The Rev. Brandon C. Ashcraft
Trinity Church in the City of Boston
Exodus 19:2-8a / Matthew 9:35-10:8
The Third Sunday after Pentecost / Proper 6A (June 14, 2026)
Claimed and Called, All Summer Long
Summer means different things to different people, but for most of us, it’s a welcome season of rest and renewal.1This Sunday marked the first day of our summer worship schedule, a fact most pronounced at the morning service when the 8 am and 10 am services are combined into one 9 am service. A time to tap the brakes on the frenetic pace of life. For the most part, our life at Trinity reflects this slower tempo. But our calendar resists the seasonal slowdown in at least one meaningful way: we continue celebrating baptism all summer long. There are four days each year when parishes are expected to celebrate baptism: The Easter Vigil, The Day of Pentecost, All Saints’ Sunday, and the Sunday in January that commemorates the Baptism of Jesus.2According to the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, baptism is “especially appropriate” on these four historic baptismal feasts, p. 312. And you can be sure that we celebrate the sacrament of initiation on each of these four festival days. But we also celebrate baptism not once, not twice, but three Sundays during the summer. On the weekends of Fourth of July and Labor Day at that! The message is loud and clear: there is no summer vacation when it comes to grafting new members into the Body of Christ.
My excitement for summer aside, I’ve also got baptism on the brain for a more personal reason. Today is the anniversary of my own baptism. On the Third Sunday after Pentecost, 48 years ago, I received the sacrament of new birth at an Episcopal church in central Kansas. And it’s long been my aspiration to inspire a renewal of baptismal birthday celebrations! If you celebrate your birth into the world, as I imagine most of you do, why wouldn’t you celebrate your birth into the household of God? So, my friends, ironically, this year’s summer kick-off comes with a homework assignment. If you do not know your baptismal birthday, do some investigating this week.
There are many ways to mark the anniversary of your Christian birth. If cake is your joy, it’s a great excuse to partake! But a more meaningful custom is to open the Prayer Book and revisit the baptismal service. To steep yourself in the ancient words of the liturgy. This simple act breathes new life into the sacred promises. The promises once made by you (or for you), as well as the promises made to you, when you were “marked as Christ’s own forever.”3The newly baptized is marked by a cross on their forehead as the Presider says, “N., you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever. Amen.” (BCP, p.308) The words of the baptism liturgy will also remind you that just as God once claimed you, God also called you. Just as you were marked for belonging, you were also marked for mission. Each newly baptized person, as she is welcomed into the household of God, is sent into the world with these three marching orders. To “confess the faith of Christ crucified,” to “proclaim his resurrection,” and “to share with us in his eternal priesthood.”4BCP, p.308. The first two of these exhortations are rather straightforward. But have you ever pondered what it means to “share in Christ’s eternal priesthood?” Surely, we don’t mean that all baptized persons should become clergy?! Lord have mercy, what kind of loving God would ask that?! So what are we to make of this priesthood conferred upon us in our baptism? The answer begins deep in the story of ancient Israel we just heard.
After a few months of wandering in the wilderness, the weary Israelites set up camp at the base of Mount Sinai. After a mountain-top encounter with God, Moses descends the mountain carrying a message that clarifies God’s purpose for delivering the Israelites. God has chosen them as his “treasured possession” and has called them to be a “priestly kingdom.”5Exodus 19:5-6 (NRSV) Which is to say that before God creates a specialized priesthood, before he consecrates a particular tribe to offer sacrifices and to lead worship, God calls the entire nation to be “priests.” In other words, their vocation is to belong to God and make God known. The priesthood of ancient Israel was to reveal God’s character to the world. To demonstrate his steadfast love and faithfulness. God chose them and set them apart, not to exist for themselves alone, but so that one day, the whole world would be drawn into this covenant.6While this idea isn’t expressed in Exodus 19, I am drawing on the fullness of the biblical narrative, e.g., the Second Servant Song (Isaiah 49:6) And before God called them, before God commissioned them to be a priestly people, God loved them. Their belonging and their beloved-ness came first.
Many centuries later, a Jewish rabbi named Jesus of Nazareth calls and commissions twelve apostles to share the vocation first entrusted to Israel. And before Jesus calls them, he looks out on the crowds, and is moved, Matthew tells us, by compassion.7Matthew 9:36. Out of this compassion, out of this tender love, Jesus calls and sends these 12 apostles. Out of all the people in the world, Jesus selects this ragtag dozen – fishermen, tax collectors and ordinary peasants – and gives them a share in his mission. Empowering them to share his ministry of bringing hope to a weary people, of repairing a world beset by brokenness, of healing a world mired in suffering. Jesus sees them with eyes of compassion, calls them, commissions them, and sends them, giving them an actual share in his authority and power.
From the heights of Mount Sinai to the plains of Galilee to Copley Square in the City of Boston, the God who loves us and has compassion for us calls us to be a priestly people. To be his ambassadors. To reap the harvest. To proclaim the kingdom — the reign — that has come near. Steeped in the knowledge of God’s love for us. We, too, are called by God. Sent by God. And we, too, share in the eternal priesthood of his Son. C.S. Lewis is so bold to claim that God became human for “no other purpose” than this: to share his life with us.8C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1952), 199, accessed June 13, 2026, Preprostost PDF Copy. In his description of the Church’s mission, Lewis writes that “the Church exists for nothing else than to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs.”9Lewis, Mere Christianity, 199.
Once we are drawn into his life, once we become “little Christs,” we no longer exist for ourselves alone, but for the sake of the whole world. Having been loved by God, and called by God, in our baptism we inherit a holy vocation. A priestly vocation of making God known and participating in God’s plan for the salvation of the world. So happy summer, Trinity Church. Let’s slow down, catch our breath, and have some fun. But for the sake of the world’s redemption, may our baptismal ministry never, ever take a summer vacation.