A Sermon for Rhys Harrison

May I speak in the name of God who created us…

I hope you don’t mind if today I address my sermon to Rhys. If I know anything about one-year-olds, it’s that they love sermons, so I’m sure he’s paying attention to every word. I want to speak to Rhys, today, just a few moments before he is baptized because today is, I believe, one of the most important days of his life.

Rhys, today your parents and godparents will be asked whether they “put their whole trust in [Christ’s] grace and love.” And they will answer on your behalf saying, “I do.”

Today, all of us are declaring our intention to raise you in that trust. We are committing to raise you with faith in Christ’s grace and love. Undoubtedly, you will live out this part of his life in a way that we do not expect. Undoubtedly, God will lead you in directions that your parents cannot imagine or plan for and that they may or may not like. But no matter what, today, in baptism, the Holy Spirit will become a part of you in a way so organic and intimate and profound that wherever you go and whatever you does, you will be, as the prayer book puts it, “sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.” Whatever happens, wherever God leads you, your life will be marked by the love and presence of God. No matter what. Today is important.

And so, Rhys, today I want to say a few words about the life of faith that begins for you today. The life of faith that is open to all of us, each day, if we choose it.

Our reading today is from the Book of Hebrews, which is in part a book about faith, a book that explores what it means to, as the Prayer Book puts it, “put your whole trust in Christ’s grace and love.”

And I’d like to highlight two things that the book of Hebrews has to tell us about this life of faith that you.

The first is this: Rhys, today you are being invited to believe in a world that is far bigger and more interesting than what you can see. Our reading from Hebrews begins with this beautiful definition of faith: “now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” The life of faith is a life of trust that there is a reality that is deeper than the one that our senses perceive. That God is work for love, for good, for justice, even if we cannot perceive it. 

Rhys, there will be moments even in the most wonderful life when you will feel hopeless. You will find yourself tangled up in some difficult situation, and it will seem like there is no way out, that there is only more hurt and failure ahead. And in those moments, faith will be the still small voice that tells you that there are possibilities that you cannot see. That a love greater than you can imagine is somehow at work, making a way out of no way. Faith is the still small voice that will tell you that you are not alone, that if you dare to surrender to God, to trust in God, somehow, somewhere a window will open and fresh air will blow in. In those moments of despair and hurt, I pray that you will dare to have faith, dare to believe that still small voice, dare to trust that God is at work. Faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

The second thing that Hebrews tells us about the life of faith, the life that begins in this font right here, is that the life of faith is a life of good risk.

Rhys, I imagine that your parents and all the people who love you spend a lot of their time trying to keep you from doing risky things. Don’t stand on that chair, don’t go headfirst down the slide. Sometimes I’ll be looking at my beautiful daughter asleep and I’ll find myself thinking, I hope tattoos aren’t still trendy when she is a teenager. Or I hope she never rides a motorcycle. As parents who love you, we want so much to protect you from every danger, from every risk.

And that is normal and right. The world is full of risks that are not worth taking. A life without skydiving is a very good life.

But there is a different kind of risk that we hope that you will take. There is a kind of good risk that is central to the life of faith. Because real, open-hearted love is always a risk. Vulnerability is always a risk. Challenging injustice, standing with people who are being treated unfairly, working alongside others to make change – these things are very risky.

One day, Rhys, you might feeling a stirring deep within you, at a level you can’t quite articulate, telling you to take a risk for love, for justice, for compassion, for a better world. When that feeling comes, pay attention. God might be up to something, inviting you to take a risk for the sake of faith. There are risks in life that we hope you will take.

In our reading today, Hebrews gives an example of this kind of good risk. We hear a retelling of the story of Abraham and Sarah, the common ancestors of the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian faiths. At the beginning of the story, set at around 3000 years bc, Abraham and Sarah live happily in Ur of the Chaldeans, present day Iraq. Until one day, God speaks and calls Abraham and Sarah to leave their homeland, to leave their friends and family behind and go to a land that will one day be theirs. God asks them to give up everything for the completely illogical promise that this elderly, childless couple will have descendants numbering more than the stars, descendants that will thrive in this new and unknown place that has been promised to them. And by faith, Abraham and Sarah set out on the road. Hebrews describes them as pilgrims in search of a better country, a city whose architect and builder is God.

This story of Abraham and Sarah, of a family leaving behind everything they knew to follow God becomes the model used throughout scripture for the life of faith – a life of taking good risks, of leaving what we know for an unknown country whose law is love.

I would imagine most people in this room, Rhys, could tell you a story of a time that they took a risk for faith – a time that they paid attention to how God was speaking to their hearts and set off for an unknown country.

The life of faith is a life of good risk, in which we at times are called to leave behind what is familiar and seek to make the world better. The life of faith comes with the understanding that God does not promise us a smooth road and that not every story has a perfect ending. But God does promise to never leave us, to never forsake us. God does promise that whatever risks we take in faith, we will not be alone. 

Rhys, we are grateful to you and to your family for letting us be a part of this moment in your life. Our prayer for you is the same as our prayer for ourselves: We pray that today is the beginning of a life of faith – a life of faith that is deep, open-minded, open-hearted, and compassionate. We pray that today is the beginning of a life in which you come to trust in a reality deeper than the one we can see, in which God is drawing the world nearer to his kingdom of justice and peace. We pray that today is the beginning of a life of good and holy and joyful risk for the sake of the Gospel of love. Amen.