Baptism In Three Movements
Sermon
And Then Came the Angel
Gospel Sermons For Advent/Christmas/Epiphany
There are two very different ways to think about baptism. The first approach recognizes the time of baptism as a saving moment in which the person being baptized accepts the love and forgiveness of God. The person then considers herself "saved." She may grow in the faith through the years, but nothing which she will experience after her baptism will be as important as her baptism. She always will be able to recall her baptism as the time when her life changed.
The second approach wouldn't disagree with any of that, but would add to it significantly. This idea affirms baptism as the time when God's love and forgiveness are experienced. It also recognizes baptism as a time of change. However, where the first approach isolates the act of baptism as the most important moment, the second approach understands baptism more as a beginning. While it is true that in the waters of baptism God laid claim on our lives, it is also true that we spend the rest of our lives trying to figure out what that means. The first understanding often overlooks the journey which follows baptism.
Baptism too frequently carries the connotation of having arrived. Sometimes people say to their ministers, "I want to be baptized and join the church as soon as I get my life in order." Of course, if that is what any of us are waiting on, we will never be baptized. None of us will ever have our lives sufficiently in order to be baptized. Baptism is not something we earn, nor is it a sign that we have found all the answers. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Baptism is a beginning. It is the desire to see the world differently, to see each other differently, and even to see ourselves differently. Baptism is a fresh start, not a destination. Baptism calls into question our previous lives, it does not bless them. Baptism is not a trial-free membership, but a rite of initiation into a way of life in which Jesus promised there would be trials.
Jesus' baptism serves as a model for our baptism. For Jesus, baptism represents the beginning of his ministry. While some ultimate questions may have been answered when he was with John the Baptist in the Jordan River, Jesus continued to deal with questions and temptations throughout his life. The baptism of Jesus is one of our favorite stories. We love to hear how the heavens opened, to imagine the dove descending, and to hear God's blessing on the Son. We would like to think something like that happens when we are baptized. What we should be prepared for is that our journey of faith, much like Jesus' journey, continues to unfold long after our baptism as we try to discern what our baptism means in our daily living.
We can begin to understand more about our baptism by thinking of it in three ways.1 First, baptism is about beginning anew. It is a fresh start, even when we are fairly comfortable and satisfied with our old lives. Paul said we emerge from baptism to walk "in newness of life" (Romans 6:4). There are two ways to make something new. We can start with nothing and make something new, or we can start with what we already have and make that new. Baptism transforms our lives and we think, speak, live, and act in ways that represent to the world the image of Christ.
Baptism transforms stinginess into generosity, narrow-mindedness into thoughtful consideration, and prejudice into love. Baptism transforms our fear of one another into a desire for true community, our suspicious motives into open, honest dialogue, and our hesitancy into boldness. Baptism transforms groups of people into churches, gatherings of individuals into a family of brothers and sisters, and church services into times of worship.
Does all that happen when we are baptized? No, but those are the kinds of things that happen through our lives as we continue to be open to what our baptism means to us. The Christian life at its best is an ongoing transformation in which we continue to be shaped by the presence of Christ within us.
In Ephesians 4, which discusses many of the implications of baptism, we are shown what this new life looks like. We are urged to lead a life worthy of our calling, and then we are told that such a life entails humility, gentleness, and patience. We are to bear with one another in love, and are to make every effort to maintain unity in the body. The church in general has a reputation of rising to the great occasions -- the special celebration, the response to the hurricane, our concern for the dying -- but forgetting in between those times what life in the Spirit involves. Humility, gentleness, and patience won't get much coverage on the evening news, but those are marks of the Christian life.
Yet, who among us has mastered those things in our relationships with our sisters and brothers? We know the kind of trouble that is caused by thinking of ourselves too highly and not regarding others with the kind of appreciation they are due, but true humility is not something very many people spend their days trying to achieve. We know the problems created by bulldozing our way through every meeting and every conversation, but it seems to get our point across and our agenda passed more effectively than being gentle. We know that some things simply are not going to happen on our schedule and that some things may never happen, but being patient seems too much like not doing anything. In short, humility, gentleness, and patience are sometimes in short supply, but not so among those who are engaged in this lifelong process of growth. We are continually about the business of deepening our spiritual lives by being transformed by the newness which Christ's presence in our lives guarantees.
The second part of baptism is the good news that we have been included. You may remember the episode of The Andy Griffith Show in which the Women's Historical Society had discovered that a living descendant of a Revolutionary War hero was living right there in Mayberry. The news generated excitement and curiosity throughout the town as people made plans for recognizing the hero's relative. Barney Fife, of course, twisted his own family tree to the point that he put himself in line for the honor. The rest of the townspeople felt special just because someone among them was related to the hero.
Everyone was shocked when the news came. A careful analysis of the genealogical records determined that the hero's descendant was Otis Campbell, the town drunk. Despite instructions to find a "substitute Otis" for the presentation, the real Otis showed up for the ceremony. When the ladies gave him the plaque which they had engraved especially for him, Otis gave the plaque to the town. He said, "Just because you're the descendant of a hero doesn't make you one. So I would like to present this plaque to the town of Mayberry, to which I am just proud to belong."
Well, aren't we all? Aren't we all just happy to belong, to be included! We can refer to this part of our baptism as incorporation. We are included, incorporated into the body of Jesus Christ. This incorporation came about as a result of a love that was determined to draw us in. And long after the act of baptism, that love holds us together without ranking us as more or less important, allows us to disagree with each other without deserting one another, and leads us to use our different gifts without any need to compare them with somebody else's gifts.
Our baptism is personal, but it is not private. We are included alongside others. The waters of baptism are not only symbolic of being cleansed from sin, but also of the power baptism has to break down barriers between people. We share a common relationship with Jesus Christ in which the old divisions and designations no longer apply. While this part of baptism can be called incorporation, it is easy to see how transformation is necessary in order for us to live with all who have been included by God's love. Baptism is not about being incorporated into the body with no intention of living and working with the other members of the body. As we are included alongside others, we realize that for the body to be healthy all must be transformed. As we are transformed, we are more likely to expand the circle of our love to include others as full partners in the church.
The third part of baptism is ordination. With baptism comes the Spirit, and with the Spirit come gifts to be used in the service of God. When Lindsey Davis was elected bishop in the United Methodist Church, he reminded all of us of the basis for ministry. "It isn't ordination or consecration, but baptism that makes us servants of Christ and the church."2 We too often view ministry as that which the minister does, but ministry is the work in which all baptized believers engage in response to the call and claim of God on our lives.
Baptism was ordination for Jesus. It was the beginning of his ministry. In our time we ordain ministers, and sometimes elders and deacons, but we have removed from our understanding of baptism the conviction that our lives are to be offered in service. When we enter the household of God, we do so with a vocation, the belief that God has called us to some particular work that will utilize our gifts in building up the body and in making a better world.
To understand baptism as an ordination for all Christians is not a ploy on the part of ministers to get church members to do more work. In fact, the area in which your gifts may be the most useful may not even be in the church. You may find your gift to be teaching a young child to read. Another person's gift may be in organizing a community protest against
the proposed chemical factory that wants to move into town. Another person's gift may be helping the working homeless to find a decent, safe place to live. Baptism comes with a vocation, and it is not a burden. When seen through the lens of baptism, our work is a joyful response to the love we have experienced.
Garrison Keillor tells the story of Larry the Sad Boy. Larry the Sad Boy was saved twelve times, which is an all-time record in the Lutheran Church. In the Lutheran Church there is no altar call, no organist playing "Just As I Am," and no minister with shiny hair manipulating the congregation. These are Lutherans, and they repent the same way that they sin -- discreetly and tastefully. Keillor writes, "Granted, we're born in original sin and are worthless and vile, but twelve conversions is too many. God didn't mean us to feel guilty all our lives. There comes a point when you should dry your tears and join the building committee and start grappling with the problems of the church furnace and the church roof and make church coffee and be of use."3
A part of baptism is ordination, a call to serve. When we serve, we will encounter others who have been incorporated into the body and we will be challenged to see how our gifts complement the gifts of others. Also, as we work side by side, we will find that our humility, gentleness, and patience may be tested from time to time. In those moments we will realize that our transformation is still in process and we must not give up on it. In all of these things, baptism is a beginning.
The story is told of a pastor's words to a baby shortly after he had baptized her. No doubt, the minister was speaking as much to the congregation as to the infant. "Little sister, by this act of baptism, we welcome you to a journey that will take your whole life. This isn't the end. It's the beginning of God's experiment with your life. What God will make of you, we know not. Where God will take you, surprise you, we cannot say. This we do know and this we say -- God is with you."4
And God will be with us as we live out our baptism.
____________
1. Malcolm Warford, Lecture at Lexington Theological Seminary, Lexington, Kentucky, May, 1996.
2. Lindsey Davis, quoted in The Bulletin, Lexington Theological Seminary, August, 1996.
3. Garrison Keillor, "The Exiles," Listening for God, Paula J. Carlson and Peter S. Hawkins, eds. (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1994), p. 120.
4. William H. Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989), pp. 52-53.
The second approach wouldn't disagree with any of that, but would add to it significantly. This idea affirms baptism as the time when God's love and forgiveness are experienced. It also recognizes baptism as a time of change. However, where the first approach isolates the act of baptism as the most important moment, the second approach understands baptism more as a beginning. While it is true that in the waters of baptism God laid claim on our lives, it is also true that we spend the rest of our lives trying to figure out what that means. The first understanding often overlooks the journey which follows baptism.
Baptism too frequently carries the connotation of having arrived. Sometimes people say to their ministers, "I want to be baptized and join the church as soon as I get my life in order." Of course, if that is what any of us are waiting on, we will never be baptized. None of us will ever have our lives sufficiently in order to be baptized. Baptism is not something we earn, nor is it a sign that we have found all the answers. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Baptism is a beginning. It is the desire to see the world differently, to see each other differently, and even to see ourselves differently. Baptism is a fresh start, not a destination. Baptism calls into question our previous lives, it does not bless them. Baptism is not a trial-free membership, but a rite of initiation into a way of life in which Jesus promised there would be trials.
Jesus' baptism serves as a model for our baptism. For Jesus, baptism represents the beginning of his ministry. While some ultimate questions may have been answered when he was with John the Baptist in the Jordan River, Jesus continued to deal with questions and temptations throughout his life. The baptism of Jesus is one of our favorite stories. We love to hear how the heavens opened, to imagine the dove descending, and to hear God's blessing on the Son. We would like to think something like that happens when we are baptized. What we should be prepared for is that our journey of faith, much like Jesus' journey, continues to unfold long after our baptism as we try to discern what our baptism means in our daily living.
We can begin to understand more about our baptism by thinking of it in three ways.1 First, baptism is about beginning anew. It is a fresh start, even when we are fairly comfortable and satisfied with our old lives. Paul said we emerge from baptism to walk "in newness of life" (Romans 6:4). There are two ways to make something new. We can start with nothing and make something new, or we can start with what we already have and make that new. Baptism transforms our lives and we think, speak, live, and act in ways that represent to the world the image of Christ.
Baptism transforms stinginess into generosity, narrow-mindedness into thoughtful consideration, and prejudice into love. Baptism transforms our fear of one another into a desire for true community, our suspicious motives into open, honest dialogue, and our hesitancy into boldness. Baptism transforms groups of people into churches, gatherings of individuals into a family of brothers and sisters, and church services into times of worship.
Does all that happen when we are baptized? No, but those are the kinds of things that happen through our lives as we continue to be open to what our baptism means to us. The Christian life at its best is an ongoing transformation in which we continue to be shaped by the presence of Christ within us.
In Ephesians 4, which discusses many of the implications of baptism, we are shown what this new life looks like. We are urged to lead a life worthy of our calling, and then we are told that such a life entails humility, gentleness, and patience. We are to bear with one another in love, and are to make every effort to maintain unity in the body. The church in general has a reputation of rising to the great occasions -- the special celebration, the response to the hurricane, our concern for the dying -- but forgetting in between those times what life in the Spirit involves. Humility, gentleness, and patience won't get much coverage on the evening news, but those are marks of the Christian life.
Yet, who among us has mastered those things in our relationships with our sisters and brothers? We know the kind of trouble that is caused by thinking of ourselves too highly and not regarding others with the kind of appreciation they are due, but true humility is not something very many people spend their days trying to achieve. We know the problems created by bulldozing our way through every meeting and every conversation, but it seems to get our point across and our agenda passed more effectively than being gentle. We know that some things simply are not going to happen on our schedule and that some things may never happen, but being patient seems too much like not doing anything. In short, humility, gentleness, and patience are sometimes in short supply, but not so among those who are engaged in this lifelong process of growth. We are continually about the business of deepening our spiritual lives by being transformed by the newness which Christ's presence in our lives guarantees.
The second part of baptism is the good news that we have been included. You may remember the episode of The Andy Griffith Show in which the Women's Historical Society had discovered that a living descendant of a Revolutionary War hero was living right there in Mayberry. The news generated excitement and curiosity throughout the town as people made plans for recognizing the hero's relative. Barney Fife, of course, twisted his own family tree to the point that he put himself in line for the honor. The rest of the townspeople felt special just because someone among them was related to the hero.
Everyone was shocked when the news came. A careful analysis of the genealogical records determined that the hero's descendant was Otis Campbell, the town drunk. Despite instructions to find a "substitute Otis" for the presentation, the real Otis showed up for the ceremony. When the ladies gave him the plaque which they had engraved especially for him, Otis gave the plaque to the town. He said, "Just because you're the descendant of a hero doesn't make you one. So I would like to present this plaque to the town of Mayberry, to which I am just proud to belong."
Well, aren't we all? Aren't we all just happy to belong, to be included! We can refer to this part of our baptism as incorporation. We are included, incorporated into the body of Jesus Christ. This incorporation came about as a result of a love that was determined to draw us in. And long after the act of baptism, that love holds us together without ranking us as more or less important, allows us to disagree with each other without deserting one another, and leads us to use our different gifts without any need to compare them with somebody else's gifts.
Our baptism is personal, but it is not private. We are included alongside others. The waters of baptism are not only symbolic of being cleansed from sin, but also of the power baptism has to break down barriers between people. We share a common relationship with Jesus Christ in which the old divisions and designations no longer apply. While this part of baptism can be called incorporation, it is easy to see how transformation is necessary in order for us to live with all who have been included by God's love. Baptism is not about being incorporated into the body with no intention of living and working with the other members of the body. As we are included alongside others, we realize that for the body to be healthy all must be transformed. As we are transformed, we are more likely to expand the circle of our love to include others as full partners in the church.
The third part of baptism is ordination. With baptism comes the Spirit, and with the Spirit come gifts to be used in the service of God. When Lindsey Davis was elected bishop in the United Methodist Church, he reminded all of us of the basis for ministry. "It isn't ordination or consecration, but baptism that makes us servants of Christ and the church."2 We too often view ministry as that which the minister does, but ministry is the work in which all baptized believers engage in response to the call and claim of God on our lives.
Baptism was ordination for Jesus. It was the beginning of his ministry. In our time we ordain ministers, and sometimes elders and deacons, but we have removed from our understanding of baptism the conviction that our lives are to be offered in service. When we enter the household of God, we do so with a vocation, the belief that God has called us to some particular work that will utilize our gifts in building up the body and in making a better world.
To understand baptism as an ordination for all Christians is not a ploy on the part of ministers to get church members to do more work. In fact, the area in which your gifts may be the most useful may not even be in the church. You may find your gift to be teaching a young child to read. Another person's gift may be in organizing a community protest against
the proposed chemical factory that wants to move into town. Another person's gift may be helping the working homeless to find a decent, safe place to live. Baptism comes with a vocation, and it is not a burden. When seen through the lens of baptism, our work is a joyful response to the love we have experienced.
Garrison Keillor tells the story of Larry the Sad Boy. Larry the Sad Boy was saved twelve times, which is an all-time record in the Lutheran Church. In the Lutheran Church there is no altar call, no organist playing "Just As I Am," and no minister with shiny hair manipulating the congregation. These are Lutherans, and they repent the same way that they sin -- discreetly and tastefully. Keillor writes, "Granted, we're born in original sin and are worthless and vile, but twelve conversions is too many. God didn't mean us to feel guilty all our lives. There comes a point when you should dry your tears and join the building committee and start grappling with the problems of the church furnace and the church roof and make church coffee and be of use."3
A part of baptism is ordination, a call to serve. When we serve, we will encounter others who have been incorporated into the body and we will be challenged to see how our gifts complement the gifts of others. Also, as we work side by side, we will find that our humility, gentleness, and patience may be tested from time to time. In those moments we will realize that our transformation is still in process and we must not give up on it. In all of these things, baptism is a beginning.
The story is told of a pastor's words to a baby shortly after he had baptized her. No doubt, the minister was speaking as much to the congregation as to the infant. "Little sister, by this act of baptism, we welcome you to a journey that will take your whole life. This isn't the end. It's the beginning of God's experiment with your life. What God will make of you, we know not. Where God will take you, surprise you, we cannot say. This we do know and this we say -- God is with you."4
And God will be with us as we live out our baptism.
____________
1. Malcolm Warford, Lecture at Lexington Theological Seminary, Lexington, Kentucky, May, 1996.
2. Lindsey Davis, quoted in The Bulletin, Lexington Theological Seminary, August, 1996.
3. Garrison Keillor, "The Exiles," Listening for God, Paula J. Carlson and Peter S. Hawkins, eds. (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1994), p. 120.
4. William H. Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989), pp. 52-53.
