Exhortation, Fourth Sunday of Trinity

Over the next couple of years, Trinity will go through a significant transition, as I phase out of some responsibilities at Trinity to take on new responsibilities with the NSA graduate program. I will not be leaving Trinity, but over the next two years you’ll see a different face in front of you more and more frequently.

It will be tempting for some, no doubt, to consider moving from Trinity. If you have been here for me, and I’m not going to be preaching as regularly, it might seem you’ve lost your reason to be here.

If you’re thinking that, I urge you to consider your baptism. Baptism engrafts you into the community of Jesus. It is not just a confession of faith. It’s a membership badge, a rite of initiation into a people.

By baptism, you are bound to a single person, Jesus, as His disciple. Insofar as it binds you to others, baptism doesn’t bind you to a single person, but to a body of people – the church as a whole, and specifically to this church. When you took membership vows, you renewed that commitment, and specifically committed yourself to the peace and purity of this congregation.

You were all baptized in the name of Jesus, to be His disciples, not mine. Being a disciple of Jesus means serving Jesus’ brothers and sisters, the people who are sitting up and down the row from you this morning. As a baptized Christian, you are committed to a people, not a preacher.

Of course, this doesn’t mean one commits the sin of schism every time he leaves a church. There are legitimate reasons for leaving one congregation and going to another. But thinking of yourself as a disciple of any but Jesus is not one of them. Paul says, Now I say this, that each of you says, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?