Scripture: Psalm 139; Matthew 18:1-5
It may have been because it was two generations ago, or it may have been where I was living or the church I was serving at the time, but when I was beginning my ministry, I would fairly often encounter people who were in a hurry to have their child baptized, not because they didn’t want them to outgrow their baptismal clothing, but for theological reasons.
Sometimes they would say it outright: that they were worried that if the child died before he was baptized that he wouldn’t be received into the arms of God. They didn’t say it in just those words. Nor do I recall anyone just bluntly saying that they believed unbaptized children went to hell, but some people made it clear to me, as we talked, that they believed something like that. And others who didn’t believe that with their conscious minds would sometimes nevertheless seem to have some residual feelings in that direction that they couldn’t just wish away. The attitude might be: No, I don’t really believe that children who aren’t baptized are condemned or punished in some way by God, but on the other hand, I just don’t feel quite right not having my child baptized as soon as possible…and besides, why take any chances.
I never argued. It didn’t seem the appropriate thing to do or the right time to do it. So I would deal with the issue just by trying to explain a little bit of how I understood baptism, which did not include that it was a way to avoid the threat of eternal damnation. And they didn’t argue either. In order for the baptism to take place and for it to have significance for everyone concerned, we didn’t need to agree on exactly what that significance was. And although I obviously don’t share the beliefs or feelings of the people I’m talking about, I also don’t say all this in order to take long distance theological pot shots at people or to portray them in some negative way. They were loving parents wanting to do the right thing for their child.
As a matter of fact, I think I recalled these early experiences, which I had less and less as time went on and certainly have not had since I’ve been at Sojourners, but I think I recall these attitudes that I encountered early in my ministry because in a certain strange way I do connect some with what those people were feeling—at least at the point where they were saying that baptism is not a trifling matter. If on the one hand the eternal fate of a child’s soul does not depend on baptism, neither is baptism just sort of a “welcome to Sojourners” ceremony for Madeline, though it is that, and that’s a good thing. But it’s also more than that, of course, and the occasion of baptism often causes me to pause and reflect on the various meanings contained within it. That’s the case today, and I do find myself reflecting on those ideas I described earlier regarding baptism and wanting not to just dismiss them or scoff them away. Much as I may find myself at odds with that approach to baptism, maybe there’s something there worth thinking about, I say to myself.
Let me start with what I guess could be called the negative side of things. If you’re not in the mood for negative this morning, now would be the time to read the announcements in the bulletin, take a bathroom break, or drift off into a pleasant daydream.
It’s a matter, for me, what I’m thinking about this morning, is a matter of how we think of ourselves. So I recall, or we can just imagine, someone who thinks that a baby needs to be baptized as a condition of going to heaven. One issue here might be whether only Christians are destined for heaven and therefore, whatever their age, need to be baptized before they die. As most of you know, I think, I hope, I have problems with that line of thought, any line of thought that presumes that Christians have some privileged spiritual position, much less a line of thought that says that only Christians have access to a state of eternal bliss. I could get all worked up about that, but that’s not where I want to go this morning.
But the other side of that notion is, of course, the idea that babies are born into a state of sin and that therefore until you are baptized you are not reconciled to God and as a result your soul is in danger. It’s not just a question of whether heaven is a place reserved for Christians. It’s also a question of what in theological terms is often referred to as original sin, and that is where my thoughts are headed this morning.
I doubt that there are too many people in this room who have a positive reaction to that term, original sin, especially if we apply it to babies. The idea that human beings are by nature sinful creatures, not just that we mess up every once in a while, but that we are depraved at the core, that idea is probably offensive to most of us, and, as I say, especially so if it is applied to babies who really haven’t had a chance to mess up very much at all…well, you know what I mean. This is not just a matter of a dogma that seems wrong-headed or maybe wrong-hearted to some of us. It is a matter, as I started to say before, of how we think about ourselves and how we feel about ourselves.
I have known, and you have too, people who thought little of themselves, who felt little of themselves, felt themselves to be worthless, and that is not a matter of an idea you may or may not agree with. Very often it is a matter of great human sadness. People suffer because of it, the person who has such a feeling about himself and the people around him. I believe when people feel that way about themselves, it is something that weighs upon the heart of God. Whatever anyone may feel about the doctrine of original sin as an intellectual construct, there is nothing good that can come from people feeling themselves to be worthless. That is one direction my thoughts go this morning, just toward a kind of quiet prayer for anyone who finds herself in that place, and for anyone who is affected by such a situation. May God penetrate through every such cloud of unworthiness that may surround a person. And may this community of faith help to raise up children, who know they are loved, who know they are of value, who know that they are beloved of God. May we help each other, every one of us, to know that we are beloved of God. We talk about being an inclusive community; it’s one of our core values. But being inclusive is not only a matter of having a diverse congregation. It’s a matter of helping one another to have that deep down sense of being a child of God.
Having said that, I have to say that I think there is something we need to be open to in this notion of original sin. I know it’s a phrase that sounds unappealing, even harsh and threatening. It’s also a phrase that contains more than a few kernels of truth. No matter how much we may recognize that it is our job to help raise up children who know they are beloved of God, no matter how much we may want to do so, no matter how sincerely we may promise to do so, we will do so imperfectly…to say the least. To put it more bluntly, we will fail. We will not totally fail, but we will significantly fail. Just because we do, we human beings. We fail each other in all sorts of ways. We fail ourselves in all sorts of ways. We are, in other words, sinners, and it does seem to sort of go with the territory of being human. To pretend otherwise, would make us guilty of the sin of pride in addition to whatever else we might be guilty of, so there’s really no getting around it.
And yes, even babies do not escape it. It’s true that there’s something very not right about believing that babies are born with some kind of an evil nature. It’s true that they haven’t had much of a chance to fail themselves or anyone else. It’s also true that they are pretty much the definition of self-centeredness, tending to want their own needs and desires satisfied and not caring too much about the needs and desires of anyone else, tending to want to be dry and fed, tending often to be rather insistent about being dry and fed, and not bothering to ask parents whether this would be a good time for them. Of course we don’t look on babies as sinful because of this. But this self-centeredness that is so understandable in babies seems to stay with us long after it has ceased to be so understandable and forgivable. It is certainly one of the causes of our failing each other and of our failing ourselves, not living up to the self we would like to be. It is a life-long part of us, and it has been there from the very beginning. If that is one of the things that might be meant by original sin, then I think we have to confess that there is truth in the notion, and I think it’s important that we confess the truth in the notion. It’s important that this be incorporated into the way we think about ourselves. It’s an important piece of what it means to walk humbly with God.
We are both sinners, if you will, and beloved of God. It is one of those dual truths I was referring to last week where two different things, even contradictory things, are both true at the same time. In this case the two ways of thinking of ourselves are not really contradictory, strictly speaking. There is nothing about being a sinner that is logically inconsistent with being beloved of God. But very often they can be difficult notions to hold together in the ways we feel about ourselves. To confess our humanity, frail and filled with failures as it is, and at the same time to know and believe in our souls that we are from God, of God, belong to God, are beloved of God is sometimes not such an easy thing to do. It is, however, what we are called to do.
I chose Psalm1139 as one of our scriptures for this morning because in its own way it seems to me to express this sensitivity that I’m trying to describe. The Psalm puts it in terms of trying to run away or flee from God. Nevertheless, it says, no matter much we may try to do that, we belong to God through and through. It’s who we are. It’s who God is.
I chose the reading from Matthew for somewhat of a different reason. The disciples are reported to ask Jesus who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. A somewhat strange concept if you ask me, since in my vision of the kingdom of heaven the idea of greatest will disappear. But they ask. They do things like this, and it allows Jesus to make a point. He brings a child into the center of the circle. “Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” He lifts up the humility of the child. But maybe another way to put this is that the kingdom of heaven will come about when we are able, when we are all able, to see ourselves, to feel ourselves, to understand ourselves to be nothing more and nothing less than children of God. I believe that is what baptism does for us. It is one of the ways that makes most clear for us our identity as children of God. It is not, of course, that baptism places Madeline within the Christian community and that therefore she becomes a child of God. It is that baptism places Madeline within the Christian community and that from within this Christian point of view everyone is a child of God, everyone is a gift from God, something more than flesh and blood and air and water, something much more than that, made up of wonder and of the capacity to love and to grieve and to reach out for God. Baptism points to that truth about who we are, and when we enter into that truth, truly the kingdom of God is at hand. Amen.
Jim Bundy
July 13, 2008