Dean's Message for January 29, 2026

Author:
January 28, 2026

The Audacity of Baptism ~ The Logic of Resurrection

Sermon by the Very Reverend Katie Churchwell, Third Sunday after the Epiphany | January 25, 2026
Opening Prayer:
Grant O Lord, that because we have met together here today, life may grow greater for those who have lost faith in it. Simpler for those who are confused by it. More secure for those who would escape it. Happier for those who may be tasting the bitterness of it. Safer for those who are feeling the peril of it. More friendly for those who are feeling the loneliness of it. And holier for all to whom life may have lost its dignity, its beauty, and its meaning. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. -Source Unknown
Friends, here we are, gathered not in the familiar warmth of pews and passing the peace, but scattered by snow, worshiping from living rooms and kitchens, wrapped in blankets, watching the world slow down outside our windows. Record snowfall has done what few things can do. It has forced us to stop. To stay put. To notice how fragile our sense of control really is.
Into this stillness, we pray a bold and demanding collect:
“Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation.”
Not some people. Not the people we like. Not the people who feel safe or familiar. All people.
That prayer lands differently this morning because the headlines are heavy. Civilians murdered by federal agents. Domestic violence surging as families are trapped together by fear and weather. Images that lodge themselves in our bodies. A small child in a bunny hat. That poor baby. A human life used as a weapon of the state. Here in our own country, here in our own communities, our neighbors and friends are profiled, terrorized, and taken.
So we have to ask, honestly, where does this prayer fit in a world like this? What does it mean to proclaim good news when the news feels anything but good?
Two weeks ago, on January 11, we baptized six children right here. The font was full. The church was full. Joy spilled everywhere. All week long, you called me. You sent texts. You wrote emails and even handwritten notes. And what so many of you said was not simply that the children were adorable or that the church felt alive. You told me about the joy and the hope and the love you saw among families who, on paper, have nothing in common. Families who only know each other because Christ called them to the Font.
Strangers bound together by water and promise. By a vow that says, your child is my concern now too. Your safety matters to me. Your flourishing is bound up with mine. That is what baptism does. It creates a family that did not exist before.
In every baptismal service, the congregation is asked a question that sounds gentle but is anything but: will you do all that you can to support these persons in their life in Christ? Not some of what you can. Not what is convenient. All that you can.
When I prepare families for baptism, I always tell them that St. Paul’s Cathedral does not make that promise only for them. We make it on behalf of the whole Church. We make it for all of Christendom. So that when these children grow up and leave home, when they go off to college, when they travel internationally, when they wander into churches in Jerusalem, or Mexico, or Minneapolis, they will encounter Christians who are bound to them by the same promise of care and support.
That is the audacity of baptism. It assumes a global family.
But it assumes more than that.
The audacity of baptism is that it assumes an eternal family. A communion that does not end at death or stop at borders or sort itself by paperwork or nationality. Baptism tells a truth we would rather avoid. The people we gun down today are not strangers in God’s economy. They are not expendable. They are not disposable. They are part of the communion we claim to believe in. And the hard, holy truth is this: the very people our systems terrorize and destroy will be the ones who greet us when we enter eternal life.
That is not sentimental theology. That is the logic of resurrection. That is what it means to confess the communion of saints.
I do not have wise answers about immigration policy. I do not understand the full complexity of a system that is deeply broken. But I do not have to. Our faith does not require policy expertise in order to demand moral clarity.
Our baptismal covenant was crafted centuries ago by people with dark skin who did not speak English, living under empire, who knew exactly what it meant to be controlled, surveilled, and erased. When we promise to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being, that is not poetic language. That is a claim about where our ultimate citizenship lies.
Baptism places our citizenship in heaven, and that allegiance supersedes any national call on our lives. You can be proud of where you are from. You can love this country. But as Christians, the dignity, safety, and humanity of another person is never dependent on where they were born, where they live now, or how they got there.
And I do not know about you, but I am not comfortable checking baptismal certificates before deciding whether someone deserves dignity. I am not interested in verifying sacramental status before extending humanity. Christ did not stand in the Jordan so that we can stand at the font, to sort the worthy from the unworthy.
So how can it be that just two weeks after renewing our baptismal covenant, with the water barely dry on our hands, we find ourselves in a world where people are executed in the streets, where others are compelled to harm in the name of national power, where fear masquerades as righteousness, and violence claims to act under God’s authority?
The answer is not that our baptism failed. The answer is that baptism tells the truth about what is at stake.
The good news is not that God will someday fix this while we wait quietly. The good news is that God has already claimed us. Claimed us in water and Spirit. Claimed us for courage. Claimed us for costly love. Claimed us to stand where Christ stands, even when it is dangerous to do so.
The glory of God’s marvelous works is not found in displays of force or fear. It is found when ordinary people, snowbound and heartbroken, still choose to tell the truth. Still choose to protect the vulnerable. Still choose to see the image of God in the person the world is most eager to discard.
This is how we answer the call of Jesus today. Not with easy answers. Not with denial. But by living as though our baptism actually means what we say it means.
Even now. Even here.
And that, beloved, is good news.

Amen

The Very Reverend Katie Churchwell, 15th Dean, St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

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