"Baptism and Baptism" January 10, 2010

Luke 3:15-22
Acts 8:14-17
For the second time in less than a month, this week, a person attempted to board an airplane, with intent to blow up themselves, the plane and everyone on board. Overhearing reports of this, someone named: “What is it with religion, that people believe God told them to kill themselves and others?”

Despite the Media attention, the point is not Airplane safety. Two persons in a month, both being caught before they caused deaths, out of all the millions of passengers on all the planes flying internationally, does not compare to the dangerous, self-destructive behavior of people in cars, and in their own homes. Despite the Government's concern to increase Airport security those wanting to cause pain will find a way to break through, to harm others. The real point comes back to the observation, “What is it with religion, that people believe God told them to kill themselves and others?”

That is not faith, it is not religion as you and I have affirmed, that is about power and politics and hate. It is too easy to consider all religions as cults and, all of any particular religion as evil. That is instead fanaticism. Believing so completely in your right, that others have no rights, others are no longer human but only political tools of power.

Our Scripture passages this morning, and the circumstances of the day, demand that we differentiate between Religion and Faith, and between Being Open to God & Manipulating gods to what we want. As demonstrated by John the Baptist calling Everyone to be Baptized for Repentance and Jesus being Baptized, at which, a voice from heaven affirms “Thou Art My Beloved With Whom I AM Pleased!
As demonstrated by Philip baptizing the Samaritans, and the Holy Spirit coming upon these...
There is a difference between Baptism and Baptism.
More than the difference between religions, between Believer Baptism or Confirmation, more than the quantity or quality of a person's faith; there are times in our lives when we are open to change/to repent and to receive and to affirm the love of God.

The greatest affirmation I think I have ever heard, was, “I left Church thinking, Huh, when suddenly during the week, it occurred to me Oh that's what that was about!” Faith is not simply understanding, philosophical logic. If it it were, we could, like Simon the Great, each be taught the trick and we could do amazing things: walking on water, healing the blind, deaf and sick, feeding thousands with a few crumbs. The painful reality, is that this means faith is not entertainment, not a spectator sport where we watch unmoved, unchanged. But rather, that FAITH REQUIRES A CONVERSATION. Faith requires our taking in the Scriptures and our experience and integrating these with our questions and doubts and affirmations, to come back for more and different a week later.

Religion, is “the Routinization of Charisma”. Others before us had a faith experience, which changed their lives, their understanding, their experience. At that time, those who believed before us, began making those experiences into regular practices, in order that their children and their grandchildren might have similar experiences of faith. We sing hymns, because something resonates, both in our chests and in our hearing, harmonically, but even more in our fellowship of uniting together. We give gifts at Christmas, both because of the gift we received from God, but also because we each enjoy giving and receiving, knowing that we were thought of and appreciated by others.

I have a confession, that WORSHIP is an act of Religion, like a farmer casting seed upon the whole field, you know that the exact circumstance of every kernel will be different. Some are ready to grow, some are buried in snow, some are buried in overly fertile stuff. Faith comes as we use what is given in worship, what occurs in life and we struggle to make sense.

As human beings we are extremely self-reliant. We like CONTROL. We like routine. A year ago, throughout the Nation, throughout the World, the theme repeated over and over was CHANGE. Yet, very quickly we recognized how hard it is to CHANGE, how unwilling we are to give up what we know. CHANGE requires that we temporarily suspend our control, in order to trust others, to trust doing something new and different, knowing that however temporary we were promised change would be, the world will not be as it once was. Life is continually in motion, in change. REPENTING of what we know, leaving the direction we have gone to try something different is hard and often only comes when we recognize that the direction we have been going no longer works.
We are not programmed to automatically receive. A compliment is offered, a word of thanks given, and we defer, that this is not necessary, we are happy to give. Receiving requires a VULNERABILITY both that others will not hurt us, and that as self-reliant as we may be we are not self-contained. RECEIVING also requires a self-worth that what we have given is APPRECIATED and of VALUE to others. It is hard for us to RECEIVE.

What a Vulnerable Act, for all the Nation to hear John the Baptist preaching, and everyone the whole Nation went to be baptized, everyone went to repent, to change, to hope to receive something that would validate life!
For Jesus, the Messiah to be Baptized, not only for his own repentance, but on behalf of all the world, to be claimed by God, to name that this life is a gift received from God!
How Vulnerable of the Samaritans, who for generations had worshipped the same God as all Israel, had followed the Laws of Kosher, were descended from Moses as the indigenous Nation of Faith, but had been persecuted and rebuffed as impure, half-bred Gentiles, for these to accept Jesus Christ as Savior and ask to be Baptized!

But increasingly, I am convinced, that faith requires this kind of vulnerability, in order for us to receive the Holy Spirit. As CONTROLLING and Scheduled as we are, we do not allow the Spirit to enter in. At 9:30 this morning we worship, At 2pm the SU Game begins, at 4pm is Confirmation Class and at 5pm the Travel Group is having dinner.

Years ago, I contacted 100 congregations that were identified as having each come through extreme circumstances, to discern what they had in common, to better understand how faith happens. And all 100 Churches responded saying we cannot talk about it. Unless you experienced that time, you cannot understand, and we really do not want to go back to that, but we are changed. No one would inflict pain and suffering and conflict on others, but in those times in which we are not in control, the Holy Spirit does act!

Conversely, when everything about faith becomes routine, when there is no room for the Holy Spirit, then we cannot Affirm the Love of God, the Grace of God, because there is no room. Religion becomes a celebration of the past, of power and hate of anything different. Religion needs to continually have tension between routinization of the past and a vulnerability to what might be.

The irony is that as much as Religion is the Routinization of Charisma, attempting to replicate and establish practices to pass along experiences of faith, the routines rarely do. A couple comes to be married, and gathered with both their families, with all the traditions, the hopes and dreams, and flowers and flower-girls, BEING MARRIED is not about the Vows or the Pastor Pronouncing it so. Parents present a child for BAPTISM, yet with family and friends gathered, affirming our love for this child as a Gift from God, BEING A PARENT occurs over a lifetime.