06/13/2021
During my career in pastoral ministry, I’ve answered many questions about baptism; what it means, and why we do it. Parents don’t want to simply mimic what is traditional, doing what they think they’re supposed to, just because. They want to engage in the rituals of church life with integrity and intention. So, they want to know what they’re getting into, or what they’re getting their children into.
So, I’ve explained that the United Church of Christ tells us that through the waters at baptism, God embraces us, no matter who we are, and brings us as newly transformed creatures into the body of Christ. Through baptism we become a vital part of the local church and the wider church. And, in return, the church, through the covenant pledge of the congregation, promises to love, support, and care for us throughout our lives.
Through baptism, God claims us, and we know that we belong to God. God offers an extravagant welcome and we share in it! God keeps covenant with us, and we unite as one with Christians throughout the world. God offers a vision of justice and love, and we are inspired to live it and inspire it in our children. Together, through water, we know the still-speaking God. Through baptism, we are opened to the reality of the miracle of life and are connected to something larger than ourselves.
Okay, that all sounds wonderful, and most people can get behind it!
But, as you know, if I were to poll everyone in our worship this morning and asked you to explain baptism to me – my guess is that there might not be a single shared understanding. And, for the United Church of Christ, that’s not surprising. UCC churches are often melting pots of people from different faith backgrounds. Although, there are some “cradle” UCCers, our church congregation today are largely made up of people who grew up Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Unitarian, nonreligious, agnostic, and even atheist. A wide range of traditions with a wide range of baptismal experiences, I would guess, with everything from full immersion dunking to no baptism at all, to even private emergency infant baptisms done at the kitchen sink by Catholic relatives worried about the fate of their grandchild’s soul.
Now, despite all our differences, we can be together in this covenantal way because of our congregational identity. As the UCC, we are descendants of the radically inclusive vision of the Protestant Reformation brought through the Puritan and German ancestors who formed churches where they lived and embodied their own covenant relationships within and beyond their gathered faith families. Our foremothers and forefathers in faith promised to “walk together in the ways of the Lord, as they have been and will be made know to us.”
I think our covenantal faith is one of our greatest gifts, and one of our greatest challenges. It’s a gift because we honor questioning, and theological openness, and the freedom of conscience. It’s also a challenge because without a creed, a dogma, a rule book, we find ourselves constantly challenged to define what on earth it is we’re doing here, and why, and how, and for what purpose. And God forbid, in a a UCC church, that your pastor would presume to tell you what to do and believe!
One of the many things Jesus’ parables point to is a need for that larger vision. They talk around the concept of God’s coming realm rather than precisely defining it. He forces us to continually expand our thinking. God is so infinite and creative that God is always doing the unexpected thing in unexpected ways. Rather than locking us into one way of thinking, Jesus invites us to open our eyes, hearts, and minds to new possibilities and grander plans as transformed creatures.
Certainly, our two parables for today help us to understand just that. No one can anticipate what the harvest might be at the time the seeds are sown and scattered on the ground. Even the sower does not know how it happens. (So much for the sower being God in this parable). But, when the grain is ready, it is harvested. We see that things happen, but we don’t know how, we simply have faith that they do. The mustard seed, the smallest of seeds, does not reveal, when first seen, the size and scope of the plant that it can become.
Both of these stories reveal that the realm of God comes, without our working on it, and quite outside of our anticipated outcomes, and yet it comes anyway. God is at work, even when we don’t see where or how or why. And the outcome is much grander than we can imagine. Of course, this is God’s very nature that is being described. God is gracious, giving the gift of harvest and realm alike, and extravagant, as both come in abundance. God looks beyond the self, providing produce for the farmer, and shade for nesting birds. God is connected to the creation renewed and transformed. God is active and involved in the unfolding of God’s realm even when we don’t see it or grasp it.
Perhaps that is the essence of this covenant we share: sharing our mysterious lives together. With the help of God, in these sacramental rituals we are able to sense the presence of God, not as some far away, abstract thing, but right there in the midst of us. And while there is one person who officiates a baptism, it is by necessity a congregational effort. It is the community who empowers the pastor, who bestows on him or her the power to acknowledge the sacredness, to name it, and lift it up, and say, “Yes, this is God’s beloved child!”
Baptism is a sacrament, a ritual that holds so much promise. When we dip our fingers into the font, we remember the love that has flowered in, with and through our lives and we receive that blessing, that kiss of God, like when a loved one kisses us and we know we are cherished; we are loved!