The Bread of Kinship

In a few moments, we will participate in one of the most important sacraments of the church.

On the surface level, we will renew our baptismal covenant and gather together around the font.

We will give thanks to God for the gift of water and Arturo’s head will get a little wet.

But something beyond the surface is happening, and if we pay attention, we can witness the remaking and reordering of the whole world.

Baptism draws us more fully into the totality of Christ.

We are grafted into the full life of the Jewish prophet from Nazareth and share in the highs and lows of his earthly journey from the stars over Bethlehem to the mount of Ascension.

We learn from him as he teaches and heals, changing people’s lives, and we follow him as his legend grows and he faces the imperial and religious powers in Jerusalem.

We witness the rejection and derision he faces in a new way, we weep with the women at the cross and his grave, and we receive the grace of his resurrection along with those first disciples and apostles. 

But Baptism also makes us a part of the Mystical Body of Christ that knows no limit of time, place, or race.

Today Arturo is becoming a member of that sacred web of kinship whose constitution and creed is so radical that it remakes and reorders the world we live in and aligns us with a way of being and relating to one another that is strange according to much worldly wisdom.

The story of today’s Gospel reveals just how different God’s reign is from worldly ones.

Our world—especially the one that is most concerned about personal gain and individual triumph—sees the generosity of the landowner in paying all who work in the vineyard a living wage as an affront.

That world is angry that the landowner has “made them equal to us” and feels that they deserve more than those who were hired later in the day.

But in the world made new through the Body of Christ, we don’t see equality as a threat, but rather as the generous gift of God that it is. 

The last receiving wages that will allow them to provide bread for their families is not a trigger for derision or envy, but rather a cause for celebration.

The saints, who have most incorporated this alternative wisdom tradition into their lives, have been so transformed by the practice of their faith, that they see being hired and working in the vineyard for the blessing that it is rather than as some form of divine punishment.

And their hearts and souls are made full when others—especially others who the world rejects and discounts, are brought into the fullness of life our generous God creates.

As we formally incorporate Arturo into this abundance today, marking him as Christ’s own forever, no matter where life takes him, let us allow the sacrament of this moment to find purchase in the soil of our hearts.

Let us cultivate the seeds of transformation that have been planted within us, that Christ has watered and that we have faithfully tended through serving together, worshipping together, laughing, crying, living and dying together, and may the fruits of that shared labor refresh us and revitalize the larger world.

Fruits arise from those seeds when we live out the challenging wisdom of God’s reign.

When we rejoice in both our diverse gifts AND our equal place in the kingdom that has no end.

When we recognize that stewardship of the vineyard is a calling that opens us to the joy of seeing the wine of the new creation come to fruition.

Arturo’s vocation as a member of this Body begins today, and we give thanks to God for this holy moment we share.

But as we gather at the waters once more, let us who have labored for longer remember the wisdom of the one who called us.

And let us drink deeply and go forth boldly together, refreshed and renewed for the transformation of our relationships, our systems, and our world.