Listen to this sermon on baptism by Pam Osborne or read it below:
A month ago I told a friend that my pastor and his wife had invited me to speak on the occasion of their infant daughter’s baptism, and she said, “What a joyous and solemn occasion!” I must admit that when I’m sitting in a pew and a baby is being baptized, I’m just thinking about the “joyous” part—the cute little baby (how they are dressed, whether they are crying), the proud parents, grandparents, godparents—everyone beaming). So her comment about it being also a solemn occasion brought me up short. I felt the need to review…what is baptism anyway?…why do we do it?…what is its role in a baby’s life?
I looked up “baptism” on Wikipedia. It says, “Baptism is a Christian rite of admission or adoption, almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also a particular church tradition.” We baptize partly because Christians have done it as long as there have been Christians—for twenty centuries—and we’ve been doing it that long because we know that Jesus was baptized and because Jesus told his disciples to baptize. This much I knew.
What I didn’t know though was that when Christianity was young, baptism was a defining act of the church. For the first couple of centuries non-baptized persons were not allowed into the place where communion was being served. They had to remain out in the narthex until the service was over. They could sing and listen and pray along with the congregation; but until their baptism was complete, they were not allowed to worship with everyone else.
At that point in history, people didn’t just decide to be baptized. The students studied hard for two years and then were baptized at dawn on Easter morning – naked. Be honest…how many of you would be baptized today if we baptized only adults…in public…naked? Do I even need to research why infant baptisms came along?!
This is a solemn and joyous day, but…wouldn’t you think if it’s that monumental that we’d remember something about our own baptism—the day, the events, the pledges? But, of course, that’s not likely since most of us were baptized as infants. I was baptized as a baby by my paternal grandfather, a UCC minister, in the front room of my maternal grandparents’ home. But my first conscious memory of anything to do with God was marching off to Sunday School to the hymn Onward Christian Soldiers. When I was in seventh grade, I made my first commitment to God when I joined the Methodist Church. I mostly dropped out of church-going in college, attended more regularly during graduate school when I began dating a young Catholic man, perhaps as a balance for attending mass with him, but as mid twenty-somethings we both quit going.
And then came my first big life crisis—after six years of dating and a wedding on the horizon, my fiancé was killed in an industrial accident. I was devastated. He and I were a world unto ourselves, and I felt very much alone. And, looking back, this is where my baptism first kicked in. The Sunday schools…Bible schools…the confirmation classes, church attendance…had planted seeds that lay dormant through years of neglect. Now God watered them with my tears, and the seeds sprouted and grew. My infant baptism was the birth of a life of growth. On that day, I became an adopted daughter of God, and He waited patiently for me for many years. I was part of God’s family all that time. He led me to new friends and a new church. If you remember your baptism, you remember that you are not alone. You remember that the family of faith not only needs from you but prays for you. I learned I could rely on God to always be there. He was unchangeable, and life had shown me that nothing else was. He remains that constant in my life today. He has seen me through other crises—infertility, separation, divorce, deaths, and still He is there holding me, loving me, seeing me through.
Baptism is not just the isolated event of community and water and spirit and prayer. It is the journey of life, the ongoing blessing and promise and the ongoing call to ministry to each one of us, not just the ordained. We can remember our baptism because it is not just that thing that happened perhaps before we could form memories, but it is the grace that continues to this day and on into the future. It pledges us to a process of faith throughout life. I can look back over the decades in my life and see the evolution of my walk with God, and what I am called to this year. It is how I can remember my baptism, and each of you can do the same.
I may not remember the details of my baptism day literally, but I remember my daughter’s. I dressed her in a beautiful red and white dress, white tights, black patent-leather shoes. She looked gorgeous with her dark eyes and hair. During the ceremony she played a little game, and demanded to be passed back & forth between her Dad and me, much to the entertainment of the congregation. But I also remember thinking solemnly about what I was promising as a parent…that I would raise this child with the knowledge of God’s love. I wanted to impart to her the qualities mentioned in today’s scripture—compassion, kindness, forgiveness, gratitude, joy…no small task.
My parental vow was put to the test when she was a teenager. By that time, I was a single mother. Almost every time we arrived in the church parking lot on Sunday morning, she’d huff out of the car whining, “Dad never makes me go to church when I’m with him. I don’t see why I have to go with you.” My reply was always the same…“Because I made a promise when you were baptized, and I intend to keep it. When you get to be eighteen, you can decide for yourself whether you want to go to church or not, but my job is to plant seeds that I hope will be there for you when tough things happen in your life—as they do to most of us at one time or another—and I want you to have God to fall back on.” As soon as she went away to college, she did stop attending church. Occasionally when she’s home for a visit, she attends here. She knows a few people—Joan Blair was her kindergarten teacher, Barb Harlan is her godmother, she knows the Fites, and Jean Matthews’ welcoming smile. When she was home for Mother’s Day this year, she came and brought her significant boyfriend with her. They sat towards the back. From my perch in the choir, I watched for hints of the old eye rolling and saw only occasional whispers back and forth between them. When we got home that day, I asked her what she thought of the anthem. “The choir sounded good,” she said politely and then went on, “Everyone is so friendly in that church. Robert and I were saying that we’d love to find a church just like it where we live.” Germinating seeds.
My mother had a tradition that I treasured. After I moved away from home, every year on my birthday she would call me and say, “I remember the day you were born.” And then she’d tell me the story. She didn’t put in the gory details of how many hours of labor it was or anything like that. It was more the story of the joy and the thrill my birth had brought her and how it had changed her life. When she died eight years ago, my father, who was never one for talking on the telephone, took over the tradition and began calling me on my birthday saying, “I remember the day you were born.” And I heard the story from another point of view—how he’d paced and waited in the waiting room with his mother-in-law because that was before the days when fathers were allowed in the delivery room—how he’d passed out cigars and even smoked one though he didn’t smoke. Many of you know that I lost my father in January, and my birthday this April was rough. I was in tears off and on all day long. I had heard my story for the last time. I went to bed with swollen eyes, woke up at 2am, and tossed and turned until dawn.
The next morning’s familiar drizzle matched my mood. That afternoon the phone rang…a familiar voice I couldn’t place. “You don’t know who this is, do you?…This is your Aunt Wana!”—my mother’s sister who lives in Michigan. She said, “I’m so sorry to be calling late for your birthday. I looked all day yesterday for your phone number but couldn’t find it, and I was so frustrated.” Now…I don’t remember my aunt ever calling me on my birthday before; plus she has Alzheimer’s so for her to remember that it was my birthday, persevere an entire day to find my phone number, and then manage to dial all ten digits of it were all part of a miracle. I was speechless. Before I could find a response, she continued, “Well, I just had to call you and tell you that…I remember the day you were born.” What wondrous, welcome words. We had a wonderful chat and sometime after I went out to get the mail. There was a birthday card from my aunt and uncle in Bellevue—in my uncle’s handwriting for the first time ever. His handwritten note inside said, “How well I remember the day you were born.” It felt like God herself was celebrating…my birth…my life. She even put it in writing for me. It was one of the most powerful experiences of my life…to know I am loved by God so passionately.
And this is part of what today is for…we are witnesses of the baptism of a family member. Some day in the future she may come visit us long after her family has moved away…to visit her Daddy’s first church. And some one of us or ones of us are going to go up to her and say, “Oh Danalyn! How nice to see you! I remember the day you were baptized!” And we’ll tell her the story. And she will feel anew how much God loves her.
So today is both joyous and solemn. Baptism is the beginning of a person’s spiritual journey. It’s the beginning of knowing how passionately we are loved by God. We baptize because we Christians always have. We baptize to initiate new Christians into the faith. We baptize to remember our own baptisms. Baptism is a symbolic act, but it’s not what forges our spiritual and religious character. That’s why we promise with God’s help as parents, as teachers, and as a congregation to help this child along her faith’s path the best we know how. In a sense this baby is baptized through her eyes and her ears every time she comes to church here—by the love and warmth of us all. Danalyn, we’re all here for you. Welcome to the family!