Epiphany 1B 2018

The First Sunday after the Epiphany January 7, 2018 The other day I read an article from The Living Church that was making the rounds on Facebook among some of my clergy friends—you may have seen it. It’s titled A Good Map for the Journey and it is one article in a series about revising the 1979 prayer book which will be up for conversation at General Convention that is happening in Austin this summer. In this article, the author, Scott Gunn (who is the Executive Director of the Forward Movement—best known for the Forward Day by Day devotions) starts his article by talking about a Facebook straw poll that he conducted as a part of research for a new book he’s working on. He writes, “Recently I asked my Facebook friends what they understand to be happening when we baptize someone. ‘Nothing at all,’ a few people said with startling boldness. Several others said baptism recognizes that God already loves us, but that no change is effected in the sacrament. To be sure, some people did give answers that sounded orthodox. I have been saying for a few years that we have a catechetical crisis in the Episcopal Church, and this Facebook exchange confirmed what I suspected. Many among the laity, and not a few of our clergy, do not seem to grasp the fundamental meaning and purpose of baptism and Eucharist. This is a problem in its own right, and it must surely color any conversation about prayer book revision.” So, think about it for a minute. If you had to take Scott Gunn’s poll and answer the question, “what do you think happens when we baptize someone?” how would you answer? Where would you start? One of the things that I like to teach in all my Inquirer’s classes is a short Latin phrase: lex orandi lex credendi. It means literally “the law of prayer shapes the law of believe” or “the law of belief shapes the law of prayer”. We interpret it to mean: Praying shapes believing and believing shapes praying. This is a foundational understanding of what it means to be an Episcopalian. We believe what we pray and we pray what we believe. So if we have a question about an aspect of our faith, we start by looking at the Book of Common Prayer. So, what does the BCP have to say about baptism? Let’s start with the catechism—which is a section of the prayer book that provides an outline of our faith and a summary of the church’s teachings on a number of subjects. (If you haven’t ever read through the catchechism, then I strongly encourage you to do so. It is a font of useful information. My husband has it mostly memorized because he used to read through the catechism and the historical documents during boring sermons of his youth.) Turn to page 857. First and foremost for us, baptism is a sacrament. What’s a sacrament? (“an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.”) (Who knows how many sacraments there are total?) There are a total of 7 sacraments in the Episcopal church, but look, the prayer book says that there are two great sacraments of the gospel—Holy Baptism and Holy Eucharist have given by Christ to his Church. So, what is Holy Baptism? “Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children and makes us members of Christ’s Body, the Church, and inheritors of the kingdom of God.” But wait, aren’t we already God’s children? Why do we need to be adopted in our baptism? Good question! We’ll come back to that. (But before we move on from the catechism, I want to say that if you don’t own a Prayer Book, and would like to borrow one this week to continue reading more in the catechism, then you are most welcome to take one home to do that. Just bring it back with you next Sunday.) Turn in your prayer books to page 298—the beginning of the rite for Holy Baptism. Look at the first paragraph. Does someone want to read it out loud? “Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body the Church. The bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble.” At our baptism, we are changed. We become a part of Christ’s body and receive all the benefits of membership in the church. This is why I encourage parents to let their children receive communion as soon as they are baptized, because Holy Eucharist is the food and drink of the body of Christ and even children, once baptized, are full members of Christ’s body. Our bond that God establishes with us at our baptism can never be changed or dissolved. No matter what. The Eastern Church likes to say that baptism is “becoming who we already are.” From the moment of our creation, each one of us has been claimed by God as God’s beloved. “God loves each and every one of us with a love that is unmerited, unconditional and never ending. There is nothing we humans can do, or need to do, to make that love available to ourselves or anyone else. Baptism is not necessary for a child or an adult to be the subject of God’s love. But it is the means by which we become aware of a love we might not otherwise be able to appreciate of benefit from.” In baptism, we begin a process of becoming who we already are—people who are shaped more and more into the image and likeness of Christ. “This is accomplished by God’s action in our lives to which we respond. Therefore, it is expected that we will renew our baptismal covenant over and over again…Further, to emphasize the need for renewal, it is expected that everyone in a congregation will renew his or her covenant on the various days set aside for baptisms, even if there is no one to baptized.” Turn in your prayer book to page 312 and someone read the first paragraph: “Holy Baptism is especially appropriate at the Easter Vigil, on the Day of Pentecost, on All Saints' Day or the Sunday after All Saints' Day, and on the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord (the First Sunday after the Epiphany). It is recommended that, as far as possible, Baptisms be reserved for these occasions or when a bishop is present.” (What’s today?) I once had a bishop who, in order to emphasize the importance of baptism, would use blessed water-like what we have in the font up here, and he would invite people to come kneel at the altar rail, and he would make the sign of the cross on their heads with the water and say to them, “Remember you baptism.” This is what we are doing every time we walk past this font and make the sign of the cross with the water. We are remembering the truth of our baptism. We are remembering that we have been claimed as God’s beloved, adopted into the family of God, and transformed into a member of the body of Christ. We remember that in baptism we are becoming who we already are, and we live into that becoming for as long as we are alive. So this week, I invite you to spend some time thinking about what you believe about Holy Baptism. In what ways can you look back over your faith journey and mark how you have grown move deeply into the image and likeness of Christ. How are you responding to God’s action in your life? How are you becoming who you already are? Soures: https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2017/01/23/a-good-map-for-the-journey/ Westerhoff, John H. Holy Baptism: A Guide for Parents and Godparents. Morehouse: 1996 (revised 1998), p 3 Ibid pp 12-13