[At the 10:15 service this morning,] {In just a few minutes,} I will baptize a child named Tristan, who, because the church is undergoing some much-needed restoration work, will be the first (and perhaps last) person ever baptized in the Susan Tucker Moore Room. What's more, we should be back in the church before our next regularly scheduled baptisms in November, so Tristan will perhaps also have the distinction of being the only child ever baptized in a chimney pot-at least at St. James.

As most of you know, our makeshift font used to be one of three or four chimney pots on the roof of the church, until the 1950 renovation changed over the church's heating system. When I arrived at St. James four years ago, this chimney pot stood in a corner of the lobby near the steps leading up to the parish offices, not serving any purpose. It was merely a curiosity-I'm not even sure we ever used it to display flowers. But when the Meditation Chapel was completed, Charlie had it moved outside the chapel and commissioned a bowl for it, so that it could serve as a holy water stoop. Ed Tillman made the beautiful wood base, which was given in thanksgiving for the baptisms of two parishioners-both of whom I baptized, by the way. Since then, Sarah Terhune has made sure it is kept full of blessed water, so that those who wish may remember their baptisms by touching their fingers to the water and making the sign of the cross as they enter the Meditation Chapel. It is altogether fitting, therefore, given the recent association with baptism that this chimney pot has had, that an actual baptism be performed using it. It is as if an understudy has been waiting in the wings, and now that the star of the show is under the weather, the understudy finally gets her chance in the spotlight.

Of course, the chimney pot isn't exactly the star of the show, is it? No, it's merely a stage prop, a part of the scenery, like our makeshift reredos here, which was commissioned as a backdrop of Jerusalem in a play a couple of years ago. No, the real star of the show will be Tristan, right?

Not quite. I am sure he will give a performance worthy of a "best supporting actor" nomination, but the real star is the Holy Spirit. For after I baptize Tristan, Loree will make the sign of the cross in oil on his forehead and say, "Tristan, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own for ever." It is the action of the Holy Spirit that ultimately gets the spotlight in this great drama.

And we all get supporting roles, as well. We're not just "extras," for the definition of an extra is an actor who simply fills out the background. Extras generally don't get any lines, but [the congregation at 10:15 will say] {we do}: "We receive you into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood." And, lest we [8 o'clockers] think our role is merely a bit part, let's not forget that we will also renew our own baptismal covenant [so that we will be united as one congregation with our baptismal candidate] {just before Tristan takes his place upon the stage}.

But make no mistake, in this drama, it's not "all about us," though it is about all of us. For in baptism, we affirm that we are more than just a conglomeration of individuals in voluntary association with each other. Rather, we proclaim that we are one community, one body, in the church. The drama of baptism is a drama of relationship. So it's not about what we do, it's about what God does. And what is that? Through Christ, the Holy Spirit brings us into fellowship with the Father, so that we can participate in the divine love of the Trinity. In other words, God adopts us as family members, members of "the household of God." And this adoption is eternal: "You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own for ever."

These words from the prayerbook affirm the implied answer to St. Paul's rhetorical question in Romans chapter 8: "Who will separate us from the love of Christ?" No one. Nothing. We "are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own for ever." Period. Full stop.

This is a wonderful truth to affirm and to celebrate, but in the interests of full disclosure, it is also a hard truth, for in the same breath, Paul reminds us that there are things that do try to separate us from the love of Christ: hardship, distress, persecution, nakedness, peril, sword. And that's just the short list! To the examples Paul gives, each of us can certainly add our own or imagine others: poverty, alcoholism, depression, abuse, addiction, war, terrorism, divorce, adultery…you name it. The bad news implicit in Paul's good news is that we are all the victims of evil and the perpetrators of sin; that we are sometimes our own worst enemies, and that evil loves to take advantage of our weaknesses to drive a wedge between us and those we love, especially if we love God.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? No one. But that doesn't stop them from trying, does it? And it doesn't stop us from trying to separate ourselves, either. Yet, in the midst of this hard reality check, Paul points out that even if we stop loving Christ, Christ won't stop loving us. Should we lose our faith, get fed up with God, walk out on each other, Paul claims that God won't cease loving us, and that the ultimate sign of that love is Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

So, while nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, being faithful doesn't mean being happy or safe. There are no guarantees in this life. Rather, being faithful simply means doing right, even when-or especially when-it's most difficult to do so, even when the right thing doesn't happen as a result. We are brought up to believe that if we're honest, we will be rewarded; if we tell the truth, justice will be served. But Paul knows better, and he's not afraid to say it: even if we do our part, that doesn't mean goodness will prevail in the short term. It's only in the long term that we are given the "sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ," as the prayerbook puts it.

Paul recalls a bit of Psalm 44 to illustrate this point when he writes, "As it is written, 'For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.'" The psalm is about the history of the people of Israel, God's chosen, beloved people, who nonetheless were constantly persecuted and defeated; they were no strangers to oppression and degradation, to pain and humiliation. Yet, reflecting on Israel's experience, Paul asserts that even when we are most persecuted and oppressed, we are most victorious: "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." From one perspective, Jesus was the biggest loser the world has ever known-he got himself crucified, after all. And yet through the resurrection, God invites us to join in Christ's victory over sin and death, so that "in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." Through Christ, we don't just overcome evil with good, but we enter into an eternal relationship with the Source of all goodness, a relationship that all the powers of evil cannot sever, try as they might.

This brings us to what I consider to be the four central words of Paul's statement of faith: "for I am convinced." He writes: "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." What convinced Paul that what he was writing was true? It certainly wasn't mere philosophical or theological reflection. No, these are words written by a man who had been arrested for what he believed. He had been chained, imprisoned, tortured, and on more than one occasion, beaten to within an inch of his life: all because he believed and proclaimed that Jesus was the sign that God loves everyone, no exceptions-even those who killed Jesus, even those who eventually beheaded Paul. Paul had gone through all these trials and tribulations-he'd even been shipwrecked-and yet he still said "despite it all, I know that God loves me, and that God loves you, and nothing the world can throw at me can convince me otherwise, or convince me to stop loving God or loving humanity or loving life."

Wow. That's pretty heavy stuff. Guess that's why Paul's a saint and you and I aren't. But hold on, wait a minute. Guess again. It's not that we have to be convinced of this truth all the time-I'm sure that Paul himself had his own moments of discouragement and depression. But Paul always came back to this bedrock conviction: that nothing and nobody "will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." We, too, can take this as our credo. And even if we renounce it, Paul says, "That's all right. Not even renouncing Christ's love can separate you from it. It's there for you whether you want it or not." Yes, even when we are separated from God and separated from each other, we are united in God's love for us through Christ. In a world full of bad news, this is good news, indeed. This is good news worth proclaiming and celebrating: that, whether we like it or not, we are all, as Tristan soon will be, "sealed by the Holy Spirit…and marked as Christ's own for ever."