“I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.”
Please be seated.
Good morning! My name is Lilo Carr Rivera. I’m the resident seminarian here at St. John’s for the next year. So, what is a seminarian? A seminarian is someone who is studying about God. At my seminary, there are people who are studying to be priests, or deacons, or are lay people looking to deepen their knowledge of God and the Bible. I am called to be a priest and that’s what I’m learning how to do here at St. John’s from Mother Shelley and Father Matthew, but also from each one you here. You are all my teachers. I haven’t met everyone here today, but I hope to. Everyone here at St. John’s has been so kind and welcoming.
I’ve done other things in my life before I was called to the priesthood. I was a daughter and student. I worked as a graphic designer and a social worker with families here in Brooklyn. I am a wife and mother. Before coming to seminary, I worked as a hospital chaplain, praying with people who were sick and dying.
Even though I am at the middle of life (God willing), I’m at the beginning of my journey into ordained ministry. Sometimes I feel uncertain about where my ministry will take me. That’s why I was so struck by steadfast faith that we see in Paul’s second letter to Timothy that we read today. Paul is at the end of his ministry. He is waiting to die. Paul has had a dramatic and passionate ministry. He talks about being rescued from “from the lion’s mouth” and this was really true — Paul was beaten nearly to death many times for preaching the Gospel message. He was shipwrecked twice! He tells Timothy that God stood by him and gave him strength to persevere in his message — a dangerous message that proclaimed that a radical equality could be found in Jesus Christ — dangerous to the status quo because this equality dissolved all barriers of class and custom and gender. We are all one in Christ, Paul writes in Galatians. But what is extraordinary about Paul is that he didn’t just preach this message — he lived it. We see in his letters that he was passionately committed to addressing the very real problems of living out this message in the real world. Paul walked the walk. He sacrificed in every way to be a servant of Christ.
But his call led to him to a Roman prison. These prisons were filthy, squalid places, full of vermin and rot. All but one of his friends had deserted him. Paul knows that if he doesn’t die in prison, he will be beheaded. Now, Paul has given his entire life to the service of the Gospel and now is facing the most unglamorous, unrewarding end, by worldly standards. In this letter, we can hear Paul’s sadness. And yet, he doesn’t despair. How can he not succumb to anger and disappointment?
What was sustaining him?
We find the answer in Romans 8:38–39:
38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[b] neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow — not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below — indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nothing can separate us from the God’s love in Jesus Christ.
Nothing.
Paul writes to Timothy that he is poured out as a libation, or sacrifice, to God. Paul himself becomes living water, water that flows from God and back to God. But what does it mean to be a living water? You may have heard that when we baptize, we baptize in living water — water that is flowing and moving. But what is this living water spiritually, emotionally?
When I was a hospital chaplain, I remember one patient. She was very sick, and we didn’t know if she was going to make it. She was afraid. One day she told me about a dream she had had the previous day. In the dream, she rose from her hospital bed and walked toward a beautiful sunset. She followed the horizon into an area surrounded by nature. A man was seated cross-legged on the ground. She described him as a modern-day Jesus. This man offered her a drink from a pitcher of water. She felt thirsty and she drank. She told me this water was the most refreshing, life-giving water she had ever had. She called the “the perfect water.” The water renewed her physically and spiritually in deep way that she could barely express with words. The man said that she could continue toward the horizon or go back the way she came. But that eventually, she would come this way again. She decided to return to her bed in the hospital. This dream of the perfect water given to her by Jesus gave her great hope and comfort in the last weeks of her life. With that water, she felt deeply loved by God.
In the living water of baptism, we are reminded of God’s promise of love for us. And we need people around us to remind us of this love. Paul handed his life over to God, and today Mary and John will be handing their child, Jane, into the hands God. She’ll be marked with the living water of baptism, and she’ll inherit the promise that Paul tells us about: nothing can separate Jane from the love of God in Christ Jesus. She is marked as God’s own forever. Jane won’t remember this day, but we, as her faith community, will. We, as a congregation, will be making some very extravagant promises today to Jane and her parents. We will be there to remind her and her family of the incredible faithfulness of Christ’s love along the way. With God’s help.
Amen.