Readings:
Mark 1:1-11, Romans 6:3-4, Mark
10:35-40
We pray: may the words of my mouth and the meditations
of our hearts be as a light to the world we pray, in Jesus name. Amen
A couple of months
ago – John Stenhouse lent me a book – and here we are today. This was the book ‘Being Christian’ by Rowan
Williams[1]
(as in ex ArchBishop of Canterbury). A distinguished theologian, a man of the
people, he writes clearly, deeply and passionately. I intend to cover each of the four chapters
over the next few months. Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer. Today – Baptism.
What does it mean
to be baptised? We are all familiar with
the act of baptism, the water, the promises, the welcome into the membership of
the church but what does it actually mean?
Rowan Williams
suggests there are a number of things that baptism asks of us and confers on
us.
And he suggests
that baptism should come with a health warning – ‘if you take this step…..it
will be transfiguring, exhilarating life-giving and very very dangerous.’[2]
Why on earth would
he say that – isn’t baptism about belonging, a commitment to God on our part
and by God to us, a membership card into Christian living and community. Oh yes, it is! But it doesn’t stop there, it’s not a one off
occasion, not something to have ‘done’ – which unfortunately is the way too
many of us understand baptism.
This is the
dangerous territory that Williams leads us into: that, through baptism, we come
into the death and depth of Christ. We agree to live into the experience of
Christ – and there are two places we know Christ inhabits. Christ will always be found in the
neighbourhood of human confusion and suffering – and Christ will always be
found held in the delight and love of God.
And we as a baptised member of the body of Christ, are also called to
live in the midst of human suffering and muddle but also in the depth of God’s
recreating love
The Good Friday
experience prepares us – Jesus speaks of his suffering and death as a ‘baptism’
that he has to go through – until he has completed this his work will be
incomplete, until he knows what it is like to be helpless, in the depths, live
in the darkness, he cannot be the light of the world. Baptism prepares us for suffering and enters
us into the place where we can deeply encounter the living God.
The sacrament of
communion that we share today too both remembers the suffering in the breaking
of bread (the depths), and assures us of the living presence of ‘God with us’
(the heights).
I would like to
talk a little more about William’s understanding of the first place that Jesus
inhabits – the place of human confusion and suffering.
The Eastern
church, when they depict the baptism of Jesus in image, almost always show him
sitting neck deep in the water, keeping at bay the river gods of the old world,
symbolically, in his baptism, subduing and
overcoming the chaos of the world.
Christ came to
recover the humanity of the world, to create right relationship with God in a
world where chaos is rampant. This
understanding of baptism sits with the creation story where, in the beginning,
there was watery chaos until the spirit of God, the breath, the wind, breathed
over the water and created the world – new life.
And as the
baptised people of God, expect to find us too in the business of subduing chaos
– injustice, inequality, inhumanity – because we go where Christ goes and that
is where Christ is.
So there is no way
that the baptised can keep themselves separate from the world, no way that it
is a ticket to easy living or elite belonging but rather a claim to solidarity
with the mess of humanity.
We are washed
clean by the water of baptism yet we are the engage in relationships that can
drag us into the mire and will not leave us untouched – that is the paradox of
living through our baptism. We have to
let down our defences and enter into the same relationships that Christ did
with us, where he talked and ate with and healed those who were hurting and
perplexed and in pain. That is
dangerous, that can be dirty and it will be challenging!
But we do this
because, through baptism, we become part of the family of God, we call each
other brother and sister in Christ, we want to restore and reconcile humanity
as Jesus did, and because we are deeply held in God’s love and delight.
Jesus takes his
stand in the midst of these two realities, chaos and delight, and so should we.
You know I am
reminded of this every time I have the privilege of leading a service of
worship when someone has died. I thought
of this yesterday as we joined together to remember and farewell George
Goodyear – the pain, the chaos that his dying has meant to his family and yet
the sense of a life well lived, the strength of love that holds the family together
in the midst of that – the pain and the powerful presence of love – without one
the other cannot be deeply experienced.
So baptism brings
us into the strength of belonging, a family love that enables us to walk in the
darkness and the light, to engage in relationships that that both test and
delight, to give and to receive, to care for and to be renewed and replenished.
At the beginning I
said Rowan Williams talked about the fact the baptism both confers or places on
us and asks of us. I would conclude with
the three things that he believe that is.
And these too are
dramatic, dangerous, deeply so.
We become prophets
– asked to speak into our church communities and the wider community about
right relationship, integrity, truth - calling us all to honour and be faithful
to who it is that we are, what it is that we are here for. To remember that we are a Good Friday people
living in the delight of Easter Sunday.
We become priests
– asked to build bridges between God and humanity – to restore relationship and
heal division. Where there is
brokenness, damage, disorder, we seek in the power of Christ and spirit and
prayer, to bring healing and reconciliation.
And we become
royalty – in ancient Israel the king had the power and freedom to shape the law
and justice in their society. Some did that very badly. But the king who knew God would favour the
poor, bring justice to the powerless, heal and restore the dispossessed. Our ‘royal’ calling is to show in our
relationship and engagement with the world that
in our lives and
our human environment we too know and live God’s justice.
I would end with a
poem by Thom Schuman, a blessing of baptism really.
A drop of water
from the sea, where all life began,
on your forehead,
beloved,
to pour abundant
life into you all the days to come.
A drop of water
from the sky, bringing relief to your parched soul,
on your forehead,
my beloved,
that your spirit
will never thirst for God’s grace.
A drop of water
from my heart, overflowing with joy,
on your forehead,
our beloved,
so that you feel
God’s hope holding your hand with every faltering step you take.
One drop from the
sea, one drop from the sky, one drop from my heart mingle with Father, Son and
Spirit,
the living waters
flowing with you, forever, beloved of God.
Amen.
Thom M Shuman from
Acorns and Archangels Wild Goose
Publications p.170
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