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1 Davidson College Presbyterian Church Davidson, North Carolina Bill Tiemann, Parish Associate Baptism - the Sealing of the Word Matthew 3:1-6, 13-17; 28:16-20 October 19, 2008 Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time Today is the last of the series of sermons we have been doing on the parts of the liturgy, the order of worship. It is called: Baptism, the Sealing of the Word. Now, as you well know if you ve been following this series, we re a bit mixed up on the order. The two sermons today, Shelli s and mine, should have been preached two Sundays ago. Kathy and Julie s sermons on the Lord s Supper as the Sealing of the Word should have been preached last Sunday, and today should have been Lib s sermon on Bearing the Word into the World. But you also know that in the Presbyterian Church, sentiment trumps theology, at least sometimes. Today at 11:00, we will baptize two young children of the covenant, so we saved these sermons on baptism till today. Since there is no baptism at this service, we didn t want you to feel left out, so later we will have a reaffirmation of our baptismal vows, always appropriate on a baptismal Sunday. Let me begin by reading two lessons from Matthew; the first is the baptism of Jesus; the second is his final command to his disciples to go out into the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them as a mark of their discipleship. ***************************************************************************** I love John Kuykendall s story, which he credits to a former governor of Mississippi, about the two old guys in a small town square, hashing over the events of the day. Finally, they get around to discussing theology. One of them asks the other: Do you believe in infant baptism? The other guy says, Hell, man, I not only believe in it; I ve seen it. Well, in this congregation we have seen a lot of infant baptisms over the last few years, and we re about to see a lot more. Depending on who s counting, we will have 12 to 14 new babies added to our congregation in the next six months. That s good news for us all. Since we always hear that the church is one generation away from extinction, at least our branch will continue a bit longer. But what do we believe about baptism? James Brownson, in his fine book on baptism, calls this act the sacrament of promise. (1) It is a sacrament that puts God s mark on a child and looks forward to, who knows what, in the life of that child. It s a sacrament that marks that child with a particular stamp that is forever a part of that child s life. Every child born into this world is a child of God. But in baptism, that child is also stamped as a Christian. It s a mark of its entrance into a certain community that is in, but not of, the world a community of disciples who do their best to follow the teachings of Jesus. That s who we are in this congregation people who are trying to follow the teachings of Jesus. 1

2 Now, how does that work out? Let me give some personal examples. My home congregation was in a German-Lutheran farming community, not far from San Antonio, in South Central Texas. We lived in a typical farmhouse about three miles east of Seguin, my home town. Every Sunday we would drive into town to Emanuel s Lutheran Church, our home church. Seguin was also the home of Texas Lutheran College, now called Texas Lutheran University. Our church was a large one, made up of college faculty and students, townspeople, and hundreds of German farmer families like our own. The early service was always in German; the later one in English. We alternated going to one or the other. We were served by a pastor who had obtained both a theology and a law degree from the University of Chicago. In the dining room of our home, hanging in a prominent place, were three beautifully framed and elaborately designed certificates. In the center was the marriage certificate of my mother and father. One either side were their baptism certificates. All were in classic German script. Every day of my young life I saw those baptism certificates, and in some unconscious way, they impressed themselves on my brain, so that baptism has always been a holy and very special sacrament in my life. From my earliest years I knew I also had been baptized, and it always seemed strange to me to go to school and meet up with the few Baptists kids in town who wouldn t be baptized until they grew up a bit, and accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and then were dunked, as they called it. Ours was a whole different theology of baptism, the kind that believes that there should never be a time in your life when you do not know the love of God, and the grace of Christ, and are not included as a member of the holy Catholic Church-- although in our Lutheran version of the Apostles Creed, we always said holy Christian Church. Luther influence was still around. Even though our confirmation would come later in life, none of us young children ever felt left out as part of the larger church around us. We were just as much a part of the church family as our parents were, even though we could not go up to communion and get a sip of wine, or vote in a congregational meeting. Every Wednesday night now, when I see the mobs of children of our church in the Congregation House, running and playing inside and out, I have that same feeling about them. This is their church family, as much as it is the church family of their parents. This is what it means to be a covenant community, a theology of the church which both Lutherans and Presbyterians, and many other denominations, believe and practice. The members of the church, we say officially, are the parents, together with their children. We are included from our birth, and the sacrament of baptism affirms that, rather than creates it. But once a child is baptized, that is not the end, as some would imply when they ask: Has that child been done, yet? Really, baptism is only the beginning for the child, and for the church community, of what we call growth in grace. It is what we said earlier a sacrament of promise. It looks to the future. 2

3 My own growth in grace took place in a basement Sunday School room, under the parish hall of the church. In the winter the basement was cold; when it rained, it was damp; sometimes it was both cold and damp. It always smelled moldy. But that was where we children met. The morning began with an assembly on one side of the basement, with all of us singing a hymn, hearing a prayer given by the Sunday School superintendent, and listening to any announcements that were made. Then, we split up into our rooms, which were not really rooms at all but curtains separating the rest of the basement into half a dozen spaces. We sat at U shaped tables, with the teacher in the middle and the students in small chairs around the outside. It was a good arrangement, because we were all within reach of the teacher, with a Bible in her hand, if we got out of line. There was a lesson leaflet for every one of us, one single page folded. On the cover was usually a picture of Jesus or one or more of the disciples, illustrating whatever the lesson was about inside. The pictures were always in color, and I think the same artist did every one, every year. There was a Bible memory verse inside, and then the lesson, most likely a story about Jesus or one of his parables. It was usually paraphrased, because the only Bible we had in those days was the King James Version, and most of us little kids either couldn t read it, or make a lot of sense out of it. The teacher read the lesson verbatim from the leaflet and then always gave us some moral advice about what it meant. She did her best, and while I can t recall any one of those lessons now, the sum total of them represents who I am today. The way we got out of that smelly basement was to grow up to be 12 or 13, old enough to be enrolled in the confirmation class. No one ever asked if we wanted to be enrolled; we just were. We met from September to Palm Sunday, every Saturday afternoon from 2-4, in the parsonage living room. The pastor was the teacher. Mostly it was memory work: learning the Lord s Prayer, the Apostle s Creed, the Ten Commandments, and three Psalms: 23, 46, and 121. When we had them down, we began to memorize Luther s Smaller Catechism. We knew we had to, because on Palm Sunday we would be called on to stand before the whole congregation, and together recite the three psalms, and then, individually, give an answer to one of the questions in the catechism. That last part was really scary. We had to learn by heart what the catechism said about of the Ten Commandments, the different parts of the Apostle s Creed, the Lord s Prayer, and the two Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord s Supper. In getting ready for this sermon, I went back to Luther s Catechism to see what it said about baptism. I had forgotten what I had once memorized, but when I saw the words again, they were familiar. Luther asks: What is baptism? The answer: Baptism is not simply water, but it is the water comprehended in God s command, and connected with God s Word. What gifts or benefits does baptism confer? Answer: It worketh forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and confers everlasting salvation on all who believe, as the Word and the promise of God declare. (2) 3

4 Just for the fun of it, I looked up these same questions in the fairly new Study Catechism of our Presbyterian denomination. Here is what it says: What is baptism? Baptism is the sign and seal through which we are joined to Christ. Then: What does it mean to be baptized? Our catechism says: My baptism means that I am joined to Jesus Christ forever. I am baptized into his death and resurrection, along with all who have received him by faith. As I am baptized with water, he baptizes me with his Spirit, washing away all my sins and freeing me from their control. My baptism is a sign that one day I will rise with him in glory, and may walk with him even now in newness of life. (3) Once again, the emphasis is on the future; not only something done but also on something promised. I remember two things about Confirmation Sunday. One was that for the first time in my life, I owned a suit. It was powder blue, and with a white shirt and tie, I was so proud. The second thing I remember, even more clearly, is that for the first time in my life, I tasted wine. Lutherans were not teetotalers, like the Baptists. We served real wine for communion. Everyone sipped from the same cup. My first sip was like a revelation for heaven what liquid could taste so good? It seemed like molten silver, and slid off my tongue like burning fire. In later years, as an adult, I drank a bit of wine with meals, and sometimes without, but none of it ever tasted like that. But one day, I finally recovered that taste. It was at some elegant party and the glass I was served turned out to be expensive golden sherry. That was the taste! Those German Lutherans were never tacky when it came to buying their communion wine. After confirmation it was assumed that you stopped going to Sunday School and joined the youth group, called Luther League. The best things about that were the games we played on the church lawn every Sunday afternoon, the suppers we had in the basement, and the Sunday afternoon trips every fall and spring to San Antonio, to Grace Lutheran Church, for a joint meeting of all the Luther Leagues in San Antonio and the surrounding towns. Hundreds of kids just like us; so cool. I have no recollection of those programs. I assume we did something like sing and pray and hear a sermon, and probably had supper. But the gathering was the important thing. I loved the crowd. Obviously, we had all been baptized, and that made us one body in Christ. It was not until seminary that I first heard the words: Your baptism is completed with your confirmation; it s always a two step process. At baptism, our parents and the congregation take vows on our behalf. At confirmation, we take them for ourselves. The second step. That s the way it happened for me, although I never knew it at the time. That s the way it should happen for our children. I wish I could write as simply and beautifully as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. In his little book, Token s of Trust, (4) he write about what comes next after confirmation. He describes how being a Christian is never a solitary thing, but always being part of a community in which we serve and share our gifts, and where others serve and share their 4

5 gifts. And the best of these communities is not one where everyone is concerned to show off their own gifts, but where everyone makes sure than everyone else has a chance to serve and share their unique gifts for the good of all. He even has a searching word for us ministers. He says that the church is not the place for us to display our gifts, but the place for us to serve as examples about how we allow others to share their gifts. When I look back on my ministry, sometimes I feel embarrassed about the times I didn t always live up to that. I don t want to leave Williams. He has more to say. Let me quote: The church is the community of those who have been immersed in Jesus love, overwhelmed by it. Those who have been baptized have disappeared under the surface of Christ s love and reappeared as different people. The waters close over their heads and then, like the old world arising out of watery chaos in the first chapter of the Bible, out comes a new world. So when the church baptizes people, it says what it is, and what sort of life its people live. Baptism is an event in which the sharing between holy people comes to light and we see what the church really is, a community in which people are constantly being brought into a new life, by being given a new relationship with God and each other. (5) So that s where baptism leads. It s more than name giving; it s more than parents and others taking vows. It s more even than taking those vows for ourselves. It s when we realize that by taking those vows we are forever a part of a sacred community of God s people, who together hear God s word, who together share the love he shows to us, and who together support each other at all times--for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. That s the church, where we baptized ones together share in this world the marriage feast of the Lamb. And the promise is there that one day we, and all those of every other race and clan, will sit together at a much larger table that the Lord spreads for all those who are his,-- a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, in the words of Isaiah and there he will swallow up death forever. (6) When that happens, finally, the waters of baptism will have had their completion. Amen 1. James V. Brownson, The Promise of Baptism, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans (2007) 2. Luther s Small Catechism, Philadelphia, The United Lutheran Publishing House (no date) 3. The Study Catechism, Full Version, Louisville, Geneva Press (1998), p Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust, Westminster John Knox Press (2007), p. 108 ff. 5. Ibid., p Isaiah 25:6, 7 NRSV 5