Walls and Horizons

 Last week we had a fun time with music, and I mentioned how much I liked a variety of musicians as I was growing up.  One in particular was a fellow named John Denver.  His song “Country Roads, Take me Home” is one that a lot of people can relate to.  “Almost Heaven West Virginia” is one I want to change to “Almost Heaven Athabasca” with the hills and the river.  Every time I drive down the east hill, that view of the river grabs my heart with its beauty.  Gorgeous!  I’m sure many of you have a river valley you love to see, or a hill you live next to that puts a lump in your throat, a piece of wilderness that just seems special every time you see it.

The ancient writer of our psalm, one of the oldest psalms in the bible, reminded us to give credit for the beauty of nature to God.  Recognize God in those moments of wonder.  Honor God in those moments of awe.  See God in those country roads, those shining waters, those mountains and hills, but don’t get messed up thinking that the hills and mountains are God.  They are fragile and changeable, not as permanent as we’d like to imagine.  God can disrupt and change that which we mere mortals see as unchangeable.  Which is a good thing from time to time.

We need disruptions to keep our attention on the right things.  It’s important not to get stuck in ruts, assume we have all the answers, that we’ve come to an end point in our thinking or understanding.  And God seems to shake things up just when we least expect it, sometimes in powerful ways, sometimes in gentle whispers.

Baptism and confirmation are when we take a moment to recognize the disruptions that have brought us to a new stage in our lives.  A new baby, a new family, a new understanding of our faith come together in the waters we use to symbolize a change has taken place, something new is in our lives.  It can be something we can’t quite put into words and bring a lump into our throats just like a beautiful sky or a glimpse of river.  Something we wish we could sing about if only we could find the right tune.

Baptism and confirmation are not the end point.  And they are not some kind of magical spell or ritual we cast to prevent bad things happening, the storms of life from hurting us.  Jesus was baptized and it didn’t keep him safe, he got crucified.  He wasn’t baptized to give himself a ‘get out of hell free’ card like we’re playing some kind of cosmic Monopoly game.  These kinds of ideas were what people thought baptism was but not for John and Jesus.  Confirmation too used to be a sign of who was in and who was out.  When I was growing up, confirmation was the ticket we needed to have communion, or teach Sunday School.  It became a wall that kept ‘them’ in and us kids out.  It was something that excluded.  And just as our faith grows and our ideas about how to worship change from one decade to the next, so our understanding of baptism and confirmation also change. 

Not every church is comfortable with change.  There are churches that still forbid organs and pianos as sinful.  There are churches who have women and children sitting on the left and men on the right and never the twain shall meet.  There’s one United Church in Halifax that has gates on their pews and the ‘free’ pews in the back were where people sat if they couldn’t afford to pay for a box.  Even today no one sits in the front box for that is reserved for the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia.  I don’t know if it’s ever used.

Jesus and John were not interested in putting walls up or boxing people in.  They were interested in getting people to look up, past the walls that hemmed them in to look at far horizons, and to take courageous steps on our journey towards God.  They were interested in rituals with simple everyday things like water, bread, wine, and fish that would break down walls between people.  Even then, they were working together to bring hope and inspiration to ordinary people like you and me.  They were working together to stir things up, to get folks thinking, to inspire new ideas and new ways of being in community.  Just like country roads with the radio reminding us of our home far away, baptism and confirmation are the voice of Jesus calling to us today to move beyond our walls to far horizons together with this congregation of courageous travelers.  May we hear that voice and heed the call and find blessings and fellowship this day and ever more. Amen.