Jesus has just moved from Nazareth to Capernaum in the northern part of Israel on the edge of the Sea of Galilee. It’s a fishing village and so to get the attention of the first disciples he calls, it is natural he would use a fishing metaphor. I’m not so sure this language resonates with us in quite the same way in the 21st century, especially for those who know nothing about fishing … like me. I don’t fish. Shocking, I know, but it’s just not something I ever really did. It wasn’t for lack of trying. My husband fishes and grew up on the Chesapeake Bay and spent days going out on the boat with his dad to go fishing and crabbing. When we first were married, he tried to teach me about fishing. It went over about as well as his golf lessons … which is to say not at all. I tried, but when I waded out into the Potomac to do some fly fishing and found myself face to face with a water snake … I was done! Indiana Jones and I have a lot in common – I hate snakes! I tried fishing again from shore but once you get the fish on the hook, getting it off is another thing … and getting my hand barbed trying to get it off the hook just isn’t how I define the words “fun” or “relaxing.”

I grew up on the coast of California with some exposure to commercial fishing enterprises. The Dory Fleet would pull into Newport Beach every night and drop their catch of fresh fish right on the beach. If you got there around 4pm, you could buy your fish right there on the beach. That was pretty much the story in any coastal town. These commercial operations would fish with large drag nets and their fishing enterprise was really made up of two parts. The first was catching the fish and hauling them in and the second was sorting the fish and throwing some of them back. Fishing, sorting, accepting and rejecting. Now there were lots of reasons for fish being thrown back – too small, malformed, not the kind you were looking for, couldn’t sell it in the market.

What has been sticking with me this week with the little I know about fishing has as much to do with what Jesus doesn’t say as with what he does say to Simon, Andrew, James and John. “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people” is what he says. What he doesn’t say is, “And you’ll sort out the catch and throw the ones back we don’t want.” (#thingsjesusdidnotsay) This made me think about how the Church (writ large) has listened and responded to Jesus’ call to fish for people and resisted the urge to sort out the catch and throw some people back. Since the Church is made up of people who are human and therefore sinners, I’m afraid we have a mixed record on this. Our human nature seems inclined towards sorting and throwing back – accepting and rejecting.

When I was in seminary, I had a conversation with Vic Lawson+. Vic+ is an Episcopal priest who led the Nelson Cluster of churches just across the river in Jefferson County, West Virginia. Vic+ is also African-American. He told me about going to an Episcopal Church in Washington DC back in the days of segregation and being met at the door by two ushers – white men – who told him “his kind” would be more welcomed at the Episcopal Church on the next block … the “black church.” Talk about being sorted and thrown back!

I know some of you have experienced being sorted and thrown back – often in life (that’s the way of the world) but sadly also in the Church. Maybe it was over who you love, or you are told your Biblical interpretation isn’t “right with the Lord” (which means it doesn’t match ours), or that your gender identity isn’t quite as neat and binary as others want to see, or maybe you are remarried after divorce and have been turned away from receiving the sacraments, or you are divorced and have been told you cannot be a leader in your church, or maybe you’re a woman who has been told to sit down and shut up because women are not to speak in the Church. There are an infinite number of ways the Church has put itself in the sorting and throwing back business instead of fishing for people.

Jesus called his disciples to fish for people. To go and tell and bring them into the fellowship of the Church … and get out of the sorting and throwing back business. This is our call and it isn’t easy – it is not without risk. Remember two weeks ago, I told you the font should have the sign “Hazardous waters! Enter at your own risk!” When we plunge into the waters of baptism we accept our call to fish for people and not throw them back … and that is risky business!

One of the risks we take involves what happens after we bring people to encounter Christ here at Grace. We can fish for people and invite them to journey with us but some of them will not stay here. Some may find that our way of worship and common life doesn’t resonate with them. It may seem odd but there are people who do not find the dulcet tones of organ music and the cadences of the Book of Common Prayer stirring for their souls. We are different and what moves me isn’t what moves everyone and so people may leave seeking another kind of church community. Some may come and find that the invitation to transformation the Gospel brings isn’t what they bargained for … it is too unsettling. Now I have to tell you that I’ve been in many churches over the years and Grace has a particular charism of the Spirit when it comes to inviting people to be transformed by Christ. We are a loving, gentle and forgiving community. We do screw ups. We hold the messiness of life gently in prayer. We do “I’m sorry” and “I forgive you” and that’s reconciliation. We do second chances … and thirds … and fourths … and fifths … because it is how we do love. This makes Grace a pretty safe place to experience change, healing and transformation into Christ’s likeness. But even as loving and gentle as we make it, some will find this still too frightening to bear and may choose to leave. There are still others who come into this community and behave in abusive or menacing ways. The way of Christ is not a way of abuse or exploitation. As your priest, when I see or hear about abusive behavior, whether it is within these walls, in the community or on social media, you can be assured I will address it because abuse is not of God. And if that person, after being rebuked seeks reconciliation and genuinely seeks an amendment of life, then … we do second chances, right? But if they persist and are not intent on reconciliation, the one perpetrating the abuse will walk apart – not because we have thrown them back, but because they choose by their actions to excuse themselves from the Body of Christ.

Now these are some of the risks with people we fish for not staying here … but we also will encounter risks with those who stay. The risk is that of great love. In living into this love, we create a community where lives are changed and people go from death into life. I have watched in wonder as many of you who have come have found joy, grace, and healing. I have witnessed miracles and I know some of you have too. But within the joy that this transformative love brings, there is another side to love – it sometimes breaks our hearts.

I am keenly aware of where I was one year ago today. After a sleepless night, I was awaiting word on the whereabouts of our sister Sophia Schmidt. Sophia came to us in the end stages of bipolar disorder – a disease which had not responded well to the therapies we have available for it. Sophia had suffered horribly from depressive episodes and had constant thoughts of ending her life for over 15 years. We had reason to believe she had gone through with her plan and I was waiting for a call which came late that night. Sophia was only with us for six months, but she had joined our confirmation class and came to Grace as often as her illness would allow. Even when she felt unlovable, we continued to show her Christ’s love. And even though our hearts broke, we continued to express our love through our grieving together, in planting a prayer garden, and welcoming her family here to dedicate that sacred space to Sophia’s memory. God brought her here by way of two fishers of people … throwing her back was never an option.

Just two weeks later, another woman came to us in the final months of her life. We met Jenny Cabbiness at Ashes to Go at the MARC station. She had end stage breast cancer and began attending Grace. She was convinced God had led her to us and how it was no coincidence that the priest was a former hospice chaplain and a current hospice chaplain was also in residence here. We cheered her on when she was feeling good and prayed and cried with her when she was struggling. And when she died, our hearts broke and God’s love poured out on her family and friends as we celebrated her life with a burial Eucharist for over 250 people here. God brought her here … and throwing her back was not an option either.

You and I are called by Christ through the hazardous waters of baptism to take great risks for the sake of God’s love. “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” He is still teaching us to fish for people … to fish and not throw back.

When I was in college, I spent some time whitewater rafting on the American and Kern rivers. I remember very distinctly the sign that was on the road leading into the Kern River gorge telling you exactly how many people had died on the river since 1974. Like that was going to stop us from running that river … we took it as a challenge. Don’t get me wrong, there were spots where we portaged, taking the boat it out of the water and going around a feature that was just a bit too much for our boat and skill level to handle. We weren’t stupid! But it seems to me if we had let that sign and its ominous message of death scare us, we would have missed out on a whole lot of fun.

There is a similar sign in the Jordan River near the traditional spot where John baptized Jesus. The sign says this: “Hazardous waters! Enter at your own risk!” A friend of mine took a photo of that sign when the Jordan was experiencing a flash flood … the sign partway submerged in raging muddy water.

I think this sign should be posted on top of every baptismal font. Seriously … “Hazardous waters! Enter at your own risk!” is a pretty good description of baptism. When we enter these waters, we do enter them at our own risk! And so did Jesus. Today we hear Matthew’s account of the baptism of Jesus. Matthew, Mark and Luke (the synoptic Gospels) all give a direct account of Jesus’ baptism. John’s gospel even gives a veiled reference through the testimony of John the Baptist telling about seeing the Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove while he was baptizing. It is in Matthew’s account, though, that we get this dialog between John and Jesus. John objects to Jesus coming to him to be baptized saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Some suggest this was to address the question of why Jesus, who was “tempted in every way we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15) would even come to John for a baptism which involved “confessing of sins.” (Matthew 3:6) Jesus tells him to let it be so to fulfill all righteousness – which is kind of a cryptic response, if you ask me.

But this dialog aside, the bottom line is Jesus comes to John for baptism – a ritual washing which is framed by John preaching repentance. Repent is one of those loaded words in theology, but one of its meanings is simply to “turn around” – to change your mind. It is an invitation to turn around and turn back to God – to get back on track with God and God’s will as the center of your life, not you and your own will. Or in other words, to reorient yourself to live the truth that God is God and you are not.

Repentance has another more subtle meaning too. It is the realization that something has profoundly changed in you. Perhaps not such a dramatic 180 turn, but the knowledge that from this point forward life will be different – very different. Repentance can mean the ending of one way of being and the beginning of a new way of life.

We really can’t get into Jesus’ head about what he was thinking when he came to John but I think it’s a fair statement to say something in Jesus drew him to being baptized by John and I think repentance is part of it. Jesus’ baptism takes the shape of that second kind of repentance – the end of one way of being to step into a new life. Jesus will no longer be “Joseph the carpenter’s kid” – he will be the Messiah. His public ministry begins in a very public way – this is no private revelation! Of course, what we don’t hear in today’s gospel reading is that right after he comes up out of the water, receives the Holy Spirit and hears the proclamation, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” … Jesus was lead up to the wilderness by the same Spirit for 40 days and nights to be tempted by the devil. Baptism isn’t going to confer a safe, easy life on Jesus! Hazardous waters … enter at your own risk indeed!

Today’s baptisms won’t be quite that dramatic. I can’t promise the heavens will be opened and the Spirit descending like a dove or anything like that. I can promise that I’m not going to take the suggestion of my Lutheran pastor colleague Bob Ierien and take a SuperSoaker to you en masse. But I can promise today will be a turning point in the lives of Kristine, Kennedy, Emory, Quincy, Callista, Aidan and Scarlett. Today marks a turning away from the powers and forces of Sin and Death which can only lead us down dead ends and towards Christ who promises eternal life.

In a few minutes, we will ask you a series of questions known as the renunciations and affirmations. We ask you six main questions indicating a turning – a turning away from the powers of Sin and Death as they come to us through the world, the flesh and the devil and a turning toward Jesus Christ as savior in whom you will place your trust and promise to follow him. This is repentance – turning around and heading for your true home in God.

But make no mistake – you are entering hazardous waters and at your own risk. It is a big risk to your ego to turn over your trust to Christ and let God’s way be your way. “Thy will be done” is really the only legit prayer a Christian will ever say the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do! Just as Jesus went straight from his baptism to the wilderness to be tempted by Satan, you also will face temptations to return to doing life on your own terms. That’s what it means to be human. You will struggle for the rest of your life to live into the vows you make today. But the good news is we don’t enter these hazardous waters alone! Being baptized means joining the Church – which, by the way, is much bigger than just us here at Grace (although I admit, God is doing some pretty cool stuff here through us!). The Church, across time and throughout the world, is an extended family of sisters and brothers, most of whom you will never meet in real life, who support each other through love, prayer and self-giving so that when those temptations to return to life on our own terms bubble up, we have a community that can help us turn around and back to Christ. You do not enter these hazardous waters alone! You are entering them with two millennia of believers who have gone before you and you enter them just as we have … and we are here for you, to encourage you, to pray with you, to rejoice with you, to grieve with you – to live fully with you as sisters and brothers in the Body of Christ. And that is awesome because we need each other.

Each of us comes to these hazardous waters lacking. We know we are broken in body, mind and spirit … even when we are little kids, we can feel small, helpless and inadequate. I was the dorky, weird kid in my school. I often felt alone and isolated growing up. Brokenness isn’t something that only adults feel. But the promise we have in baptism is that Christ knits us together into a community who can carry us when we can’t carry ourselves. It’s no longer about “me,” it’s about “we.” And when we make our baptismal covenant, that promise of where we will place our trust and what we promise to do as members of this community, the answer to the promises we make is “I will, with God’s help.” God’s help is necessary, not optional. We cannot live into the promises we make in these hazardous waters without asking God’s help … and that help comes through this community. We never go it alone!

So yes, today you enter hazardous waters at your own risk yet not alone … but fear not. Like that scary death sign at the Kern River, if you let that stop you you will miss out on following Christ, which is the greatest adventure of your life.