Tessera Materials

Mosaic Friends,

As you gather with others this Tessera weekend, we encourage you to take a moment and share your baptism stories. Do you remember your baptism? What was that day like? What led you to take that step? Did others lead you to that step? What does your baptism still signify to you today as you walk with Jesus?

Or, what's kept you from being baptized? Questions? Concerns?

Read/Reflect: Romans 6:12-23

Context: This is from a letter from the Apostle Paul to the house churches in Rome (the center of the Roman empire) made up of Jews and non-Jews (Gentiles) who have now been unified in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In the midst of their cultural and theological differences they're being invited to welcome one another as Christ has welcomed them. This new human family of Jesus lived in an empire expressing itself as powerful and great. The Roman empire was a place to secure status and serve oneself. And this reality continually invited them to turn from their human vocation to love God and others. It could easily enslave to powerful forces causing them to serve themselves. The apostle Paul is reminding them of their new calling to be enslaved to a new reality that, ultimately, leads to flourishing and life for one another.

Romans 6:12-23 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The gift of God's rescue is both forgiveness of sin and freedom to offer our bodies in self-emptying love for one another and our neighbors both near and far. Our bodies are no longer enslaved to serve oneself but to serve the greater good in generative ways. In many ways, baptism is a symbolic picture of God's forgiveness enveloping us and his love leading us forward to live as his new creation for the sake of the world and others. This is God's righteousness. It's characterized by people living not for themselves but for others. And as baptized people we are slaves to this righteousness.

• Share together what being a slave to righteousness means for you in the days and weeks before you.
• Let Curt and/or Rebecca know if baptism is something you'd like to explore at our Baptism Pool Party on August 9. They'd welcome hearing from you!

Closing Prayer

Faithful God,
your love stands firm from generation to generation,
your mercy is always abundant.
Give us open and understanding hearts,
that having heard your word,
we may seek Christ’s presence in all whom we meet
and offer ourselves as instruments of your grace and peace. Amen.

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