All Saints Sunday -- Baptism. 2021

All Saints

Opening

Will our children have faith?

A formative book call my teacher from my early ministry. He has asked a fundamental question that has stayed with the church as far as I could tell for 30+ years.

An old joke from 100 years ago ask the question, when is a school not a school? The answer is, when it is a Sunday school.

What the church has done for generations to try to pass on the faith to our children has by and large failed. Right at the present moment even the question of what school is is being fundamentally challenged around the country. We don’t know what a school is for in a time when there is disagreement about what is truth, and truth or falsehood is seen to be for an individual to choose. But if that’s the case it is even more in question how one passes on the faith that gives us life through Jesus Christ.

The basic insight of Westerhoff is to shift the focus of how Christian formation is passed on to our children. In his words, no longer is it helpful or wise to emphasize schools, teachers, pupils, curricula, classrooms, equipment, and supplies. Instead we need to focus our attention on the radical nature and character of the church as a faith community.¹

Westerhoff asks the question whether our children will have faith in the future. His basic answer is that it depends on whether we have faith now. ### Baptism is a community Possibly the most important lesson I have had about baptism in the course of my ministry was discovering the author Vincent Donovan and his book Christianity Re-discovered.

His lessons have to do with basic questions like:

• Is Christian faith just for individuals or is it for the community?
• If it is for the community, as he argues, is baptism about the whole community in its wide diversity? Or is it about a select few who are in the know?
• Is Christianity about passing on a culture and cultural values? Or is it about something else which is more transcendent, more universal, more all encompassing?

Donovan presumed an age old pattern of baptism which culminates a process of deep and thorough formation. At the end of a months long process, he came to the village chief and announced that he was ready to baptize. He identified one person who had not attended any of the meetings, and he would not be baptized. He had spent his time herding cattle. There were another two who had paid attention and learned much of what he talked about, so they would be baptized. This other one did not show enough attention and would not be baptized. And on he went, evaluating each person in the village.

The old man, Ndangoya, stopped me politely but firmly. "Padre, why are you trying to break us up and separate us. During this whole year [in Maasailand, Tanzania] that you have been teaching us, we have talked about these things when you were not here, at night around the fire. Yes, there have been lazy ones in this community. But they have been helped by those with much energy. There are stupid ones in the community, but they have been helped by those who are intelligent. Yes, there are ones with little faith in this village, but they have been helped by those with much faith. Would you turn out and drive off those lazy ones and the ones with little faith and the stupid ones? From the first day I have spoken for these people. And I speak for them now. Now, on this day one year later, I can declare for them and for all this community, that we have reached the step in our lives where we can say, ‘We believe’".

I looked at the old man Ndangoya. "Excuse me, old man," I said. "Sometimes my head is hard and I learn slowly. ‘We believe,’ you said. Of course you do. Everyone in the community will be baptized."² ### Baptism is a Journey The story of baptism is a story about the journey of a community of faith. That journey has lasted for several thousand years and it will continue for an unknown number of years and beyond to where years do not measure time. As Hebrews 12 1 to 2 put it,

12 So then, with endurance, let’s also run the race that is laid out in front of us, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. Let’s throw off any extra baggage, get rid of the sin that trips us up, 2 and fix our eyes on Jesus, faith’s pioneer and perfecter. He endured the cross, ignoring the shame, for the sake of the joy that was laid out in front of him, and sat down at the right side of God’s throne. ### Baptism is not about passing on cultural values. Donovan is among those who have taught us over the last century that there is a difference between cultural values and gospel values. Has he tried to share the good news of the risen Christ in Tanzania he experienced firsthand that often what he was trying to share was European modern values. ### Baptism is cosmic The fellowship all the saints to which Anna Claire and Reid are being initiated today is a fellowship governed by cosmic values. These values honor and respect local values of all kinds of great diversity.

Though they are being baptized in this local community of Saint Paul's episcopal church in Monroe North Carolina, they are at the same time made citizens of the kingdom of God.

I heard a bishop of Aotearoa (New Zealand) speak in Hawai'i. He was a natural story-teller. Clearly a man of God. And I sat at his feet enthralled. He wrote a little book about what it is like being a Christian from the perspective of a Pacific Islander. It took my breath away when he illustrated that for most westerners the ocean was the thing that divides. It makes continents. It separates islands from one another. But from the perspective of his life, the oceans are the thing that connects humans and gives life.

The stories of a boy with a makeshift driftwood canoe anticipating the future; Winston and his father catching fish from the sea to feed their family; the story of a pectoral cross once belonging to St. Peter Chanel being given to Fine Halapua when he was consecrated as an Anglican bishop and now worn by Winston; the sharing of food on the altar of the Anglican cathedral in Suva, Fiji, with people after sheltering from a hurricane; -- these stories and more are parables of hope, grace, ecumenical friendship and generosity. The stories emerge from life in Oceania where the sea is not seen as boundary or limitation but as part of the created order. ³

The baptism that we celebrate today is much more than a once and for all event. It is initiation into a journey that will take a lifetime to complete. The faith that we proclaim here today is not a static faith but a verb. When we say I believe we are addressing God with the word yes. yes we will. Yes we are prepared to follow you. Yes we are prepared to except forgiveness when we fall down. ### Baptism is about what we do We profess a threefold trust in father son and holy spirit.

The promises involved in the baptismal liturgy emphasize that baptism is a journey, it is an action, it is not a set of beliefs, or exclusive set of doctrines.

We are ourselves addressed by a series of questions:

• Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers?
• Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
• Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
• Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
• Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

And to each of the questions we respond with: I will with God's help.

There is a process of life-long learning that we agree to. And a commitment to finding ways to pass it on to the next generation. At every stage of the way learning can only take place if we are sensitive to age-appropriate methods and we pay attention to whether our words match our actions.

All of us will fall short. All of us must seek forgiveness. Those are the kinds of actions that will speak by themselves. "Proclaim the Gospel at all times and use words if necessary."

"Seek and serve Christ in all persons." That is a formidable thing to agree to. To recognize the likeness of God in all persons! With God's help I may be able to find my way.

To work for justice and peace. Among all people. We will say we will do it. But whence comes such hubris? With God's help I may be able to find my way.

Baptism is cultivating virtues

Promises will be made. A vision of the kingdom will be floated before us today. There is an ancient tradition of 7 virtues which outline the task for all of us:

• wisdom and discernment
• appreciation of justice and equity
• courage, perseverance, stamina to run the race
• humility, prudence, moderation
• faith and trust that God will indeed help us
• hope, seeing the paradoxes of the world as evidence of God's abiding care
• love, for one's self, one's family, one's neighbor, your neighbor's neighbor and so on unto the trillionth generation.

Commission

Anna Claire and Reid have come before us today, through their parents, asking to be included in the fellowship of All the Saints. I will with God's help. That's what we offer Anna Claire and Reid today.

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1. p. 52 Westerhoff, John. Will our children have faith↩

2. p. 92 Donovan, Vincent. Christianity Rediscovered↩

3. 16. vii Halapua, Winston. Waves of God's Embrace; sacred perspectives from the ocean
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