Sunday 16 August 2015

August 16 2015 sermon - Why I Believe In Infant Baptism

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
(Psalm 139:1-16)

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     There was a time in my ministry when I hadn’t really thought very much about why I baptized infants. I just did. I was a United Church minister, after all, and United Church ministers baptized babies. The United Church baptized babies. It was what we did. So I did it. I wasn’t alone in conducting infant baptisms without really having given a lot of thought to the issue from a theological perspective. I had a professor once in theological college who talked about infant baptism in a class on Christian worship. He remembered a phone call he had received when he was a new minister serving his first pastoral charge. “Reverend,” a young woman asked, “do you baptize babies?” “Ma’am,” he says he replied, “this is the United Church. We’ll do anything for you. We’ll dance naked under the full moon if that’s what you want.” The class chuckled nervously at the story - nervously because we knew (or at least hoped) that the professor was joking (I really don’t know of any United Church minister who has ever danced naked under the full moon - and I can assure you that even setting aside the naked part, you don’t want to see me dance!), but we all understood that there was still an underlying element of truth to what he said. Often times, the United Church will do pretty much anything for anyone, and too often the more we’re willing to do anything for anyone, the less meaningful anything we do for anyone actually is because we don’t give it much thought. That often seems to be the case when it comes to baptizing babies. We baptize babies because people want us to; we baptize babies because it’s what we do; we baptize babies because - well - just because. And often that’s good enough.

     It was fatherhood that made me think that perhaps that wasn’t good enough and that I needed to think much more deeply about infant baptism. I was aware of the issues and the church schisms that have erupted between anabaptists (those who baptize only believers - and, therefore, only adults) and paedobaptists (those who baptize people before they’re believers - and, therefore, mostly babies and young children.) Over the years there’s been a lot of bitterness between the two camps, and once it was time to baptize my own daughter, I decided that it was also time for me to decide what was important to me about infant baptism.

     For whatever reason, when thinking about this issue then and since I have always felt myself led to Psalm 139. It’s not about baptism, of course, and I do wonder why God led me to this Psalm to help me understand the whys of infant baptism. I’m quite capable of making an argument in favour of infant baptism from the New Testament, but the more I read the psalm, the more I came to understand that it makes an important point about the nature of God and of our relationship to God. The psalmist’s relationship with God was looked at in many different ways in these verses. No matter what the psalmist was doing, God was with him: “You know when I sit and when I rise ... you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down.” No matter what the psalmist was thinking, God was with him: “you perceive my thoughts from afar. ... you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.” No matter where the psalmist went, God was with him: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? ... If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” If the psalmist moved from the physical world to the spiritual realm, even then God would be with him: “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” God’s presence with the psalmist extended throughout time: “you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. … all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” The psalmist even understood that God’s presence with him extended beyond time itself; that it was a thing of eternity: “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body …” The psalmist is expressing his conviction that God has always been with him; that he has always belonged to God and that he will always belong to God. Nothing he thinks, does or says can change that basic fact about all of human existence: we all belong to God. And it was this insight that helped me to begin to answer the question I raise today in my sermon title: why do I believe in infant baptism?

     The weakness of the sacramental life of the church (and I don’t just mean the United Church) is that it tends to place too much emphasis on us. Think about baptism for a moment. Most infant baptisms revolve around the promises and faith commitments of the parents, so that the baptism becomes about the parents more than either the baby or God and adult baptism places the emphasis squarely on the faith of the believer. I wonder why so much emphasis is placed on those who are receiving rather than on the God who is giving. This can lead too easily into an individualistic, works-oriented faith, in which receiving the sacraments (either baptism or Holy Communion) becomes an end in itself and in which the primary purpose of the church becomes noting what we’ve done to gain God’s favour, rather than acknowledging that, in fact, we’ve done nothing to gain God’s favour - God’s favour has simply been bestowed upon us by the work of divine grace and nothing else. So, why do I believe in infant baptism if I acknowledge some weaknesses in our understanding of it and in how we administer it in the church? It’s because I also recognize that the weaknesses belong to us - they aren’t inherent in the sacrament and they certainly aren’t God’s weaknesses. We may misunderstand the nature and purpose of the sacrament, but that doesn’t render the sacrament meaningless. It simply challenges us to deepen our understanding of the sacrament.

     I believe that, properly understood, infant baptism isn’t an evangelistic opportunity, it isn’t about the promises of the parents and it’s not even about the water. Infant baptism is in fact about divine grace, and it reminds us of a vital truth about our God: God always takes the initiative with us. Infant baptism is an acting out of a spiritual truth: that we are all, in a sense, spiritual infants. We’re helpless, and we’re totally dependent on God to reach out to us. The children we baptized today didn’t have a clue what was happening in their baptism - but that doesn’t matter. What matters isn’t what we understand - what matters is that God acts in our lives long before we have the ability to discern or appreciate God’s activity in our lives, even if we have difficulty seeing God’s activity in our lives now and even if we simply can’t understand what God is doing in our lives. God reaches out to us; we respond to God. To baptize an infant is our way of acknowledging that God is in fact actively at work even now in the life of that infant. To baptize an infant is to acknowledge that God doesn’t depend on either our response or our understanding to act decisively in our lives. Instead, it reminds us that we depend on God to act decisively in our lives before we do or understand anything, and that God does in fact act decisively in our lives even if we do or understand nothing.

     There are a lot of Christians who would disagree with me. Some Christians would be dismissive and even contemptuous of the act of baptizing a child who has no understanding of what’s happening. Others will say that being baptized as an adult makes baptism so much more meaningful to them. That’s certainly true but it misses one vital point - none of this is about us or how we feel - it’s about God and how God acts! What I’ve come to understand is that it’s in the very lack of understanding of the infant being baptized that the sacrament of baptism finds its greatest power.

     This morning we baptized three infants. I rejoice in the fact that God has been active in the lives of Quentin, Benjamin and Brooke since they were born, from the moment they first took shape in their mother’s wombs and in fact even when they were nothing more than a thought in the mind of God. I rejoice in the fact that God has been active in all of our children’s lives and in all of our lives from the very beginning of time, and even before time itself existed.

     So, why do I believe in infant baptism? Because it demonstrates to me that God will always be there for me and with me. It demonstrates to me that no matter how often I turn away from God, God will be seeking to turn me back. It demonstrates to me that no matter how many times I try to hide from God, God will seek me out. It demonstrates to me that no matter how strongly I may have denied God in the past, God was still being faithful to me. It demonstrates to me that no matter how often I may choose to ignore God’s guidance in the present, God will never give up on me. It demonstrates to me that if I haven’t done enough to earn God’s love - and who among us really has - well, God loves me anyway! Why do I believe in infant baptism? Because it demonstrates to me that God is here and that neither my faith nor the lack thereof makes one iota of difference to God’s presence, God’s power or God’s love. I believe in infant baptism because it’s an acting out of divine grace.

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