A Grandmother's Touch
Sermon
Sermons on the Second Readings
Series III, Cycle B
Then what baptism did you experience?
-- Acts 19:3a (NLT)
It's texts like this one from Acts 19 that create so many misunderstandings and downright disagreements about baptism for all ages.
There was a story about a mom who glanced out through her kitchen window at her children playing across the yard. It was one of those games children play that looks complicated to the outside eye but for them it makes perfect sense. They had brought out a shovel and dug a hole in the soft dirt of the garden, dragged over the garden hose, and had an array of dolls lying on the ground. Then the process began. The daughter picked up the dolls one at a time, soaked them with water, handed it to her brother who threw it into the hole. Unable to figure out this game, the mom went out and asked what they were doing. The boy said, "We are playing baptism. Watch." Her sister picked up a doll, drenched it with water and said, "In the name of the Father and the Son," and then, handing the doll to her brother, she concluded the line, "and into-the-hole-it-goes."
Baptism. It is one of the immovable cornerstones of our faith ... and yet, there is a lot of misunderstanding about it. And if it isn't out and out misunderstanding, there is much disagreement about what it is and what it does between different denominations. Part of the reason is because scripture doesn't outline a consistent example of baptism. Jesus and many others were baptized as adults and yet in the book of Acts it says that entire households were baptized. Does that include children?
In some cases, the Holy Spirit comes first (as in Pentecost) and at other times it comes after baptism (as in our story from Acts 19). Then there seems to be John's baptism which is different from Jesus' baptism. If there is such confusion within scripture, there surely must be confusion within our churches today.
Let me address some of those concerns with a story. In my first church in Florida, I met a young family in the park near our home where many children played together. Cathy and John were new to town, had a child my daughter's age, and were looking for a church. I had one I could recommend wholeheartedly. They started coming and got connected quickly.
Before they joined, however, they asked me over to their apartment. They had a question about which they needed some counsel. The wife, Cathy, in her late twenties, was not raised in a church home. Her parents had left the church in the late '60s never to return. Church was new to her. Her interest in Christianity, however, was piqued during college through some conversations and Bible study on campus. The more she studied, the more she believed ... and the angrier she got. She was angry at her parents. The only person she could talk to about this was her grandma, the spiritual matriarch of the family -- a devout Catholic woman who lived her faith on a daily basis. She was safe. She understood. She listened to Cathy who talked about this new faith in Jesus and the regret, even anger, at her parents for not providing the basic, spiritual foundation in her life. Cathy felt robbed, particularly during her early years, of the joy that she felt now. "Why (and this is where her blood began to boil) why, they didn't even have me baptized!"
With that the grandmother winked, smiled, and said, "Oh, you're baptized, all right. Over there. In the sink. By me. When you were two months old." Evidently, Grandma got some tips from her priest. She decided 24 years ago that no grandchild of hers was going to be denied the gift of baptism.
"So," Cathy asked me, "am I baptized?"
Let's begin there with the first question: "Is Cathy baptized?" The answer is, "Yes." What makes baptism work is not the location. Baptisms can be done outside of the church building. What makes baptism work is not some special water blessed by a bishop or from the Jordan River. What makes baptism work is not the person doing the baptism -- grandmother or priest. Certainly, whenever possible an ordained pastor ought to perform baptisms but not because he or she has special powers. The pastor should only for the sake of good order -- that there is some continuity and intentionality from baptism to baptism. In an emergency, however, a nurse or parent or grandparent can baptize a child.
The second question is: "Does Cathy have to be rebaptized in order to join the church?" The answer is, "No." We believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. To be rebaptized casts a shadow of a doubt upon the promise and goodness of God that he could not possibly do it the first time and now needs help with Cathy's consent to make the promise work. To be sure, many people who submit to rebaptism don't do it out of doubt. They do it as a visible means by which they reaffirm their faith and commitment in Jesus. But there are other ways to recommit, reaffirm, and renew your baptism than to do it all over again as if God were unable to do it right the first time.
The third question is more difficult: "What if Cathy had never come to faith? Would her baptism one day guarantee her a place at the heavenly banquet?" Not as easy, is it? Not as easy as simply "Yes" or "No" like the other two. I need to say a couple of things, first. Number one, baptism is not just fire insurance to protect yourself from the eternal pit. Baptism is about enjoying the benefits of God's grace right now in this world. If baptism is reduced to some mindless, meaningless, ritual that is done simply because your grandma thinks it's a good idea or to somehow safeguard you from hell no matter the life you lead or the lack of faith, then I suppose the answer is, "No." There is nothing in scripture and nothing from the Reformation that would suggest that we are justified by baptism alone. We are saved by grace through faith ... and not just any faith -- faith in Jesus Christ.
To be sure, the primary actor in baptism is God. God forgives. God names. God claims. God welcomes. It is true that the parents make a promise to raise this child in the knowledge of their baptism but the fact that we most often perform baptism on infants highlights that baptism is an act of sheer grace.
But we live in that grace. Parents make promises to raise children in that grace. We have Sunday school classes that teach this grace. When baptism becomes some mindless, meaningless ritual that is used as some magical protection against hell regardless of faith, regardless of being in community, regardless of life -- well, you miss the point. Baptism wasn't meant to be that. However, we cannot answer that question, "Yes" or "No," because that is not our decision. Such a question steps over the boundary between our jurisdiction and God's jurisdiction. It's speculation. God alone decides who sits at his heavenly banquet. God alone judges over a person's ultimate destination. God alone. Our jurisdiction is to plant the seed and water the soil by teaching, preaching ... and, yes, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The final question: "When did God enter Cathy's life?" Let me ask that a different way: "Was God present in Cathy's life before she felt his presence, before she believed in Jesus, before she came to faith?" Absolutely. The psalmist writes, "You formed my inward parts, you knit me together in my mother's womb. Wonderful are your works. You know me" (Psalm 139:13-14).
As Jesus was being kicked and dragged to the top of that hill to be pierced with nails, remember his words? "Father, forgive them ... they don't know what they are doing." Before they confessed their sins, before they turned to God, before one Roman soldier accepted Jesus Christ as Lord, God was already there -- bathing them with his grace, showering them with his forgiveness, engulfing them with his presence.
God was there. God was in Cathy's life long before she realized it. Pushing, poking, prodding, and guiding her toward faith. Cathy didn't so much accept God as God accepted her. Cathy didn't so much decide for Jesus as Jesus decided for her. Cathy didn't so much find God as God found her and knit her together in her mother's womb. God has always been a part of Cathy's life even before she knew it.
There will come times when you feel so strong in your faith and certain of God's presence that you will feel as if you can move mountains. But there will be those valleys, too, in which God seems so very distant. Doubt will eat away at your faith like a cancer. Questions that chip away at your beliefs will plague your heart. If you have never gone through those times of doubt and felt the absence of God's presence, you either are lying or you don't have a pulse. We all go through what is called the dark night of the soul.
It is then, perhaps more than any other time, the gift and the promise of baptism make the most sense. They are not gifts that turn on or turn off like a switch depending on whether or not I feel it. God is not present only when my faith is strong enough on a particular day to experience him. Even when my faith goes through a lifelong roller coaster, the promise of God remains constant. With a splash of water and the proclamation of the word, the promise is there ... to remind you that your sins are forgiven, even before you are ready to confess; to reassure you that you belong, even before you have turned to come back home; and to claim you as one of his very own, even if that promise was made in the kitchen sink at the hands of a faithful grandmother. Amen.
-- Acts 19:3a (NLT)
It's texts like this one from Acts 19 that create so many misunderstandings and downright disagreements about baptism for all ages.
There was a story about a mom who glanced out through her kitchen window at her children playing across the yard. It was one of those games children play that looks complicated to the outside eye but for them it makes perfect sense. They had brought out a shovel and dug a hole in the soft dirt of the garden, dragged over the garden hose, and had an array of dolls lying on the ground. Then the process began. The daughter picked up the dolls one at a time, soaked them with water, handed it to her brother who threw it into the hole. Unable to figure out this game, the mom went out and asked what they were doing. The boy said, "We are playing baptism. Watch." Her sister picked up a doll, drenched it with water and said, "In the name of the Father and the Son," and then, handing the doll to her brother, she concluded the line, "and into-the-hole-it-goes."
Baptism. It is one of the immovable cornerstones of our faith ... and yet, there is a lot of misunderstanding about it. And if it isn't out and out misunderstanding, there is much disagreement about what it is and what it does between different denominations. Part of the reason is because scripture doesn't outline a consistent example of baptism. Jesus and many others were baptized as adults and yet in the book of Acts it says that entire households were baptized. Does that include children?
In some cases, the Holy Spirit comes first (as in Pentecost) and at other times it comes after baptism (as in our story from Acts 19). Then there seems to be John's baptism which is different from Jesus' baptism. If there is such confusion within scripture, there surely must be confusion within our churches today.
Let me address some of those concerns with a story. In my first church in Florida, I met a young family in the park near our home where many children played together. Cathy and John were new to town, had a child my daughter's age, and were looking for a church. I had one I could recommend wholeheartedly. They started coming and got connected quickly.
Before they joined, however, they asked me over to their apartment. They had a question about which they needed some counsel. The wife, Cathy, in her late twenties, was not raised in a church home. Her parents had left the church in the late '60s never to return. Church was new to her. Her interest in Christianity, however, was piqued during college through some conversations and Bible study on campus. The more she studied, the more she believed ... and the angrier she got. She was angry at her parents. The only person she could talk to about this was her grandma, the spiritual matriarch of the family -- a devout Catholic woman who lived her faith on a daily basis. She was safe. She understood. She listened to Cathy who talked about this new faith in Jesus and the regret, even anger, at her parents for not providing the basic, spiritual foundation in her life. Cathy felt robbed, particularly during her early years, of the joy that she felt now. "Why (and this is where her blood began to boil) why, they didn't even have me baptized!"
With that the grandmother winked, smiled, and said, "Oh, you're baptized, all right. Over there. In the sink. By me. When you were two months old." Evidently, Grandma got some tips from her priest. She decided 24 years ago that no grandchild of hers was going to be denied the gift of baptism.
"So," Cathy asked me, "am I baptized?"
Let's begin there with the first question: "Is Cathy baptized?" The answer is, "Yes." What makes baptism work is not the location. Baptisms can be done outside of the church building. What makes baptism work is not some special water blessed by a bishop or from the Jordan River. What makes baptism work is not the person doing the baptism -- grandmother or priest. Certainly, whenever possible an ordained pastor ought to perform baptisms but not because he or she has special powers. The pastor should only for the sake of good order -- that there is some continuity and intentionality from baptism to baptism. In an emergency, however, a nurse or parent or grandparent can baptize a child.
The second question is: "Does Cathy have to be rebaptized in order to join the church?" The answer is, "No." We believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. To be rebaptized casts a shadow of a doubt upon the promise and goodness of God that he could not possibly do it the first time and now needs help with Cathy's consent to make the promise work. To be sure, many people who submit to rebaptism don't do it out of doubt. They do it as a visible means by which they reaffirm their faith and commitment in Jesus. But there are other ways to recommit, reaffirm, and renew your baptism than to do it all over again as if God were unable to do it right the first time.
The third question is more difficult: "What if Cathy had never come to faith? Would her baptism one day guarantee her a place at the heavenly banquet?" Not as easy, is it? Not as easy as simply "Yes" or "No" like the other two. I need to say a couple of things, first. Number one, baptism is not just fire insurance to protect yourself from the eternal pit. Baptism is about enjoying the benefits of God's grace right now in this world. If baptism is reduced to some mindless, meaningless, ritual that is done simply because your grandma thinks it's a good idea or to somehow safeguard you from hell no matter the life you lead or the lack of faith, then I suppose the answer is, "No." There is nothing in scripture and nothing from the Reformation that would suggest that we are justified by baptism alone. We are saved by grace through faith ... and not just any faith -- faith in Jesus Christ.
To be sure, the primary actor in baptism is God. God forgives. God names. God claims. God welcomes. It is true that the parents make a promise to raise this child in the knowledge of their baptism but the fact that we most often perform baptism on infants highlights that baptism is an act of sheer grace.
But we live in that grace. Parents make promises to raise children in that grace. We have Sunday school classes that teach this grace. When baptism becomes some mindless, meaningless ritual that is used as some magical protection against hell regardless of faith, regardless of being in community, regardless of life -- well, you miss the point. Baptism wasn't meant to be that. However, we cannot answer that question, "Yes" or "No," because that is not our decision. Such a question steps over the boundary between our jurisdiction and God's jurisdiction. It's speculation. God alone decides who sits at his heavenly banquet. God alone judges over a person's ultimate destination. God alone. Our jurisdiction is to plant the seed and water the soil by teaching, preaching ... and, yes, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The final question: "When did God enter Cathy's life?" Let me ask that a different way: "Was God present in Cathy's life before she felt his presence, before she believed in Jesus, before she came to faith?" Absolutely. The psalmist writes, "You formed my inward parts, you knit me together in my mother's womb. Wonderful are your works. You know me" (Psalm 139:13-14).
As Jesus was being kicked and dragged to the top of that hill to be pierced with nails, remember his words? "Father, forgive them ... they don't know what they are doing." Before they confessed their sins, before they turned to God, before one Roman soldier accepted Jesus Christ as Lord, God was already there -- bathing them with his grace, showering them with his forgiveness, engulfing them with his presence.
God was there. God was in Cathy's life long before she realized it. Pushing, poking, prodding, and guiding her toward faith. Cathy didn't so much accept God as God accepted her. Cathy didn't so much decide for Jesus as Jesus decided for her. Cathy didn't so much find God as God found her and knit her together in her mother's womb. God has always been a part of Cathy's life even before she knew it.
There will come times when you feel so strong in your faith and certain of God's presence that you will feel as if you can move mountains. But there will be those valleys, too, in which God seems so very distant. Doubt will eat away at your faith like a cancer. Questions that chip away at your beliefs will plague your heart. If you have never gone through those times of doubt and felt the absence of God's presence, you either are lying or you don't have a pulse. We all go through what is called the dark night of the soul.
It is then, perhaps more than any other time, the gift and the promise of baptism make the most sense. They are not gifts that turn on or turn off like a switch depending on whether or not I feel it. God is not present only when my faith is strong enough on a particular day to experience him. Even when my faith goes through a lifelong roller coaster, the promise of God remains constant. With a splash of water and the proclamation of the word, the promise is there ... to remind you that your sins are forgiven, even before you are ready to confess; to reassure you that you belong, even before you have turned to come back home; and to claim you as one of his very own, even if that promise was made in the kitchen sink at the hands of a faithful grandmother. Amen.
