On Baptisms, Babies & Such

Scripture Reading   Luke 18.16-17:  People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disicples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it.  But Jesus called for them and said, “Let the little children come to me; and do not stop them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.  Truly I tell you: whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

On Baptisms, Babies and Such

Think back to the births you remember . . . babies don’t remember, but mammas and pappas do . . . the waiting time, the getting ready time, the he’s coming now time . . . they remember it all . . . sorrow and joy and laughter and pain all mix in together and they remember . . . so remember now, won’t you . . . a happy birth . . .

Babies being born are holy ground places . . . And no matter what station they are born into, no matter who their parents are, no matter, even whether they live to ripe old age or leave us far too soon, God greets them all . . .

The older I get, the more God’s voice, at least in my head, sounds like Dr. Seuss . . . Can’t you just picture it . . . you are born . . . people are gathered . . . and God whispers in your ear . . . and even as a baby, you’re surprised that God is reciting Dr. Seuss’s Oh! the Places You’ll Go . . .

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You’re off to Great Places!

You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.    

You can steer yourself any direction you choose.

You’re on your own. And you know what you know. 

And YOU are the guy [or gal] who’ll decide where to go.

This journey, this child, began literally as an idea . . . his parents may be tempted to believe that he began as their idea, but we know better – every child begins as God’s idea . . . a grand thing, really . . .he’ll do, oh yes, he’ll do very nicely indeed . . .

God knows even better than we parents . . . you’ll always be happy . . . except when you’re not . . . you’ll always be perfect . . . except when you aren’t . . .

And thus the mothering God of Isaiah and Hosea bends down to embrace . . . and to comfort . . . and to raise this new child of creation to the divine cheek and whisper . . . hush . . . of course you failed . . . I always knew you would . . . you’re all right now . .. Shh . . . shhh

And then there are the waiting times . . . waiting for the magic day to come is a waste of time . . . and waiting for things to ‘get better’ is magical thinking . . . and waiting for Godot is but an amusing interlude to a life that’s meant to be lived, not waited for . . .

But . . . but . . . not all waiting is a bad thing . . .

Within the circle of God’s embrace, there is the waiting for the Lord . . . and like all of us, this child will have plenty of that . . .

It’s hard, this waiting on God thing . . . and we’re not very good at reading the signposts . . .

. . . but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. . . The Isaiah promise is for us all . . .

Waiting for fish or kites is silly . . . waiting for God is holy . . . and renewing . . . and joy-filled . . . Waiting for people or the ship to come is wish-filled nonsense . . . waiting for God is holy . . . and beautiful . . . and frustrating . . . and spirit-filling . . . Waiting for God is not the staying-stuck kind of waiting at all . . .

And sometimes other people, other Christians especially, will try to convince you that your baptism was all about repentance . . . about being sorry . . . about piling ashes on your head . . . about being a bad boy . . . a lucky bad boy, but a bad boy, nevertheless . . .

Don’t you believe them. . . not for an instant . . . The God who created you called you not just good, but very good . . . God smiled when you were born . . .

And it doesn’t matter one little bit to God whether you’re famous or infamous . . . or just plain old you to the world . . . you will always be a rock star in God’s eyes . . . and a very loved rock star at that . . .

A long time ago, there was a man baptizing folks in ‘John’s baptism’ . . . the baptism of repentance . . . and another fellow named Paul came along and said, ‘what are you doing?

This won’t do at all . . . don’t settle for John’s repentance baptism, a sorry thing indeed, when you can have Jesus’ baptism . . . the baptism that brings fire to your belly and purpose to your life . . . the baptism that brings God’s very own Holy Spirit to live in your house all the days of your life . . . that’s the baptism for you, Owen, my boy! . . . and for us all . . .

But it won’t all be a bed of roses . . . not in this life . . .

But even when when your feet get tangled up and you find yourself lying flat on the ground . . . we will be there . . . and even when we aren’t there . . . even when we let you down . . . because we won’t . . . except when we do . . . even then, child of God, even then, God will always be with you . . .

Today you come to God as a little child . . .

And all of us come with you, the little children that we still are . . .

We come and lift up our faces to feel the wind of God’s Spirit blowing upon us . . .

We come at the invitation of the Most High God, as “The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”  And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”  And let everyone who is thirsty come.  Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.”

Looking back and looking forward . . . we come . . .

In joyous expectation . . . we come . . .

In proclamation of God’s own gospel good news in our lives and yours, we come . . .

God’s promise is for this baby . . . and for us all.

Won’t you reclaim it today?

Let’s stop being sorry, shall we?  And start being happy!  Joyous!  Free!

For we are all God’s own good news.  And that is good news indeed.

To My Fellow Christian Sarah Palin: Baptism, Enemies, and Truth – Words That Matter

Governor Sarah Palin recently delivered an address to a gathering of NRA folk in Indianapolis.  I listened to the speech in its entirety and recommend you do the same.

Reasonable people can and do differ on a great many issues, gun use and access among them.  And Governor Palin and I are on different sides of the question.  Fair enough.

What is not so fair, I would suggest, is the appropriation of the language of our shared faith; the clinging to a gospel that is rejected in the same breath; and a disregard of facts (truth) when speaking of one’s enemies.

Regarding our “enemies” (by which Gov. Palin is referring to terrorists), she says, “. . . if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.” [huge applause and cheering]  

1. The appropriation of the language of our shared faith Baptism is the rite, the ritual, the sacrament – the holy sign (one of only two for Protestants) – the outward evidence of the inward reality of having been claimed as God’s very own in Christianity.  When Jesus himself is baptized, the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, descends upon him and God proclaims Jesus as God’s own son, in whom God is well pleased.  (Matthew 3.16-17).  Waterboarding shares with baptism only the use of water.  Waterboarding is to baptism as torture is to the doctor’s smack of a new-born baby’s butt.  To call torture baptism in a speech using other language of faith and God ignores Jesus’ own gospel message, a particular affront in this Easter season, when Christians world-wide celebrate the resurrection of the one who was himself tortured to death by state actors.  I want to believe that Gov. Palin is using the language of ‘baptism’ in a secular way (as in being ‘baptized’ by fire, meaning to be introduced to a certain way of being/acting in extremis).  The problem is that the remainder of her speech is peppered with the language of faith in a way that makes such a dismissal virtually impossible, because she weaves faith into her speech in such a way as to suggest that to carry a gun is not merely a constitutional matter, but also a biblical right or even imprimatur.

2. Clinging to a gospel the speaker rejects all in the same breath Use of the language of ‘enshrinement’ – the language of the sacred or holy –  (as in gun-ownership being ‘enshrined’ in our constitution); referring to baptism when speaking of waterboarding; giving the gratuitous shout-out to prayer in school;  and wrapping up with: “Celebrating family, faith and freedom . . . God shed his grace on thee, America, so stand and fight . . .” co-mingles the language of faith and Christianity in particular with the torture of enemies (waterboarding), killing with a gun as a problem-solving technique (my cold, dead hands language and the implied warning to Attorney General Eric Holder, “you don’t want to go there, buddy”); and the very specific link of “enemies” with torture as an indictment of the claimed lack of political will of those who differ with her on this issue (they would coddle the enemies that she, if in charge, would waterboard) – all this leads to a conclusion that for Gov. Palin, Jesus’ gospel is a call to arms.  The problem, of course, is Jesus, who actually happens to be very specific when it comes to enemies:  “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.  For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? . . .”  (Matthew 5.43-47; also Luke 6.27 & 35).  You simply cannot, with any integrity, wrap yourself in the gospel and advocate the torture of your enemies in the same breath.  Jesus recognizes the human habit of responding to enemies in exactly the way Gov. Palin recommends.  He recognizes it and rejects it out of hand.  Advocate torture if you will.  But you cannot, you may not, you must not, clothe yourself in The Risen One to do it.

3. Disregarding the facts when speaking of one’s (political) enemy It is popular to the point of hardly meriting notice, let alone response, for folks in the political sphere today to make false claims against their opponents.  But it isn’t okay that they do nor that we allow it to pass by.  Truth matters.  Facts matter.  False claims of facts and truth matter because they misshape our perception of reality.  Gov. Palin takes on and carries as a theme in her speech, with references to the various bracelets she is wearing, a claim that Attorney General Eric Holder advocates the wearing of some sort of tracking bracelet by gun owners.  There is only one problem with the claim: it is false, as attested by the presumably liberal TPM and presumably conservative Bearing Arms.  Facts and truth matter to our faith as well as our practical day-to-day lives (if there can even be any separation of the two): we follow the man who self-identified as the way, the truth, the life, who instructed his followers to allow their yes to be yes, their no, no. (Matthew 5.37).  It may well be that Gov. Palin and/or her speechwriters  believed what she said about the Attorney General to be true.  But that doesn’t solve much: when we are speaking, it is our duty to assure that our words are true, that they are accurate.  That is actually part of the job of being a Christian.  Truthfulness is so important that it is actually enshrined (unlike our constitutional provisions) in our holy writ, which we refer to as the Ten Commandments, among which is the provision: Thou shalt not lie (or more accurately, bear false witness – that is, to say something not true about another person).  Before we say it, it is our job to know whether it is true and if we cannot or do not know, we should not say it.  The fact that it took me less than 5 minutes to find two sites online that referenced the Attorney General’s actual remarks indicates that the truth was easily discoverable.  One simply had to wish to find it.  Gov. Palin claimed that the Attorney General wants to track by bracelet those who own guns.  What he actually said was that there was interest in exploring smart guns that can only be used by the actual owner (via a chip in the gun which links electronically to a bracelet worn by the owner).

Truth matters.  Taking care to tell truth matters.  Taking special care not to speak ill of enemies falsely (recognizing our own inner tendency not to give our enemies the benefit of the doubt) matters.  Making claims about the gospel which directly contradict it matters.  Clothing ourselves with the gospel of the Prince of Peace while proclaiming things like torture matters.

As a fellow Christian, Governor Palin, I beseech you: make your case, but please, please, please, stop standing on Jesus’ back to do it if you're not willing to grapple with the ways in which the gospel challenges your views.

Please.