Baptism

Central to our faith is the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. That’s what makes us Christians, after all. And what makes Christians unique is belief in the resurrection of the dead – passing through death into life. Entry into this community we call Christianity is a process that prefigures that passage, a process we call baptism. In the early church, and in some churches today, the person is literally dunked underwater and then brought up again, stark symbolism of dying and rising. In my church (and many others) that has been reduced to three splashes with water from a shell over a font that’s too small to dunk a newborn. Some parents are very happy that we don’t use total immersion with their child.

The church has always understood Israel’s passage through the Red Sea as a kind of prefiguring of baptism. The Israelites were fleeing from bondage in Egypt and God miraculously provided a route for them through the waters that blocked their way. The Red Sea crossing and forty years in the wilderness became the defining events in their development as a distinct people. In the baptismal rite, the Thanksgiving over the Water recalls those events, as well as the Spirit of God moving over the face of the waters at creation, and the baptism of Jesus at the beginning of his ministry.

Only in the first letter of Peter is Noah’s ark described as a prefiguring of baptism. [It was especially appropriate on this Sunday, when we welcomed a Noah into the household of God!] Peter’s symbolism is clear: the waters of chaos threatened to wipe out all humanity, but God saved Noah and his family by telling him to build an ark. I don’t want to press this story too far. For one thing, I’m not a biblical literalist, and for another, there’s the matter of all the people who died in the flood. It’s not helpful when so many have suffered recently in severe weather.

R’s favorite part of baptisms is the point at which she makes the sign on the cross on the newly baptized and says, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ’s own for ever.” I can see why she likes it. That’s the whole theology in a nutshell. Through the waters of baptism, the Holy Spirit enters in and makes a home in that person. He or she is marked as Christ’s own forever. That’s why we baptize only once.

John’s Gospel tells us that once the Holy Spirit abides in us, the Spirit of truth will reveal the love of Jesus, and through Jesus the love of God. “You will know that I am in my Father,” Jesus says, “and you in me, and I in you.” God’s very essence is the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a relationship built on love.

Created in the image of God, we are fundamentally relational as well. That is why baptisms in the Episcopal Church take place at the principal service on Sunday morning. Baptism is the first step in joining the Christian community, so the community must be present to welcome the newly baptized. We also reaffirm our own baptismal vows, including the promise to “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers” – in other words, to be faithful members of a Christian community – “with God’s help.” So whether we have a complete dunking or splashes with a shell, we symbolize our passage through death to new life in Christ. No wonder that in his darkest days, Martin Luther could console himself by shouting, "I am baptized!" For him and for us, it makes all the difference between life and death.

[Easter 6: Acts 17:22-31; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21.]

Irresistible Grace

One of the advantages (I suppose) of starting out at a Presbyterian seminary is that I got a good grounding in Reformed theology. Given that the English Reformation was influenced more by Calvin than Luther, that was a good thing. Calvin turned out to have some redeemable qualities. As a former lawyer he was a more systematic thinker than Luther. Like Luther, it was Calvin’s followers who hardened into stone some of the less desirable features of the founder.

The most striking example of that hardening was the Dutch Synod of Dort in the seventeenth century. Out of this came classic Reformed doctrine, summarized by the mnemonic TULIP:
• Total depravity of humankind
• Unconditional election (to salvation or damnation, from before all time)
• Limited atonement (Christ died only for the elect, not all humankind)
• Irresistible grace
• Perseverance of the saints (those who have been elected will be saved no matter what)

It’s a peculiar collection to my mind and I don’t subscribe to any of it except for one item: irresistible grace. At our clergy lectionary study this week, one Lutheran pastor brought up irresistible grace as his way of interpreting the saying of Jesus, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If it is evil that draws us away from God, he said, and in the end evil will either be destroyed or converted, then all people will eventually be drawn to God because of God’s irresistible grace. He did, however, make the concession that our free will makes it possible to refuse to turn toward God. Someone may look at what God offers and then choose otherwise (which, I suppose, means that grace isn’t really irresistible after all!).

It’s an intriguing problem. How should Christians regard those who do not believe in Jesus Christ? There are two easy solutions, neither of which I find to be scriptural. One is to presume to know the mind and will of God, and to judge unbelievers as condemned to hell. The other extreme is complete relativism, to say that there are many ways up the mountain, all of which are valid. This assumes that it is the same mountain all religions climb, which is clearly not so. Is there some third solution, an Anglican via media?

The Scripture readings this week are pretty uncompromising. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through him. Yet Jesus is also the Word through whom everything is created. So Christ can be revealed through the natural world and through people who are not Christians. For the strict Reformed, total depravity kicks in here – we are so sinful that we cannot see God in creation unless it is through Christ. I don’t share that interpretation, and neither did the early Anglicans who talked about the “two books” of revelation (nature and the Bible). Christ’s universal presence in creation allows Christians to work for the kingdom of God side by side with people of other faiths, including the faith of no-God (atheism).

I believe that Jesus Christ is the fullest self-revelation of God to humankind. That is why I am a Christian. True, God can be known outside of Christianity, but that is not as complete as knowing God through Jesus Christ. (And even that vision, as the Apostle Paul well knew, is like seeing through a mirror darkly.) As for salvation, it is freely offered to all. Jesus died for everyone, not just the elect. But like my Lutheran friend, I believe that grace is only irresistible to a point, because we have to cooperate with grace for it to work. We have the choice of turning away from God. Why anyone would do that, God only knows. For who can resist that Love known to us in Jesus Christ?

[Easter 5: Acts 7:55-60; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14.]

Double Shot, Two Percent, No Flavor, To Go

What would the ideal church be like? A friendly place, but not too friendly, where the bills always got paid without having to harangue people for money, where the music was uplifting and the preacher inspiring and the liturgy perfect and the space transcendent? I’ve always wanted to go to a church with an espresso machine, but maybe that’s a secret desire to sit in a coffee shop sipping a latte and reading a newspaper on Sunday morning.

The author of the Acts of the Apostles (probably Luke) had a clear idea of what church should be like. It should fit his description of the early Christian community: signs and wonders, equal sharing of possessions, a joy-filled community highly regarded by everyone – a kind of Pentecostal Communism. People flocked to be part of this church.

Luke’s rose-colored glasses must have had a strong tint. We know from the Apostle Paul, who wrote earlier than Luke, that early churches had factions and bickering and carousers and liturgical police. In fact, they sound a lot like a modern congregation. Instead of disagreements over whether we should eat meat offered to idols, we now argue over the setting of the thermostat. Well, perhaps that’s overstated; I haven’t yet met anyone whose salvation depended on the temperature setting. (I have seen people who almost met their Maker after the junior warden caught them tampering with a thermostat.)

Curiously, we have taken Luke’s optimistic language into our baptismal covenant. “Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers,” Luke wrote. We still promise to continue to do the same, “with God’s help.”

We know what the ideal should be. It is just as obvious that we fall short of it. We don’t always help those in need. Our possessions often possess us. We forget to praise God. And more and more, being “Christian” is associated with being judgmental rather than accepting, so that Christian communities no longer are highly regarded by everyone. Sometimes churches are just a muddled mess.

Maybe that’s why a latte sounds so appealing some Sunday mornings. No need to deal with the muddle. But it’s also why church is important. Reading the newspaper doesn’t challenge me; people do. I cannot grow without challenge. I cannot know God without seeing God in others, and others seeing God in me. I cannot know Jesus without the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers.

So I show up every Sunday morning, hoping that the bills have been paid, and do my part to make the preaching inspiring and the liturgy perfect. Am I always successful? No. But at least I have tried my best, with God’s help. And that, after all, is what God asks us to do.

[Fourth Sunday of Easter: Acts 2:42-47. Yes, I know it is Good Shepherd Sunday, but did you really want to hear about sheep?]

Lazarus, Come Out!

Imagine someone wandering into an Episcopal church this coming Sunday and hearing the lessons for the first time. The first lesson, Ezekiel’s story about the dry bones, is simply fantastical. Those in the know can interpret “the hand of the Lord” and “the spirit of the Lord” as introducing a vision, but what about those who don’t know church-speak? Perhaps by the end of the reading they would realize that this story is not intended to be taken literally.

But what about the Gospel reading from John? For the third Sunday in a row we’re given a remarkably long passage that taxes the wind power of the deacon. On the face of it, the raising of Lazarus is quite a simple story. There’s some misunderstanding over what Jesus says. But his grief for Lazarus is unmistakable. So is his raising him from the dead. What’s to keep our imaginary visitor from putting this story in the same category as the dry bones? Even if it’s only one dead man raised instead of a whole valley, it appears to be just as fantastical. I expect that some of the faithful in the pews also will be silently wondering what to believe.

One difference between Ezekiel and John is context, of course. Ezekiel spoke to people who were in exile, hundreds of miles from home. They desperately needed to hear a word of hope. They were as dry and breathless as the bones in the valley. They saw no future for themselves. So God spoke to Ezekiel in a vision, showing him how even scattered bones could be restored to wholeness. In the same way, God would bring the people of Israel back to the land where they had once lived. Then they would know that God is the Lord. As it turned out, God did make good on the promise of that vision. The exiles eventually were allowed to go home.

John’s Gospel was written centuries after Ezekiel, in a very different context. The Jews were back in Israel, but the Roman army had destroyed their Temple in Jerusalem. Further, a group of Jews were claiming that the Messiah, the one whom God had promised would deliver them, had already come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. These Christians, as they were derisively called, had stopped following the Jewish law and were associating with non-Jews. Worst of all, they claimed that the crucified Jesus had risen from the dead.

John the Evangelist wanted everyone to know the significance of this Jesus. So he included simple stories with multiple layers of meaning. For us, two thousand years later, it’s impossible to determine the scientific truth of John’s stories. But that’s not their point. Hardly anyone then wrote history the way we now think of it. John was writing what he knew to be theological truth, the truth of how God works in the world. And Jesus was squarely in the middle of that truth.

So on this particular day, John shows us Jesus with his disciples, with the sisters of Lazarus, and finally with Lazarus himself, witnessing to the power of God, resurrection power, power over death itself. Lazarus is called from the tomb in a loud voice, and he obeys, even in death. In this emergence from the tomb, the church faithful will hear a clear foreshadowing of Easter.

And the church visitor? Why should the resurrection of Jesus be any more real than the raising of Lazarus or the rattling of dry bones?

For me, at least, it all goes back to the faith of those first disciples. Had they not experienced something real, they would not have been able to withstand the intense persecution from both Romans and Jews. They believed that they had left darkness for light, falsehood for truth, death for life. They embraced the paradox of the one who said, “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” It is my own experience of that light and life which attests to its truth. What I would hope is that the visitor would see glimmers of the light and be drawn to it, wanting to know more about this Jesus who is said to bring the dead back to life, who calls every Lazarus out of the tomb.

[Lent 5: Ezekiel 37:1-14; John 11:1-45.]

The Woman at the Well

It was a dry, hot day, not unlike a lot of other days in Israel. Jesus and his disciples were on the dusty road to Jerusalem from Galilee, a road that took them smack dab through the foreign territory of Samaria. Well, not foreign, really; the Samaritans were sort of like the Jews. Maybe that’s what made them so maddening. They claimed the same ancestors, but they insisted on worshipping somewhere other than Jerusalem. They just had a mongrel religion as far as the Jews were concerned. Yet the road went through Samaria, so the disciples made the best of it.

On this especially hot day they left Jesus at a well while they went to find food – although they knew they’d be hard-pressed to find anything kosher in this place. While they were away, a Samaritan woman came to the well to get water. She noticed Jesus sitting there and gave him a wide berth. She’d had her fill of Jews. In fact, she’d had her fill of men, but back then women didn’t have anything unless they were attached to a man.

Suddenly this Jewish man talked to her. “Give me a drink,” he said. She almost dropped her jar in astonishment. “Why are you asking me?” she replied. “You Jews always think that we Samaritan women are dirt.” But the man wasn’t offended. He simply said, “If you knew God and knew me, you could have gotten living water.” That confused her even more. She thought that “living water” meant “running water,” and he didn’t even have a bucket. So she pointed that out.

As she studied him, she began to realize that there was something unusual about this man. He seemed deeper than the well, deeper than life itself, like the stories about their ancestor Jacob her grandmother had told her when she was a child. He talked about never being thirsty, of having a spring of water inside gushing up to eternal life. She started to imagine what that would be like. She felt the coolness of the spring, being filled with water on a hot day, sitting in the shade, not always being in need…

“Bring your husband,” he said. Oh. So he didn’t think she was worth much by herself after all. “I have no husband,” she said. And added under her breath, I’m not about to do that again. The man quietly said, “That’s true.” Then he proceeded to tell her whole life story with five husbands and the latest live-in boyfriend. But he did it without any judgment at all. It was like he knew her better than she knew herself. She was always telling herself what a stupid person she was for letting men ruin her life, and here was this Jewish man accepting her for who she was, knowing everything she’d ever done.

He must be some sort of prophet, she thought. If so, then he can help sort out some of this Jew/Samaritan stuff about where to worship. Yet when she asked him whether Jerusalem or Samaria is the place to be, he said neither. “God is spirit,” he said, “and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

As he talked, another of her grandmother’s stories arose from memory. “I know that Messiah is coming,” she said. “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” And the man replied, “I am, the one speaking to you.” Now she really did drop her jar. Just then the man’s disciples arrived. She hardly saw them glare at her as she rushed home to her village to tell everyone. “Come see this man who told me everything I’ve ever done! He isn’t the Messiah, is he?”

The whole village trooped out in confused excitement. Even the three ex-husbands who were still living went, figuring they’d better check out this fellow who seemed to know everything. He seemed so different from all of the Jews they’d ever met that they invited him to stick around for a couple of days. By the end of that time they knew why the woman had been so excited. They were excited, too. They knew that he wasn’t giving his living water to just Jews or Samaritans; he offered it to the whole world.

And the woman? She kept going to Jacob’s well to draw water. But it never mattered any more when she was hot or thirsty or hungry. She could remember how cool and filled she had felt in the presence of that man at the well. And best of all, her boyfriend was a changed person after those two days. Maybe, she thought, just maybe, men aren’t that bad after all.

Born of the Spirit

R gave me a wonderful Valentine’s Day card this year. On the front is a couple sitting in their easy chairs looking at one another. The woman is thinking, “When you’ve been married a long time, you get to know what the other person thinks.” And the man, frowning at her, thinks, “No, you don’t.”

Isn’t that wonderful? Not only husbands and wives but parents and children sometimes assume that they know what the other is thinking. For me, this was especially apparent when our son was a teenager. I guess we had done such a good job of figuring out what he needed when he was younger that he expected us to know what he wanted when he was older. I’m sure I did the same thing to my parents, until I realized that speech was a better method of communication than telepathy.

Even when we talk, though, conversations can work at cross purposes. The conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus is an excellent example. It starts out innocently enough, but then Nicodemus gets totally lost. He thinks he’s talking about one thing, and discovers that Jesus has something else on his mind. Eventually Nicodemus disappears completely as the whole direction of the discourse changes. By the end we may all be confused!

It helps to know some of the code words which set up the story. Nicodemus is a Pharisee (uh-oh) and a leader of the Jews (uh-oh again). From other gospel accounts we know that the Pharisees are usually the bad guys, and the Gospel of John is especially hard on “the Jews,” which could mean either Judeans (big-city types who looked down on Galilean peasants like Jesus) or the leaders of the Jews (the people of parts). Furthermore, Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. From the beginning of this Gospel there has been opposition between light (Jesus) and darkness. This doesn’t bode very well.

Nicodemus begins by declaring that Jesus must come from God because of the signs that he does. Some have said that this is intended to be irony, trying to trap Jesus into saying something foolish, but I prefer to read it at face value. In any case, the “answer” Jesus gives does not refer to what was said. Instead, he says that one must be born from above. The word translated “from above” also means “anew” or “again” – it is intentionally ambiguous. It does not refer to a specific, datable experience one must go through to be called a Christian (as in born-again Christians). The ambiguity puzzles Nicodemus, and he settles on the wrong meaning, that Jesus literally means to be born once more.

Things are not helped by another word play. The Greek word “pneuma” can mean blowing [wind], breath, spirit, or Spirit (as in Holy Spirit). Nicodemus seems baffled by the possibilities in Jesus’ use of it. Jesus says he should know better – teachers at the time were adept at word play.

And then Jesus says, “We speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you (plural) do not receive our testimony.” Just who are “we” and “you” (all-y’all)? It appears that we have stepped beyond an encounter between two people to the communities they represent: the non-believers on the one hand, those who prefer darkness to light, and the community of John the Evangelist, followers of Jesus, witnesses to the light of Christ. These are the ones who have been born anew/from above by water and the Spirit. They are the true descendants of Moses and the Israelites who followed Moses through the wilderness.

As one of my clergy colleagues put it, Nicodemus thinks that the conversation is about information when it is really about transformation. It’s not about the signs Jesus has done; it’s about new life in Jesus Christ. Yet even though this Spirit-filled life of light is freely offered to all, some choose to remain in darkness. God’s desire is that all come to the light so that all may have eternal life. But God is not about to compel people to come; instead, God chooses to limit God’s own power and allow humans to make their own choice. In effect, God does not condemn us; we condemn ourselves when we prefer darkness to light.

I’d like to think that, just as children and parents eventually understand one another, Nicodemus finally grasped the words of Jesus. We have a hint that he did. Much later in the story, Nicodemus will help Joseph of Arimathea take down the crucified body of Jesus and lay it in a tomb. Three days later that body will no longer be there. Maybe, just maybe, when Nicodemus encountered the resurrected Christ, he remembered that conversation held years before on a dark night – and walked forever more in a light so bright that he no longer could remember what darkness was like.

[Lent 2: John 3:1-17.]

Get Up and Do Not Be Afraid

One would not guess that fear is a common emotion in the Bible. It certainly doesn’t show up in many forms of contemporary Christianity, at least not in the West. We are too busy trying to figure out what will bring people through our doors to consider anything as negative as fear. It doesn’t fit into the Jesus’n’me theology that’s so well suited to our individualistic culture. Like death, fear is something we’d rather not think about.

It’s not like fear is absent in our lives. Some people have reasonable fears, for their health or economic well-being. Some live in circumstances where they are physically afraid. And then there are the vague fears, such as the future of the economy or the direction of the country. Those are the fears that get whipped up in elections, because political campaigners know that people will vote their fears, even if they are based on misleading information.

Fear in the Bible is different. It mostly seems to be fear of God, a concept that doesn’t sit well with us. Yet there it is – every time someone encounters the living God, they are terrified. Moses at the burning bush, the Israelites at the mountain, Isaiah in the temple, Mary and the angel Gabriel, Peter at the voice from heaven, the disciples at the appearance of the resurrected Christ. One gets the impression that they were ready to leap out of their skin. If they aren’t completely shocked into a trembling silence, they ask God to find someone else.

But God never does! Instead, there is a word of comfort before God describes what’s going to happen next. Take Peter, for instance. Having just given the right answer about who Jesus is (the Messiah, the Son of the living God), and finding himself among an elite group that Jesus took up a high mountain, Peter must have been feeling pretty good about himself. So good, in fact, that when Jesus lit up and Moses and Elijah showed up, Peter offered to provide them all a place to stay so the show could go on.

Suddenly God showed up with a speaking part. “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” That wasn’t in Peter’s script, and he fell to the ground, terrified. When Jesus touched him, he probably jumped. But Jesus did not berate him; instead, he said, “Get up and do not be afraid.” It’s a foretaste of what Jesus will say after the resurrection to the disciples who abandoned him: “Peace be with you.”

Get up and do not be afraid. How often do we need to hear that? How often has fear paralyzed us, thrown us down, caused us to make poor choices? And who except God offers words of comfort after first making us afraid? And who except God invites us to become the persons God knows us to be: Moses, lead my people. Isaiah, preach my words. Mary, bear my Son. Peter, feed my sheep.

Get up and do not be afraid. That’s the invitation God gives, day by day, week by week. I will give you the strength to go on, God says. I will be present with you. I will lead you up the mountain and down again, but I will not leave you. So get up and do not be afraid.

[Last Epiphany: Exodus 24:12-18; Psalm 2; 2 Peter 1:16-21; Matthew 17:1-9.]