Baptized into Christian Community

A few years back, a Christian cartoonist named Cuyler Black came out with a line of funny Christian greeting cards called “Inherit the Mirth.” The cover of each card contained one of his single panel cartoons imagining a silly (sort-of) Biblical scene, with a clever greeting on the inside. One of my favorites was titled “John the Baptist as a Kid” and it showed a boy standing next to a bathtub filled with water. He is holding a very wet cat, and next to him were a dog and a parrot, also dripping wet and looking very confused. An exasperated Elizabeth  says from another room “Honey! For the last time-- stop doing that to the pets!”

I chuckle every-time I think of this cartoon because while John the Baptist appears nowhere in today’s lessons, it summarizes very nicely the challenges of living in a household, raising a child, all the while attempting to raise that child with a cogent, useful, and authentically held Christian faith.

Needless to say, I am still living in the glow of this new things called “grandparent.” And I hope I never lose that sense of awe and wonder. All it takes is a little smile from a certain little baby and I get all mushy inside. But this is not a new feeling… I’ve had it with my own children… as well as awe and pride at the people they are today. Part of the “mushy” is that I am getting to know this brand-new person who doesn’t know how to be anything but her complete, honest, direct, vulnerable self. And we are already watching Josephine grow… already a distinct personality, but how she will be in the future is a mystery still to unfold.

By bringing her to this community to be initiated into the Church, into the Company of Christ’s people, we are saying that not only will Josephine be a full part of the Church, she will be fully a part of us… not just her immediate family and friends, but the family and household of Christ’s people in all time and everywhere. We are also making a commitment that we… all of us, family, friends, congregation, the community of the faithful… will do everything we can to help her come to know God in Christ and herself as a follower of Jesus and to become a disciple… that she will live her life as a friend and apprentice of Jesus Christ.

The thing is that she will be attending the toughest, most transparent… and the most awkward… Church School there is. Not the one in this parish… although I know that Miss Mary can’t wait to have Miss Josephine join the crew! No, I mean the one in her home. It will be there that she will learn all the wonder and the love and all the possibility, hope, and security of a family daily learning how to be a family. And she will learn firsthand that Jamie and Johnny, her first teachers in the faith, are imperfect, have bad days, and don’t always have all the answers. In about ten to thirteen years, you parents will be begin getting feedback on all those gaps. (Don’t ask me how I know this!).

But that’s okay because we know that by baptizing babies like Josephine that Christian people are all the time raised up in Christian households. Not perfect, but faithful in an everyday kind of way.

Now, if you parents are smart, you won’t try to do this alone or on your own. Just as you will trust teachers to teach, and coaches to coach, and doctors and nurses to do their thing, you will also take part in a community like St. John’s to accompany you, support you, guide you, and show you the practical nuts and bolts of being a person of Christ.

So Josephine… welcome to the Jesus Movement! To paraphrase our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, Welcome to St. John’s branch of the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement!

Welcome to the Movement that received the gift of the Holy Spirit as it came to Jesus’ first followers on Pentecost. That Spirit took a frightened pack of disciples and empowered them to become a brazen bunch of evangelists and ministers who shared the Good News of Jesus with people who were far off and those who were near to their Jewish faith, including people from all over the known world. People who spoke all kind of languages, had all kinds of customs, and all kinds of traditions.

As I’ve said, this baptism that we are about to do is not simply an event to be recorded in the baby book. It is the beginning of an amazing journey of faith that will require time, attention, and intention. Take the time to pray with your child, from grace at the table to nighttime prayers. Share the stories of faith, not only from the Bible or a book of saints, but from your own faith journey (including the questions you struggle with) and the people you admire. Teach her to hang in there, even when things get rough, confusing, or are not according to plan. As you teach Josephine about respect, reliability, doing her chores, manners, showing up for practice, and all the rest, don’t forget to show her also the rituals of the life of faith, and how to look for God in the everyday.

This may come as a shock to you, but as you do this work as a parent, you won’t have to have all the answers. You just have to model that you too are developing those very same seven-fold gifts of the Spirit that we will soon be praying that Josephine will experience. So, show her your own inquiring and discerning heart, take a deep breath and show what it takes to have the courage to will and to persevere, take the time every day to share the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works, especially as you see it unfold in this little person whom you present today for baptism. Because you are—all of you—growing on your faith journeys together.

They call Pentecost "the birthday of the Church" (and I understand that there is cake after Church in coffee hour!) So imagine, the Holy Spirit saying to all of us "welcome to the Church!"

Because what we are doing today is also an object lesson for the rest of us on how to be a Christian community. No Christian is a solitary Christian. So here's what we do. We pray together. We dare to have the courage to be vulnerable. We are discovering that it is okay to trust God while not having all the answers. We show up and are together, even when things are confusing, strange, uncertain, or (gasp!) boring. Because how we choose to be a community of believers together demonstrates how to be faithful to each other, our children, our grandchildren, our neighbors, the community, and the members of our households.

Pentecost was not the only time or the only way that the Holy Spirit arrives. God’s spirit is still present in a mighty way. For when we encounter nothing less than the presence of God in the people God gives us in all their variety, we come to know that we cannot limit who God is and how God acts, no matter how we might try. We who follow Jesus and have been baptized into his Church are called to act on our love of God as much as those first disciples were called to share God’s love. We are to share the love of God freely, without trying to limit who God might love.

All of us from Josephine, our newest member, to those who remember when this congregation first gathered more than fifty years ago, and everyone in-between, we all share the same call: we are to take this Good News that God loves us, and share that gospel in our deeds as well as our words with everyone we meet, and as we leave our worship, going in peace to love and serve the Lord (Alleluia times 3!), we are empowered by nothing less than God’s Holy Spirit, who meets us where are and by grace transforms us into Christ’s people, the people God made us to be. 

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Here is a link to the bulletin for the Feast of Pentecost at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater

Here is a link to the Scripture readings for Trinity Sunday

Here is a link to a video of the sermon.

Here is a link to a video of the liturgy.