Carla J. Bailey, Senior Pastor
Romans 13: 8-12

September 7, 2008

This first Sunday of the church program year, when the choir returns and children and teachers get started with new curriculum and boards begin program planning, when those of you who have been away for the summer return and energy seems to shimmer around this sanctuary, is my favorite of the entire year.  In some churches, this first day of the Fall church year is called Homecoming Sunday.  In that spirit, welcome home.

In our church, we call this Recovenanting Sunday when we rededicate ourselves to the covenant that binds our hearts and imaginations to the life and work of this church.  “Almighty God, you call us and we do covenant with you and with one another” - words that declare our commitment to the call of God as it finds its life and expression in a community of fellow believers.  In anticipation of this day, our church staff has planned for the year.  We have laid out the next ten months, filled in squares with the annual events.  Of course we cannot know the events that will come along as surprises – winter storms, deaths, election outcomes – these are all events for which we can only be prepared in general ways, not knowing the extent or the depth of strength required of us.

As a Christian, one whose primary loyalty is to Jesus Christ, I look upon the events of this coming year, the planned and unexpected ones, through the lenses of my faith.  So, through the lenses of faith, I’m going to preach a series of Election Reflections in October, pondering for four Sundays some of the issues I believe faithful people need to contemplate before casting a vote.  Through the lenses of faith, I’m going to recommend a budget to Elders.  Through the lenses of faith, I’m going to think about our church’s staffing needs, our children’s programs, our Deacons’ activities, book studies, mission efforts, new member invitations, outreach efforts, building demands, member disappointments, and so on.  Today, I am covenanting with God and with you, once again, to be your pastor, to looking, reading, praying, listening, confronting, and watching through the eyes and ears of faith in Jesus Christ whose critique and evaluation of his own culture was relentless and without reprieve, whose compassion for the unloved was deep, and whose words held a mirror before the foolish, selfish, self-absorbed, and self-indulgent.  If we did nothing more this morning than recovenant with God and one with another to be more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, we would do more than ever could be imagined by infinite planning and preparation.

In this rich little passage I just read from Romans, Paul pointed to the experience of morning after a long night of unrestrained and messy behaviors.  He told the Romans that it was morning, and time to awaken from sleep.  Even more significantly, he reassured the Romans that salvation was very near and the long night of either waiting or wildness would soon be over.  Here the keynote is watchfulness - the urgency of the Christian’s existence which underlies all other relationships. 

The theme of morning watchfulness is not uniquely Paul’s.  In fact, Jesus himself sounded the same tone in many of his teachings about the coming reign of God.  Watch for the morning so that you will be prepared is a frequent metaphor of the Gospel stories.  Perhaps because of its roots in the Gospels or in Paul’s masterful repetition, the theme of watching for the new morning was a common theme in early Christian ethical teaching, even part of the earliest catechism taught to new converts.  The point was to encourage believers to be ready, not anxiously calculate the date of doom or destruction.  The preparedness of the morning would bring a hopeful expectation of the new life Christ could bring with its new possibilities for more loving relationships, more open interaction, more creative possibilities and solutions.  The Christian, according to this morning metaphor, has something even more to live for than ease and sleep, self-indulgence, sexual pleasure, or the common struggles and ambitions of the world.  The life of faith and opportunities for Christian engagement greet the faithful in the same way that each morning comes, reliably new, open, and infinitely possible.

We who live now so long after this letter to the Romans was written have both an advantage and a disadvantage over that newly formed congregation.  History has demonstrated to us, time and again, that new days dawn, even after the most horrific of nights.  In our own lives, in the lives of this congregation, across our country and even around the entire globe, sorrow gives way, eventually, to hope.  But we also have accumulated the cynicism of generations of people who wonder if the new life Christ offers is an enduring thing or is it as cyclical as each 24 hour period, a promise easily made with the first shafts of morning light but easily forgotten in the approaching darkness with all its temptations, shadowy shapes and weary accommodations.  It’s easy to be a Christian in the morning when not much has happened yet.  Far more difficult is it to live as children of the light when darkness encroaches from every side, when the shadows grow long, when obscene choices seem reasonable and the clarity of trust in God has dimmed.

Perhaps we should return to Paul’s words, to the context in which he spoke of morning and night.  “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” If we love, Paul wrote to the Romans and to us, then there is nothing to fear in the darkness of night or in the light of day.  If we love, then the light of Christ brings all the protection we need, all the courage required of us, all the strength, hope, and conviction necessary to make the world kinder to all and more just for each.  If we love, we fulfill our covenant promise to God and to one another.  In that spirit, a joyous Recovenanting Sunday to you all.  Amen.