This sermon came at the end of the liturgical Season of Creation, St Francis of Assisi Day. The theme of the season has been Living Water.
Well, the waters were alive with the sound of music as we had an adult baptism in the village church of Napton.
I simply took the words of Paul from our reading for the day:
“I want to know Christ”.
Two words that both mark our beginning:
Baptism and Christening.
Words used interchangeably,
You say I was baptised,
I say I was Christened.
And occasionally someone will say,
I’ve been Christened
but I don’t think I’ve been baptised,
without realising
they are one and the same thing.
You’re christened when you’re baptised.
Baptism describes the physical process
of being soaked, drenched,
submerged in water.
And the places of baptism
include rivers, streams, the sea,
and the fonts in churches,
which take our minds back
to the waters God has brought us
out of and through:
the waters of chaos at the beginning of creation,
the flood of Noah
crowned with a rainbow,
the waters through which
people escaped slavery
and found freedom.
The River Jordan
where Jews went to be baptised by John,
Jesus among them,
where the voice of God was found and heard,
the broken waters
of our mothers
through which we are born,
and all the rivers, streams,
tributaries, canals
that make up the
physical and psychological features
of all our lives:
and the waters we see
stilled in the storm:
the waters
seen by the author of the book of Revelation (ch.22)
as the water of life,
bright as crystal,
flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb
through the middle of the street of the city
with trees on either side
yielding their fruit
month after month,
and leaves for the healing of nations
But water does not always behave this way.
The living water that gives us life
can also engulf us.
We come through the waters of birth,
but there are waters that flood,
waters that destroy homes and coastlines,
and waters that drown.
The sea that brings us home
can take us under.
By these waters
we all live.
Waters alive with danger.
Over 70% of earth is covered with water.
We are mostly water,
drying and wrinkling with age.
And some of us live on water,
like Connor, in a narrow boat,
making a living doing repairs.
Baptism, then, is the physicality
of getting soaked.
When we baptise Connor
it will be Soak the Bloke.
And then there is our second word:
Christening.
If baptism is what happens to the body,
christening is about belonging.
Being in Christ.
And Connor is here today because he wants that.
He’s come here himself,
because of what has been happening in his life.
He doesn’t need godparents.
He needs brothers and sisters,
and friends as his sponsors –
all of us together,
a body soaked in good news:
People who will walk with him
now he stands with Paul
in wanting to know Christ.
That’s what Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians,
our reading today:
I want to know Christ.
And we’ll help him, won’t we?
We’ll remind him when he forgets
that he belongs.
We’ll remind him when he forgets
that he is a child of God,
beloved.
We’ll show him
that we want to know Christ too.
We’ll learn together.
We’ll pray together.
We’ll help him
into the hard work of prayer,
that prayer isn’t about finding the right words,
but finding the silence
in which we can listen
for the voice
that only speaks love,
that says good things about us.
All of us know how hard that is,
because there are so many other voices:
voices that tell us
we are not good enough,
that we have failed,
that we should be different from who we are.
Those voices make it hard to believe
we are beloved, children of God.
Connor, remember this day.
Sunday, October 4th, 2026,
the day we also celebrate
St Francis of Assisi.
Do you all remember your anniversary of baptism?
Do you know when it is?
I suggest you find out when it is if you don’t already know.
It’s only in later years
that I have started to remember
the anniversary of my baptism:
March 11th 1951,
brought into Christ
as a baby alongside my twin sister.
I now regard that anniversary
as more important than others,
the anniversaries of ordination.
how amazing the grace
of baptism,
reinforced later by Confirmation.
I dread to think
how I might have turned out,
how difficult I may have been,
how hurtful to myself
and others,
how I might have spent my days,
wasted my life,
without that anchor of trust
forged in the waters of my years.
Like all of us,
I’ve been distracted.
Distracted by voices
that have nothing to do
with the voice
that called me beloved.
Misled by bad news
when I needed good news.
Caught up in fears
of things that might happen
and things that never did.
Catastrophising
when I could have been listening.
I suggest we all dig out that day
we were baptised,
and remember the day.
Especially those of us
who were baptised as babies:
a day we may not remember,
but a day when the Church
gathered around us
because it wanted us,
like Paul,
to know Christ.
Even if, over the years,
we have forgotten.
So, Connor,
please be gentle with us.
We want you to walk with us
in getting to know Christ.
But there are times
when we forget our call.
Times when we get distracted,
misled by other voices,
forgetful of the voice
that has been calling us
beloved all our days,
the voice that,
as Henri Nouwen put it,
Spoke good things about us
“long before our parents,
teachers, spouses, children and friends
loved or wounded us.”
That is the voice
we are all here to listen for.
The voice that says:
You are beloved.
So, Connor,
we will walk with you.
And perhaps you will help us
to walk with Christ too,
And perhaps you will help us
listen again.
Because the work of the Church
is never finished.
We are all still learning
to hear the good news.
We are still wanting to know Christ
