Overflow [Advent 2C]

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The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson
Philippians 1:3-11

Overflow

I'm not sure in what year it happened, but I know it happened during the Great Vigil of Easter.  And so of course it was dark in the church.  Only the Pascal Candle lit the chancel – a single flame dancing in the font's metallic silver bowl. That night we would welcome into the Church a new Christian – a little person we would lay on the altar of Love. 

As I prayed the baptismal prayer, recounting the ways in which we Christians track salvation history through water, I picked up the ewer, the liturgical pitcher, and started to pour.  And pour.  And pour.  It was so dark that I could not see that the font was growing quite full, each drop challenging capacity.  I did not realize just how full was the font until the water started to overflow – out of the font and all over the floor.

It was messy.  It was a little dangerous, that baptismal water all over the floor.  And it was entirely appropriate.

In our lesson from Philippians today, Paul writes to his sisters and brothers in Christ, “This is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more...”  Today, as we lay her on the altar of Love, that is our prayer for Lucia.  She comes today to the same baptismal font.  And there, like so many others before, she will be baptized into a life that is messy and dangerous.  She will bear the weight of those impossible vows, vows made today on her behalf.  And we will promise support her, even as we struggle to keep them ourselves.  Our prayer for her is that, by living into those vows, her love may overflow more and more.     

It is a prayer as old as the Church.  It is a prayer we pray with hope.  It is a prayer we pray with faith.  It is a prayer we pray because the Gospel demands it of us.  But also it is a prayer we should pray with heavy hearts.  Because the world in which we live is not safe.  And love only overflows from a heart opened dangerously wide.  It is hard to carry a vulnerable heart into this dangerous world.  And yet, that is our prayer for Lucia today, for our littlest sister in Christ.

Love is not easy; it requires a depth of vulnerability that often feels unnatural – and maybe it is.  And love becomes more difficult with each act of violence perpetrated against the human family.  The mass shooting this week in San Bernadino, California was the 355th mass shooting in our nation this year.  It was the deadliest shooting in our country since 26 people, 20 of them children, were murdered in Connecticut three years ago.  And the shooting in California wasn't even the only mass shooting in the country that day.  Four people were also shot in Savannah, Georgia on Wednesday.[1] 

The gun violence in our own nation, the deadly attacks happening around our world, the domestic violence that damages families and mars relationships: they remind us that this world is not safe.  The scourge of violence challenges our Christian duty to live heart-first, to lead with a love is as revolutionary as it is risky.  Even so, this is my prayer, brothers and sisters, that your love may overflow more and more.

Today we will renew our baptismal vows.  We will once again promise to God to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.  We will once again promise to God to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves.  We will once again promise to God to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.  And by fulfilling those vows, we will fulfill another: to persevere in resisting evil.  This is how it is done.  This is being Christian in the world.    

The world is scary.  But do not cower in fear; do not be afraid.  Resist the violence and evil and fear that seek to cool the love of Christ that burns within you.  Resist but not with weapons, not by building fences or fortifying walls or hiding away from a world in need of Jesus.  Resist the hate with love.  Resist the violence by opening wider your hearts.  Seek and serve Christ in all persons – family, friend, stranger, and enemy; innocent victim and violent offender alike.  Love when it is hard.  Love when it feels wrong.  Love when everyone else says to hate.  This is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more.

During this season of Advent we remember that Jesus came into a world that was not safe – in which powerful people ruled with violence, in which rulers slaughtered children and crucified their opposition.  And into that violence, God sent a baby – a tiny, vulnerable baby.   There was no army, no display of great power, no swords or bombs or guns.  Instead there was only love – the heart of God opened way too wide in a dangerous world. 

This is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more.  And I know that can be scary.  And I know the wider you open your heart, the more vulnerable it becomes.  And I know sometimes you will be thought of as weak, sometimes as foolish.  And I know the world is a messy and dangerous place.  And yet still this is my prayer for you, Lucia; it is my prayer for you, my sisters and brothers in Christ.  And though I pray it with a heavy heart, I pray it nonetheless.  The world is not safe, but love is powerful.  This is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more – that you would open your hearts dangerously wide until the evil and violence of this world are buried under a flood of our love.      






 









[1]   http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/03/458321777/a-tally-of-mass-shootings-in-the-u-s

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