The examination of the Baptismal Candidate began. The parish priest spoke in a clear voice, "Will you be responsible for seeing that the child you present is brought up in the Christian faith and life?"

The gown rustled, and the family answered. Not quite with one voice, but in earnest -
"I will with God's help."

The priest continued, "Will you by your prayers and witness help this child to grow into the full stature of Christ?" The family proclaimed that they would.

By the end of the liturgy, promises had fallen like rain and the font was full of water font. Parents had affirmed that God was sovereign, Christ was the source of salvation and that they put their whole trust in Him. Priest and parishioners alike had reaffirmed their own Baptismal Covenant. They promised to come to church weekly, and to get back up whenever they fell into sin. They said they'd ask for God's forgiveness, proclaim His Good News, and seek to serve Him in all persons.

Promises of justice and peace, respect and dignity were splashed about like Holy Water- a blessing that seemed to encompass the whole world. It was a warm and inspiring morning, full of good music and good feelings.

And then it was time to live out all those promises they had made…

Over the years the parish grew. The number of children in the Sunday School seemed to explode. Every time the congregation turned around there seemed to be something else to buy, to build or to repair. As the activities of the parish had increased, the annual budget blossomed. Some suggested that the budget was, in fact, growing like a weed. What was the right way forward? They wondered. They muttered. Sometimes they argued. And finally in the quiet of their homes they had prayed, tilting their heads to one side and listening.

An echo came, like a whisper in the wind- perhaps it came from a century ago when the tea colored gown was still white or maybe the echo came from the parish baptisms earlier that same spring. "Will you by your prayers and witness help this child to grow into the full stature of Christ?" the echo asked.

Then, wherever the echo had come from, they could hear the sound of their own voices responding in the present-"I will, with God's help." And they stood to do the work that God had given them to do. They could have just gone fishing, but many hours were spent at the parish raking leaves or setting up teas. Many dollars that could have gone into a better car or a longer vacation ended up as coal for the church furnace or blankets for the shelter downtown. Each people and every age has its work to do to tend their lambs and to feed their sheep. We too have our calling in our own day.

We are forever having to choose, again, what we will renounce and what we will embrace. There is always a new opportunity to be a responsible witness and a faithful example. A Covenant is just words on a page until we live out the promises in concrete ways.

Scene Two: He stood in a jet-black tuxedo with a white rose pinned to his lapel. At the far end of the nave he could see the dazzling white dress. In front of the bride was a procession of peach colored gowns. But the groom was remembering a different dress from a snapshot at the rehearsal dinner - an infant in a tea colored gown held in loving arms above a marble font. The groom turned his head to the right with a soft smile and saw, just beyond the Paschal candle, the gleaming white stone- still there, silent and solid. He remembered the small smiling face in the photo, then looked up just in time to take his bride's hand from the hands of her father- the hands that had held her above the water and promised to raise her in the full stature of Christ.

By the time the bell rang, the bride and groom were husband and wife "for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health." They had given themselves to one another, promising much, and the congregation had promised to "do all in [their] power to support them in their marriage".

Good words were said, and meant, by all. But a marriage truly begins when the wedding is over. The hope is that a couple will find "such fulfillment of their mutual affection that they may reach out in love and concern for others." It doesn't always happen, but that time it did. It was hard in the early years- money and liquor and a failed business almost took them down. But Christ and a loving community raised them back up. Covenant is lived out in the company of others. Whether the promises take place in our baptism or in our marriage, community is the context for our growth in Christ and we need one another to grow fully, to grow strong. The local church is the cradle from which saints come.

As the years passed the man and the woman had children of their own. The parish bought property, added a school, and built more buildings. Crisis came and went. Like her parents before them she and her husband were generous. She remembered thinking she should have a bumper sticker that said "my other car is the carpet on the parish house floor" or "I gave at the office", with the word "at" crossed out. Looking backwards they didn't miss the money and they liked the results. It seemed that at the right time the people always rose up and did what needed to be done, with God's help.

The man greeted people at the door of the church. He helped them to their pews, ran the stewardship campaign, and served as the Senior Warden (three times over a fifty year span). She was on the Altar Guild, in the choir and baked for every bazaar. When people became more reasonable about the actual abilities of women, she served as Treasurer, then as Senior Warden. Wars were fought and the country changed. Presidents came and went like calendar pages flipping faster and faster in some cartoon.

New generations discovered Christianity and made it their own. The Prayerbook changed, the hymnal changed and guitars came to church.

A procession of priests served the parish, some well, some less so- they came, they served, then they died, or left, and new priests came. The man and the woman were faithful over the decades- to each other, to their community and to their church.

Scene Three: The reading lamp behind her head lit up her white hair as though it were a veil. She turned toward the bed to look at her husband. The shiny lapel of his old black silk bathrobe suddenly seemed like a good place for a crisp white rose. But the flowers sent by friends and distant children were fading and there were no white roses at hand today, only lilies of the valley in the shadows of the room.

She was tired. He was worn out.
His spirit was strong, and the doctors were very good, but the time comes when evening is at hand and the day is past. The youngest priest from the parish came into the hospital room. He had been in a seminary just three weeks ago. She had been on the calling committee. She liked him and was glad to see him. "He is about the age of my grandson," she thought, and she realized that the young priest looked a lot like her idea of Jesus. "What are you smiling about," he asked gently. "I was remembering one of the baptismal promises," she said, "about seeking Christ in all persons."

At some point between the young priest's arrival and the time she turned her head back toward the bed, her husband, John, had slipped away. The young priest began the prayers for a vigil. Her attention wavered between the words he was saying and the memories that came unbidden. But she joined in as the priest said "wash him in the font of everlasting life, and clothe him in his heavenly wedding garment." She responded by saying,"into your hands, O Lord, we commend our brother, John."

Scene Four: In a sermon years later the priest, now old himself, remembered the gracious smiling women he had met in the last years of her life when he had first came to the parish. He told how she had shared her sense of the communion of saints -"She named the people of the parish," he said. "Through the stories she told, she made ones I had never met seem as vital as the family standing in front of me this morning. She told me about how she came to see the presence of Christ in the baptisms and marriages, in the birth of children, in the ones who died and in the ones who grew up and moved away. She told me how she and her husband had taught school, painted rooms, raised money, arranged flowers, served on the vestry and visited the sick," the priest said. " She told me they did it because they had made promises in the church, promises to the church and promises to the people of the church. She had said that she and her husband had worked hard at learning the difference between "need" and "want". "That was the secret," she said. "When you can control the "wants" you have more for others." God loves us no matter what we do but we are stronger and life is better for others when we live into the promises we make," he said.

Above the aging priest's head was a new roof made possible by the Endowment fund that the woman and her husband had established in their will. The font in front of the priest was the same one in which the old women had been baptized as a baby. A small boy wriggled in his father's arms in a tea-colored gown that looked too small on him but was somehow large enough to hold the promises of many generations. The great-granddaughter of the women took the boy and handed him to the priest. "His name is John," she said.

May we make room in our hearts for the promises of the generations. May we be generous to our great-grand children through the choices we make this day, this stewardship season. And may the strength of our stewardship be such a witness to our children that they may grow into the full stature of Christ. AMEN.