The Baptismal Covenant: Part 6

This episode, Bishop DeDe and Adam continue exploring the Baptismal Covenant. The conversation touches the themes of brokenness, humility, and the journey of faith. Bishop DeDe emphasizes the importance of recognizing one's own flaws and the continuous struggle in the pursuit of spiritual growth. The discussion highlights the transformative nature of faith and the awareness that comes with it.

Takeaways

• When you're around someone saintly, they're aware of their brokenness.
• The journey of faith involves recognizing our shortcomings.
• Self-awareness is key in spiritual growth.
• We often struggle with doing what we want to do.
• Acknowledging our flaws brings us closer to God.
• Faith is a continuous journey of self-discovery.
• Humility is essential in understanding our sinfulness.
• The struggle is a shared experience among believers.
• Giving thanks to God is a vital part of faith.
• Embracing brokenness leads to deeper spirituality.

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time, many of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

Transcript

Bishop DeDe (00:01.848)
Hey friends, welcome to the podcast, Speaking of Faith. We're gonna talk about things that matter a lot to us, things that we don't really know, things that we may not have the answers to. Part of speaking about faith is to have the courage and the humility and the curiosity to speak, to talk about stuff. No matter who you are, biblical scholar, theologian, all of us are speaking about things that are just always a little beyond us. And so we come to it with humility,

with curiosity and like this podcast, a little bit of vulnerability because this is not about having all the answers. It is about engaging with the questions. My name is DeDe Duncan-Probe. I am the Episcopal Bishop of Central New York. That's Canada to Pennsylvania, Utica to Elmira, all the beautiful people and places in between. I'm joined by Adam Eichelberger who is our Director of Communications. And we are here to continue this series about the baptismal covenant.

I love talking about the baptismal covenant because sacramentally it's something we do regularly in our worshiping life. And often people sort of buzz by it think it's kind of like a rote thing, like it's just something we do. But in fact, this is a covenant we have made with God. Like any covenant, marriage, anything significant, we make promises, and we ascribe to something.

we make a baptismal covenant that this will be how we intentionally live our lives. We've talked about who God is, the God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. We've talked a bit about living as the apostles teach us. We've talked about persevering and resisting evil. And now we turn to the next bidding. Will you proclaim by word and example the good news of God in Christ? And we respond, I will with God's help.

But what are we saying and what are we covenanting in this bidding? Will you proclaim? And so I wanna first start by talking about what is a proclamation? What does proclaim mean? When I think of proclaim, I think of someone hollering out, I proclaim that something in an old movie or something, that what we proclaim is the way we are.

Bishop DeDe (02:30.028)
really courageously daring to live an example of something. And so to proclaim by word an example, so in our words we're saying something about our faith. And we can think of the times where Jesus talks about the words of our mouth and then when St. Paul talks about, out of the fullness of a heart one speaketh,

that in these places of speaking is probably the truth of who we are. Maya Angelou, you know, correctly said when someone tells you who they are, believe them. The way we tell people who we are is how we speak, how we proclaim things. And a proclamation can also be how we live, that we proclaim by word and example. And so sometimes I'll talk with people about one of the

big proclamations I think we make is how we drive our car. Talk about meddling. Do we use turn signals? Are we collaborative? When someone wants to merge in, do we cut them off? Are we competitive and aggressive when we drive? Or are we assertive and collaborative? When we're talking about our faith, everything's on the table. And that sometimes as followers of Jesus, we want to kind of say, no, no, no.

We can talk about Jesus with these things, but these things are off the table. These are my favorite sins over here and I'm gonna keep those nice and tidy over here to the side. But in fact, this bidding says, will you proclaim by word and example and the lack of any sort of, know, there's nothing, everything's included. Will you be a living example of the gospel of Jesus Christ?

I think the second part of this bidding is in some ways more difficult. Because if you talk to 10 people and say, well, what is the gospel of Jesus Christ to you? You'll get 12 answers. Because we kind of talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ as if it's a known, verifiable, quantifiable thing. But in fact, we can see when you look at all of Christendom right now.

Bishop DeDe (04:54.776)
that there's a lot of different iterations and ways of living what the gospel of Jesus Christ means. Denominationally, all around the world, the different ways in which this is interpreted. And so in this passage, talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ takes us back to scripture. The gospel in which we meet a baby born in a manger, a God who when God comes to us doesn't come with power and swords and

armies, but rather comes with vulnerability and an invitation to relationship. A child who grows up and becomes a prophet and then becomes a teacher and then is understood and all along is always, depending on your Christology, always part of the incarnation of God to us. And so some of this can get very deep, very quickly.

which is why speaking of it can feel vulnerable or we'll want to say things like, I don't think I know enough to talk about this. I can't really talk about this with people because I don't know enough. When we're worried about knowing enough, I wonder if it's because we're wanting to be the expert in the room. If we're wanting to be able to prove that we're right about something so we can feel safe about it. If we're trying to say,

This I don't understand and I can't talk about it because when I realize I don't understand it, it scares me. There's a lot of reasons we don't speak about our faith and I think one of them is an insecurity of knowing exactly what we're talking about. So with the gospel of Jesus Christ, for us to begin to understand what we mean by that means we're gonna have to do some study. We're gonna have to read the gospels to start with the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and say, okay.

What does Jesus do in these things? What is Jesus talking about? And then for those of us who are scholars who really get kind of jazzed about this, we start looking at the Naikamati texts and we start looking at other things. But first and foremost, looking at the gospels and looking at Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, to how the birth of Jesus, the life of Jesus, the teachings of Jesus,

Bishop DeDe (07:18.508)
the passion of Christ, the death and the resurrection, that we're aligning our lives with our understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which means in this bidding, it is not something that's static. It's an ongoing developing understanding of. And so with the gospel of Jesus Christ, to pay attention, I mean, one of the things to note is that the gospel spends,

very little time on the passion of Jesus compared to how much time is spent on the teachings of Jesus. How much time is spent on how Jesus is telling us to live. Taking a cup of cold water, forgiving, being compassionate, caring for the least of these, that our faith is not about seeing but about being. For us to be a proclamer, so heading back to a music group, but for us to be a proclamer,

we, are to have to know what we're wanting to talk about. We have to have a relationship first to be a living example of a gospel to proclaim by word and deed means I've done something about it. I've done some work with it. I've read the scriptures. I've looked at it. It's something that I'm leaning into. And then to see my individual choices as.

examples of what it is I say I believe. If I believe that compassion and I proclaim the gospel of Jesus where compassion and mercy and forgiveness are important, but I'm holding grudges all the time. Whew, then I've got to go back to the last bidding and repent first, then they come back and say, okay, now ready to live by example, word and deed. But there's an interplay between the last bidding and this one where we

are constantly recognizing where we may be in error, changing our minds, returning to God's ways. And in that, we proclaim and live example of the gospel of Jesus. An ongoing eternal message of forgiveness, restoration, peace, and resurrection. That to proclaim something is to know something, and to live it is to be it.

Bishop DeDe (09:37.218)
And so these things are very important in our lives. And so right away, again, back to what we said from the top of this podcast, there's humility in this and there's an unknowing. We don't know it all. And so we, in order to speak our faith, have to have the courage not to know everything, the courage to be about, you know, I'm trying to understand that. I'm really curious. So.

When people cheat on their taxes, how do I understand that with my faith? And then to have discussion about it. And some people are going to say, well, give to Caesar what Caesar and God what's God's and they're going to really talk about that. But we may want to ask more questions about, well, for my own integrity, my own piety. Yes, I may pay more in taxes, but I feel a commitment to be part of this community or.

I feel that that's wrong and I feel a different thing. All of us proclaiming by word and example, the good news of Jesus Christ as we understand it in this moment, which may change the next moment, but making that commitment to be about the gospel, a gospel that is an understanding of God's with God and God's relationship with humanity. So I'm going to stop there because these are

complex and I want to invite Adam, you into this conversation because this is about speaking of faith. We're learning together. So what's resonant for you in this?

Adam Eichelberger (11:14.721)
One of the things that really kind of pops out for me when I take a look at this about proclaiming the gospel is when I read the gospel, the thing that I used to key in on or like I used to kind of be like, this is important, is when the scripture talks about condemnation. And then when I really kind of revisit what Jesus says, like you said, not only is way more time spent in the gospels

Bishop DeDe (11:36.201)
huh.

Adam Eichelberger (11:44.666)
talking about the ministry of Jesus, what he asks us to do, rather than his passion, death, and resurrection, which allow us to place a disclaimer here, listeners, does not mean it's not important. But there's way less time spent talking about condemnation than the amount of time that is spent talking about forgiveness and compassion. And I think that that's really important for us to remember. So.

Bishop DeDe (12:07.736)
That's right.

Adam Eichelberger (12:12.013)
There's two things, there's two questions I wanted to ask about this idea of proclaiming the gospel because absolutely the way that we live and the way that we behave, you know, there's that quote that many believe is or some believe is not attributed to St. Francis, is, preach the gospel at all times if necessary, use words, which is not necessarily a bad thought or a bad motto to live by, but if you want to get into the weeds of history, we may not.

Bishop DeDe (12:26.865)
Oh yeah, you know, yeah, here we go. Yep.

Bishop DeDe (12:34.69)
Mm-mm. Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (12:39.977)
actually know if that was something St. Francis said, but I digress. My question is like kind of first and foremost, how do we best share a gospel of compassion and forgiveness with folks? Because I think that when I hear the word proclaim the gospel, I think that sometimes that gets muddied up in like proselytizing. Like we're going to be we're here to convert people.

Bishop DeDe (13:08.718)
Mm.

Adam Eichelberger (13:08.729)
How do we proclaim that good news of forgiveness and compassion without getting in the weeds of, I know I've said in the weeds a lot this episode, without getting in the weeds of condemnation or, not to use an entirely bad word, but damnation.

Bishop DeDe (13:17.644)
Hahaha!

Bishop DeDe (13:25.902)
Well, and, and isn't that interesting that as humans down through the ages, we veer toward damnation and, and, know, you know, when you look at some shows, you look at something people wanting to put other people down, so they make themselves feel better, you know, center, you know, you're wrong. You're, you need to get right or get left. You know, this, this, high and mighty way of thinking is simple.

All of us are on, you know, are in a relationship with God and some of us may be tempted to think we're way ahead of the person next to us. And the thing that I have begun to recognize is when you're around someone who really is saintly, they're more aware of their own brokenness and their own sinfulness, of how much they fall short of the glory of God.

When you start out in your faith, you you're going to get it right and you're going to read the books and you're going to do the print and you're going to do all this stuff. And then it's like anything where when you get into it, you realize, boy, you know that you're like, that which I do, I wish I didn't do and the things I want to do, I don't do. And my Lord, just give thanks to God. And so we joined Paul in that. And the more that we grow in our faith and the more that we proclaim and

Adam Eichelberger (14:33.314)
you

Bishop DeDe (14:49.928)
our living word and example, the more we will come face to face like the prophets and all with our own mortality and brokenness. I'm a man of unclean lips. I'm a woman of unclean lips, a person. And so I think, you know, to not get into the weeds is to always start with repentance. I think we get in the weeds when we start with power. I think we get in the weeds when we start with.

self-importance. think we get in the weeds when we try to puff ourselves up to be more important than we we ought to be like Romans 12 is a wonderful chapter to talk about. We need the grace and mercy of God to be our best selves, to become whole. To love our neighbors ourselves starts with repentance. It starts with saying, I'm not the center of the universe. so hard for a lot of us.

We wanna be the center of the universe. We want everything to be our comfort or what we like. And so to not get into the weeds with damnation is to say, know, all have fallen short of the glory of God. All need help.

So I'm gonna be part of that. I'm gonna be more compassionate and aware that when I'm judging and you point at the other person with condemnation, four fingers or three or whatever pointing back at you, the log in our own eye, I think the way we keep out of that is to receive the gospel of Jesus Christ instead of trying to control it or.

puff ourselves up that we don't, know, we're, God saves those people because those are unrepentant sinners. There's a time, not this long, and I think people still are caught up in that language. Well, they're an unrepentant sinner. Well, most of the time we're unrepentant because we don't even look at how we sin, where we buy food, how we spend our money, how we influence our world, climate change, how we contribute to it, our ignorance of our own.

Bishop DeDe (16:56.778)
the way that we're trying to say that we're good people and then we aren't. When I used to be a waitress, when I was younger, the first day that I waited tables, all the other workers said, don't ever work on Sundays. Which I thought, know, in my whatever, was like, are all these people really super religious? mean, you don't work on Sunday, is this like a religious thing? No, it was because when people would go to church,

and they would come into the restaurant, they'd be all dressed up, and they would be hateful and spiteful, and they wouldn't tip, and they were demanding. It was like they used up all their goodness going to church. And by the time they came to the restaurant, they were pretty tough to deal with. All of us have fallen short of the glory of God. All of us need repentance. God is in charge of the judging parts. God convicts us, and...

I don't know, the sinner's in the hand of an angry guy, which I do mention a lot, because it was such a series of sermon, 1800s, look it up. Such an influential understanding, which is not gospel. God is the one who convicts us. And often when we try to convict each other and say, you're wrong, or you're this, or you're that, that's because we're trying to avoid looking in our own mirror and saying, I'm a...

Whoa, I am a person of unclean lips. I need gut salvation to be whole.

Adam Eichelberger (18:31.546)
Yeah, and it's also, it feels like a reminder to me to not be so hard on myself when it comes to this. You know, we talked about that a little bit in the last episode, but this is also a reminder that like, as we proclaim and live the gospel, that is just as much for me as it is for anyone else. And if that's not something that I'm proclaiming to myself and living in myself, it is not effective.

Bishop DeDe (18:38.413)
Yeah.

Bishop DeDe (18:47.104)
and

Adam Eichelberger (19:00.218)
for me to do the same to others. And I think that we see that a lot in specifically in our context here in America, we see that a lot. We see a lot of people who profess Christianity, but then their words and their actions don't align with what Jesus says in the gospel. And that's not me throwing shade on anybody, but it is a good reminder that like, you know, these things kind of stick out like a sore thumb and do we want to stick out like a sore thumb?

Bishop DeDe (19:02.626)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (19:19.563)
Mm-mm.

Bishop DeDe (19:27.138)
Well, yeah, because you look at, know, the temptation is to see right now the partisan divides. You know, there's liberals and conservatives and they're battling it out. so either, you know, so one group wants to say refugees, you know, well, they're beloved children of God, but they're terrible people. And one group wants to say, well, those people who believe this are terrible people. And both sides sound like the same thing. Dehumanizing.

putting people down, you can kind of codify it into what's wrong with them, why do they think this, how can they cannot see. All of us are like that. And so when we're living by, when we're proclaiming Jesus by word and example, it means there's an invitation. It means there's gonna be humility, because that's what the gospel of Jesus Christ shows. Jesus, at every encounter in the gospels, who do you say that I

You know, there's moments where Jesus turns over the tables. There's moments when Jesus says this. There's also the moments in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus says, not my will, but yours be done. The humility to say, for me to proclaim by wording the example means that I am living a repentant life. It means that I am engaged in doing my work to recognize when I'm living as a hypocrite.

And that is part of our spiritual life we don't like to talk about. We want to kind of put on our Sunday best and go to church and be all, you know, put together and act like we're, you know, we've got it on lock. We don't want to say my life is a mess. We don't want to say substance use disorders or spousal abuse or, you know, depression or mental health issues or we, we demonize.

people who are vulnerable that we can put down to make ourselves feel better. And that is something to repent of. And then by word and example, to proclaim Jesus is to look and sound like Jesus. Not for nothing that the term Christian, I also sometimes wonder, I don't know that we have the authority to claim to be a Christian.

Bishop DeDe (21:56.812)
because the people who were called Christians were called Christians by other people who were trying to put them down, say, those little, those people who keep acting like they're Jesus. Those people who keep doing the same things Jesus, those little Christ's. It was an identifier people put on people because they reminded them they were still saying and doing the things that Jesus had said and done. If we're really successful at proclaiming and living as a

a living being a living example of Jesus, will feel like Jesus is present, will look like Jesus is present, will act like Jesus is present. And that is a growth, that is a deepening of our faith, that takes intentionality, that takes a real dedication to being about something that's not about ourselves.

So don't know that it's something we necessarily can even claim for ourselves. I think it's something that we aspire to, want to be about. But the more that we grow in our faith, the more we become aware of our own brokenness.

Adam Eichelberger (23:07.138)
Yeah, it's I like that you use the word aspire because that is a perfect segue into a listener question that we have submitted this week. Sorry.

Bishop DeDe (23:19.958)
Love the listener questions. Yay!

Adam Eichelberger (23:20.954)
And this one comes from a listener named Dennis who lives in Maine and Dennis writes Dear Bishop and Adam. look at that. I get mentioned. I am a pretty new Episcopalian. I was raised evangelical. I heard the baptismal covenant for the first time recently at church.

Bishop DeDe (23:33.219)
Hahaha.

Adam Eichelberger (23:45.452)
Is it bad if I don't know if I believe all of the parts of the baptismal covenant?

Bishop DeDe (23:52.876)
Well, Dennis, it's all over for you. No, I am totally kidding, Dennis. I'm hoping you can see my face and not just listening. No, you know, these things are aspirational. know, we come to faith moment by moment. grow, you know, we start out and we think we have a really sense of God. And then we get to know God more and we keep growing. The baptismal covenant,

Adam Eichelberger (23:55.521)
No!

Bishop DeDe (24:21.646)
and especially coming from the background that you have, there are probably words that are triggers for you that were used in a particular way. And so I'm, and Dennis, I don't know, and for listener for you, it may be different words, but I know that in some places the word repent is used to dehumanize, vilify, and demoralize people. It is a.

you better, you are not worth anything, so you better clean up so that God will let you in. That is not what that word means. It was never intended to be that way. That's a misinterpretation. It's a misappropriation. The word actually comes from the Greek to change our mind or from the Hebrew to turn with sorrow back to God, neither of which assume that we're out of sight of something. So,

If you are coming from a background where, and I'm just using this as an example, this may not be the part of the bad personal covenant you're struggling with. But when words or when something doesn't sit well with us, that is an invitation for us to sort of look at it and say, well, what do I think? Why is this bugging me? What is this bringing up for me? And how am I?

understanding Jesus and God maybe differently than this. am I, how do I kind of wrestle with this? St. Paul tells us to incite one another to good works, which is really kind of combative, really, you know, that we're going to kind of struggle with this. We have to work out our faith. And so I encourage you to kind of have conversations with people, you know, dig a little deeper and say, what is it that bugs me about this?

How does this not look like the faith that I've come to understand? Because maybe what you're talking about is something that isn't actually in the baptismal covenant, but is part of something, or maybe it is there. To allow yourself the space to question is really important. And I mentioned earlier the Garden of Gethsemane. I think we too often try to put a happy face on and act like we're

Bishop DeDe (26:46.338)
We believe everything. But when we look at Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see clearly that this is, as you said, part of the journey. Jesus in the Garden, sweating blood. Jesus in the Garden, if it be your will, let this cup pass for me, questioning God, arguing with God. Hey, I don't really want to go do this, dude. We think when we feel that way that we're not being faithful enough,

And yet that's part of the journey with the apostle, with Thomas. I love talking about Thomas. This may be a longer podcast now, because I brought this up. I think Thomas gets a bum rap all the time because people misinterpret what's happening there. In the gospels, Thomas is the one that when Jesus said, he's gonna go to Jerusalem to die, Thomas says, let us go that we may die with him. This is a zealot. This is somebody who's in it to win it.

This is somebody who's dedicated to Jesus. And so then Thomas comes in. Notice when they gather in the upper room, Thomas isn't there. Where's Thomas? Why didn't he get the memo? He's not locked away in fear. Thomas is out. He's ready to go. So he comes back in and Peter says to him, we saw the Lord. Peter, who's denied Jesus three times. I can't help think that Thomas is like, look, dude, I know Jesus.

I'm not buying what you say unless I see Jesus. I know who I'm looking for and I know what I need to see. That kind of doubt is holy, is an invitation. It's right there with Jesus in the garden. So I would say it is part of the journey. And I think wrestling with this isn't bad. And I think wrestling with this, I think what would be negative, and I don't want to use the word bad, is if you don't like it and you just dismiss it.

There's reason we have it, there's a reason it's foundational. So I'd wrestle with it a bit. And I would kind of bring it before God and say, look, I'm not so crazy about this. This has been used to harm me before. This really hurt my life. This kept me from you. This was evil for me. Because then when we feel and acknowledge and see, we can be healed and redeemed and renewed and find a different way forward. So I invite you to the journey.

Bishop DeDe (29:11.786)
And so glad you're listening, Dennis, and keep those questions coming because I really appreciate that question. It's a good question.

Well, I have to say friends, I love this podcast because I love the questions that you have, the courage to speak and to ask, to learn together, to talk together. So now I'm passing the baton to you, that you go and talk with someone that you love or trust or maybe don't even know, how do they see God? How do we speak about our faith? And how do we honor with integrity the dignity of every other person? We'll get to that bidding in a bit.

but I look forward to speaking with you soon. May you be blessed and be a blessing and keep speaking. Take good care.