The Affront of Baptism

A dear Christian brother – a young priest with a pastor’s heart and a theologian’s mind – plans to baptize his infant daughter within weeks. Frankly, I find the concept and practice of infant baptism an affront. It assaults and insults me with the claim that this precious new life is but dust and will one day to dust return, that death is the common lot of all men because all men bear the consequence – if not the guilt – of Adam’s sin, and that true life depends on new life in Christ. “You must be born again – of water and the Spirit,” Jesus said and says still, and the church insists this applies to all – “innocent” children and hardened adults as well. Infant baptism weighs in the balance and finds wanting all our cherished convictions about human nature: that each child is a tabula rosa on which we may write only the good and pure, or that men are inherently good and pure from birth. Instead, every baptismal font proclaims that every infant presented there is a cracked and tarnished icon of God: an image bearer, yes, but one with the perfect image of a holy God distorted by every selfish and errant choice made by every ancestor far and near, throughout the genealogy of all the world – begotten in sin, born in sin, and living in a sin-conditioned world. Every helpless, speechless child carried to the water by others, spoken for by others, speaks volumes to us all: you are broken and you are helpless and you are utterly dependent on the gift and grace of Another. Baptism is never more fully sacramental than when an infant is presented, for there the work is clearly and solely God’s: no false pride of adult choice or will or wisdom – just helpless acquiescence to the weak ministrations of men and the mighty acts of God. Such a baptism shames us in our weakness and glorifies God in his strength, a strength shown chiefly in the stooping down of love.

If you do not find infant baptism an affront, you are not paying attention. It is a slap in the face of our culture – of any culture. And precisely in that lies the truth and the power and the beauty of this sacrament; it shows the depth of our vanity and the breadth of God’s love. We cannot walk – as the Prodigal – to him, yet he runs – as the Father – to us. We cannot repent – as the good thief – and yet he promises us paradise this day and every day. We cannot say the words of the vows, yet we hear God speak – a thunderous whisper – This is my beloved child in whom I am well pleased. If you do not find infant baptism an affront – and a joyous and marvelous gift of our gracious God – you are not paying attention. Thanks be to God for this sacrament.

My brother had planned the baptism for Pentecost – the great holy day of Spirit and church – but logistics conspired to make that impossible. Though disappointed, he knows there will be other holy days. He knows that any day on which the church baptizes is made holy by the very act of baptism: On this day the Lord has acted. We will rejoice and be glad in it. What is a holy day if not a day on which God has acted and on which we stop to rejoice? Certainly, then, baptism must render a day holy.

Perhaps, then, instead of seeking out established holy days for baptism, we should look for ordinary days, or even days of infamy, to redeem through baptism. Redeem the time, we are told, for the days are evil (Eph 5:12). Let us baptize on the anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, striving to add one new life for every life taken. Let us baptize on the anniversary of 9-11, building for the kingdom of heaven even as the kingdoms of the earth were shaken to the core. Or let us simply seek through baptism to make holy every day that the world – and too often the church – considers ordinary, as if any day on which God says, “Let there be light,” could be anything less than extraordinary.

Any day my brother chooses for the baptism will become a holy day – St. Madeleine’s day – and saints in heaven and saints on earth will rejoice, and the calendar of eternity will mark the feast.

Reflection: Sunday of All Saints

While the Western church observes this day as Trinity Sunday, the Eastern church commemorates it as the Sunday of All Saints. The following reflection -- a very personal one that I wrote initially for my daughter -- captures a bit of each holy day, moving from the trinitarian essence of our faith as expressed in the Apostles' Creed to the great and ongoing influence of saints -- great and small, named and unnamed -- upon our faith and our lives. As the Orthodox pray: Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us. Amen. Amen, indeed.

I thought you should know: I am a Christian.

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

This is my faith, though not mine in the sense of having made it or even of having discovered it myself. No, I received this faith as pure, gracious gift from my parents and from a small community of the faithful at the corner of Burnside and Delaware. My role in the reception of faith was limited to knowing a good thing when I see one and to keeping my hands and arms and heart open wide to receive this gift – grace upon grace.

Mine is the faith of saints: Mama Snow, who raised three young daughters alone and still somehow found time to pray for the rest of us, all her other children; Pauline, a gifted teacher of scriptures penned millennia earlier by her namesake; Wilsie, who fed us vanilla wafers and the word of God in the old Sunday School room with the red, tiger stripped couch just the right size for us kids; Carl, who always asked the Lord to “forgive our sins of omission as well as commission,” as we gathered at the Lord’s Table; and Preacher Black – I still cannot call him Bob – who received my confession of the faith that I received at his feet, and who baptized me in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. To this day, when I read or teach the Old Testament, it is his voice I hear echoing in the old sanctuary – that holy place that lives now only in my memory – echoing before we foolishly installed the acoustical tile ceiling, and it is his approval I seek. Yes, I received my faith from my parents and from a small community of the faithful at the corner of this world and the world to come: upon them be peace.

Faith is a mystery and a miracle. The gospel is proclaimed and one day you realize that you believe it. For some this comes at the end of a long, intellectual struggle – a perilous trek from one worldview to another. For others, it happens in an instant: there is a light and a voice, and, like Saul on the road to Damascus, you find yourself knocked off your ass and lying face down on a dusty road confronted by Jesus, himself. I used to envy people like these, the ones with grand testimonies: heroic struggles for truth or mystical revelations. They were the popular kids at youth group when it came time to tell your conversion experience, to witness to the faith that was in you.

I don’t believe I ever had a conversion experience, at least not one like these. There simply wasn’t a time I didn’t believe. There was no great struggle toward faith, no blinding revelation. For me, the only conversion possible was a rejection of faith; I could have been reborn an atheist, but not a believer. I was baptized – immersed – into Christ when I was around six, and I know that marked a fundamental change: buried with Christ in water, I was raised to walk in newness of life, a child of God, sealed and filled with the Holy Spirit. While the good saints who raised me never used the word sacrament, I now know that baptism is one – that it is a sign through which God’s grace becomes active in a human life and fundamentally changes the reality of that life. I was different after baptism – I had become a partaker of the divine nature – but not different in terms of my faith. I believed before, I believed after, and I believe still.

Some will say that a received faith is no faith at all. Your father’s faith can’t save you. Neither can your mother’s. I understand that theological position. But I bear on my upper arm the mark of a smallpox vaccine given to me because of my parents’ faith in modern medicine. For all I know, that faith – their faith – saved me many times over. And I bear on my soul the mark, the seal, of the Holy Spirit given to me because of my parents’ faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I do know, with certainty, that their faith, which became my own, saved me. I believe because they believed and because they raised me in a community of folks who believed.

And so I have taken my place in the communion of saints – that mystical body of the faithful formed into the mystical Body of Christ – a fellowship spanning time and space, crossing cultures, bridging divides. Each Sunday when I celebrate Holy Eucharist – the feast of our Lord’s resurrection – this body gathers with the small community of worshippers in our chapel: the patriarchs are there, and the apostles; martyrs are there along with all those persecuted for the sake of righteousness; angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim and all the company of heaven join the celebration as we sing, “Holy, holy, holy!” and confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Mama Snow is there, and Pauline: Wilsie and Carl and Bob and Kathleen and Merl and Bill and Mary. And by God’s grace, through the faithfulness and prayers of these saints and countless others I will not know until that great day of Christ’s return, I am there.

The only story I can tell – the only story worth telling, I am convinced – is the story they passed along to me: a story in word and song and sacrament, a story in bread and wine and vanilla wafers, a story in water and blood and Spirit. This is my story. I thought you should know: I am a Christian.

Family Matters: Sermon on the Baptism of our Lord

Baptism of the Lord: 10 January 2010
(Isaiah 43:1-7/Psalm 29/Acts 8:14-17/Luke 3:15-17, 21-22)
Family Matters

The Lord has shown forth his glory:
Come let us adore him.

Sunday last I attended evening Divine Liturgy at a local Oriental Orthodox parish – one of a handful of places in this world I know myself truly loved in Christ. This congregation conducts a vibrant and challenging outreach ministry to the Knoxville inner-city homeless population; several dozen men and women receive physical and spiritual nourishment from the church each week.

Sunday was cold – brutally so – and several “children of the streets” sought the warmth of the church during service. One sat behind me, a chronically homeless man who has made some considerable progress in the years I’ve known him; he is now more often clean and sober than in the past. Pray God to have mercy on him. He commented – good-naturedly – on the late arrival of a homeless friend, “God, they’ll let anyone in here.” I looked around and thought, “God, he’s right. They will.” Quite a spectrum of people crowded the small church that night: politically, from far left to far right; economically, from middle class to homeless; intellectually, from sophisticated to simple and even damaged; spiritually – well, who am I to judge that? I know there were saints there, and I know there was at least one sinner, so the spectrum was represented. My friend was right: God – in God’s name – they’ll let anyone in here.

And no distinctions were made among them; there were no acts of favoritism as condemned by James:

1 My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. 2 For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, 3 and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, “You sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or, “Sit here at my footstool,” 4 have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts (James 2:1-4, NKJV)?

No, there was none of this, no distinctions made on a worldly basis: no distinctions at all, until time came for the Eucharist. When a stranger walked forward to receive the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation, the priest paused to ask, “You are baptized, aren’t you?” And there it is, the one distinction made: they’ll let anyone in here, but they will not let just anyone share the bread and wine, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. For that you must be baptized. Why? In large part because the Kingdom Banquet of the Eucharist is the family meal of Christ, and baptism is the sacrament that constitutes us as family.

Of course, baptism has individual and personal implications: cleansing from sin, reconciliation with God, and more. We often focus on these, as we should. But I’m not convinced that we often enough consider the corporate implications of baptism – baptism as the sacrament of adoption into God’s new family, the church. Don’t we often marvel at the solidarity of the “Pentecostal” church family in Acts 2?

41 Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. 42 And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. 43 Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. 44 Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, 45 and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. 46 So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved (Acts 2:41-47, NKJV).

The real wonder is not that our fathers and mothers in the faith lived this way, but that we, their spiritual offspring, so often do not. Really, what could be more natural? They received the word and were baptized, and in so doing were made brothers and sisters in a new family – in a new family whose loyalties supercede all others. As families do – at least, as families did in the Mediterranean/Middle Eastern world of that day – they shared their lives in common: they worshiped together; they ate together; they prayed together; they wounded and forgave together; they fought and reconciled together. And, when any member of this new family of God had need, those spiritual brothers and sisters with means met that need. How could family do otherwise? Again, James comes to mind.

15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead (James 2:15-17, NKJV).

Notice James’ familial terms “brother” and “sister;” clearly he considers the church as God’s new family in Christ and cannot conceive of a family that would let any of its members go naked or hungry. There is no faith in such a family. It is – at best – a dysfunctional family and a dysfunctional church.

That Paul also considers the church as the believers’ new family – to which is due the highest of loyalties – is clearly evident in 1 Corinthians. There Paul condemns specific behaviors because they are harmful to one’s brothers.

1 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? 6 But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers!7 Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? 8 No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren! 9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God (1 Cor 6:1, 7-11, NKJV).

What Paul doesn’t add but clearly had in mind is this: You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified, your were made family in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. And what could “washed” mean but baptism? Baptism is the sacrament that constitutes us as God’s new family in Christ, a family whose loyalties supercede all others.

And in a similar passage on the matter of eating meat offered to idols, Paul’s language is – if possible – even stronger.

12 But when you thus sin against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble (I Cor 8:12-13, NKJV).

A sin against a member of the family is a sin against the head of the family, Christ himself. What is more unthinkable than this?

So, as we consider the baptism of our Lord – and our own baptism – we cannot neglect the corporate aspects of the sacrament. Christ was baptized, in part, to create a new family of God with himself as head. We are baptized as a sacrament of adoption into that family. Thus, every baptized believer is our brother or sister and has claim to our loyalty, a claim which supercedes every earthly loyalty. It may be that we need to recapture the biblical language and the biblical worldview inherent in our baptism.

We speak of ourselves and consider ourselves as “members of the church” and think of this as not different in kind than being members of the PTSO or the Rotary Club. But the differences are vast. Clubs and civic organizations are formed by people sharing common interests and common goals. But the church, as the family of God, is formed by Christ and is entered through baptism; it is made of all those people who share in the Spirit. Membership in clubs and civic organizations is optional; if interests or attitudes change, membership can be dropped. Cut up the membership card, stop attending meetings, forego paying dues. But membership in the church is essential; there is no provision for solo, churchless Christianity. To be in Christ is to be in the church. To separate oneself from the church is to separate oneself from Christ. The loyalties in clubs and civic organizations are toward the common goal. But the loyalties in the church – in the family of God – are toward one’s brothers and sisters. It’s probably time to stop thinking of the church as an organization and time to recapture the biblical vision of church as the family of God. It’s probably time to stop viewing ourselves as members of an organization and time to recapture the biblical vision of ourselves as members of one another, as brothers and sisters in the family of God. This is really demanded by a right understanding of the baptism of our Lord and of our baptism.

If we take these corporate implications of baptism seriously -- baptism as the sacrament that constitutes us as God’s new family in Christ, a family whose loyalties supercede all others – how might that affect our relationship with and in the church?

We certainly will find our priorities and loyalties challenged. During his ministry Jesus was uncompromising in demanding from would-be followers top priority and chief allegiance to himself and to the family of God he was forming.

21 Then another of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead (Mt 8:21-22, NKJV).”

This saying is hard and scandalous – then and now. Your old family – those who will not follow me – is dead to you. You have a new family – my followers – who now claim your loyalty. And what Jesus said about the natural family he could have said about every other group that lays claim to our loyalties: political party, profession, nation, ethnic group, and any other group that names you and claims you. When the demands of these groups conflict with loyalty to the family of God in Christ Jesus – the church – the church must be given priority.

We also will be required to adopt a global perspective, to take a much broader view of the church. The church exists not just on a local level – this congregation – or even a national level – the church in the United States. The church exists globally, and those who have been baptized into Christ in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan; in Syria, Gaza, and Israel; in China, North Korea, and Viet Nam; in Sudan, Nigeria, and Ghana; in Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Russia are family – as much as those who sit beside us in this place. And, as family, they lay rightful claim on us: on our love, on our prayers, on our resources. We cannot ignore the legitimate needs of our brothers and sisters around the world. And we must understand how difficult this is; it is not simply a matter of praying for the global church once in awhile or even of writing checks. It’s also a matter of re-evaluating the way we relate to those institutions closest to us. Can we support government policies or actions which will disadvantage or harm our Christian brothers and sisters in the third world even in the name of free trade or national security? Can we support businesses whose labor practices abuse our brothers and sisters even when such support is profitable for us? I could go on, but it’s clear that a global perspective on the church raises very difficult questions in economic, governmental, and social arenas. The family of God doesn’t really acknowledge separation of church and state.

And, on a more local level, we will be required to care for one another better than we have in the recent past. No Christian’s medical welfare should hinge upon health insurance legislation, for example – not as long are there are Christian physicians in the church or money in the coffers. No Christian who can live with other people – and there are those who cannot or will not – should find himself homeless due to the financial crisis. No Christian child in the church should do without basic necessities while any Christian child in the church has luxuries. I could go on, but this is challenging enough.

Taking the baptism of our Lord seriously forces us to take our own baptism seriously, and that confronts us with both the challenges and the blessings of the family of God created by baptism. Peter understood the challenges and Jesus promised him the blessings.

28 Then Peter began to say to Him, “See, we have left all and followed You.” 29 So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, 30 who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life (Mk 10:28-30, NKJV).

Whatever old loyalties were strained to the breaking point by baptism will be renewed in the family of God formed by baptism; whatever was lost will be restored in the family of God formed by baptism; whatever died will be born again in the family of God formed by baptism.

The baptism of the Lord is a theophany – a shining forth, a revelation of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God the Son enters the water. God the Father speaks. God the Holy Spirit descends. And in this moment a new family is created.

21 When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened. 22 And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased” (Luke 3:21-22, NKJV).

The words of God here at the baptism of the Lord are family words: “You are my Beloved Son.” And these are the same words He speaks to all of us at our baptisms – to all His beloved sons and daughters – as he makes us part of the family. As we embrace the reality of church as the family of God – as we commit ourselves to the material, emotional, and spiritual welfare of our Christian brother and sister above all other earthly loyalties – we will become a theophany, a revelation to the world of the glory of God.

Amen.

(For a excellent treatment of the church as the family of God -- and the implications of family in a strong-group society -- I recommend When the Church Was a Family, by Joseph H. Hellerman, copyright 2009, B&H Publishing Group, Nashville, TN.)

Sermon: 5 Pentecost (5 July 2009)

Sermon: 5 Pentecost (5 July 2009)
(Isaiah 12/Psalm 1/Romans 6:1-11/John 4:1-26)
Coming Naked To The Water

Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And blessed be his kingdom, now and for ever. Amen.

On rare occasions –generally when events in the life of the congregation or the world prompt me – I depart from the lectionary. This is one such occasion. In their confirmation class, our young people have recently been challenged to explore more deeply the meaning of their baptism. That, in conjunction with a book on the Rwandan genocide that I recently finished
reading, led me into deeper reflection on the meaning of baptism in the life of
the church. What follows are some reflections – as in a mirror – on Christian baptism.

______________________________________________

I would like to tell you something of my baptism. After the fashion of the Christian Church in which I was raised, my baptism was a simple ceremony. One Sunday morning I joined the minister in the baptistery – filled with very cold water as I still recall. He asked me to repeat after him the confession “I believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God” – not unlike the earliest confession/creed of the church, Jesus is Lord – and I responded. He looked at me – whether he called me by name I do not now remember – and he invoked over me the ancient, Trinitarian baptismal formula: I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. With those words he immersed me in that cold, life-giving water and raised me up, a new creation. However simple the ceremony – bare bones, really – it “took:” forty-six years later I still believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God and, sometimes with greater and sometimes with lesser faithfulness, I have lived my life in and through him, in accordance with that confession.

Many baptismal liturgies are more elaborate that the one I described – perhaps yours was – with exorcisms, vows, multiple immersions, chrismation. We will look at one of these more developed liturgies in moment, one from the third century. But simple or elaborate, every baptism is a sacrament, an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace (BCP 1979, p. 857). All the outward ritual and ceremony of baptism – whether simple or elaborate – is a sign not that something has already taken place, but that something is taking place. A sacrament, like baptism, does not merely symbolize a real event, a real change; rather, a sacrament is the means by which and through which the real event, the real change occurs.

The difference between symbol and sacrament is vital. A familiar, though not perfect, example will perhaps make the difference clear: a wedding. A wedding is a vast constellation of outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace of marriage. Some signs are incidental and dispensable: flowers and cake; music and candles. Other signs are essential: the mutual making of vows before witnesses and the pronouncement “husband and wife” by one duly authorized by church and state to preside. No white roses, Wedding March, and cake: no problem. No vows, no witnesses, no pronouncement of husband and wife: no marriage. The vows and the witnesses and the pronouncement are “sacramental” in this sense: they are outward and visible signs that do not merely signify that a marriage has occurred; they are the means through which and by which the marriage actually takes place.

Baptism is not flowers and music and cake; it is vows and witnesses and pronouncement. It not only signifies union with Christ in his death and resurrection, birth into God’s family the Church, forgiveness of sins, and new life in the Holy Spirit (BCP 1979, p. 858); it is the means through which and by which this saving work of God takes place. In the “ordinary” economy of God – and I do not question that God can and almost certainly does work in extraordinary ways – but, in the ordinary economy of God, if there is no water, if there is no invocation of Father and Son and Holy Spirit – in short, if there is no baptism – there is no union with Christ, no forgiveness of sin, no new life in the Spirit.

All this lead to the main thesis of this sermon, the one idea which above all I wish you to remember: That which is not baptized is not redeemed. If that seems a trivial statement, we will see in a moment the life-shattering consequences of ignoring it. But first, let’s turn to the third century baptismal liturgy recorded by Hippolytus in his work On The Apostolic Tradition.

Whether this liturgy was typical of most or even many third century churches we do not know, but it does provide us a window into the primitive, apostolic church and it has formed the basis for subsequent baptismal liturgies in both East and West. Though the full liturgy deserves a careful reading, we will consider just a portion of it.

Now at the time when the cock crows they shall first pray over the water.
The water should be flowing into the tank or be poured down into it. It
should be so if there is no necessity, but if there is continuous and sudden
necessity use any water you can find. And they should take off their
clothes. You are to baptize the little ones first. All those who are
able to speak for themselves should speak. With regard to those who cannot
speak for themselves their parents, or somebody who belongs to their family,
should speak. Then baptize the grown men and finally the women, after they
have let down their hair and laid down the gold and silver ornaments which they
have on them. Nobody should take any alien object down into the
water. And at the time determined for baptism the bishop shall give thanks
over the oil and put it into a vessel and call it the oil of thanksgiving.
And he shall take other oil and perform the exorcism over it and call it the oil
of exorcism.

And a deacon brings the oil of exorcism and places himself on the left hand of the presbyter, and another deacon takes the oil of thanksgiving and stands on the right hand of the presbyter. And when the presbyter takes hold of each of those who are to be baptized he should bid him renounce saying: “I renounce you Satan, and all your service and all your works.”

And when he has renounced all this he should anoint him with the oil of exorcism saying to him: “Let all evil spirits depart far from you.”

Then he should hand him over to the bishop or the presbyter who stands at the water to baptize; and they should stand in the water naked. And a deacon likewise should go down with him into the water.

When the one being baptized goes down into the waters the one who baptizes, placing a hand on him, should say thus: “Do you believe in God the Father Almighty?”

And he who is being baptized should reply: “I believe.”

Let him baptize him once immediately, having his hand placed upon his head. And after this he should say: “Do you believe in Christ Jesus, the son of God, who was born of the Holy Spirit and Mary the virgin and was crucified under Pontius Pilate and was dead [and buried] and rose on the third day alive from the dead and ascended in the heavens and sits at the right hand of the Father and will come to judge the living and the dead?”

And when he has said, “I believe,” he is baptized again.

And again he should say: “Do you believe in the Holy Spirit and the holy church and the resurrection of the flesh?”

And he who is being baptized should say: “I believe.” And he should be baptized a third time.

And afterwards, when he has come up from the water, he is anointed by the presbyter with that sanctified oil, saying: “I anoint you with holy oil in the name
of Jesus Christ.”

And afterwards, each drying himself, they shall dress themselves, and afterwards let them go into the church (Hippolytus. On The Apostolic Tradition. Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press. 2001.).

An epiclesis – and invocation of the Holy Spirit – follows with chrismation (anointing), and the baptism transitions into the Eucharist.

Parts of this liturgy are more symbolic than sacramental; you need the water and the words, but the nakedness is optional – at least we deem it so today. Still, it is a powerful symbol; all candidates entered the water naked and women, in particular, loosed their hair and laid aside any ornamentation – gold or silver jewelry. The meaning of the symbol is clear, isn’t it? Nothing of the old life – nothing alien, Hippolytus writes – can be taken into the water and retained. In baptism you are born anew; you are given a new identity in Christ. All the former things have passed away; behold, all things are made new. Nothing of the old life can be taken into the water and retained.

But this symbolic nakedness and divestiture begs a question: What did the women do – and here I must single them out because the liturgy does so – what did the women do with their hair and their jewelry when they emerged from the water? Did they leave their hair down or at some point fashion it up again? Did they leave their gold and silver on the floor and walk away or did they at some point pick it up and put it on again? Of course I don’t know, but I suspect many of them retained these vestiges of former life. And that concerns me; that is a potential, serious problem with the symbol, especially if my thesis is correct: That which is not baptized is not redeemed. Surely, our relationship with fashion, our obsession with fashion and appearance – for women and men alike – must be redeemed. It must go into the water to die and be born anew, born of water and the Spirit. Surely, our relationship with gold and silver, not jewelry only, but our economic obsession, must be redeemed. It must go into the water to die and be born anew, born of water and the Spirit. With great respect for the tradition of the church, I nevertheless think it would be more fitting for the baptismal candidate to enter the water fully clothed, along with his/her family, friends, employer, checkbook and credit cards, house and car titles, television remote and season football tickets, Republican or Democratic party membership card, NRA or ACLU bumper sticker, everything that defines the old life. Surely, all these must be redeemed. Surely, all these must go into the water to die and be born anew, born of water and the Spirit. Some of these may be brought up out of the water. Some must remain floating there like the flotsam and jetsam of a shipwrecked life. But one thing seems certain to me: That which is not baptized is not redeemed.

Is this so much silliness, just a novel idea for a sermon? Well, let me tell you a story – a true and disturbing story – and then you can decide. In 1994 the world witnessed genocide in the small, African nation of Rwanda.

The slaughter that lasted for a hundred days in the spring of 1994 began on April 7, the Thursday of Easter week. In a country that was over eighty-five percent Christian, almost everyone gathered on Easter Sunday to remember the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Just a week before the genocide began, Rwandans celebrated Maundy Thursday. Maundy comes from the Latin maundatum, which means “command.” On the Thursday before Jesus was crucified, Christians remember how he gathered with his
disciples in the upper room, washed their feet, shared a meal, and gave them a
“new command.” Jesus looked at his disciples and said, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35).

This is the new commandment Christians remember on Maundy Thursday – the command to love one another, even to the point of laying down our own lives. But one week later in 1994, Christians in Rwanda took up machetes, looked fellow church members in the face, and hacked their body to pieces (Emmanuel Katongole. Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith after Genocide in Rwanda. Zondervan. 2009.).

In these hundred days, with the world watching, 800,000 Tutsi men, women, and children were murdered – most of them brutally hacked to death with machetes – by their Hutu neighbors, Christians murdering Christians. Churches were turned into killing fields with priests and pastors complicit in and sometimes presiding over the slaughter – priests and pastors turning over parishioners to be slaughtered.

How do you explain this in a predominantly Christian country, in a country held up by the Western world as the model of successful evangelism? Cardinal Etchegaray, representative of Pope John Paul II, asked this question in the aftermath of the genocide.

Cardinal Etchegaray was the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice
and Peace from 1984 to 1998. When he visited Rwanda on behalf of the
pope in 1994, he asked the assembled church leaders, “Are you saying that
the blood of tribalism is deeper than the waters of baptism?” One leader answered,
“Yes, it is,” (Katongole).

There is the answer that was offered: Rwandan tribalism runs deeper than the waters of baptism. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain of the man who spoke those words and I have no right to speak to it. But we can and must speak to his flawed theology: nothing – absolutely nothing – runs deeper than the waters of baptism. But here we come round again to the
main thesis: That which is not baptized is not redeemed. It is not that tribalism runs deeper than the waters of baptism. The tribal identities of the Hutu and Tutsi were never taken into the water. They were laid aside like so much gold or silver jewelry and picked up again on the
way out of the water, unbaptized and unredeemed. Would that the tribal identification cards carried by the Rwandan Christians had been taken into the water and left floating there, never to be taken up and carried again. How to do that now is the challenge facing the Rwandan church.

So we are left with this two-fold notion: While nothing runs deeper than the water of baptism, only that which is baptized is redeemed. We must not go naked to the water. We must lay nothing aside. Instead, we must bring all that we are and all that we have to the water so that what can be redeemed may be redeemed and what cannot be redeemed may be drowned there.

Emmanuel Katongole titled his book on the spiritual implications of the Rwandan genocide Mirror to the Church. He writes,

As we look into the events that led to this tragedy and the reasons that made it
possible, Rwanda becomes a mirror that reflects the deep brokenness of the
church – not simply in Africa but in the West as well. Rwanda brings us to
a deep place of lament as we see the formations that have made tribalism in its
many forms an essential, unquestioned feature of Christianity.

He calls the Western church to examine its own reflection in the mirror of Rwanda, to examine itself for traces of tribalism. Any loyalty held higher than Christ is tribalism. Any ideology prized more highly than the faith is tribalism. Any policy not motivated by and blessed by the Holy Spirit is tribalism. And any tribalism places the Western church on the road to
Rwanda.

But Rwanda poses other questions – more personal – nearer the thesis of this sermon: What did you lay aside before coming to the water of baptism? What is yet unredeemed? What did you pick up and retain when you emerged from the water? Is it yet possible to baptize these elements of our lives and identities? In another context Jesus spoke these words of hope and promise to a Samaritan woman by a well in Sychar – a woman who had much in her life that needed the water of baptism: “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14b, NRSV). The water of baptism is a spring welling up within you to wash and redeem or to wash away whatever you bring to it – a fountain of eternal life. Nothing – absolutely nothing – is deeper than the water of baptism: no sin or shame, no success or failure, no relationship or loyalty, no loss or gain, no self-image or self-interest. Nothing – absolutely nothing – is deeper than the water of baptism which wells up within you as a fountain of life. All that remains is to come to the water – again and again – bringing everything you are and everything you have.

Amen.

Sermon: Baptism of Our Lord (11 January 2009)

Sermon: Baptism of Our Lord (11 January 2009)
(Genesis 1:1-5/Psalm 29/Acts 19:1-7/Mark 1:4-11)
It’s Not The Rotary Club

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A dear friend and brother is a Rotarian – a member of Rotary International, a century old service organization with over 1.2 million members: Service Above Self is the Rotary motto. Among many other service programs, Rotary has dedicated itself to the worldwide eradication of polio; they are almost there and the $100 million matching grant they recently received from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation should enable them to accomplish the goal. My friend’s local Rotary club also boasts many impressive philanthropic, humanitarian, and educational activities, both domestic and international. From everything I can learn, Rotary is an exemplary organization. But, it’s not the church, as Bishop Will Willimon points out.

When one joins the Rotary, or the League of Women Voters, they give you a membership card and lapel pin. When one joins the Body of Christ, we throw you under, half drown you, strip you naked and wash you all over, pull you forth sticky and fresh like a newborn (William Willimon, Christ Means Change).

This is Christian baptism – the Christian rite of initiation – that Willimon is speaking about, of course, and it is strange stuff. If anything, Willimon actually underplays its strangeness.

There’s this really bizarre and totally unbiblical idea running around both outside and inside the church that says the church should be some kind of inclusive, accepting, “big tent” society to which all are welcomed without reservation and without condition. Well, that’s absolute foolishness and baptism puts the lie to it. If you think you can get in the church on your own terms, just as you are, well, as we say in the South, “You’ve got another think comin’.” The church isn’t a come-as-you-are party.

“Young man – yes, you with the three girlfriends that you’re hooking up with – the church has some strange notions about sex. There’s this little thing called chastity that we’re pretty serious about. You’re going to have to change your ways to get in here. And you, too, young lady: put some clothes on and stay out of the bars on Friday night. We think pretty highly of decency. Mr. Businessman, we need to have a serious talk about how you treat your employees, about how you’ve clawed your way to the top and crushed competitors in the process, and about the whole issue of greed. The church has a lot to say about riches – at least our Lord had a lot to say about riches – and you’re not going to like a lot of what you hear. Some things are going to have to change if you want to be part of the family. Mrs. Smith, frankly, Mr. Smith seems to be a pretty lousy excuse for a husband and we know he’s hurt you time and again. But the grudge you’re nursing and the anger you’re holding on to – well, they pretty effectively bar the door of the church to you. They are too big and too wide for you to carry them through the door. You’re going to have to lay them down to come in here.”

Now, lest you think I’m being harsh here, listen to John – the one to whom Jesus, himself, came for baptism:

7 John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.’

10 And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’ 11In reply he said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’ 12Even tax-collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ 13He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ 14Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages’ (Luke 3:7-14, NRSV).

It works this way: all are welcomed to the waters of baptism, but there’s a certain path you have to walk to get there – the path of repentance, the path of change. You have to change your mind about who you are, about what’s important to you, about the way you’ve lived your life up to now, and about how you plan to live it from here on out. You have to acknowledge that you’re sick – terminally ill – and addicted to attitudes and behaviors that are destroying you and over which you have no power. And you have to admit that you are complicit in and responsible for this illness and addiction. The church may not use this language; it may instead ask you to confess that you are a sinner and that you have no power to save yourself – same thing, different words. In this, the church looks a lot more like AA than like the Rotary Club. This isn’t something arbitrary that the church insists on – repentance as a prerequisite for being allowed to come to Jesus. No, repentance is itself the way to Jesus, the only way to Jesus.

When you finally stand before the church and fess up to the fact that you are a whitewashed tomb filled with all manner of rottenness and dead men’s bones, don’t expect to hear, “Oh, no. You’re OK. You’re not really that bad.” No, the church is likely to say, “Yep, you’re a hopeless mess alright, so hopeless that we’re going to have to put you out of your misery. Yep, we’re going to have to kill you. Our preferred method is drowning.” Then the church strips you naked – fully in the early church, just mostly now – and leads you to the water. There they ask for your last words: a renunciation of Satan and all his pomp and an acceptance of Christ. The church is either a bit hard of hearing or else they’re not sure they believe you, so you’ll have to repeat everything three times. Then, like a convicted murderer mounting the gallows you step into the water. The church, in the person of priest or pastor, lays hands on you and forces you under the water in the name of God the Father. He holds you there awhile and only when you’re mostly dead does he raise you up. Then, before you know what’s happening you’re under again, in the name of God the Son as the life in you ebbs further. Up for a quick breath and you are plunged in one final time in the name of God the Holy Spirit and held there until you are completely dead. Then the priest/pastor hauls your lifeless corpse from its watery grave, maybe smears some oil on it and says some words over it – maybe not – and a most remarkable miracle occurs: the Spirit – the Holy Spirit of God – descends upon you and takes residence within you and you are born again as a son or daughter of God, as a partaker in the divine nature. The church won’t let just anyone in; you must be a son or daughter of God to gain admittance.

So there you stand dripping wet, oily, nearly naked. Like on “What Not To Wear” the church takes your old clothes and gives you new ones – in baptism a white robe symbolizing the purity of the saints; and yes, you are one now – a saint – in case you didn’t know. But you are also a baby, an infant. Baptism is new birth, and life and maturity lies ahead; you’ve a long way to go and much to learn and unlearn. It’s not unlike the natural birth process. We used to think that babies arrived as blank slates upon which the parents wrote their hard earned wisdom. Now we know better. Babies come hard-wired in many ways. From birth – long before any learning takes place – some are happy and some are whiney, some gregarious and some timid, some easy to raise and some a constant challenge. So, too, with newborn saints: some are happy and some are whiney, some gregarious and some timid, some easy to raise and some a constant challenge, some in pretty good shape and some an absolute mess. The newborn saints are not blank slates, particularly not those who come to the baptismal waters as adults. They have been formed by years of thought and action. They have ingrained habits and responses: some positive and life-affirming, some negative and destructive, some that may be refined and retained, and some which must be rejected and destroyed. The church has ways of dealing with all this, of course – time-tested and saint-tested ways: prayer, fasting, immersion in Word and Sacrament, worship, service, sacrifice, confession, and more. You can ignore these things and you will be no less a son or daughter of God, but you will remain an infant, which is, of course, not what God has in mind for you at all. Be assured that God does not leave you on your own in the process of growth. In addition to making you part of a family – the communion of saints, the body of Christ, the church – a family that will support you and hold you accountable, God dwells within you in the person of the Holy Spirit who empowers you and directs you – never forces you, but always enables you – to press on toward the high calling of Christ.

All this, and much more, is what happened to you in and through your baptism. And by the way, did I mention the part about eternal life? When our first parents sinned, we – the entire human race – inherited their death sentence: like father, like son, we were bound over to corruption and death. As we remind ourselves on Ash Wednesday, dust you are and to dust you shall return. But no more – not for those baptized into Christ Jesus.

3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him (Rom 6:3-8, NRSV).

Or there’s this similar promise.

3[For] you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ who is your* life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory (Col 3:3-4, NRSV).

So, let’s take just a minute to step back and summarize the results – just some of the results – of this rather strange rite of baptism.

1. You were forgiven of all past sins and reconciled to God. Paul says it this way: “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:11, NRSV).

2. You were born again, an example of the new creation that God is even now bringing forth into the world. And this new life in Christ is life everlasting; because Jesus defeated death, he has granted you his same victory. The same power of God that broke the chains of the death on Easter will also raise you up on the last, great day, and thus you shall be forever with the Lord.

3. You were adopted as sons and daughters of God and made partakers of the divine nature through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Do you remember the words of God to Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan?

9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved;* with you I am well pleased’ (Mark 1:9-11, NRSV).

Know this: God spoke these same words over you at your own baptism when the heavens were torn apart and the Spirit descended upon you: “You” – and here fill in your own name – “you are my beloved child with whom I am well pleased.”

4. You were empowered by the Spirit to defeat sin – set free from its bondage – to once again bear the image of God given to men and women in creation and marred by them in the fall.

17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit (2 Cor 3:17-18, NRSV).

There is so much more to say, but at some point it seems fitting to fall silent in the presence of this glorious mystery of baptism, to be rendered speechless by the great mercy of God that takes a pool of water and a bit of oil and calls forth from them such a life-giving sacrament of salvation and restoration. But we must say before we fall silent that all this is possible only because of what happened that day when a wild man of a prophet stepped into the water with a carpenter-turned-preacher from Nazareth and, unworthy though he was, plunged the sinless Lamb of God beneath the water. Thanks be to God for the Baptism of our Lord. Thanks be to God for our baptism into our Lord.

Amen.