Several years ago I was visiting Nazareth. Nazareth was not
only the boyhood home of Jesus; it is also a town mostly made up of Israeli
Arabs or Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship.
In Nazareth there is an enormous Roman Catholic church
dedicated to the Annunciation, that is the story of the angel Gabriel's message
to Mary that she would be the mother of Jesus. But just down the street from
the Basilica of the Annunciation is a much smaller Syrian Orthodox church also
dedicated to the Annunciation that is called St. Gabriel's.
While I was wandering around in St. Gabriel's, I noticed
that a Syrian priest was beginning a service. Two young Palestinian men who
seemed to be no older than about 15 or 16, were standing in front of him. The
priest had them face the west door of the church and then he had them turn and
face the eastern end of the church where the altar is located.
I also noticed two other odd facts: Near the priest was a
child's yellow plastic wading pool and an orange plastic bucket.
I finally realized that the priest was about to baptize the
young men.
He had them remove their shoes and socks and take off their
t shirts. By the way, one of the young men was wearing a t shirt that said
"Space and Rocket Center - Huntsville, Alabama".
While they stood in the plastic wading pool, he poured water
over their heads three times using the orange bucket.
This morning we will baptize King and Leonidas. I have
neither a plastic wading pool nor an orange bucket. But sometimes I wish that I
did have those implements!
I wish that our baptisms were more like the baptisms that
took place in the early church.
I was baptized in a deep pool of water behind the pulpit at
First Baptist Church in Hayden, Alabama. My father was also baptized there. My
mother was baptized many years earlier in a nearby river.
Baptists get some things right!
But they also get some things wrong.
It has always seemed very odd to me that a church called by
the name of the first and most important sacrament has so little to say about
the meaning of that sacrament.
I can't remember a single sermon about the meaning of
baptism. Nor can I think of a Baptist theologian who has written about the
meaning of baptism.
I'm sorry to say this, but I think Episcopalians are almost
as bad. When was the last time you heard a sermon about the meaning of baptism?
As I said last Sunday, we are trying to become a Great
Commission Church, a church that carries out Jesus' directive to "make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have
commanded you..."
But what does baptism mean?
The first thing to know about baptism is that it is a
sacrament. But that raises an additional question: What is a sacrament?
Traditionally, we say that a sacrament is "an outward
and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace."
In baptism the outward and visible signs are water and the
words of the priest - "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit".
It is more difficult to define the "inward and
spiritual grace." Some say that the "inward and spiritual grace"
are the forgiveness of sins; others say that the inward and spiritual grace are
the new birth that Jesus promises in John 3 in his conversation with Nicodemus
where he tells Nicodemus that he must be born again by water and the Holy
Spirit.
I think both are correct.
Baptism was extremely important for Paul. He refers to
baptism in all of his letters. In Galatians 3, Paul says, " For as
many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male
nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
In other words, being incorporated into Christ in baptism
breaks down the most fundamental things that separate us: economic differences
("neither slave nor free"), racial differences ("neither Jew nor
Greek"), even the difference between male and female.
In today's reading from Romans, Paul says, "Do you not
know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into
his death? Therefore 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."
In other words, Paul says that in baptism
the normal course of things is reversed. In the normal course of things, we
live and then we die. But in baptism, we die and then we live.
In baptism we are united with Christ who
turns the world upside down. Christ proclaimed that God's blessing was upon the
poor, not the rich; upon the hungry, not those who were filled; upon those who
mourn, not those whose mouths were filled with empty and raucous laughter. Christ
proclaimed that the way to eternal and abundant life was to embrace the cross,
to let go of our quest for success and fame and wealth and embrace the way of
service and humility.
If baptism is meant to convey the
forgiveness of sins, why in the world are we baptizing King and Leonidas today?
They are about as innocent as any human beings can be.
The problem is with the letter
"S" in "sins". Remove the final "S". Make it
singular, not plural.
The problem is with SINS not SIN.
SINS are misdeeds, immorality, bad
conduct. SINS are things like driving too fast on I 15; having too many
martinis; extramarital sex (and for some conservative Christians any kind of
sex at all!).
But SIN - singular, not plural - is not
primarily about misdeeds. The relationship between SINS and SIN is the
relationship between symptom and disease.
Misdeeds, that is driving too fast,
drinking too much, and all the rest, are the symptoms of sin. Sin is the
fundamental brokenness and estrangement that characterizes life in this world.
Not only are all of us sinners, but every single thing we do, no matter how
good, no matter how well-intentioned, is sinful.
The three great prophets of the 20th
century - Darwin, Marx, and Freud -
demonstrate this clearly.
Darwin showed that we are motivated not by
altruism but by evolutionary forces to maximize our species chances to survive.
Marx proved that every single thing we do
is done in order to advance our own economic self- interest.
And Freud showed that we are fundamentally
irrational.
In other words, we are motivated by sin.
Sin is the drive toward chaos,
disorganization, self-interest, and self-aggrandizement.
Apart from the power of God, there is no
way to escape from sin, from our tendency to maximize our own well-being. That
is why we are baptized.
Baptism connects us to God, connects us to
that power that delivers us from chaos, disintegration, irrationality, and
self-interest.
One more things about baptism: Up until
the 5th or 6th or 7th century, baptism was primarily administered to adults.
Why, then, do we practice infant baptism?
It's a good question, and it's not one
that I take lightly. I had to think long and carefully about infant baptism
before I decided to join the Episcopal Church.
What finally convinced me that infant
baptism is right is that it is such a convincing illustration of divine grace.
God's grace comes to us, embraces us,
forgives us, before we are able to do a single thing to earn it.
And this is true whether we are baptized
as infants or as adults. God chooses us; we do not choose God. God loves us,
embraces us, forgives us, take us as the daughters and sons of divine grace
even though we have done nothing and can do nothing to earn it.
My first church was way down in rural
southwest Alabama. I was actually in charge of three churches. St. Mark's was
even further out in the country than St. Stephen's, the largest of the 3
churches that I was responsible for. St. Mark's only had services on one Sunday
of the month. The church and adjoining cemetery were cared for by Dell Spree
who lived nearby with her son and his family. One Sun morning I got there early
and Dell was dusting the church. Dell was a wonderful woman but had had a
difficult life and I think it had given her a rather dim view of human nature.
That Sun the gospel reading was the story of the Prodigal Son. Dell and I were
talking about it and she said, "I don't know, Mr. Vaughn. I think the
father was way too easy on that boy. I would have given him a whipping!"
But that's not what God does. God doesn't
give us a whipping. God bestows on us grace, forgiveness, freedom, life eternal
and abundant.
The baptistery at the church of St. John
Lateran in Rome puts it perfectly:
Here is born in Spirit-soaked fertility/ a brood destined for
another City,/ begotten by God’s blowing/ and borne upon this torrent/ by the
Church their virgin mother./ Reborn in these depths they reach for/ heaven’s
realm,/ the born-but-once unknown by felicity./ This spring is life that floods
the world,/ the wounds of Christ its awesome source,/ Sinner sink beneath this
sacred surf/ that swallows age and spits out youth./ Sinner here scour away
down to innocence,/ for they know no enmity who are by/ one font, one Spirit,
one faith made one./ Sinner, shudder not at sin’s kind and number,/ for those
born here are holy”
"Go, then, and to make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have
commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
Amen.
