Sermons

Gaudete!

St. Mark’s, Gaudete!

You over there and you over there and especially those of you sitting near our Advent wreath, Gaudete! I’m not sure you’re getting it. Gau-de-te!

Okay, I am getting the sense that either you are terrible at rejoicing or that you just don’t know what I’m saying. Because what I’m saying is Gaudete, the plural imperative form of the Latin word gaudeo, meaning rejoice. So really all I’m saying, rejoice! But because it’s plural and I took Latin in Oklahoma, I was taught that it means “rejoice, y’all!”

The reason I am telling you to rejoice is that today is Gaudete Sunday. It’s the Sunday of Advent when we light the pink candle, a mini glimpse of the celebration of Christmas to come. Advent in the lead up to Christmas is akin to Lent in the lead-up to Easter. It’s a season of penitential practices. Here we honor that by opening the service with confession and hearing some apocalyptic readings. But this week we take a break from some of that to rejoice and to celebrate what God has given us. Even in a broken world and a tough year like this one, we have a lot to rejoice about.

But I would like to posit to this community that the great joy that God has given us to celebrate is babies. In the course of just 15 days from November 22nd to last Sunday, December 7th, we had not one, not two, but three babies born in this congregation. Three babies! I’ve even had the chance to meet two of them. The names of our newest members are Oliver James Poxon-Swift, George Bloomfield, and Arianna Sandra Noelle Giannini. Hopefully you’ve seen the email alerts letting you know about our newest additions. It’s a baby boom, right here at St. Mark’s! And from what I hear, several more are on the way or have recently arrived.

There is no better time for our community to receive this gift than Advent, a time when we are all focused on expectant motherhood, this time of Mary. I think of Mary checking her pregnancy tracking app around now and it saying, “Today your baby is the size of a honeydew melon.” I know many of you who are parents have seen similar messages. I’ve always thought it was odd that we get the story about the annunciation (when Mary finds out she will bear a child, Jesus) and about the Magnificat (when Mary uses her prophetic voice to tell of God’s world, which is upside down from our world) but then we fast forward to the birth! From what I can tell, there’s a lot of living that goes on in those pregnancy months. I wish we had more of the story.

Several years ago I was privileged to attend a baby naming ceremony in the Jewish tradition. There were so many friends and families gathered together to celebrate this day in the baby’s life. It was a day like Gaudete. There was so much joy in the air. But what I remember most from that day was how much the children there were cherished. The babies were occasionally crying and the kids were running around like kids do. But I remember no one seemed annoyed about it. Rather it felt more like everyone was at Grandma’s house and the adults of the extended family were taking turns watching out for the kids. I remember thinking that I’d never been to an Episcopal Church that felt like that. I remember thinking that we had a lot to learn in this regard.

But now, when I look out at the kids all lining up with their crosses at the 9 am service, and I see the children’s choirs perform, and I hear the hubbub between services and watch as the kids reach for a cookie or a granola bite between services, I finally see that kind of hospitality extended to our children that I saw at the baby naming.
And in case you haven’t watched it happen with your eyes, it isn’t just the babies who are booming here at St. Mark’s, our youth and family ministry and children’s choirs are all growing in leaps and bounds thanks to the work of staff like Lisa and Judith and also the numerous adult volunteers who teach Sunday school and confirmation class, organize children’s chapel and nextgen reflection, help with service opportunities, organize outings and so much more.

For the last two years, the children’s choirs sang at our Carols and Cheer event. And I remember that last year someone I knew from the 5 pm service pulled me aside and said, where did all these children come from? Are these our children? I had the great joy of telling them that yes, these are our children!

The gifts of having babies and children in our midst are too many to name but let me start to try. They ask incredible questions that add to the ongoing wrestling with faith that we do here. They can sniff out hypocrisy a mile away so they hold us to be accountable to our values. They give us opportunities to be mentors and teachers. They lead us in service. They keep us humble and they bring humor. The other week I handed a child a piece of consecrated bread at the 9 am and said what I often do, “this is Jesus for you.” He looked at me, held it up and said “IS THIS CHEESE?” I just said no, it’s bread and I think he ate it.

In the season of Advent, John the Baptist implores us to prepare the way of the Lord. We are all preparing the way not just for ourselves but for those who come after us. Knowing that these children are growing up in a world that’s so different from the world that I grew up in is what makes me want to fight for their continued flourishing. Moms and dads, stepparents, and parents, I know that you are also committed to fighting for the future of your children. But so are the grandparents, aunties, uncles and guncles, godparents, teachers, mentors, caring friends, babysitters and all the adults that make up the constellation of support in a child’s life.

In church world, you will often hear that we should care for children because they are the church of the future. And there is some truth to that. A church with no children is one generation from dying out. But it always struck me as the wrong focus. I don’t care about our children just because they’re going to keep the doors open after I’m gone. I care about them because they are made in the image of God, because we are a better church when we nurture our youngest members, because they aren’t just the church of the future. They are the church now. And that is something to rejoice.