Two Baptism Sermons

The Baptism of Sydney and Grayson. May 22, 2011. St. Alban's Episcopal Church, Hoover, AL.

Dear Sydney and Grayson,

This letter is from the priest who baptized you. I look forward to watching you grow up, but I am 55 years older than you, so some of the most interesting parts of your life will happen long after I am gone. That’s OK, though, because what the people of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church and I are doing today will help you establish a sturdy foundation on which you can build a strong and healthy spiritual life.

First, I want to congratulate you on your choice of families. Sydney, you were born on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. I remember because your dad, Kevin, was supposed to acolyte that day and he didn’t show up. I knew that something important had happened because Kevin is such a faithful acolyte. The first time I saw you, your mother Krystal was holding you and I could see that she loved you a lot. So I know that you will be well cared for.

Grayson, I don’t know your mom and dad, but I do know your great grandparents, Bill and Gerri Blythe, and they are outstanding people. Bill is very smart and thoughtful and reads a lot. Gerri helped start our Daughters of the King chapter at St. Alban’s. The Daughters of the King is an organization for women that encourages prayer and service. Gerri and the Daughters have made blankets for shut ins and prayer beads for me to take to the sick. But the most important thing about your great grandparents is that they are almost always in church. Anyway, both of you are lucky to have such wonderful families.

Second, remember I said that today is the day of your baptism. By the time that you are able to read this I know that you will know what baptism is. I know that because your parents promised me that they would take you to Sunday School and church and help you to become a good Christian. I also said that the people of St. Alban’s and I were baptizing you. That’s kind of a funny way to say it because it sounds like everyone in the church picked you up and held you over the font and poured the water over your head. Actually, I was the one who held you and poured the water. But in the Episcopal Church we almost always baptize people as part of the Sunday service. We do that because baptism makes you part of God’s family and the church is God’s family. In baptism the church says that you are one of us, a part of our family.

Baptism means that you are now a Christian. Right now, you are a baby Christian, just like you are a baby girl or boy. Your responsibility as a baby Christian and as a baby girl or boy is the same: you are supposed to grow. Right now, you don’t have to do anything special to grow; it just happens. But in a few years you will begin to take some responsibility for your growth. You will need to eat healthy and nourishing food, to exercise, and to get enough rest and sleep. You will also have to take responsibility for your spiritual growth. You will have to pray, to read the Bible, to come to church, and to participate in the sacraments. But spiritual growth is just as natural as physical growth. It is God who makes us grow both spiritually and physically. We can choose to work with God in fostering our growth or to work against God. I hope you will choose to work with God.

One of the scripture readings for today talks about our spiritual growth. In 1 Peter, chapter 2, verse 2, it says, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation-- if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” Infants need milk, both spiritually and physically. It is just as natural for you to desire spiritual milk as it is for you to desire physical milk. However, you are going to grow up in a world that will do everything in its power to make you forget that you are spiritual beings. The world will try to make you believe that you can be fulfilled and complete without seeking God’s spiritual milk. The world will try to make you believe that life is only about professional success and making money and having more and better things. But if you are quiet and look within and listen very carefully, God will remind you that you cannot be truly happy without him. God will remind you that love is more important than success, that forgiveness is better than anger, that hope is stronger than despair.

But I don’t want to mislead you. Another of today’s readings is about St. Stephen, the first martyr, the first of Jesus’ followers who was put to death for his faith in Jesus. Life is difficult. Following Jesus does not mean that life will be easy, but it does mean that God will give you the strength to overcome the difficulties you will encounter.

Finally, in today’s reading from John’s gospel Jesus tells his disciples that “the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these…” That doesn’t necessarily mean that if you follow Jesus you will multiply loaves and fishes and walk on water, but it does mean that you can do things that are just as miraculous: you can pray for and forgive your enemies, you can return kindness for anger, you can be courageous and cheerful in the face of adversity.

Today we are giving you four gifts: The first is a candle that we will light from the paschal candle. The paschal candle is a large candle marked with a cross that is next to the baptismal font. Burn this candle every year on the anniversary of your baptism to remind yourself that the light of Christ shines inside you. Second, we are giving you a t shirt. In the early church, people who baptized on the night before Easter and for the next fifty days they wore a special white baptismal garment. The t shirt represents that garment. On one said it says “Christian,” “Disciple,” “Child of God,” “Heir of the kingdom of God”, because that is what you are. On the other side, it says “St. Alban’s Episcopal Church” because we never pass up an opportunity for free advertising! The third gift is a small container that holds some of the water from the baptismal font. There’s a story about the great German Reformer, Martin Luther, that says that the devil appeared to him and said, “Luther, who do you think you are? You’re nobody and you’ll never amount to anything!” Luther threw a bottle of ink at the devil, and said, “Be gone, devil! I am baptized!” When you are tempted to believe that you are nobody and will never amount to anything, remember that you, too, are baptized. Finally, we are giving you a cross.

A little girl was lost in a big city, and a policeman saw her crying, and asked why she was crying. She explained that she was lost and couldn’t find her way home, so he took her around the neighborhood in his police car, and suddenly she said, “You can let me out here. I know this is my church because of the cross on top. I can find my way home from here.” When you feel lost and alone, look for the cross because it will help you find your way home.

The Baptism of Victoria and Caleigh. June 5, 2011. St. Alban's Episcopal Church, Hoover, AL.

Victoria and Caleigh, today we are going to baptize you. One of you told me that you don’t want me to get too much water on your head. I don’t blame you. You both look so pretty today, and I don’t want to mess up your outfits, so I will be as careful as I can be.

But baptism is a bath. When you take your bath at night or in the morning, you do it to wash off the dust and dirt that we all encounter during the day. That’s also why we are baptized.

As we go through life all kinds of things stick to us – anger, fear, greed, and so on. We have a name for those things. We call them “sins.” Neither of you have encountered very many sins yet, but you will. When you do, remember that you were baptized. Remember that God wants to wash those things off you.

But baptism has another meaning. Do you like the way the warm water in the bath tub surrounds you and sort of embraces you? I like that feeling a lot. In baptism, God doesn’t just wash away our sins, God also embraces us like the water in the bath. God embraces us completely, embraces all of us. God embraces our hopes and fears, our strengths and weaknesses, and tells us that we are good, that we are his daughters and sons. In baptism God tells us that he loves us and that we are a part of his family.

I imagine that at this point in your life there aren’t that many things that you worry about, but adults worry a lot. We probably worry more than we should. Some day you may worry, too. You may not feel as close to God as you do now. When you do, remember that you were baptized. That God embraced you, hugged you, held you close and said that he loved you and that you belong to him.

Now, I want to say something to the members of St. Alban’s. Remember that baptism is not just something that I do. It’s something that all of us do. We are all taking responsibility for Victoria and Caleigh today. We are taking the responsibility for raising them in the Christian faith. We are taking the responsibility for supporting them and loving them. It’s not something we can do by ourselves. God will help us. But we have to do our part.

We have to make sure that we have a Sunday school program for Victoria and Caleigh and the other young people who come here so that they can learn about the Bible and the Christian faith. We have to make sure that they are included and given ways to participate in the things we do, given responsibilities appropriate to their ages, and so on.

Many years ago a great man named Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said that he wanted his children to live in a world in which they would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. That’s what baptism is about. Baptism says that’s what’s on our inside is more important than what’s on our outside.

It doesn’t matter what the color of our skin is or our hair or our eyes. These are good things. Be grateful for them. They are God’s good gifts. But they are not the most important things about it. The most important things are inside us: our faith, our hope, our love, our joy…

Baptism makes us one. Baptism says that whether we are young or old, men or women, black or white, we are one in Christ.

Welcome to St. Alban’s, Caleigh and Victoria. Welcome to God’s family.

The Age of Anxiety

J. Barry Vaughn. St. Alban's Episcopal Church. Birmingham, AL. Feb. 28, 2011.

Historian Johan Huizinga in his study of the late Middle Ages wrote, “We, at the present day, can hardly understand the keenness with which a fur coat, a good fire on the hearth, a soft bed, a glass of wine, were formerly enjoyed.” Huizinga’s point is that these are all things that we take for granted: a warm coat, a fire in the fireplace (or for most of us, central heat and air), a glass of wine – in our time these things are the rule, not the exception. We take them for granted. But it was not so for most people throughout most of history, nor is it so for a good two fifths or more of the people in our world today. A warm coat, a warm and dry place to live, enough to eat, much less a glass of wine are the exception, not the rule.

Throughout most of history and in much of the world Jesus’ words in today’s gospel reading have a special resonance: “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.” Worrying about having anything to eat and anything to wear is the norm, much less worrying about having a glass of wine or a fur coat.

We enjoy riches and conveniences undreamed of by the richest and most powerful people of human history. On a trip to Israel years ago I wandered through the ruins of one of Herod the Great’s palaces. He had several. The one I was wandering through was just east of the line of hills that divides Israel and Palestine from north to south and just west of Jericho. What was so remarkable about this palace is that it contained several baths. One bath was for hot water; one for lukewarm water; and one for cool or cold water. In first century Palestine, only the smallest handful of the rich and powerful could enjoy such luxury. Today only the smallest handful of people in this country do not enjoy such luxury.

So we would think that the vast expansion of wealth that has taken place over the last few hundred years and especially in the last century would have brought with it a corresponding expansion of happiness and contentment. But we know that it has not.

The poet W.H. Auden called the 20^th century the “age of anxiety.” It was supposed to be anything but an age of anxiety. Increasing prosperity was supposed to bring increasing contentment and happiness. We were supposed to be the most contented and least anxious people in the history of the human race. But that has not happened.

We live not only in the age of anxiety but in the age of Prozac and Paxil and psychotherapy. Probably even more than a first century peasant we need to hear the words of Jesus: “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear,” because we worry about these and similar things constantly.

Jesus’ words are echoed by other great spiritual teachers throughout history. Five hundred years before the time of Jesus, the great Indian religious leader, Prince Siddhartha, whom we know today as the Buddha, the enlightened or awakened one, told his followers that the central problem of human life is suffering and that suffering is caused by being attached to things that are transitory.

Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

The odd thing about serving wealth is that it can be very rewarding. Those who throw themselves heart and soul into the acquisition of wealth very often amass great fortunes. But wealth is a harsh mistress. No matter how much people acquire, they rarely seem to have enough. The person who sets her mind to acquire a million dollars in her bank account by the time she is thirty often succeeds, but then she is likely to decide to acquire another million or two by the time she is forty. Furthermore, the service of wealth often leaves very little time for the things that genuinely make life worthwhile: friends and family, work that matters, the enjoyment of art, beauty, and nature, to say nothing of the service of God.

I wonder if you have seen Social Network, the film about the creation of FaceBook that is up for the Academy award for Best Picture. I have no idea how accurate the film is but the story it tells is as old as the human race. The founder of FaceBook is presented as a deeply insecure college student. Rejected by a young woman he has been dating, he throws himself into the creation of an internet-based program that will allow people to connect with each other and so FaceBook is born. The irony of the film, though, is that while the purpose of FaceBook is to connect people with each other, a purpose it fulfills admirably, the founder of FaceBook is presented as a profoundly lonely young man, and by the end of the film he is fabulously wealth but is alienated from every single person in his life. “You cannot serve two masters, for you will hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.”

Jesus’ words sound hopelessly idealistic: “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.”

OK, Jesus, that’s all very well and good, but you didn’t have a monthly credit card bill or mortgage payment, you didn’t have to pay college tuition or medical bills. If we don’t take some thought for what we eat or what we wear, where we sleep or how we’re going to get to work, then pretty soon we’ll have nothing to do but daydream about the lilies of the field and birds of the air.

But the irony, of course, is that if all we do is think about what we’re going to wear or eat, or where we’re going to live, then that drains life of all its meaning. So how do we do both? How do we take some thought for our food and clothing and at the same time trust God? Is it possibly to be both responsible and idealistic? I think it is.

Another insight from the Buddhist faith helps me. Buddhism teaches its adherents that they must live neither in the past nor the future but in the present. The present is all that is real. Taken to an extreme, that would be ridiculous. Of course, we must take some thought for tomorrow and be cognizant of the lessons of the past. But what we must not do is let the past empty today of its meaning. And we must not be so caught up in what might happen tomorrow, that we let the glory of this moment slip away.

The story is told of an order of monks so strict that they not only did not speak to women, they did not even look at women. Two monks from the community were sent on a mission to another monastic community nearby. They came to the edge of river, but it was in the spring and the rains had swollen the river, making it almost impossible to cross. Trying to cross the river was a woman with a new born child, but the river was too deep and fast for her to cross. However, one of the monks, violating the rule of his community, carried the woman and her child across on his back. For the rest of the day, the other monk was so angry at his brother for having violated their rule about women, that he would not speak to him. Finally, at the end of the day, the monk who had carried the woman across the river said to his brother, “Brother, you are angry at me for having carried that woman and her child across the river, but I only carried them across the river. You have carried them around with you all day.”

We carry things around with us all the time that we need to leave behind: our anxiety about money, about work, about the state of the world. “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. …Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? …do not worry, saying, `What will we eat?' or `What will we drink?' or `What will we wear?' …your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

A short history of the Episcopal Church in Alabama

I don't know who (if anyone) reads my blog anymore, but I thought you might be interested in something I wrote for the profile created by the committee searching for the 11th Bishop of Alabama. This is a VERY short version of the book I hope to complete soon.

THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF ALABAMA (1830-2010)
A BRIEF HISTORY

In February, 1828, with no apparent coordination, two Episcopal congregations were organized in Alabama. Christ Church, Tuscaloosa, was the first, and then, only two weeks later, Christ Church, Mobile, was launched. (It should be noted, however, that the congregation of the Mobile church had been worshiping as part of a Protestant “union” church with Methodists and Presbyterians since 1822.) The men and women who organized these churches were some of Alabama’s most prominent citizens. Although the Episcopal Church in Alabama has never exceeded 1% of the state’s population, it has consistently been over-represented at the highest levels of the state’s leadership by a factor of 8 to 10 (or even more). Among the prominent early 19th century Alabamians who affiliated with the Episcopal Church were Gov. John Gayle, Congressman William Lowndes Yancey, author Octavia Walton LeVert, and lawyer and newspaper editor John Withers Clay. Although a Baptist, Confederate president Jefferson Davis and his Episcopalian wife, Varina, regularly worshiped at St. John’s, Montgomery. In the 20th century, prominent Alabama Episcopalians have included actress Tallulah Bankhead and novelist Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald. Just in the 20th century Episcopalian governors served Alabama for 16 years.

The Diocese of Alabama was organized and admitted to the Episcopal Church in January, 1830, when Thomas Brownell, Bishop of Connecticut, presided over the first diocesan convention at Mobile. For the next fourteen years, the diocese would be led by a series of provisional bishops: Brownell, Jackson Kemper (Missionary Bishop of the Northwest), Leonidas Polk (Missionary Bishop of the Southwest), and James H. Otey (Bishop of Tennessee).

Nicholas Hamner Cobbs was elected Alabama’s first bishop at St. Paul’s, Greensboro, in 1844. A Virginian, Cobbs had served several parishes in Virginia before going to serve as rector of St. Paul’s, Cincinnati, Ohio. However, less than a year after going to Ohio, he was elected Bishop of Alabama. Cobbs was industrious to a fault and acquired a reputation for saintliness. At the time of his death in 1861, the diocese had grown to include 39 parishes and almost 1700 communicants. The population of the state increased by 78%, but the communicant strength of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama increased by 164%, a rate of growth never subsequently equaled, much less exceeded.

Cobbs died at a moment of high crisis. On the very day of his death, the state of Alabama voted to secede from the Union. Just a few weeks later the bishops of the Confederate states met in Montgomery to organize the Episcopal Church in the Confederacy. One of the issues before them was the episcopal vacancy in Alabama. In the fall of 1861, Richard Hooker Wilmer, offspring of a family prominent in the evangelical wing of the Episcopal Church (his father had been instrumental in founding Virginia Theological Seminary), was elected the second Bishop of Alabama and led the diocese until his death in 1900. Wilmer was the only bishop elected and consecrated in the Confederate Episcopal Church.

To care for Confederate widows and orphans, Wilmer founded an order of deaconesses that would last until the early 20th century. Wilmer had little sympathy for the North and was an ardent Southern nationalist. When the war ended and Alabama was put under military jurisdiction, Wilmer ordered his clergy not to pray for the President of the United States, and Alabama’s military governor closed all the Episcopal churches in Alabama for a year until President Andrew Johnson rescinded his order.

In the 1870s Wilmer observed that the churches of Alabama’s fertile “black belt” (roughly the region between Tuscaloosa and Montgomery) were declining in membership, and the churches in Alabama’s “mineral region” were growing. This was the beginning of one of Alabama’s most profound socio-economic shifts as the industrial cities of Birmingham and Anniston sprang into being practically over night. When the Elyton Land Company laid out Birmingham, they set aside lots for several churches, including a prime location for an Episcopal Church. On that lot, the Church of the Advent was founded in 1871. In only a year’s time, it went from being a mission to a parish and quickly became the largest parish in the diocese (and today one of the largest in the entire ECUSA).

When Wilmer died in 1900 he was the longest serving bishop in the Episcopal Church. Toward the end of his episcopacy he was briefly assisted by Henry Melville Jackson, another Virginia priest who was elected to serve as what was then known as “assistant bishop.” Jackson, however, did not have the strength of character to be an effective bishop and was asked to step down. After Wilmer’s death, the Diocese of Alabama elected their first “native son” to serve as bishop – Robert Barnwell of St. Paul’s, Selma. Barnwell, however, died of a ruptured appendix after serving only two years as bishop.

Following Barnwell’s death in 1902, the diocese chose as their new bishop Charles Minnigerode Beckwith, the General Missioner of the Diocese of Texas. Beckwith was a “muscular Christian” of the Teddy Roosevelt school and an avid outdoorsman. He built a hunting lodge near Fairhope, which subsequently became Beckwith Lodge, the retreat center of the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. Beckwith, however, had an abrasive and high-handed manner and was involved in an escalating series of conflicts from the very beginning that would eventually cost him his episcopacy.

The final straw was his refusal to let a Montgomery rabbi speak at St. John’s. The rector of St. John’s defied Beckwith and let the rabbi speak anyway. Beckwith responded by having the priest tried in ecclesiastical court, but the court found the priest not guilty, and Beckwith rightly saw this as a vote of no confidence. The bishop agreed to turn over all his episcopal authority to the bishop coadjutor who was to be elected at St. Paul’s, Carlowville, in 1922. Beckwith kept his promise and continued as Bishop of Alabama in name only until his death in 1928.

The newly elected bishop coadjutor, William George McDowell, had been rector of Holy Innocents, Auburn (in effect, the campus chaplain at Auburn), and he quickly won the hearts of the people of the Diocese of Alabama. McDowell displayed a new awareness of social and political issues. McDowell and Birmingham Presbyterian pastor Henry Edmonds, worked quietly (although unsuccessfully) behind the scenes to achieve a more humane outcome in the infamous “Scottsboro case” However, like Bishop Cobbs in the early 19th century, McDowell worked himself to a state of exhaustion and finally his body gave out. In 1938, after visiting Mobile’s Trinity Church, McDowell was too ill to return to Birmingham. He was admitted to the Mobile Infirmary, diagnosed with pneumonia, and died within days.

The young rector of the Church of the Advent, Charles Colcock Jones Carpenter was elected Alabama’s sixth bishop in 1938. Still remembered with a mixture of warmth, awe, and respect by older Episcopalians in Alabama, Carpenter was larger than life in many ways. Standing 6 feet, 5 inches tall, he had been the Ivy League wrestling champion at Princeton, and he had a large, booming voice, marked by a deep, patrician Southern accent. His enormous hands and his voice made an indelible impression on those he confirmed: “May you daily increase mo-ah and mo-ah in the Holy Spirit…”

In almost every way, Carpenter proved an effective leader for the Diocese of Alabama. He was fortunate in presiding over the diocese during the “baby boom” that followed World War II, a time when almost every religious group in the U.S. was experiencing growth. During Carpenter’s episcopacy St. Luke’s (Mountain Brook), Ascension (Vestavia Hills) and St. Thomas (Huntsville) were founded as missions but quickly became large parishes. Other churches that had long been missions also achieved parish status, such as St. Andrew’s (Tuskegee), and Epiphany (Guntersville); and new missions were founded: Grace (Cullman); St. Alban’s (Birmingham); St. Christopher’s (Huntsville); St. Stephen’s (Huntsville); and St. Matthias (Tuscaloosa).

Among Carpenter’s most significant accomplishments was the founding of a permanent diocesan camp named after his predecessor. A summer camp program for young people had begun under Bishop McDowell, but under Carpenter the diocese took steps to put camping on a firm and permanent foundation by acquiring land in Winston County (near Jasper) and establishing Camp McDowell, sometimes called the “heart of the diocese.” Three generations of young people have attended Camp McDowell and/or worked as counselors. Camp McDowell continues to expand its facilities and program, and it is in constant demand, not only by Episcopalians but also by other groups.

Carpenter’s leadership during the Civil Rights movement is still controversial and disputed, but it seems fair to say that he was more backward-looking than forward-looking during the Civil Rights struggle. On two very significant occasions Carpenter took positions that would paint him and the people he led as reactionaries. When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., announced plans to demonstrate in Birmingham during Holy Week, 1963, Carpenter and six other religious leaders urged King to wait. King responded devastatingly in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” pointing out that “to the Negro, ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never’.” Two years later when King organized the Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights, Carpenter did everything in his power to prevent Episcopal clergy from participating in the march, which he termed “foolishness.” However, it should be noted that Carpenter had good relationships with black clergy in his diocese; he facilitated meetings between Birmingham’s black and white leadership in his office; and it was on his watch that Camp McDowell was integrated.

The deaths of four young girls in the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church in September, 1963, served as a catalyst for passage of the 1964 civil rights act. But it was the death of Episcopal seminarian Jonathan Daniels in August, 1965, that brought home to many Episcopalians in Alabama and elsewhere the potential for violence in the civil rights struggle. A student at the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Daniels was a native of New Hampshire and a graduate of Virginia Military Institute. Inspired by King’s summons to clergy of all faiths to come and march in Selma, Daniels’ came to Selma in early 1965. He stayed on to help register black voters and tried to build bridges between the black and white communities. In August, Daniels was arrested for participating in a demonstration in Lowndesboro. After a few days in the county jail in Hayneville, Daniels and his fellow demonstrators were released. Daniels, Catholic priest Richard Morrisroe, and two young black women walked from the jail to a nearby store to buy cold drinks. At the store Tom Coleman, a state highway department employee, confronted them and aimed a shotgun at one of the young women. As Coleman fired, Daniels stepped in front of the young woman, taking the blast and dying almost instantly. Coleman also fired his shotgun at the fleeing Morrisroe, hitting him in the back. In spite of vigorous prosecution by the Alabama Attorney General, Coleman argued that he had acted in self-defense and was found not guilty by a jury made up exclusively of white men.

Carpenter retired at the end of 1968. He had been in poor health for some time and died less than a year after retiring. George Murray, Bishop Coadjutor of Alabama, (and also a signer of the letter urging Dr. King not to demonstrate) became the seventh bishop of Alabama. More liberal than his predecessor, Murray urged Alabama Episcopalians to find ways to participate in President Johnson’s “Great Society” programs. However, Murray’s most significant achievement was to successfully divide Alabama into two dioceses, a project that had been discussed in the Diocese of Alabama almost from the very beginning.

After a long period of study, the Diocese of the Central Gulf coast was created in 1970 out of the lower third of Alabama (below Montgomery) and the Florida panhandle. Murray chose to step down as the seventh Bishop of Alabama and become the first Bishop of the Central Gulf Coast. In Murray’s place, the people of Alabama elected native Alabamian Furman Stough, the rector of Trinity Church, Florence, and a former missionary to Okinawa.

Stough proved to be a bishop of energy, vision, and ambition. He established a companion diocese relationship between Alabama and South Africa’s Diocese of Namibia; he gave his blessing to and helped plan and build federally-supported housing for low income elderly persons (Episcopal Place in Birmingham); and he oversaw the Church of the Advent’s re-designation as the cathedral of the diocese. Stough was also nominated for Presiding Bishop in 1986 but lost to his close friend, Edmond Browning, Bishop of Hawaii. Browning invited Stough to join his staff as director of the Presiding Bishop’s Fund (now Episcopal Relief and Development). However, after a short time in New York, Stough returned to Alabama.

Stough served as bishop of Alabama during one of the most tumultuous decades in the history of the Episcopal Church. In 1976 the General Convention voted to replace the 1928 Book of Common Prayer with a new prayer book and authorized the ordination of women as priests and bishops. Stough ordained Alabama’s first woman priest, Marianne Bogel, a hospital chaplain, in 1977.

In 1989, Alabama’s Bishop Suffragan, Robert Oran Miller, a former United Methodist minister, was elected to succeed Stough. Miller’s episcopacy was not much less tumultuous than Stough’s. Gay and lesbian Episcopalians increasingly insisted on full inclusion in the church. An Integrity chapter, the organization of gay and lesbian Episcopalians, was organized in the diocese in 1991, and the diocese established a taskforce to deal with the AIDS pandemic.

In 1997 Miller announced his intention to retire following the election of a bishop coadjutor. The diocese chose Henry Nutt Parsley, Jr., rector of Christ Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, who became the tenth Bishop of Alabama when Miller retired. Parsley’s episcopacy has been characterized by a more intentional and assertive program of church growth by planting new churches in growing communities. In 2006, Parsley became the second bishop of Alabama to be nominated for Presiding Bishop but lost to Nevada bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman to hold the highest position in the Episcopal Church. Also in 2006, the Diocese of California elected Marc Andrus, Alabama’s bishop suffragan, as eighth Bishop of California. John McKee Sloan, a native Mississippian serving as rector of St. Thomas’s, Huntsville, was elected to replace Andrus in 2008.

In The Power of Their Glory (1978), a sociological study of the Episcopal Church, Kit and Frederica Konolige observe, “To a large degree, the Episcopal Church produced . . . America.” The same could be said of Alabama. The Episcopal Church in Alabama began as the church of the planter aristocracy and became the church of the industrial barons. Episcopalians have a distinguished record of leading Alabama and its institutions. For the most part, the Diocese of Alabama has been very well served by its bishops and priests. However, the religious landscape of the 21st century will be very different from the recent past. In some ways, it will be more like the situation Bishop Cobbs faced in 1844; Alabama will be more religiously fragmented, and more and more groups will be competing in the religious marketplace. Once again the Episcopal Church in Alabama will have to win the right to be heard, to organize congregations in groups new to the state, and to commend itself by its commitment to gospel. It would be well for Alabama’s Episcopalians to keep in mind what Bishop Carpenter frequently told those he confirmed:“Remember who you are and what you represent.”

Good new for failed Pharisess

J. Barry Vaughn. October 24, 2010.

I want to tell you a story, or rather, I want to retell one of Jesus’ stories. Jesus lived in a world of villages, an agrarian, rural world, and this is reflected in most of his parables. He tells us of the sower whose seed fell among rocks and weeds, as well as nourishing soil; he tells us of the wealthy farmer who built more storehouses but was poor in the things of the spirit; and he tells us of the fishermen whose nets are bursting with fish of every kind. But the parable in today’s gospel reading concerns two persons who were both more urban and also somewhat less universal than the figures in most of Jesus’ parables. They are a Pharisee and a tax collector.

The two could not have been more different. One was a success and the other was a failure. But which was the success and which was the failure? That is the question that makes the story interesting. The Pharisee is a moral success--the Publican is a moral failure. However, although the Pharisee was a moral success, he was a religious failure, and the Publican, although a moral failure, was a religious success.

Now let’s not stereotype the Pharisees. They were a renewal movement within first century Judaism. Their goal was to make it easier to observe the commandments of the Torah. And they were no more or less likely than anyone else to be hypocritical. Frankly, hypocrisy is a temptation common to all religions. Several years ago, a Harvard professor greeted my friend Peter Gomes before Easter and said, “Well, Dr. Gomes, I expect that you’ll be celebrating Easter in Memorial Church with all those hypocrites.” Peter replied, “That’s right, Professor. Why don’t you join us? There’s always room for one more!”

So the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable stands for me, for you, for any of us who forget that it is we who need God and not God who needs us. In place of the word “Pharisee,” we might use the word “priest” or “bishop” or “theologian” . . . you fill in the blank. The Pharisee in Jesus' story reminds me of the great but less than modest Sir Winston Churchill of whom it was said: "There but for the grace of God ... goes God".

So much for the Pharisee, now who was the tax collector. He was in the employ of the Romans and collected taxes for them. In other words, he worked for the foreign rulers who occupied Palestine. He made his living by extorting money. He was a collaborator and a crook. But although the tax collector was a moral failure, he was a religious success. The tax collector in Jesus’ parable stands for the alcoholic who has finally admitted that he is an alcoholic. He stands for the unwed mother who is struggling to give her children a better life and more opportunities than she could ever hope for herself. He is the person who has come to the end of his rope and has let go -- acknowledging his failure and casting himself into the hands of a loving God.

But there is not as much difference between these two characters as may seem: the tax collector is a failed Pharisee. The tax collector is the one who has realized that he cannot climb up to God on a ladder of accomplishments. When we realize that God is not impressed by our degrees or bank accounts or impressive job titles, that we cannot draw near to God by piling success upon success, we are tempted to despair. But when in the dark nights of our soul we say, "God have mercy upon us", God draws near to us.

A useful technique of Bible study and meditation is to put ourselves in the Biblical event about which we are reading. Unfortunately I like to flatter myself. I imagine myself going to the manger with the wise men, although in reality I probably would have stayed home rather than risk the long and difficult journey. I imagine myself remaining awake with Jesus in Gethsemane, although I know that I would certainly have snoozed with the other disciples. And I like to think that I would have risen early with Mary Magdalene on Easter, although I hate etting up early, so why I think I would have behaved differently on the first Easter, I don't know.

If you were to put yourself into the reading from Luke's Gospel, which character would you be? The Pharisee or the tax collector? Where would we put ourselves? You don't have to tell me; you don't have to tell anybody.

We would like to think that we would be the penitent tax collector rather than the proud Pharisee. But would we? It's all too easy to come before God with a list of our accomplishments. It's hard, desperately hard, to come before God with a catalog of our moral failures.

I want to tell you a story about a failed Pharisee. I have a friend named Bartle. He's not a real person; he's a character in a novel, but I feel as though I know him. Bartle was a priest of the Church of England who experienced a divorce and now is carrying on an affair with a young, Jewish woman. Bartle's life is a mess. He has failed at everything he has ever attempted. Bartle's one remaining link to the church is his annual confession at Christmas.

The story begins as Bartle sits in the back of a dingy old church near London's King's Cross Station. The portion of the psalter assigned for that day includes the phrase, "'I will walk in my house with a perfect heart. I will take no wicked thing in hand; I hate the sins of unfaithfulness: there shall no such cleave unto me....", but Bartle could think of nothing but the ways he had been unfaithful to everything important to him: unfaithful to the priesthood and, above all, unfaithful to God. He hated going to confession but felt that his life would fall apart if he abandoned this last bit of spiritual discipline. What was the point of confessing his sins, Bartle wondered? God's law was "an impossible counsel of perfection". Then, as he was tempted toward the absolute sin of despair, another text occurred to him: "'My strength is made perfect in weakness.' These words, for Bartle, were the first stage of a journey leading up to the only Love who was fully good and true".

'Lord God,' said Bartle in his inmost soul, 'My priesthood is a gift which, like all your other gifts, I have wasted and squandered and spoilt. But, even now, let my very imperfection be itself priestly. I know nothing of you. My attempts to follow you have all failed, again and again and again.... [But] even now, as I promise to do better, I know that I have nothing to look forward to but failure and more failure. But it is to you that I come, dear Physician of life. I no longer dare to ask to be perfect, even as you are perfect. I dare only to kneel in your presence in all my muddle and impurity and doubt and offer these things to you. Muddle, impurity and doubt is all that I have to offer you, O holy child of Bethlehem. O friend of sinners, O helpless child, this is my offering to you.'

When he came out of the church into the dark, dewy evening... Bartle felt the world transfigured.

(from Love Unknown by A.N. Wilson, pp. 151-155.)

Note one more thing about today’s prable – its location. It takes place in a house of prayer, a temple. Like the Pharisee and the tax collector, we find ourselves in a place of prayer. The question for us is, Have we come up to the Temple to brag about our accomplishments or to acknowledge our failures?

This morning we will solemnly and corporately confess our sins: "We have sinned against God in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone." And then I will affirm that God forgives you and forgives me.

Now Episcopalians maintain (rightly) that it is not necessary to confess our sins to a priest We usually say that the proper time and place for the confession of sins is the quiet of our own homes or in the moments before worship. But I must admit to you that my own spiritual discipline is defective. I do not do a serious moral and spiritual inventory of myself often enough. And as for the moments before worship, when I am not leading worship, I am more likely to spend that time in idle conversation than I am in self-reflection or careful consideration of my neighbors' needs. So, I believe that we need public prayers of confession on a regular basis. And we especially need them when we come up to the temple to pray so that we can remind ourselves that we are on the side of the Publican, not the Pharisee.

Here in this temple today, we are all failed Pharisees. Like the Pharisee, we offer God our success. The bad news is our success or our accomplishments are not enough. The good news is that God accepts us as we are; God wants our failures, too.

There are great talents and gifts in this congregation. Among us and our families and friends there is wealth and accomplishment beyond the dreams of most persons on the earth. But I know that I personally struggle with a sense of failure. No matter how much I accomplish, it never seems to be enough. And I don't believe that I am the only one who feels that way.

Offer thanks to God for jobs and homes, for spouses and children, for degrees and honors. But then look beyond the accomplishments at the failures, for they are there, too, and offer them to God.

Today's Gospel reading invites us to offer God our moral failures. Offer God the alienation that has come between you and your spouse. Offer God the destructive behavior that has you in its grip. Offer God the hopelessness, verging on despair that makes you wonder whether or not to get out of bed in the morning. Ultimately, each of us, like Bartle, must come to God on our knees and pray the prayer that Bartle prayed: "...dear Physician of life. I no longer dare to ask to be perfect, even as you are perfect. I dare only to kneel in your presence in all my muddle and impurity and doubt and offer these things to you. Muddle, impurity and doubt is all that I have to offer you, O holy child of Bethlehem. O friend of sinners, O helpless child, this is my offering to you."

There is muddle and impurity and doubt in my life and in the life of each person here. For to say that we are muddled and impure and doubting is simply to say that we are human. And when we recognize that that is the way things are and in this life always will be, we are tempted to despair but instead we should offer it to God, for God is in the business of taking "muddle and impurity and doubt" and replacing them with forgiveness and healing. After all, God took a Cross, the cruellest instrument of judicial murder ever devised, and turned it into the instrument of our redemption and the sign of eternal hope.

Wrestling with God

The film The Last Station deals with the last few months of the life of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. Late in his life Tolstoy had a powerful religious experience. He came to believe that he should practice a form of radical obedience to the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, and so he became a pacifist. He also began to give away his wealth, and he was a very wealthy man. Tolstoy was not only a successful novelist; he was also an aristocrat who owned valuable estates. The only problem was that his wife Sofia did not share Tolstoy’s religious views. The film depicts their relationship as contentious and stormy but also deeply loving. One moment they are yelling and cursing at each other and the next they are holding each other and calling each other silly, endearing names.

I suspect that is the way it is with a lot of our most important relationships. Whether it is a parent, a sibling, a child, or a friend, our closest relationships are often the stormiest. Someone once said that it is easy for our parents to push our buttons because they installed them.

The story of Jacob in Genesis is a great example of this truth. He was a man who was involved in a series of stormy relationships, and the storms were usually of his own making. Jacob’s character was a mixture of weakness and strength. While still in the womb, Jacob struggled with his brother Esau. God explained the struggle to Rebecca by telling her that “two nations” were in her womb. “The one shall be stronger than the other and the older shall serve the younger.”

Genesis says that Jacob came into the world holding on to the heel of his brother Esau. Thus, he was given the name “Jacob” which is usually defined as the “supplanter” but another way to translate the Hebrew name Jacob is the “deceiver.” From the beginning to the end of his life, Jacob would catch the heel of others to hold them back so he could get ahead, to trip them up so he could get the advantage.

The author of Genesis compares Jacob and Esau, telling us that Jacob was a homebody and Esau was an outdoorsman and hunter. But Jacob appears to be intellectually stronger than Esau. Catching Esau at a weak moment when he is famished, Jacob drives a hard bargain, forcing Esau to relinquish his blessing in return for a bowl of food. But when Jacob disguises himself as Esau and goes into their nearly blind father Isaac, lying to him in order to receive the laying on of Isaac’s hands that actually confers the blessing, Jacob appears to be morally and spiritually weak.

The tables are turned on Jacob when he works for his uncle Laban. Jacob the deceiver becomes Jacob the deceived when Laban tricks him into marrying his older and less attractive daughter Leah, then makes him work seven more years to marry his younger and prettier daughter Rachel whom Jacob really desires.

So what are we to make of this story of Jacob wrestling with a mysterious stranger through the night until day breaks? I believe this story tells us something profoundly true about ourselves.

First, we are told that Jacob is alone. It is often when we are alone that significant people enter our lives. There is something about solitude that opens us up. When a relationship ends, whether through divorce or the death of a loved one or when someone simply walks away, we feel dead, we feel that we will never love again. And then someone new comes into our life. We live again. We love again. And we live and love in new and unexpected ways, ways we did not know we could live and love.

Alternatively, in the solitude that follows the end of a relationship we may discover ourselves anew, we may find new and undiscovered aspects of ourselves.

Secondly, note that it was dark when the stranger wrestled with Jacob. Often it is when we are in deepest darkness that new insights come to us. The darkness may be actual night when we simply cannot sleep. It may be the darkness of doubt and uncertainty. When the old certainties flee away, we may learn that we can live with uncertainty and doubt.

Thirdly, the mysterious stranger dislocates Jacob’s hip so that he is permanently marked and forever after walks with a limp. We must not think that we will be as good as new when a relationship ends, when a loved one dies, when we lose our job, when we can no longer believe in the old certainties. Things are never the way they were, the way they used to be. Things are always different. We are always different. We do not come to the end of our lives without collecting a few scars along the way, but the scars can be a source of strength. They can open us up to new love, new life. They can open us up to God, to each other, and to new parts of ourselves.

Former U.S. senator and cabinet member Max Cleland lost an arm and both legs in Vietnam. His autobiography is entitled “Strong at the broken places.” Our broken places can be our greatest sources of strength.

Novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder once wrote, “In love’s army only the wounded may serve.” Do not let your wounds make you bitter; let them open you up. Look around you at your fellow soldiers in love’s army. Each of them bears some wound as proudly as a Congressional medal of honor.

Finally, Jacob received a new name. “You shall no longer be called Jacob the Deceiver but Israel – the one who has wrestled with God and prevailed.” We are not only named at birth or at baptism, and it is not only our parents who name us. We are always being named or perhaps we are always discovering what our names are.

One of C.S. Lewis’ least known and most unusual books is Till We Have Faces. The title comes from an enigmatic quotation: “How can we see the gods until we have faces?” Each of us has a face we show to the world. The problem is that the face we show to the world may not be our real face, our real self. We may not even know what our true face is. Life is a process of discovering what our real face is, what our real name is, who we really are.

We learn our real self, our real face, our real name through struggle. We learn who we are in those solitary moments when we must fall back on our own resources, when God comes to us in both struggle and loving embrace. We learn who we are in the darkness when the familiar certainties have fled. We learn who we are when life has beaten us up and left us bruised and bloody. We learn who we are when the mysterious voice speaks out of the silence, the solitude, the darkness and tells us that we are no longer the person we thought we were, when the voice speaks the new name that we never heard before but which we immediately know to be right the first time we hear it.

I want to conclude with a story you may have heard me tell before. An eminent rabbi died and came to the gates of heaven. He walked confidently up to the angel who maintains the book of life and said, “I am Rabbi So and so, please let me enter.” The angel said, “I’m sorry but you’ll to wait until I call your name.” So the rabbi waited and waited and waited as people he knew or complete strangers entered. He waited as the great and the unknown entered ahead of him. He waited as great saints and even great sinners entered the kingdom of God. Finally, the angel stopped calling names and closed the book. Tearfully, the rabbi said, “You never called my name!” The angel replied, “Ah, but I did. The problem is, you do not know your name.” Life is a process of learning who we are, what our real name is. And we only learn our names, our identities if we struggle alone, through the darkness with the One who knows us and calls us by name.

Seek the welfare of the city

Someone once asked humorist Will Rogers if he belonged to an organized political party, and he replied, “No, I’m a Democrat.” Think about that for a moment. Right now, I think it applies to both political parties.

I like to paraphrase Will Rogers’ joke and tell people that I don’t belong to an organized religion; I’m an Episcopalian.

We have all heard that one should never discuss politics or religion in polite company. People tend to have strong, even passionate, opinions about both subjects, and a discussion of either topic is likely to generate more heat than light.

But as a religious leader people often want to discuss religion with me. I don’t mind; I think it’s a little ridiculous not to talk about the subjects that interest us and which touch on the deepest concerns of our hearts.

People often tell me that they believe that organized religion is pernicious, and they even say that it has done and is doing more harm than any other institution. They cite the conflicts in northern Ireland, the middle east and elsewhere.

Let’s just look objectively at that idea. There’s a good deal of support for the idea that religion does more harm than good. Religion appears to be at the heart of many dangerous conflicts. Religious differences are part of the reason for the hostility and suspicion that divides Hindu India from Muslim Pakistan. There is even less reason for the differences that divide Protestant Northern Ireland from the Catholic Republic of Ireland. How can two groups that both profess the Christian faith be so bitterly divided? And then there’s the Middle East. As humorist Tom Lehrer said in his song “National Brotherhood Week,” “Oh, the Catholics hate the Protestants and the Protestants hate the Catholics and the Hindus hate the Muslims and everybody hates the Jews…”

In our own country, we seem to be in the midst of wave of anti-Islamic feeling, but if we want to encourage Muslims to reject extremism, we have to reach out to our Muslim neighbors with understanding.

Let’s take a closer look at the accusation that religion spawns hatred, misunderstanding and violence. There’s some justification for this idea. The Roman empire systematically persecuted Jews and Christians who would not offer sacrifices in the temples of the gods who were believed to uphold the Roman state. Christians, then, returned the favor when Constantine converted to the Christian faith in the 4^th century. In the Middle Ages Jews cowered in their homes in fear on Good Friday because Christians often rioted through Jewish neighborhoods beating and even killing Jews on the day of Christ’s crucifixion.

Muslims conquered the Middle East and Northern Africa by force in the 7^th and 8^th centuries. Jews and Christians were free to practice their religion in many Muslim countries but were treated as second class citizens.

During the crusades, Christians indiscriminately slaughtered Jews, Muslims, and even eastern Orthodox Christians in their campaign to reassert Christian rule over the Holy Land. And we won’t even go into the Inquisition…

So far, so bad. Now, let’s look at the evil done by explicitly secularist and atheist regimes. If we total up those killed just in the 20^th c. by the Third Reich, the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, and Pol Pot’s regime in Cambodia, we reach a conservative estimate of 50 million. That greatly exceeds the number of those killed in wars of religion in the last 2000 years by a factor of 2 or even 3.

The word "religion" is derived from two Latin words that mean to "re-connect". That's the true purpose of religion: to united, not divide... to join, not to

Religion has given us schools and hospitals, teachers and doctors. Mother Teresa was motivated by her love of God to serve the poorest of the poor; Gandhi’s campaign to achieve Indian independence was profoundly spiritual; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., never deviated from his commitment to non-violent resistance because of his deep faith in God; the Catholic teachers I met in Bangladesh provide education for hundreds of children, most of them not Catholic but Muslim; and we could go on and on.

In today’s Old Testament reading the prophet Jeremiah writes a remarkable letter to the Jewish exiles in Babylon. Jeremiah could have told the exiles to resist, to do everything in their power to sabotage the Babylonian regime. But instead Jeremiah told them to “Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

I believe that Jeremiah’s words sum up the purpose of religion. Even though we believe that this world is not permanent, that our eternal destiny is in a world to come, that in some sense we are exiles here, we, too, should bend every effort to work for the well-being of this world, to plant gardens, to build schools and hospitals, to care for the sick, lift up the fallen, nurture children, befriend the friendless, and to make this world as much like heaven as possible.

Oh, the places you'll go!

J. Barry Vaughn. The baptism of James Gordon Brush. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Birmingham, AL. Sept. 12, 2010.

Today we are baptizing James Gordon Brush. I am going to explain baptism to him, but the rest of you are invited to listen, too.

Gordon, I want to begin with a quotation from one of the most important and best-known theologians of the last century:

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You’re off to great places!

You’re off and away!

The theologian, of course, is Dr. Seuss. Somehow I doubt that his doctorate was in theology, because most theologians I know would have to write an entire book to say what he says in only four lines. But it’s hard to find a better explanation of baptism than Dr. Seuss’s book, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

You’ll be on your way up!

You’ll be seeing great sights!

You’ll join the high fliers

Who soar to high heights.

You won’t lag behind because you’ll have speed.

You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead.

Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best.

Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Gordon, today is the day you launch out into a sea of adventure. Or (to repeat what Dr. Seuss says)

You’re off to great places!

You’re off and away!

Don’t let anyone tell you that the Christian life is safe and peaceful. In baptism your ship sets sail and you leave the safe harbor behind and sail into adventure and adversity. That may sound a little scary but remember this: you will never be alone. Look around you. Everyone here is going along with you on that adventure. Today you become part of what someone called “one family with a billion names.” Today you acquire millions of new brothers and sisters on every continent, every nationality, and every race. And especially remember that whether your ship sails into the storm or the calm, Jesus is going with you on your journey through life.

Gordon, we have several gifts for you: First, here is a baptismal certificate. I’ve made it large deliberately. I wanted it to be about the same size as the certificate priests receive when they are ordained, because the most important ordination anyone receives is the ordination all of us receive in baptism. In baptism, Gordon, you are ordained into the priesthood all Christians share. All baptized persons are ordained to proclaim the Good News; we are all ordained to reach out to the lost and lonely, the hungry and the hurt; we are ordained to lift ourselves and others into the healing and transforming presence of God through prayer.

Second, I will take some water from the baptismal font and put it in a bottle for you to keep. Remember, Gordon, that while life is always good, it is not always fun. Or as Dr. Seuss puts it

I’m sorry to say so

But sadly, it’s true

That Bang-ups

And Hang-ups

Can happen to you.

You can get all hung up

In a prickle-ly perch.

And your gang can fly on.

You’ll be left in a Lurch.

You’ll come down from the Lurch

With an unpleasant bump.

And the chances are, then,

That you’ll be in a Slump

And when you’re in a Slump,

You’re not much fun.

Un-slumping yourself

Is not easily done.

All of us go through slumps, Gordon, but baptism gives us the resources to deal with slumps. That’s why I’m giving you some of the baptismal water to take home. When you find yourself in a slump, look at this bottle of water, and remind yourself that were baptized. In baptism you are given the gift of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit can lift us out of any slump.

Third, we are giving you this t-shirt. In the early church, people who were baptized wore white garments for 50 days after their baptism. This shirt is too big for you today, although in no time at all, it will be too small for you. But remember what it says: You are a Christian, a child of God, an heir of the kingdom of Heaven; a disciple of Jesus; and a member of God’s royal priesthood. All your life, people will try to make you forget who you are. They will try to make you think you are something other than and less than the person God made you to be. Don’t let them do that. A former bishop of this diocese used to say to the people he confirmed, “Remember who you are and what you represent.” This shirt will help you do that.

Fourth, when we go back to the font, Deacon Mary will light a candle from the Paschal candle and give it to you. You’re supposed to burn it every year on the anniversary of your baptism. The candle will remind you of the light that burns brightly inside you. You may not always see that light, but it is always there. All of us go through dark places from time to time, and when you do, light your baptismal candle and remember that God’s light is burning in your heart.

Finally, we are giving you a cross. Most Christian churches have crosses inside or outside or both. There’s a large cross on the front of St. Alban’s and many crosses inside. The cross has many meanings. The most important meaning of the cross is that it tells us that God can take the worst possible thing that can happen to us and turn it into something glorious. But in a sense, the cross is a sign that shows us the way to go when we get lost.

Sometimes, Dr. Seuss says

You’ll come to a place where the streets are not marked.

Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.

A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!

Do you dare to go out? Do you dare to go in?

How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And IF you go in, should you turn left or right…

Or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?

Or go around back and sneak in from behind?

Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find.

For a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind .

There’s a story about a little boy who got lost in a big city. Fortunately, a policeman found him and walked around the neighborhood with him, hoping that he would see a landmark. Finally, they stopped in front of a big building with a cross on top, and the little boy’s face lit up, and he said, “It’s OK, officer, this is my church. I can find my way home from here.”

Gordon, when you come to that “place where the streets are not marked” (and all of us find ourselves there from time to time), look for the cross and look for the church. The cross will point you the way, and the church is full of people who will help you find your way home.

You’ll get mixed up, of course,

As you already know.

You’ll get mixed up

With many strange birds as you go.

So be sure when you step.

Step with care and great tact

And remember that Life’s

A Great Balancing Act.

Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.

And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?

Yes! You will, indeed!

(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

Amen.

Oh, the places you'll go!

J. Barry Vaughn. The baptism of James Gordon Brush. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Birmingham, AL. Sept. 5, 2010.

Today we are baptizing James Gordon Brush. I am going to explain baptism to him, but the rest of you are invited to listen, too.

Gordon, I want to begin with a quotation from one of the most important and best-known theologians of the last century:

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You’re off to great places!

You’re off and away!

The theologian, of course, is Dr. Seuss. Somehow I doubt that his doctorate was in theology, because most theologians I know would have to write an entire book to say what he says in only four lines. But it’s hard to find a better explanation of baptism than Dr. Seuss’s book, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

You’ll be on your way up!

You’ll be seeing great sights!

You’ll join the high fliers

Who soar to high heights.

You won’t lag behind because you’ll have speed.

You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead.

Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best.

Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Gordon, today is the day you launch out into a sea of adventure. Or (to repeat what Dr. Seuss says)

You’re off to great places!

You’re off and away!

Don’t let anyone tell you that the Christian life is safe and peaceful. In baptism your ship sets sail and you leave the safe harbor behind and sail into adventure and adversity. That may sound a little scary but remember this: you will never be alone. Look around you. Everyone here is going along with you on that adventure. Today you become part of what someone called “one family with a billion names.” Today you acquire millions of new brothers and sisters on every continent, every nationality, and every race. And especially remember that whether your ship sails into the storm or the calm, Jesus is going with you on your journey through life.

Gordon, we have several gifts for you: First, here is a baptismal certificate. I’ve made it large deliberately. I wanted it to be about the same size as the certificate priests receive when they are ordained, because the most important ordination anyone receives is the ordination all of us receive in baptism. In baptism, Gordon, you are ordained into the priesthood all Christians share. All baptized persons are ordained to proclaim the Good News; we are all ordained to reach out to the lost and lonely, the hungry and the hurt; we are ordained to lift ourselves and others into the healing and transforming presence of God through prayer.

Second, I will take some water from the baptismal font and put it in a bottle for you to keep. Remember, Gordon, that while life is always good, it is not always fun. Or as Dr. Seuss puts it

I’m sorry to say so

But sadly, it’s true

That Bang-ups

And Hang-ups

Can happen to you.

You can get all hung up

In a prickle-ly perch.

And your gang can fly on.

You’ll be left in a Lurch.

You’ll come down from the Lurch

With an unpleasant bump.

And the chances are, then,

That you’ll be in a Slump

And when you’re in a Slump,

You’re not much fun.

Un-slumping yourself

Is not easily done.

All of us go through slumps, Gordon, but baptism gives us the resources to deal with slumps. That’s why I’m giving you some of the baptismal water to take home. When you find yourself in a slump, look at this bottle of water, and remind yourself that were baptized. In baptism you are given the gift of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit can lift us out of any slump.

Third, we are giving you this t-shirt. In the early church, people who were baptized wore white garments for 50 days after their baptism. This shirt is too big for you today, although in no time at all, it will be too small for you. But remember what it says: You are a Christian, a child of God, an heir of the kingdom of Heaven; a disciple of Jesus; and a member of God’s royal priesthood. All your life, people will try to make you forget who you are. They will try to make you think you are something other than and less than the person God made you to be. Don’t let them do that. A former bishop of this diocese used to say to the people he confirmed, “Remember who you are and what you represent.” This shirt will help you do that.

Fourth, when we go back to the font, Deacon Mary will light a candle from the Paschal candle and give it to you. You’re supposed to burn it every year on the anniversary of your baptism. The candle will remind you of the light that burns brightly inside you. You may not always see that light, but it is always there. All of us go through dark places from time to time, and when you do, light your baptismal candle and remember that God’s light is burning in your heart.

Finally, we are giving you a cross. Most Christian churches have crosses inside or outside or both. There’s a large cross on the front of St. Alban’s and many crosses inside. The cross has many meanings. The most important meaning of the cross is that it tells us that God can take the worst possible thing that can happen to us and turn it into something glorious. But in a sense, the cross is a sign that shows us the way to go when we get lost.

Sometimes, Dr. Seuss says

You’ll come to a place where the streets are not marked.

Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.

A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!

Do you dare to go out? Do you dare to go in?

How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And IF you go in, should you turn left or right…

Or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?

Or go around back and sneak in from behind?

Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find.

For a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind .

There’s a story about a little boy who got lost in a big city. Fortunately, a policeman found him and walked around the neighborhood with him, hoping that he would see a landmark. Finally, they stopped in front of a big building with a cross on top, and the little boy’s face lit up, and he said, “It’s OK, officer, this is my church. I can find my way home from here.”

Gordon, when you come to that “place where the streets are not marked” (and all of us find ourselves there from time to time), look for the cross and look for the church. The cross will point you the way, and the church is full of people who will help you find your way home.

You’ll get mixed up, of course,

As you already know.

You’ll get mixed up

With many strange birds as you go.

So be sure when you step.

Step with care and great tact

And remember that Life’s

A Great Balancing Act.

Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.

And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?

Yes! You will, indeed!

(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

Amen.

Three upcoming events

Here are 3 upcoming events that you might like to know about:

Sunday, Sept. 19 and 26, at St. Luke's, Mountain Brook, at 4 pm. I'm giving 2 lectures on the Evangelical Revival of the 18th and 19th centuries and Anglicanism. Did you know that the only Episcopalians who spoke out against slavery were the evangelicals? Come to my lectures and find out why.

Thursday, Oct. 21, at the Birmingham Public Library, at 7.30 pm. I'm giving a piano recital that I'm calling "Scenes from Childhood." Here's the program:

Mozart - Variations on Ah! Vous Dirais-je maman (better known as "Twinkle, twinkle...")

Schumann- Scenes from Childhood, Op. 15

Margaret Bonds - Troubled Water

Liszt - Waldesrauschen

Shostakovich- Selections from his Preludes, Op. 34

Chopin - Ballade in A flat, Op. 47

Sunday, Oct. 24, at the Culural Arts Center, Gadsden, AL, at 4 pm. I'm repeating the recital as a benefit for Christ Episcopal Church in Albertville. Last April, a tornado virtually destroyed Christ Church. My concert in Gadsden is free but people will be asked to make a contribution of at least $25 to the Christ Church building fund.