Sermon: "Our Baptismal Covenant as a Biblical Theme"
The Right Reverend Charles G. vonRosenberg
Third Bishop of East Tennessee

[This sermon by Bishop vonRosenberg was delivered using the following notes.]

I am grateful to the people of St. Matthias for your welcome of me once again today. It is a pleasure to be with you.

I am grateful, also, for your ministries in this place and beyond … for what you do in our Lord's name in church, at home and in the larger community. Indeed, I give thanks that you lead your lives according to the Baptismal Covenant that we have with God.

That Baptismal Covenant is found on page 304 of the Book of Common Prayer. The Covenant - or agreement or understanding - begins in affirming our faith in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Then, having that faith, we also affirm how we intend to live out our faith, within our covenant with God. For instance, our intentions include lives of worship - "breaking the bread and (saying our) prayers" - our commitment to seek God's forgiveness for our actions; and our dedication to "proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ." Also, our intentions directly impact our lives of service with others - "to seek and serve Christ in all persons," "to love your neighbor as yourself," "to strive for justice and peace among all people" and "to respect the dignity of every human being."

Therefore, our Baptismal Covenant with God states the faith that we share and affirms our intention to live a Christian life, following the example of our Lord.

Amid the church challenges of our day, we can be tempted to divert our attention and energy away from what is basic to our faith. For that reason, as I travel about the diocese this year, I have been upholding aspects of our ministry that focus on our mission as the Diocese of East Tennessee … that is, mission and ministry consistent with the Baptismal Covenant.

In the year to come, we will emphasize four diocesan ministries in particular. Grace Point Camp and Retreat Center provides a wonderful resource for Christian nurture and for spiritual formation, for all Episcopalians in East Tennessee. Lay ministry development focuses our attention on living lives consistent with the call and intention of the Baptismal Covenant. Outreach ministries with the people of Appalachia and with the native Americans in South Dakota give us practical ways to respond to Christ's call to love one another, in word and in deed.

The past year following General Convention may have been full of trial, sadness and challenge for many Episcopalians - although not for all of us in East Tennessee. However, this year, with a concentration on the ministries I suggest, perhaps we can refocus our attention on the Baptismal Covenant. Let me point out something else to you also. If you take the first letters of those ministries - Grace Point, lay ministry development, Appalachia and the Dakotas - then you see that I am proposing a "glad" year for East Tennessee! On the one hand, I think we need it. And, on the other hand, this should bring us in line with our Lord's call to us, through the Baptismal Covenant.

As I have concentrated on the Baptismal Covenant, one result has been that I am more sensitive to the theme of covenant throughout the Bible. A covenant is an agreement or an understanding between individuals or groups, and a covenant will state the boundaries and the expectations within the relationship involved. Thus, for instance, the Baptismal Covenant reminds us of our agreement and understanding with God in our relationship with Him. And, as a result of the Baptismal Covenant, certain expectations about behavior and the way we live our lives will follow.

So, too, we may observe the significance of covenants in each of our scripture readings today. In Genesis, we read of certain understandings between Jacob and his brother Esau … and we read further of Jacob's uneasiness as he tried to discover whether or not the expectations of the covenant were still valid after his own treachery. Later in that reading, we learned of the covenant Jacob made with God's angel, as the two of them wrestled with each other - the covenant that brought a new name for Jacob, Israel, along with God's blessing of him.

In Second Timothy, we heard the author's encouragement of the Church to live into their covenant with God. This reading's first verse sets the tone of that encouragement: "As for you, continue in what you have learned and first believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus." In other words, "Keep your covenant with God."

Finally, the point of Jesus' parable in the Gospel is to remind his hearers of an essential act in their relationship to God: to pray. We might miss that point as we try to clarify the communication between the insistent widow and the unresponsive judge. However, as we read at the outset of this lesson, "Jesus told the disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart."

Therefore, I commend to you this morning the theme of covenant. That theme provides us a significant viewpoint in our reading and study of holy scripture. And in particular, the Baptismal Covenant identifies our agreement and understanding with God as individual Christians, as a church and as a diocese. We are blessed by our covenant with God. May we therefore be blessings to God as we live into our covenant with Him! Amen.

Copyright © 2004 The Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee