3A_BaptismLG_Feat
By Michael Wilson Pastoral Letters May 12, 2023

 

 

 

Watch this week’s service on YouTube by clicking: May 14 Worship Service Video

 

 

Join us for worship on Sundays at 10:00

 

 

  • Please join us after the service in the Van Roon Community Hall for HeBrews Café, refreshments and fellowship after worship.

 

  • Also after church, our Children’s Ministry is having a sale of decorated birdhouses, painted potted planters, and blessing bracelets in the Van Roon Community Hall. This is a fundraiser for The Toba Centre, a brand new all-inclusive resource centre for victims of child abuse on the western edge of Assiniboine Park. Please come by and make a donation in exchange for some bright spring favors prepared by the children of our church. PLEASE BRING CASH if possible.

 

  • Are you interested in the wider work of the church? Charleswood United Church is a member of the Prairie to Pine Regional Council of the United Church of Canada. The Regional Council’s Annual Meeting is being held June 1 – 4 in Winnipeg at the United Church of Meadowood. If you have interest in attending please contact Michael Wilson for more information.

 

 

 

Dear Friends

Welcome to worship for Sunday, May 14, 2023.

Happy Mother’s Day!

It is a long standing Charleswood custom to celebrate the sacrament of baptism on Mother’s Day, a symbolic act that works on a multitude of levels. And in the heart of baptism is the wondrous, vital, magical, cleansing, powerful gift that is water.

Norman MacLean wrote, in a passage from which his book gets its title, “Eventually all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time…Under the rocks are the words.”

The idea that “eventually all things merge into one” is no better exemplified than by our experience of water. Rain falls where it will. A gift of grace without which life would not be possible. Often it ends up in small spaces, in ponds, pools, and gardens. But water will always travel along paths of least resistance. And always in search of a greater body. The water in ponds finds its way into streams. Streams converge and become rivers. Rivers are tributaries leading to lakes. Lakes foster life but will always release their water towards the great oceans that await downstream. And though we learn in school the names of the world’s four oceans, any glimpse of a globe tells us that there is really only one body on this wonderfully watery planet. All things merge into one.

Water thus teaches us about baptism. If we are baptised as infants it is because a small loving family wishes it to be so. They bring their beloved to a slightly larger gathering of like-minded people we call a congregation. In time we will realize that our congregation is part of a larger body called a denomination, a network of churches who baptise with the same understanding of what the sacrament means. Those seeking deeper understanding will turn to history and discover that all denominations are connected as though branches of a tree. It is often by baptism that we can make distinctions between Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, and Pentecostal traditions. In the fullness of time we live into the reality that baptism is the way we all enter into a faith called Christianity. All things merge into one.

Water is a curious gift because while life cannot exist without it, it can also be a powerful and destructive force as we who live in a flood plain are only too well aware. Dare I suggest that this is true of baptism as well. When religious identity is used to divide, to claim superiority, to justify injustice, or to act violently, it is a heresy that renders one’s baptism inauthentic if not invalid.

Baptism unites us in love to God and to neighbour. It is the ultimate expression of gratitude for a gift for which words are inadequate. It is a symbolic act of welcome in the name of the One who welcomes all.

Eventually all things merge into one and a river runs through it. At the font we get our feet wet.

 

Grace and peace,

Michael

 

 

 

  • The reading for this week’s service can be found here: Acts 8:26-39

 

  • Did you know you can support this ministry by e-transfer, automatic withdrawal (PAR), and gifted securities, in addition to weekly or monthly cheques? For Offering Information please visit: https://charleswoodunited.org/support/  Thank you for your generous support.

 

  • For news and events please have a look at Life & Work on our website: Life and Work

 

 

 

 

Michael Wilson / About Author
Michael’s involvement in the wider church has included ministry with children and youth, membership on the National Division of World Outreach, supervision of campus ministry, and the Ten Days for Global Justice National Committee. He has been blessed by the opportunity to represent the United Church of Canada in the Bahamas, Cuba, and Africa on different occasions. Michael has taught at the University of Winnipeg – Faculty of Theology and is past President of the Conference of Manitoba and North Western Ontario.
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