"Little children come to me"-Sermon for Proper 22, Mark 10:2-16
Similar to two weeks ago, children play a significant role in our gospel lesson today. In fact, this morning’s reading from Mark includes probably Jesus’ most often quoted saying about children, and those, perhaps, familiar words, which I just read, are, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” And as I began thinking about the role that children play and the gifts that they provide in and for our shared life as a church…I began to think this time around about the Sacrament of Baptism. But before I begin to share some thoughts on the baptism of children specifically…I actually want to think first about adults and teens…those old enough to choose baptism for themselves.
So, to begin, I want to say that, in the Episcopal Church, baptism at any age is normative. And, what I mean by that, is that Holy Baptism which is the Church’s Sacrament that represents a beginning of sorts…the inauguration of a person’s relationship with God in Christ…the symbolic, sacred and public moment when we acknowledge God’s claim on our lives…love’s claim on our lives…our place in the family of faith that we call the Church…is available to people wherever they might be in their own life’s journey. Thus, in addition to infants and young children, we, of course, baptize people who have come to know the love of God in their lives, in and through the person of Jesus, as grown-ups or older children or as teenagers. And further, to this end, it is appropriate for families to choose not to baptize their children as infants…but to instead make the intentional choice to wait until that child grows and develops to the place, cognitively, intellectually, spiritually, when they can choose for themselves, at whatever age that might be, to be baptized…to, again, name for themselves God’s claim on their lives…love’s claim on their lives. It has always been a unique blessing in my own ministry when I get to walk this road, the spiritual road to baptism, with teens and adults in particular…to see the love of God set their hearts on fire…to recognize that they are loved by God forever and ever…to realize that God formed them in God’s own image of love…that they have everlasting value and purpose…that they can be like God, a creative force for good, that can bring beautiful things into our world through their own hard work, imagination, and loving care of other’s…those who are lost or lonely or just need a friend. I have often thought that our God-imbued gift of creativity is most wonderfully expressed, not by the things we make with our hands, but by the ways we create hope in the lives of others as we love them well, care for them in need, and help them see the possibilities for a different sort of all-together wonderful future for their own life...see all the ways that their own life matters and has purpose.
And then often follows the moment of conviction and commitment, when these teens or adults whose hearts have been burst wide open by the love of God that has empowered and transformed their lives, choose to make their way to the baptismal font…to publicly affirm their faith and desire to live a holy life…a Jesus-centered life…to be set apart as God’s lover and life-giver in and for the world. This is powerful stuff. Often, accompanying the water poured on a head, is water poured forth in the form of tears…an expression of deeply felt, soul level, emotion that names for the person being baptized and all those blessed to stand as witnesses that this moment is eternal in nature…God touching human…divinity in our midst…a person being born again by water and the Spirit…becoming fully alive…and nothing will ever be the same. So, I will pause for a moment from my reflections and say for those with us who may not be baptized, whatever your age, I hope you will consider praying about it…or maybe be willing to begin a conversation with me about it. That would be a blessing for all of us.
Now, having regaled the gift of traveling with a teen or adult who is baptized into the Body of Christ, which is the Church, I will also say that I find it equally moving and meaningful to journey with a family who is choosing to baptize an infant or small child. For everything that I have already described about the wondrous journey of spiritual awakening that I have experienced with many teens and adults over the years, I have just as powerfully experienced with whole families, with parents and Godparents and siblings and even grandparents, as they have traveled with their little loved one…to the waters of baptism. As these folk have walked with their infant or young child deeper into God’s love-life, I have seen whole families reclaim their place in the Body of Christ, the Church…whole families recognize and remember that God is alive and active in their own lives…flooding them with gifts and blessings…too many to count. I have seen family and friends of the child being baptized purposefully recommit to the vows and promises made at their own baptism, even if many years ago, and, in doing so, profoundly rediscover their own creative capacity to be God’s lovers and life-givers in and for the world.
Moreover, I think for the whole Church, that being all of us, the tradition of baptizing infants and small children provides a couple of profound gifts worth reflecting on. And the first is that it reminds us that we don’t have to wait and see how you turn out to claim you as God’s own…to claim you and welcome you in as a part of God’s own family on earth of which we at St. Julian’s are a part. Baptizing infants and small children reminds us that simply by virtue of being born into this world in the likeness and image of God that we are all worthy of taking our place at God’s table…which we all share. Just as we would typically never do in our literal families, we don’t have to take a “wait and see” approach to welcoming our children into our faith family. From birth to baptism and throughout the lifetime that follows, you are ours, we are yours, and we all belong to God…the One who made us…the first and forever lover of our souls.
And, at least on some days if honest, I for one take great comfort in knowing that God’s claim on my life is not dependent on how I turned out. Don’t get me wrong, generally I am pleased with the choices I have made and find great confidence and comfort in the faith that is alive in me…but surely I have my not so lovely moments…surely I behave, at times, in ways that reflect poorly on the God I follow and love…and surely there have been times in my own journey when doubt crept in and my faith waivered. I, like all, remain both a glorious and messy work in progress. But, through it all, I have taken great comfort in these handful of words in the Preface to Baptism in our book of common prayer, which read, “The bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble.” Or, in my own words, you just can’t wash baptism away. The water that is literally poured on a baptized person’s head may indeed dry up or be wiped away…but the living waters, to which the water in the baptismal font points us, can never be wiped away, they never evaporate…they are, indeed, indissoluble.
As a priest who has participated in dozens of baptisms over the years, the moment in the baptismal service that has become as powerful to me as the moment when water is poured over a head, is when I or another clergy person takes oil…make a sign of the cross on the forehead of the baptized…and utter these words, “You are marked as Christ’s own forever.” Or as I like to say…God is never gonna let you go. And that might sound overly simple and even trite. But in my own darkest days…in my own weakest moments…when shame begins to coil up my body like a snake trying to suffocate me…when I don’t feel like I have been able to be the priest and person someone else has desperately needed…this simple sentiment has literally made the difference…the difference between choosing hope over despair…between choosing pressing on over giving up. And I say this with no overly dramatic flair intended…for which we preachers are infamous…I just mean it. Thus, the choice to baptize infants and young children, and to fully and entirely include them as co-equal family members in the life of the church, is a gift that remains for me a powerful witness to God’s unconditional and never-ending love for all of God’s children however we turn out or show up…on any given day…of our God-given life.
And there is a second gift, though there are of course more, that we can name in baptizing and fully welcoming children into the life of the church…into our life…in this church. And it is a thought I shared just two weeks ago, as I was thinking about Jesus embracing a child in the midst of his grown-up followers, in that particular lesson from Mark. And, basically, what I said is that I think Jesus took a child lovingly into his arms, again, right in the midst of his grow-up friends and followers…because, as grown-ups, it is easy, perhaps understandably so, but still easy to get distracted by the real demands and challenges that bare down on us on all sides, to become jaded by the wounds we endure over the years, to become blinded by the walls we erected around ourselves in the name of self-protection…such that we lose the gift of looking at the world around us and at God’s life in the world with us…from the fresh and hope-filled perspective of a child. Thus, Jesus’ warm embrace of children, in our gospel lesson both two weeks ago and today, is inviting us to remember and reclaim in our own lives a child’s perspective…by listening to and loving and befriending the children in our family of faith…to let them, at least from time to time, be our mentors and teachers. For they have much to teach us and remind us of: the life-giving and energizing fun of playing with each other…the gift of curiosity that opens us up to learn, be shaped and formed…the enthusiasm that comes with excitement for what comes next in a future still full of possibility…the power of imagination that sees potential in whatever simple things lie just before us…a profound faith that really believes that God walks with us and answer our prayers…an innocence that is not naïve but simply believes that people are trying their best and are inherently good…and I could surely go on.
You see each time we baptize a child, we, all of us who make up this family of faith, we make a commitment to see that the child we are baptizing is brought up to know, love and serve the God of love…the God we have already fallen in love with in the person of Jesus Christ. This is a sacred trust…but it is not…it is not for the good of the child only. It is for the good of all of us. For in doing so…as we nurture the life of faith in the children we help raise…we get to remember and reclaim that we too are marked as Christ’s own forever…that God is never gonna let us go…no matter how much smooth and troubled water has passed under the bridge that is our life. And, as we nurture the life of faith in the children we help raise, we get to remember and reclaim a perspective for ourselves that is not…is not childish…but is childlike…a perspective that appreciates play, which leads to discovering joy and meaning in our common work and activities...a perspective fueled by an imagination that sparks creativity as we meet the challenges and opportunities set before us…a perspective that sees in each new person we meet the possibility of making a new friend. For Jesus says it is children of all ages, with just this sort of perspective, to whom the kingdom of God belongs. Amen.