 By Rev. Heather J. Blais, Rector
Today is an exciting day for our faith community. We will be baptizing sweet Emmalina. Every baptism is an invitation for us to recall the meaning of this ritual, examine why we chose this life of faith, and to reflect on how we are living into our baptismal promises. Baptism is a ritual bath that welcomes one into Christ’s Church. Sometimes referred to as simply the Church (capital C); the body of Christ; the household of God; the Jesus Movement; or the Way of Love. It represents our unity with Christ in this life and in resurrection life; and is a reminder of God’s forgiveness and ceaseless love. Baptism is also an affirmation of the Holy Spirit’s place amongst us. She guides and sustain us as a faith community and in our personal walks of faith. Unfortunately, throughout the Church’s history, there has been some harmful theology around baptism. In particular, teachings about what happens if someone dies without being baptized. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had over the years, with folks who are anxious that a loved one, often a grandchild, is not baptized. Our family recently watched a pretty humorous depiction of this worry play out within a family on the show Young Sheldon. The parents were hounding their adult children to baptize their new granddaughter. When they finally became exasperated by their parents' relentless pushing, they informed their parents they would not be baptizing their little one. They didn’t practice the faiths they were raised in, and they wanted their daughter to make the choice for herself someday. Well, this answer did not fly with either grandmother. One was a devout Southern Baptist. She was terrified about what this might mean for her granddaughter’s soul. I think it’s fair to say she was equally terrified that the other grandmother, a practicing Roman Catholic, might convince the parents to baptize their daughter within the Roman Catholic church. In this comedy, even though Southern Baptists generally wait for baptism until adulthood, the pastor understood the grandmother’s sense of urgency. He actually agreed to a secret baptism in the family kitchen - a secret he and the grandmother were ready to take to the grave. Meanwhile, the following day, the Roman Catholic grandmother, encouraged her daughter to take some time to go buy herself something nice using her credit card, while she would take her granddaughter out for a walk in the stroller. Seems nice enough, right? Except it just so happened the Roman Catholic church was around the corner, and she stopped by for her own secret baptism. While these grandmothers were Southern Baptist and Roman Catholic, they could just as easily have been Episcopal and Methodist - the particular denominations are irrelevant to the story. Part of what made the unfolding dynamics so funny, was the stark reminder of our human capacity for catastrophizing and the lengths we will go to avoid exploring whether our fears hold any actual truth or not. It was irrelevant whether their granddaughter’s soul was actually in any kind of mortal danger, because like an alert for a tornado watch, these grandmothers could see the emergency that would soon unfold if they did not take action. The secret baptisms left both grandmothers feeling as though their granddaughter’s soul was saved, and maybe even more importantly baptized within the ‘right’ Christian denomination. Unfortunately, their comfort and peace of mind came at the cost of the autonomy of their adult children and granddaughter, as well as, the lack of a community promising to support this child on her faith journey. All the while perpetuating the harmful baptismal theology the institutional Church touted for centuries. Many of us were taught that should a child not be baptized, they would not get to experience resurrection life. But when we take a step back to examine how this teaching unfolded within the Church, it is helpful to remember that it arose from the institutional Church as it sought to ‘grow the church’ in numbers and resources, using fear as the motivaiton. These are the very behaviors and teachings that have left generations of folks questioning and rejecting the institutional Church. Every institution has its shadow side, and this is part of ours; as it does not reflect what we know about God’s nature throughout scripture. Scripture shows us, repeatedly, that our God is a God of transformative, unconditional love. Whether one has formally been marked in baptism, each and every person in this world is adopted, cherished, and loved by God. It can be hard to remember - about ourselves and others - but we are each beloved and beautiful children of God. And as we proclaim here each and every week - there is a place for all of us at God’s Table. No exceptions. Baptism is one of the many doorways or paths to God. At its best, baptism is an intentional act of love, a choice to walk this life in faith with the support of the community. A choice made in freedom, not to avoid an eternal ‘timeout’. The only real requirement or reason for baptism is a desire to be baptized. A desire to be part of this universal Church, that spans across time and space, and a desire to proclaim our intention to the world in thought, word, and deed. To say: I want to walk through this life with faith, hope, and love; to be a part of Christ’s Way of Love, that will help God’s dream for this world come into fruition; trusting in the knowledge that we are all children of God. And when infants are baptized, it is the parents or caregivers desire to raise their child this way. When we choose to baptize our child or to be baptized ourselves, we are choosing to acknowledge in a visible way, an inward truth of God’s grace. God’s grace that proclaims each and every person is a beloved and beautiful child of God. A truth that is there, with or without baptism, yet the act of the sacrament celebrates and lifts up this truth. The ritual bath and chrism oil symbolize it. The gathered community affirms God’s grace, the inherent goodness and worth of each and every person, while also promising to walk with the newly baptized in faith, now and always. Today, we baptize Emmalina. And her parents desire this sacrament for her for all the right reasons. We join them in celebrating the truth that Emmalina, and every child, is beloved and precious in God’s eyes. We wash and anoint her to make this truth visible, and to affirm her family’s choice to raise her to walk in the Way of Love with the support of her family, friends, and faith community. In a few minutes, we will all be invited to stand to reaffirm the promises of our baptism, what we refer to as the Baptismal Covenant. The Baptismal Covenant takes the shape of question and answer. We begin by affirming the Apostles’ Creed. The creed summarizes the basic teachings of our faith: that God created everything; that Jesus Christ lived; our faith in the Spirit, the universal Church, the communion of saints, that our sins are forgiven, and the promise of eternal life. Each of these three statements begins, I believe. In this instance, I believe, does not mean we are intellectually subscribing to something; rather it means, ‘I give my entire heart to this reality’. 1 We then make six specific promises, and these are big, bold, and beautiful ideals for us to strive to live into. We promise:
The only way we can really live into them is in the context of community, and by remembering the words we say when making these promises: I will, with God’s help. 2 Not I will; but, I will, with God’s help - which includes the help of our community. As we head back into the world later today, I wonder if we might explore:
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