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Rev. Hannah Lovaglio’s Sermon: June 7, 2026 ~ Worship Service with Baptism and Communion
The Decision to Move
Remember your Baptism
The call of Abram begins with a command.
“Go.”
Leave your country.
Leave your family.
Leave what is familiar.
Leave what is secure.
Leave everything you know.
And go.
The remarkable thing is that God does not hand Abram a map.
God does not explain the details.
God does not provide a timeline.
God does not tell Abram exactly how things will work out.
Instead, God offers a promise.
“I will show you.”
“I will bless you.”
“I will be with you.”
In other words, God asks Abram to trust the promise before he can see the destination.
Several years ago, Martin Luther found himself in a season of profound spiritual struggle.
The great reformer who had challenged emperors and popes, who had translated the Bible into the language of ordinary people, who had changed the course of Christian history, was overwhelmed by fear, doubt, and despair.
The story goes that during one particularly difficult period, Luther took a piece of chalk and wrote these words on his desk:
Remember your baptism.
When Luther faced down that great cloud of darkness, it is said, he would repeat this mantra to himself:
Martin, be calm. You are baptized.
Be calm, you are baptized.
Be calm, you are baptized.
The refrain would daily smooth the rough edges of anxiety and quiet the loud voices of fear and lift a little bit of the weight of mental malaise, and bring him back to center—a place of believing and trusting. Where there was enough comfort and security and faith to face the day.
It’s a sentiment we repeat in our own baptism liturgy. The final words spoken are an invitation not just to the recently baptized, but to all of us:
Remember your baptism and give thanks.
Be one with us in the church.
Remember your baptism and give thanks.
It isn’t an actual recollection of your moment of baptism.
In fact, in practicing infant baptism, we have assured that most of us cannot actually remember our baptism at all—it took place before we developed the capacity to store long-term memories. The best we can do is to recall the pictures in albums and the stories passed down from generations before.
But still: Remember your baptism and be thankful.
Remember – as in – be put back together, re-membered – in the knowledge of your baptism, and given thanks.
It isn’t about remembering what you wore or who was there or where it took place or even, I dare say, if it took place at all.
Remember your baptism and be thankful.
But not as if it is some sort of lucky charm that has sealed your fate forever among the favored and saved.
Remember your baptism, but not because it’s your “get into heaven free” ticket or your “Good Christian” award.
Rather, remember your baptism and be thankful, because your baptism proclaimed, definitively:
That you are a beloved child of God.
You are a beloved child of God, in God, you live and breathe and have your being and by God’s grace, you are enough.
Baptism is a naming.
As Rachel Held Evans reminds us, “When Jesus emerged from the waters of the Jordan, a voice from heaven declared, ‘this is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’
Jesus did not begin to be loved at the moment of his baptism, nor did he cease to be loved when his baptism became a memory. Baptism simply named the reality of his existing and unending belovedness.”
Likewise, God doesn’t love May more now, this side of her baptism. That is unfathomable as her parents somehow loving her more, or more completely, for the simple act of her baptism.
Remember your baptism. Remember your identity. Remember the reality of your existing and unending belovedness.
When the world spins and the darkness clouds and the winds swirl violently around you and you lose yourself to the lie that you are not enough or you start to believe that you are unlovable or that your life does not matter or that you have no place among God’s people—remember your baptism.
Remember that you are a child of God, beloved by God, and a part of God’s family.
These things are true whether or not your baptism has actually happened—May is just as much a child of God, beloved by God, and a part of God’s family now as she was yesterday.
But in her baptism, we all made a promise to uphold, honor, teach and remember that reality with her and for her and alongside her.
And in baptizing them, we had reason to remember our baptism, and give thanks.
And give thanks.
That “and give thanks” part is so very important.
The “and give thanks” is what makes baptism about more than just us.
“And give thanks” takes us from the center of the Sacrament and puts God at the center. The “and give thanks” turns us away from ourselves, it humbles us –it acknowledges that this baptism isn’t something we earned or achieved or accomplished—rather, it is a gift.
Remember your baptism and give thanks—
thanks to the God who created you
and whose grace has saved you
the whose love has redeemed you.
Remember your baptism and give thanks to the God who, …
To be thankful is to follow that God out into the world and to share your joy and gratitude with the whole world over.
To be thankful is to share the gift you’ve been given, to spread that good news and to not withhold or hoard or store up even the smallest bit just for yourself.
To be thankful is to trust that this gift of God’s grace made known in baptism isn’t just for you and your brother and your neighbor but for everyone.
To be thankful is to take that gift of belovedness, that assurance of God’s love and acceptance and use it and share it and to not withhold it from any single person.
To be thankful is to say to every single person, the whole world over: you are beloved. And you are beloved. And you are beloved.
And the doubters are beloved.
And the burned out are beloved.
And the line-cutters are beloved.
And the lost are beloved.
And the forgotten are beloved.
And the forsaken are beloved.
And the closeted are beloved.
And the out and proud are beloved.
And the depressed are beloved.
And the strangers are beloved.
And the grieving are beloved.
And the-you-fill-in-the-blank-until-not-one-child-of-God-is-caged-in-or-locked-out.
Remember your baptism and be thankful until that gratitude reaches every far-fetched corner of your heart and the world and every single child of God—yourself included—knows themselves beloved.
For the promise is for you, and for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord calls.
And then we will gather around a table.
A table for pilgrims.
A table for travelers.
A table for people who do not have all the answers but who trust the One who calls them forward.
A table where Christ feeds us for the journey.
A table where joy and sorrow sit side by side.
A table where the living and the saints who have gone before us are held together in God’s love.
And so, whatever road lies before you this morning, whatever joys you carry, whatever griefs you bear, whatever uncertainty waits around the next bend, hear again the promise that began with Abram, was spoken over you in baptism, and is set before you again in bread and cup:
You belong to God.
You are loved.
And you do not walk alone.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Rev. Hannah Lovaglio (she/her/hers)
Minister, Central Presbyterian Church