Keeping the Covenant

Our relationship with God and the desire for the blessing of peace, justice and righteousness throughout the world is the central subject of our Scripture lessons this morning.  The focus is on our relationship with God through the baptism of Jesus.  Our baptism as ministers of the Gospel and followers of Christ is to carry on the work of forgiveness, peace and justice.

As we reflect on these passages and our relationship with God we should understand that our baptism awakens us to the realization that in our covenant relationship with God we are called to carry out a daunting task.  Our baptism into the Christian faith is an urgent and compelling ministry, one that requires a commitment “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.”

We prayed near the beginning of our service that God would “Grant that all who are baptized into [Jesus’] Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior.”  This prayer is for each one of us, it is for you and me.  We are to keep the covenant of loving God with our heart, soul, and mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Following our prayer to keep the covenant we heard a passage from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah about God’s chosen servant: “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.”

The theme of justice is repeated not once but twice in this passage: “he will faithfully bring forth justice.  He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth.”  Bringing justice to the nations, establishing justice in the earth, is what God commands.

The passage continues,  “I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations.… See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.”

Jesus responded to God’s call when he quoted Isaiah and said his mission was to “bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  Today, we who are the followers of Christ are called to carry on his mission.

Jesus, through his baptism, is the Beloved Son with whom God is well pleased.  He and his followers are “to fulfill all righteousness.”  In the Acts of the Apostles Peter continued God’s work of preaching forgiveness, “doing good and healing all who were oppressed.”

It is now the second week of this new year.  There remain many issues in need of action if there is to be justice and peace for all people.  Some of these are beyond our immediate control, but others are right here in our own communities. 

Last week there was a lot of media coverage about the 50^th anniversary of the war on poverty.  One of the articles published in the New York Times (Anne Lowery, January 4, 2014) was titled, “50 years later – War on Poverty is a Mixed Bag.”  The article stated, “high rates of poverty — measured by both the official government yardstick and the alternatives that many economists prefer — have remained a remarkably persistent feature of American society. About four in 10 black children live in poverty; for Hispanic children, that figure is about three in 10.  According to one recent study as of mid-2011, in any given month, 1.7 million households were living on cash income of less than $2 a person a day, with the prevalence of the kind of deep poverty commonly associated with developing nations increasing since the mid-1990s.

“Both economic and sociological trends help explain why so many children and adults remain poor, even putting the effects of the recession aside.  More parents are raising a child alone, with more infants born out of wedlock.  High incarceration rates, especially among black men, keep many families apart.  About 30 percent of single mothers live in poverty.

“If Congress approved a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from its current level of $7.25, it would reduce the poverty rate of working-age Americans by 1.7 percentage points, lifting about five million people out of poverty.

“But in the meantime, the greatest hope for poorer Americans would be a stronger economic recovery that brought the unemployment rate down from its current level of 7 percent and drew more people into the work force.  The poverty rate for full-time workers is just 3 percent.  For those not working, it is 33 percent.”

Our economy is an important issue.  The minimum wage in Rhode Island was increased to $8.00 an hour on January 1st, but it is not enough.  At both state and national levels we need to improve the economy by creating jobs and providing adequate compensation.  We also need to improve our education system, and make sure there is adequate health care coverage for everyone.  Given all this, what steps can you and I take to fulfill our covenant relationship with God and bring good news to the poor?

My response is twofold: first, we can give thanks to God for what we have been able to accomplish here at All Saints.  Our outreach programs to Crossroads and to the hungry and homeless people of our community through the City Meal Site have been impressive.  One of the purposes of the meal site is to help lift people out of poverty.  By providing a nutritious meal each week we contribute to that effort.

Second, we can dedicate our efforts in this new year of 2014 to strengthen our outreach efforts.  We can do this by writing letters, sending emails, and making phone calls to our legislators encouraging them to raise the minimum wage and continue creating jobs for the unemployed.  We know that our infrastructure is in need of repair – roads, bridges, transportation, utilities – these are all areas that require government support and can be used to employ more people.

If we do these things, and if we work together to live by our covenant relationship with God, we will be able to rejoice with the psalmist who said, “the voice of the Lord is a voice of splendor [for] the Lord shall give strength to his people; the Lord shall give his people the blessing of peace.”  Amen.