Creation is splendid

Preached on the Feast of the Holy Trinity (Year A), June 4, 2023, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington by The Reverend Stephen Crippen.

Genesis 1:1-2:4a
Psalm 8
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Matthew 28:16-20

Our dog Keiko, enjoying a quiet corner of God’s splendid creation.

God creates a vast, blazing array of burning globes that fling themselves eternally outward from God’s first, fierce bang of energy and light. Our light by day is a cheerfully yellow star in the long stride of middle age, and our great night light glimmers with a silver sheen. God invited these lights into being, and they complied. 

God creates an astonishing, lush tapestry of trees and flowers, sea creatures and birds in flight, cattle and creeping things. Even the rats that bedevil our office building: even they are part of God’s splendid creation, if a troublesome part. And then, on the same epochal day when God creates the creeping things, God says, “Let us make humankind in our image.” And God proclaims humans and all the creatures of the earth very good.

We humans participate powerfully in God’s splendid creation: we are able to learn and gain insight; we can build things and preserve things; we can look back and plan ahead. As sentient beings, we can be understood as the universe looking at itself: when we contemplate the gorgeous majesty of creation, and when we reflect on our place in that majesty, we are the universe itself becoming conscious, becoming self-aware. And yet, though the psalm today rightly sings of humanity as but little lower than the angels, adorned with glory and honor, nevertheless our reason informs us that this is likely also true about other intelligent species on our planet, and on other planets, too. The universe is too splendid for us to be its only location of self-awareness.

And yet we often fall short of our potential. Even in the proclamation in Genesis that sings beautifully of God creating the heavens and the earth, even there we suffer a failure of imagination. We limit ourselves to narrow descriptions of vast things, particularly when we say, “Male and female he created them.” Humanity is hemmed into two boxes—male and female. And God has he/him pronouns.

But we have moved beyond these constructs! We know better. Just listen to the song of diversity ringing through the creation story of Genesis, chapter one. Seeds of every kind, trees of every kind, swarming sea creatures of every kind, winged birds of every kind, animals of the earth of every kind… And then, *clunk*. Humans are male and female. And God, who creates us, is he/him. In my reading of the Genesis creation song, this is a disappointingly flat lyric. The music suddenly comes to a bumpy stop, even though in the very next bar, God beautifully blesses us and commissions us to care for creation with love and skill.

But I believe the text falling flat just here, in the phrase “male and female he created them,” is a great irony, because the Genesis creation song is working hard even here to show God’s creative diversity, this time in humanity. Humanity is not just “man,” we are “male and female.” We have found vastly more diversity in our species since this was first written, but that’s what they knew then, and they noted the diversity they saw. Or (more likely) they knew more than that, but that’s what they were ready to say out loud, ready to write down. It was a good start. The song of diversity is meant to be edited and expanded.

And God as “he/him”? Well, in a patriarchal, pre-scientific culture, the male of the species was assumed to be the source of creative life. And anyway you heard it yourself: when God describes God’s own self, God uses the plural personal pronouns “us” and “our.” “Let us make humankind in our image.” So God as “he,” even in this primary source, is not what it seems, not the last word on God and gender.

But back to humans as “male and female”: this will disappoint those who shout silly, mean-spirited things like “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” but we have explicitly transcended the “male/female” construct in our Christian tradition. We Christians have long since moved beyond the male/female binary. In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he writes, “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” Notice the conjunction words in that sentence: “Jew or Greek; slave or free;” and then a twist — “male and female…” Not male or female, which would make for clean parallelism in Paul’s writing, but “male and female.” Paul breaks the parallelism because he is directly lifting a portion of the phrase “male and female God created them” directly from Genesis 1. He is transcending the difference claimed there and saying we are all alike, all one. He wants us to catch the Genesis reference.

We can, in turn, transcend the male/female binary in a new direction from Paul, and say we are no longer male and female not because we are all alike, but because we are all different, all along the rainbow, even as we are one. Paul builds on the Torah; we build on Paul; how might our descendants build on us?

Today, in our celebration of God’s splendid creation, we sing of God blessing us and then commissioning us to care for the earth and all creatures, and then we sing of God in Jesus commissioning us to baptize by the power of that same creative, generative Spirit. And finally today we will gather at this Table, which sometimes is rightly called a banquet table at a great wedding, the celebration of the marriage of the Holy Three with all humanity, and with all the whole creation in which humanity is embedded. 

When we celebrate the life and work of the Holy Three in creation as a marriage, we are adding a stanza to the Genesis creation song. God does not only bless us, as we hear in stanza six of the song. God goes on to marry us. God first chooses God’s people Israel as God’s own spouse in the story of salvation, freeing them from bondage and raising up prophets, priests, and sovereigns from among them who proclaim the coming of God’s reign of justice and peace over the whole earth. God then keeps God’s own promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, sending God’s people – who now include us – into the world on God’s mission. Now, the image of marriage can be problematic: many – maybe it’s fair to say most – of us are well acquainted with the challenges and vexations of marriage. And always when choosing our metaphors we have to watch out for the pathology of patriarchy. But God marrying humanity in the midst of creation: let’s rest with that for a moment. I think it works. I think it proclaims something true.

The metaphor of course gets a lot of help today as we celebrate and bless the marriage of our siblings in Christ, Howard and Aman. (And of course their union also helps us see how thoroughly our Christian tradition has transcended the old confines of “male and female” in our understanding of human nature and human love.) Today Howard and Aman give us a few bars of music in the marriage stanza of our creation song. God blesses them today, and God blesses their union as another expression of God’s own creative force in a splendid universe.

And then, after asking God’s blessing on Howard and Aman, then we will gather yet again at this Table of Holy Eucharist, where all of God’s wedding guests of all times and places always draw close to us. The Eucharist is a wedding celebration, but it’s not celebrating the union of just one couple. At this Table we sing joyfully about the marriage of all creation with the Holy Spirit of God, who moves through creation at the will of the Creator, and marries us in the Word of God, Jesus Christ. And finally, strengthened by this wedding feast, and married to the Holy Three, we will go from here, flinging ourselves ever outward, like the blazing stars, bearing warmth and light into the splendid creation of God, still groaning for God’s justice, still longing for God’s peace.

Come to the Table, then, and do not delay. Come and see all that God has made. Indeed, it is very good.

Fluency in the language of compassion

Preached on the Day of Pentecost (Year A), May 28, 2023, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington by The Reverend Stephen Crippen.

Scripture readings: Acts 2:1-21, Psalm 104:25-35, 37, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13, John 20:19-23

Andrew and I in Paris, September 2016.

Let me begin by saying that I do thoroughly love the City of Light, Paris, one of the greatest world cities, perhaps the greatest world city. I love walking in Paris, exploring a market in Paris, gazing at stained glass in Paris, figuring out labyrinthine museum floor plans in Paris, and above all drinking espresso and eating baked bread in the morning on L’Île Saint-Louis in Paris.

I love it all.

But I struggle with Paris. Specifically, I admit with embarrassment that I struggle with the language in Paris. I was a careless and inattentive French student. In high-school French class, I focused less on the House of Être and the genders of nouns, and more on the thrilling and vexing crush I had on one of my classmates. (But you know, that’s kind of French of me, now that I think about it.) And then I moved through young adulthood without studying languages other than English, and now I am right down the middle, a disappointingly average adult who finds it hard to learn new languages.

Andrew and I would go places in Paris and I would not even need to open my mouth – they knew I was a U.S. American. My clothes, my temperament, my failure to understand fluently how they carry themselves, how they do things, how they express their thoughts and feelings: they knew I didn’t fit in. Now, they happily took my money, and again, I did love being there! So there was really no downside to all this, in the end. But I struggled.

Not Andrew. Andrew loves Paris without complication, without reservation, without any scrap of doubt. And his French is good enough that even if his Parisian conversation partners know instantly that he’s not a local, he nevertheless can carry on a conversation with reasonable skill. We were in a shop on our way back to the hotel one afternoon, and Andrew conversed at some length, in French, with the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper was polite, even friendly, not the cliché smug Parisian who looks down on Americans. Often the French will anticipate an English speaker and stop the tourist with an English “May I help you?”, but this person allowed Andrew to speak to him in French. I believe he respected Andrew’s ability, and whatever strengths of character empowered Andrew to look away from cute classmates and pay attention in French class.

I do not think Andrew would say he is fluent in French, but I would say Andrew is fluent in Paris. He knows how to visit that great city. I know how to follow a good visitor, so back in 2016 we enjoyed a good trip there together. But London is next.

Except London is problematic too, because like all cities, like all places, many languages are spoken, literal languages and figurative ones. If the television show Ted Lasso is true to life, Londoners verbally abuse each other as a particularly passionate love language. In one scene, after three tweens yell obscenities at one of his close friends, the character Roy Kent looks them over, pauses, and says, “Good lads.” I do not speak this language. I am prone to feel hurt when someone who loves me expresses their love in such a rough way. I can learn this language! Even now I can understand it. But I am not fluent in it.

But on that same show, another language is spoken in London that I know well. It is the language of Judas Iscariot, spoken by the most troubled character on Ted Lasso, poor, suffering Nate Shelley, who attacks his friends and then betrays them. It’s immodest to say it, but the therapist in me correctly predicted the dramatic arc of Nate’s character. “He’s hurting so much,” I thought to myself. “So many wounds, inflicted by his father. Oh, Nate.” I have witnessed Nate’s grievous, frustrated rage. Of course I have heard it in the therapy room, but I’ve also heard it in parish life, including here at St. Paul’s. It is the language of a spiritual malady. And so, if people speak that language in London, I will immediately hear it with understanding – understanding both what it is and why it is.

Today the Holy Spirit gives us fluency, fluency in languages other than our favorites, deeper fluency in languages we know and love, curiosity about languages of whose existence we are only now becoming aware, and a humbling education in languages we’ve avoided learning because our privilege allows us to ignore those who speak them. The Holy Spirit is sometimes a slight tug inside us, other times a fireball billowing toward us, leading us up and out of our usual languages, our usual dialects, our usual ways of doing and being and relating.

I hear many languages here in this faith community. Some of us are fluent in technical languages that help us fix what’s broken, most recently our parish-hall coffee machine. Music is a language – a beautiful language of mathematics – and it is fluently sung here. Liturgical movement is yet another mathematical language – the mathematics of dance, visible in this room as a ballet of prayer. And of course many of us fluently speak the provocative language of spoken scriptural proclamation. Some of us are fluent in group dynamics and make for dynamite vestry members; some of us hear easily the quiet, often silent cry of those among us who are lonely and in need of pastoral care. And some can spot a newcomer’s body language from yards away, and know exactly what to say and do, and not say, and not do.

Going deeper, St. Paul’s is home to many who are fluent in the language of deep feelings and profound moral values, a language of empathy for those who suffer, the God-given language of compassion, the language spoken eternally into the cosmos by our wounded yet risen Savior, Jesus Christ, the Word of God. 

I hear this language whenever we are faced with a dilemma. Someone is languishing, unsheltered, on our parking strip: what must we do? Many of us, fluent in the language of compassion, prayerfully discern how we can honor the dignity of the person first, and respond to practical challenges second. We care about our troubled friend, and that care empowers and directs our actions.

This fluency in compassion that so many of us enjoy is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and it is a treasure more valuable than any earthly asset we possess. These buildings and grounds one day will pass away, but the Spirit-led language of compassion, spoken here for generations, will reverberate through the universe until the Last Day. I mean this: are you aware how few people in the world are fluent in the language of compassion? I suspect grievously few. But the Spirit moves here at First and Roy in Seattle, and she makes us fluent in the one language this world so desperately needs. I assure you, those most in need of it can hear us speaking it.

Every week at our Sunday-morning prayer meeting we call the Holy Eucharist, we invoke that same Spirit to dwell here, to keep forming us in the language of compassion. The fancy word for this (a word borrowed from the language of Greek) is epiclesis. The epiclesis is the moment in our Eucharistic Prayer when we ask God’s Spirit to descend upon the gifts of bread and wine, making them the Body and Blood of Christ; and the second epiclesis when we ask God’s Spirit to descend upon us, making us the Body of Christ in this world so starved for compassion.

We make the sign of the cross to mark this moment, to trace the descent of the Spirit on our own bodies. And whenever we do this – whenever we pray the epiclesis – we participate in a great recurring pattern in the universe, a Trinitarian pattern. Here’s the pattern: “Where[ever] the Holy Spirit moves at the will of the [Creator], the Word of God becomes incarnate in history.” That is how it was described by the theologian Michael Raschko. I’ll say that again. Michael Raschko writes, “Where[ever] the Spirit moves at the will of the [Creator], the Word of God becomes incarnate in history.” The Spirit moves over Mary at the will of the Creator, and the Word becomes embodied in Jesus Christ. The Spirit moves over the chaotic waters at the will of the Creator, and the Word brings all creation into being. The Spirit moves over the bread and cup at the will of the Creator, and the Word becomes Christ present with us at the Eucharistic Table. The Spirit moves over us at the will of the Creator, and the Word becomes flesh in you, in me, in all of us together, the Body of Christ, God’s embodied Word, broken open in compassion, creating the world anew.

So, come to this Table, come to our troubled parking strip, come to this complicated city of Seattle, come to the glorious and ever more complicated city of Paris: travel boldly across this universe, and do not be afraid. The Holy Spirit is moving over you at the will of the Creator, and the Word will teach you exactly what to say.

"The greatest teacher, failure is." –Yoda

Preached on the Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year A), May 21, 2023, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington by The Reverend Stephen Crippen

Scripture readings: Acts 1:6-14; Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36; 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11; John 17:1-11

The Blue Line train to Mall of America, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

This past Monday I arrived in Minneapolis for a conference and decided to take the light-rail train. I was staying downtown but needed to go to the Mall of America to buy a gift for my niece. I boarded the train and watched southeast Minneapolis rush by, noticing some of the many changes that have transformed this region since I last lived there, in the 1990s.

Suddenly, a man behind me exploded in anger. He shouted obscenities into his phone. He simmered down, but then he filled the train again with another startling outburst. After the third or fourth episode of rage, a woman a couple of rows in front of me got up and walked to the forward part of our train car, where there were more people. This left me alone with the angry man in the back half of the train car.

The man turned his rage against the woman. He shouted insults at her about her fears, but also about her personal appearance, specifically her weight. He mocked her. I fretted in my seat. I thought, I should just get up and follow the woman, and sit down next to her, and tell her, “I’m just going to sit up here with you,” or something. Yes. That’s what I should do. I should get up and follow the woman, and sit down next to her. I imagined the man turning his rage on me. A couple of days later, reflecting on the experience, I thought of some good movie dialogue I could say back to the man, something like, “Why don’t you shout at me for a while, and leave her alone. Just keep yelling at me, if you need to.”

But I kept my seat. I did nothing. I said nothing. That same day, on the plane, I had watched A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, the Tom Hanks movie about Mr. Rogers, and I recalled how courageous Fred Rogers was – courageous but also sensitive; bold but also gentle. Surely Mr. Rogers would have handled this situation on the train with skill and poise. Mr. Rogers taught children how to work with their emotions, including and perhaps especially the painful emotion of anger. He might have gone and sat next to the shouting man, and said something to help the man regulate his rage, breathe it out. At the very least, the Fred Rogers in my imagination would have gone to be with the woman.

But I was scared. That’s the raw truth. I thought, “He could be armed. He could attack me, right here in the train. I could be killed.” And then it was too late: the woman got off at the next stop (which I seriously doubt was her actual stop – it was not a convenient place to get off the train, not a likely place to get off). She was gone. I prayed for her, but I felt futile and even ridiculous as I prayed. 

“Then all the disciples abandoned him and fled,” I thought. That’s a line from Matthew’s Passion. I was one of those fleeing disciples, in this situation. The woman had no companions on that train. 

The next day I visited my dad, and we talked about this experience. He empathized with my fears, which I confess I needed and wanted – I wanted a friend to tell me they understood, and all the better if that friend is my father, who I greatly admire. But then my dad and I talked about Dr. King’s take on the parable of the Good Samaritan. Dr. King felt empathy for the priest and Levite who walked on by, leaving the victim in the ditch, but then Dr. King said that the Samaritan “asked [himself] a different question,” and in doing so, the Samaritan chose bravely to offer assistance, even though helping a victim on Jericho road is an easy way to get yourself killed. Dr. King, in his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech, said that the priest and Levite had asked themselves, “‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’”. The answer is clear: they could be injured or killed themselves. So they walked on by. Dr. King then said, “But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’”

I clearly asked myself the first question as I kept my seat on that train – if I do something, what will happen to me? But I do remember asking myself the second one, too – I did wonder what would happen to the woman if I didn’t get up to stand and sit alongside her. If I don’t get up, I reasoned, she will leave the train alone, in a world that’s just a little dimmer for her, a little sadder, a little more lonely and hard. And finally I asked myself a question Dr. King did not pose in his great speech: "If I do not help this woman,” I asked myself, “what will happen to me?” By not helping – by not doing something, not doing anything – I also left the train diminished. My world was a little dimmer, too.

I say all of this not to get your empathy, and I ask you not to try to console me after mass. I really am okay, and I’m not being too hard on myself. I doubted the value of my prayers for the woman as I sat there on the train, but those prayers were fervent, and she did have a friend on that train, if not a brave one. And it’s all learning: I am ready to board another train. The universe doesn’t let us go back and do things differently, but it continually gives us new opportunities to make a different choice.

I say all of this not to get your empathy, but to encourage you to join me in failing upward, as they say, to notice those moments when you forget who you are, or you forget the life of self-giving love to which you are called – and to learn from those moments of failure. Maybe we fail in these ways because we forget that Jesus says we are under God’s protection, and so no matter what happens to us in train-car encounters like this, even if we are badly injured or killed, even then, God is here with us, holding us, and yes, protecting us.

Here’s how Jesus says it in the High Priestly Prayer. Today we heard the first third of this long prayer, including this particular line: Jesus said, “And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

“Protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

God protects us by joining us together as one. We still may be injured or even killed, as we move through this world so damaged by rage and injustice, so distorted by fear, so benighted by ignorance. That shouting man on the train: he is suffering, as surely as the woman is. He is probably suffering more than I can imagine, and I’ve seen a fair amount of suffering as a therapist, a pastor, and a person with an ordinary personal life marked by change and loss. But that poor suffering man is potentially lethal, and God does not protect me – or any of us – from the damage we could sustain when we do the right thing on the train car.

But God protects us by joining us together as one. The risen Christ – still bearing the wounds he sustained when he was riding in his train car – the risen Christ breathes God’s Spirit upon us, and binds us together. We may be hurt by this world – no, we will be hurt by this world – but we will be hurt together. We can give one another more courage when we’re out in the world. We need only remember, while we sit and fret on our train cars, how brave our Neighborhood Action ministers are here at St. Paul’s; or how compassionate and sensitive our Godly Play teachers are; or how the dance and rhythm of our liturgical servers forms us to recognize beauty, harmony, and peace in this world, so troubled yet also so beautiful. 

We enjoy God’s protection when we recognize the risen Christ active and alive in one another. When we pray as one, when we serve as one, when we give our hearts to the world as one, we draw on God’s wisdom, God’s strength, God’s grit. Jesus fervently prayed to God that his followers – and that includes us – would be one, as God is one. This is not merely because we would be happier if we agreed on most things and hung together as a group. No, we are one because that is precisely how we receive God’s protection in this daunting and dangerous world, and it is how we bravely offer God’s protection, too. We are one because that is how God gives all the train passengers – including that poor shouting man – friendship, connection, consolation, and peace.

If you’re in Minneapolis, a train ticket costs two dollars and fifty cents. You can catch it on South Fifth Street, in front of City Hall. Go ahead, take the train. We’ve got you. We’ll protect you, no matter what happens.

I love you the most

Sermon preached on the Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year A), May 14, 2023, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington by the Reverend Stephen Crippen

Scripture readings: Acts 17:22-31; Psalm 66:7-18; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21

Dash (top), Flambeau (lower right), and Keiko, our three dogs.

There were several times in my childhood when my father would hold me close, hold me tight. Then a mischievous spirit would steal over him. He would begin to tickle me, and as he did so he would embrace me even more tightly. And then he would begin a chant which always delighted me. He would say this, with increasing energy and excitement: he would say,  “You’ll never get away, never get away, never get away. You’ll never get away, never get away, never get away. You’ll never get away, never get away, never get away.”

Oh, how I treasure that memory, and the unshakeable bond it reveals that holds me close, even now, to my father. And how I long to form and share this bond with others. I do not have children but Andrew and I are closely bonded, and we vigorously welcome dogs into our household and our family. As I’ve said to a few of you, one of our current three dogs – yes, three! – one of them has wandered into the very center of my heart. Now, I do truly love all three of our dogs. I do. But I confess I sometimes take Dash into my arms and hold him close, and I whisper a chant inspired by my father, but corrupted a little by the guilt of my sin of favoritism. I whisper to Dash – very quietly, because I am absurdly afraid the other two dogs will hear it – I whisper, “I love you the most, I love you the most, I love you the most. I love you the most, I love you the most, I love you the most. I love you the most, I love you the most, I love you the most.”

And so you can see that my father is, unsurprisingly, a better man than me: he can bond with another being without ranking that being favorably against others. And that is saying something: I am one of seven children. It wouldn’t be hard to rank us. (I could help with that.) But both of my parents worked hard – and successfully – to love all of us with abundant and freely distributed love. 

“You’ll never get away, never get away, never get away.” “I love you the most, I love you the most, I love you the most.” What might your favorite chant be? What is the chant that your heart most longs to hear?

I ask because it is your heart that Jesus chants to. It is your body that Jesus wants to embrace and hold tightly. It is you who Jesus loves – and yes, loves the most. God in Jesus loves all living beings; in fact, God in Jesus loves all created matter: as the universe is created, God repeatedly proclaims everything good, which can rightly be understood as God lavishly loving all beings, all things. (And when God creates human beings, God proclaims us very good.) And so unlike me, God can love you the most without loving me or other people any less. God in Jesus loves all of us the most. And God in Jesus tells his friends and followers that they will never get away, they will never get away, they will never get away.

“I will not leave you orphaned,” says Jesus. “I will not leave you orphaned.” Not “I surely like and respect you, and so I will make provisions for you when I’m gone.” Not “When I ascend into all things and am no longer directly with you, I’ll be sure someone takes over for me.” And certainly not “Oh, you’ll be fine without me, don’t worry.” “I will not leave you orphaned”: Jesus speaks of his departure as a looming cataclysmic trauma for his followers. Even as a metaphor, “to be orphaned” is terrifying to them. Being orphaned in their day amounted to a death sentence: it was not merely the loss of one’s parents, sad and hard as that would be; it was the loss of identity, the loss of property, the loss of all bonds of kinship that hold a person in the community, that hold a person in life. 

Holy Scripture often frames God’s love as that of a patron or lord who rescues the orphan and the widow. In our day we can miss the tremendous depth of meaning in that metaphor: to be an orphan or a widow in the ancient world was to be as good as dead. God in Jesus loves his friends and followers so deeply that God sustains them in life. Without God’s love, they would die. And with God’s love, they overflow in life-saving love for actual orphans and widows.

This was true for my childhood self in relationship with my father: only on the most surface level can we laugh lightly at a father being silly with his young son, holding him and tickling him and playfully saying that the kid will never get away. No, this is a life-saving action on my father’s part: he gave me the life-saving, life-transforming gift of secure emotional attachment. Everything I am and everything I do today is possible because my parents rescued me from solitude; they rescued me from a life without love; they rescued me from death and held me in life by loving me unconditionally, by loving me so powerfully, so viscerally. They loved me with their whole being. (And my living father still does.)

Dash, in turn, may “only” be a dog, but he too is a living being who was saved by love. He was sent back by his first adopted home because Dash was (quote) “too much” for their young child, and the family didn’t want a dog who was so outgoing and energetic. This fact in Dash’s rescue file sears my heart. They sent Dash back?! He does not show any sign of emotional damage, and for all I know he wasn’t thrilled to be with them, either. In any case it only deepens my commitment to love him the most, to love him the most, to love him the most.

And that is what we are talking about today, on the Sixth Sunday of Easter, the 36th day of Eastertide, this day of Creation, this day of Resurrection. We are talking about life-saving love, love that is vastly, infinitely more than a mere feeling, love that forms a pulsing community of abundant life that saves countless beings from death, love that pours God’s inexhaustible love out and down, in and with and under all people, all beings, particularly those who have been rejected by the world, sent back, left for dead – all the orphans and widows.

Today we will plunge our siblings in Christ, Patrick and Wyatt, into the water of God’s abundant love, where they will drown. They – particularly Patrick, who is going all in at our full-immersion font! – they are being pulled down into the depths of God’s heart, where we all drown to sin, drown to our old and lesser selves, drown to the forces of evil that tear people and communities apart, drown to everything that separates us from God. And then Patrick and Wyatt will rise up from the water, up into God’s embrace, up into their best selves, up into the forces of good that hold people and communities together, hold them close, hold them and remind them that they’ll never get away, they’ll never get away, they’ll never get away … and that God loves them the most, God loves them the most, God loves them the most.

“God holds our souls in life,” the psalmist sings. Yes. And Paul sings that “in God we live and move and have our being…We are God’s offspring.” If you have not felt this way; if you fear that you never have been held this closely; if you have come to believe that you are on the outs, that you do not matter, that somehow you have lost out; if you have been turned into an orphan or a widow – that is, an outsider, someone outside the pulsing heart of God; then hear this Good News: God in Jesus holds you close, holds you tight, holds you here and now with all of us, folds you into this community, knits you fast into the fabric of this Body, and God in Jesus whispers this in your ear, over and over until you finally will let yourself hear it:

“You’ll never get away, never get away, never get away. I love you the most, I love you the most, I love you the most.”