Today we initiate Yuri Alexander Escalera into — a hard way of life. It is sometimes tempting to try to sell Christianity as an easy life. "Come on in! Be a Christian! It’s easy! It’s fun! You’ll feel all loved up, all warm and fuzzy, and it’ll be easy. Come on in!

Well, I hope you do feel loved, and, sometimes even warm and fuzzy. But we have to resist the temptation to sell Christianity as an easy way of life. I know it is presented that way in lots of places. Lots and lots of churches say, "Come on in! It’ll be easy. We support the status quo. We’re not going to mess with social problems or world issues. It’s just going to be about you letting Jesus make you feel good about yourself. Come on in! It’ll be easy!"

Easy? "Blessed are the poor in spirit." (Luke’s version just says, "Blessed are the poor.") Easy?

"Blessed are those who mourn." Easy?

"Blessed are the meek." Easy?

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." (Luke’s version is, "Blessed are you who are hungry now.") Easy?

It goes on: "Blessed are the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake." "Rejoice," Jesus says, "Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven."

And, he’s not through. There are lots of other commandments about how we are to be, but none so difficult, and so often ignored, as this one, "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you." (Mt. 5:44; Lk. 6: 27-28).

Easy? Are you kidding me? In the world we live in the constant refrain, the drumbeat in the background of our society, is, "Blessed are the rich, [Drum], blessed are the happy, [Drum], blessed are the assertive, [Drum], blessed are those who hunger for stability, [Drum], blessed are the dispatchers of swift justice, two strikes and it’s life, the death penalty, [Drum], blessed are the war-makers, [Drum], and, blessed are those who don’t make trouble. [Drum]"

We today initiate Yuri Alexander Escalera into a difficult life. We will ask him to live into a faith that will constantly be asking him to swim against the current, to place himself in harm’s way, to make trouble. We will recite the Baptismal Covenant and remind ourselves of our revolutionary, difficult obligation to "proclaim Christ by word and example," to "seek and serve Christ in all persons," to "strive for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every human being." I’ve been with you almost five years now. If you know nothing else about me, I hope I’ve shown you that I will not turn Christianity into a jingle; I will not make the faith a self-help course; I will not portray our belief as a means to the end of feeling good. Last week Ruth told you that love is not a warm, fuzzy feeling; it is a disposition toward what is good for the other person, regardless of how that makes us feel. She was right. And that’s not easy. And neither is living a Christian life.

And this calling for peace when the masses sway to the drumbeat of war, this calling for mercy, this striving to love enemies, this striving to respect human dignity in the places it is most difficult, this swimming against the current, this being counter-cultural, it is hard. It is hard externally, because the world comes at you. But it is also hard internally. I’ll speak for myself: it’s hard for me because I am so often conflicted. Sometimes I’m conflicted because I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I know what not to do, like make war, but I’m conflicted about what to do. Sometimes it’s hard because, like St. Paul, I find myself so often doing the very thing I hate, being the kind of person I don’t want to be. So that his words in his Letter to the Romans ring so true: "I find it to be a law that when I want to do good, evil lies close at hand." (Rom. 7: 19-21).

This Christianity is so, so wonderful, and so, so tough. Historically, we Christians have so often clung to what is wonderful, being loved and being part of a community, and just ignored what is so difficult. Why?

I think the reason is that it is so difficult to believe that these counter-cultural values of loving enemies, and affirming the power (and even the worth) of the meek and the persecuted and the peacemakers and the discarded people, it is so difficult to believe that any of that has a chance. So we tend to say, "That’s nice. I want Jesus and the church to say pretty "stained glass" things like that. But this is, after all, the real world, and outside church, away from the stained glass, those values don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell."

So it’s tempting to cling to what’s wonderful, what makes you feel warm and fuzzy about Christianity, and just ignore the hard parts. I think that all too often, when we try to imagine a world based on the values Jesus espouses in the Beatitudes and which we affirm in the Baptismal Covenant, we just despair, and quit.

I don’t want Yuri to despair, or to quit. But how can he, how can we, not? The best way I know is to quit looking at the world through the world’s eyes. Yuri is going to need a new imagination, a new vision, if he is going to avoid despair and resignation.

This morning, we offer a window into that vision. This morning, we celebrate our heroes. Not the heroes the world holds up, the Napoleons and Caesars and moviestars and athletes, but our heroes. The communion of saints. The chorus of heroes who have gone before us, living this hard life, striving to bring about God’s kingdom. Some are famous people, St. Francis, St. Augustine, Saint This, Saint That. But many, most, are people who lived quiet lives of faith. People whose names will not be remembered by the world, but whose names will be remembered by God.

When I feel a sense of hopelessness, futility, despair creeping up on me, when I begin to think that there’s no point in beating my head against this brick wall of a world that will not be changed, it helps me to think of that chorus of saints who have gone before me. It helps me to know that I am not alone. It helps me to realize that I am not the beginning of this; I am not the source of this; it is not my responsibility to finish this. It helps me to remember that my life is one little drop of water in a great river of God’s action flowing through time. It helps me to remember that there is a great refrain of encouragement, that, if you listen, can drown out the drumbeat of the world. That melody is sung by the chorus of the saints who have been dipped in this water before me, the saints, famous and forgotten, with whom our lives are somehow knit together in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of Christ.

I have been reading a book called Carry Me Home. It’s a Pulitzer Prize winning account of the civil rights struggle in perhaps the greatest stronghold of racism in America — Birmingham, Alabama. Through this book I have been learning about a preacher named Fred Shuttlesworth. He was a civil rights leader in Birmingham before there was a "Civil Rights Movement," before there was any support, during a time when the rest of the nation looked away from the indignities and atrocities that marked daily life for Black people. His church had been bombed; his home had been bombed; he had been beaten with brass knuckles, and he had been arrested numerous times on trumped-up charges.

I marvel at how Shuttlesworth and other black leaders avoided total despair. They lived in a world in which almost every element of society — the law, the police, the courts, the schools, the social institutions, the mainstream media, public opinion, transportation, utilities, industry — every element with any power at all — was dedicated to the continued humiliation of African-Americans and was quick to use horrifying violence to punish the slightest hint of rebellion.

Every element of society with any power at all. That, of course, did not include the black church. After all, what power could it have? What power could a lady riding a bus have? What power could students sitting at a lunch counter have? What power could refusing to hate your hateful oppressors have? What power could refusing to strike back have? How could any of that change a world built on the hardened brick walls of racism and violence?

In 1957, when the tactics of the movement had stalled and seemed to be failing, Fred Shuttlesworth wrote Dr. King a letter of encouragement and concluded with these words: "I would certainly hope that we would never be found fighting as our enemies expect; that is, as they plan for us to fight. And I fervently pray that most of all, we shall never be found fearing to begin."

The challenge of living our faith in a world that marches to the drumbeat of war [drum], oppression [drum], class [drum], violence [drum], nationalism [drum], race [drum], poverty [drum] — is a hard one. But listen to the chorus of saints. They sing encouragement. They sing that we are not alone. They sing that we stand on the shoulders of greatness. They sing that values the world thinks are powerless actually hold world-changing power. And, perhaps most importantly, they sing for us not to despair; for it is not up to us to finish God’s work.

But they also sing their prayer that God will give us the courage never to be found fearing to begin.

We don’t have to finish, but we must begin. Because, God willing, one day our names will be on the list we read this morning, and, God willing, one day our voices will be in the chorus.