Pastors' Weekly Message: From Pastor Pat

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
  and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
  and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8 NRSV)

On the liturgical calendar of the church, this coming Sunday is the Baptism of our Lord. For most congregations including St. Paul’s it is a day in which we remember our baptism most likely through the reaffirmation of our baptismal vows - vows we may or may not remember.

The events of January 6 which were both catastrophic as well as disheartening serve as the wake-up for the body of baptized believers for whom our baptismal vows have fallen off our radar. Our own United Methodist Hymnal states “The Baptismal Covenant is God’s word to us, proclaiming our adoption by grace, and our word to God promising our response of faith and love”[p32]. God’s gift to us bears an expected response from us.

What the Lord requires as our response is spoken to and through the prophet Micah: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. Not just talking the talk, but walking the walk of the vows we professed.

May this be the season in which the reaffirmation of our vows is translated to our lived-out faith, and not just the rote repetition of a familiar liturgy.

-- Pastor Pat 
pallen@stpaulsk.org