the Church; to pray with her and teach her Jesus’s Way of Love; to help her learn of God’s grace from her mistakes; to love and respect all her neighbors; and to promote justice, peace, and love.
These are all choices of how to live with others in this world that we must make every single day. They are not easy choices. Many voices tell us to look out for number one, or to treat only certain people as worthy of our respect. To “respect the dignity of every human being” may come to be seen as a countercultural choice in the years to come, the kind of choice that may come to carry some of the risks that Jesus warns his disciples, then and now, that they may face.
But when Jesus warns that some of his disciples may be put to death but also promises that “not a hair of your head will perish,” he doesn’t promise total avoidance of suffering, any more than he himself avoided suffering. But he does promise that nothing which is essential to who we are will ever perish. With the water poured on Greta’s head, not a hair on that head will perish. All we who pray for the grace to keep this covenant will find that prayer answered. None of us who accept burial with Jesus in the waters of baptism will fail to rise with him by those same waters, including Greta Duhaut Bell.
The 23nd Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 28, Year C, November 16th, 2025
The Rev. David Kendrick