Third Sunday of Easter
April 14, 2024
Psalm 4
Every morning I walk into my office with an agenda. A plan. I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna take care of that. I have my checklist that references other checklists. Bolstered with a pot of coffee and the spirit of Jesus, I’m gonna be productive. That’s at 8 o’clock every morning. But by noon, well, the whole plan is toast. Because it’s always something. There’s some sort of crisis that comes up. An issue that needs my immediate attention. I want to take care of one thing early that morning, but by lunch, people have gotten in the way. I’ll tell you – it’s always something.
It’s always something, isn’t it? You want to eat healthy this week, but then you’re going out for a friend’s birthday and have to eat the cake. This week, you’re not going to let the laundry pile up, but then by the time you get home after a long day of work, of stuff kids, that pile just gets higher. Life would just be so much better without all those other people in our way. Even on a larger scale, we want to take on the big issues facing our world, but then other, bigger issues take their place. It’s like playing whack-a-mole. The more you whack, the faster they come. It’s always something.
All we want, all we could ask for, is for just some space to take care of what we need to take care of. Or, in those cutting words from Psalm 4, “Many are saying, ‘Oh, that we might see better times.’” Truly, those are our words. That’s our line. Facing down so many problems, issues, conflicts; dealing with complexities and people. Goodness, people. Often overwhelmed with all of it, with life itself, we mutter those very same words, “Oh, that we might see better times.”
And yet, this is the time given to us. And we cannot choose the issues facing our world. They are simply the issues that we have to face. I know, it’s always something. But when we just wring our hands and say, “Oh, that we might see better times,” well, I think those are the words of unfaithfulness.
Because, we should think about it the other way around. Rather than it all being a burden, those people, those complexities, those multi-faceted issues that keep coming up in your life, well, they might just be an opportunity. An opportunity to dig into your faith, an opportunity to work and serve and pray. And, when we say, “Oh, that we might see better times,” when we complain that it’s always something; well, that just shows our self-centeredness. I mean, better times for who? For us? Like we’re the most important people in the world? It’s always something? What for me is a little nuisance in the middle of my otherwise productive day might, for someone else, be the most important thing in their whole life.
So yes, part of the Christian life is accepting, by faith, that it is and always will be something. Any quest for complete self-satisfaction, any desire for absolute autonomy, any dream of being self-reliant and self-contained is, by definition, not Christian. Jesus said that we need to take up the cross.1 Jesus said that we need to love one another as he loves us.2 All throughout the stories of his life, Jesus is going to one place to help someone, and he gets interrupted. So Jesus stops, helps the person who interrupted him, and then keeps going to where he had been going all along.3 That is the example set for us. Yes, it is always something; an opportunity to share the grace of God.
So this morning, as we baptize these three young girls into that faith, into that example, we know that for them, it will always be something. There will always be something in their lives – they will face heartache and worries and problems; they’ll have to deal with the stress of school and work; they’ll have to deal with people, ugh, people. They will have to grapple with the issues of the day that will define their worlds. We are not baptizing them so they escape all those realities, or are protected from them. No, we are baptizing them into those realities. So that following the example of Jesus, inspired by the Holy Spirit, they will take on all those things with grace. Because Annie, Lucy, Lily – the world needs you. This world, where there is always something going on, it needs the love of Jesus now as much as it has ever needed it. And today, you and your families are committing to that vision, to that hope, to that dream. “Oh, that we might see better times”? Well, that is the point. That is the point of what we are doing in baptism. Through those waters you will be commissioned, sent out, empowered by the Holy Spirit to make our times better. To usher in the Kingdom of God. To stand boldly for the sake of love and mercy and dignity. Because of all our baptisms, because we have each been called by Christ, we do hope to see better times. And with faith, with humility, with devotion to the Lord Jesus, those better times we hope for could be our time. That is not self-centered, it is not about making our little corner of the world more comfortable. No, baptism is about seeing this world through God’s loving eyes. It is about living in the world as God would have it, on earth, as it is in heaven.
I know, it will always be something. The agenda for your day, your goals for the week, the plan for your life, will never be fully realized. Rather than wringing your hands and saying, “Oh, that we might we see better times,” hear again these words. These words of an old Episcopal priest, the Rev. Phillips Brooks. He worked to keep his church together during the Civil War. He saw the people and children of Boston chewed up by the excesses of the Gilded Age and the Industrial Revolution. But for Phillips Brooks, and for his people, when it always something, he said, “O, do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come in you by the grace of God.”4
Annie, Lucy, Lily – today as we baptize you into this faith of Jesus, we are not praying that you would have easy lives. Oh no, the One you are choosing to follow today was put on a cross. This life will not be easy. No, we are praying for you to be faithful servants of the Lord Jesus. It will always be something, yes. But you can make something out of it. And that will be the grace of God.
The Rev. Jimmy Abbott 
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