Genesis 3:8-15; 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1; Matt. 28:16-20; Psalm 130

June 10, 2018

Craig Terlson

 

The Both/And of Baptism (Baptism Part Two)

¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”^[d]

 

Last Sunday I talked about baptism being a deep woke moment, a moment of getting it, a moment of awareness, a surrender to someone that is not you. A surrender to God.

As well, I left last week's episode with a question about infant baptism, along with the sprinkling, pouring, immersing, question. I connected those two questions on purpose.

Throughout this past week, in conversation, and with more study, I've wrestled with the question: how can you simultaneously come to awareness (or to "getting it"), and at the same time surrender to something that you might not fully understand. This is a complex question, and can certainly sound like a paradox.
This is a question that has been wrestled with for the last 2 millennia - and is at the heart of infant baptism. The baby obviously can't make a choice? They can't get it... can they? Where is the awareness here? Being aware and making the choice to be baptised has come to be known as believer's baptism. But even that term brings up it's own set of question. What is it that you believe? What do you understand?

The answer, or perhaps the path to an answer, lies in our ability to hold the both/and. We are a polarizing bunch, by we, I mean humanity. We very much lean towards the either/or when faced with a question or decision. Social scientists and historians may argue whether it was always this way. Was there a time, pre-enlightenment, early days of the church where we could better hold opposing ideas? But in our ever-polarizing world, I believe it is harder than ever to hold together this tension. To see that both sides of an issue can have value. Think of some of the beliefs you have, theological, spiritual, political beliefs - how much are you able to hold the other position? It is interesting, that some of our best spiritual teachers are those who can hold the both/and... and Jesus is notably one of the best at this.

In a conversation with a Lutheran friend and professor, I asked her, So what is it about infant baptism (practised in the Lutheran church.) Her answer was that she loved infant baptism, and her reason why is both incredibly simple and complex... It's not about you. (Pause). The moment of baptism is about God coming down. She went on to say that it is arrogant to think that any of us, at any age, actually know what we are choosing. We are simply giving over, surrendering to God, and God comes down... and calls us beloved.

This surrender is not an intellectual decision. An apt metaphor here is the raging river. If you find yourself caught in river, maybe your boat has capsized, and the current is so strong that it rips you along with it, you may fight against it. Your instinct will probably tell you to fight against it. But in doing so, you will get nowhere, and you will exhaust yourself, right to the point of surrendering to the current. And only then, as the current carries you along, do you have a chance of surviving. (Btw, I did look this up, because I've never fallen into a raging river, and didn't want to give you a false metaphor - I liked this piece I found on a survival site: As you are in the water, Look downstream and keep calm, breathe with the flow of the water, to keep from swallowing too much water, until you find a calmer spot... this is a good metaphor.)

But this type of surrender, for some, is problematic when infant baptism is considered. "They (the babies) don't know what they are doing." "They have no say in the matter" And on the other side, like my friend would say, those things that made you decide at 20, 30, 40, or whenever, to get baptised... do you look back upon them and say, oh yes, I totally got it back then, and I think exactly the same way now as I did then. I am guessing not.

The answer is that both of these are right. No matter when we get baptised, we can with humility... humiliation really... surrender to the current of God, like a child, and say yes Lord. We say it with our body, our mind, our hearts, all our selves - this is not an intellectual decision, it is humbly submitting to the current.

And the same goes for those that present their children for baptism. We, the parents get it, and we want to dedicate, bless and give over our child for God to come down and bless... because we get it. And our community gets it. We surrender the child to this current.

(Pause)

Now, to shift a bit... I want to talk about today’s readings, but stay with me – I will return to the both/and.

Today’s reading has often been referred to, and given the subtitle in Bibles as “the great commission.” This term is newer than you might think. It was first coined in the 1600s, but wasn't popularized until 200 years, in the 1800s by British Protestant Missionaries William Carey and Hudson Taylor.

I am going to focus on the most referred to line of this passage, and talk a bit about Greek grammar. Note that when we look at the original Greek or Hebrew in a passage it is not for academic scholarly show-off reasons. But rather, much is to be gained and understood by studying what this message meant to the original hearers. Consider that the Bible you are reading has gone through as many as 8 different levels of translation and interpretation before you read it (for example from oral tradition, to scribes writing and editing it, from scrolls, to books written in original Hebrew and Greek, eventually Latin,  and onward through to the NRSV we hear today.)
So it behooves us to take a closer look.

I’ll do it fast and painless.

In this passage (read the line) there are four key words, go, disciple, baptize and teach. One imperative verb and four participles in the original Greek. And here is where it gets interesting. The imperative is the doing word – for example when I tell my daughter to clean the kitchen, by wiping down, washing, and sweeping. The imperative is clean – do that – and here is how you do it, by wiping, washing, and sweeping (which are the participles.)

Now, which of those four words that I mentioned do you think is the imperative?

When the concept of the great commission was popularized, “go” was taught as the thing to do – go and do these things. But actually, the only imperative is disciple. Going, baptizing and teaching are the participles... the ways that it is done. So this can be understood as you go about your life, do disciple. As you live your life, disciple. As you are baptizing and teaching, disciple. That was and is the call. One last example for this kind of "going" - As you are going to the store, buy some eggs. Buy the eggs is the imperative - and you do this, as you are going.
Why is this important? Well for starters Hudson Taylor and others saw that great commission as something they had to go out and seek and convert and etc… and this was the age of colonialism.

So why all this on the topic of baptism? Because it is part of what we do to form disciples – but right alongside, teaching, and the very comings and goings of our lives, the call is to disciple. So a baby is baptized, as they grow up in a community, or around you, disciple them. A teen is sprinkled, a young adult is immersed, and middle-aged person is poured on – disciple them.

The great both/and of all this is to not try to pick a method, or an age, or even the right theology (which is usually the theology that you agree with). It is to baptize – to invite into discipleship. Thinking in this way of the great commission, and really in so much of Jesus’ teaching, changes the lens of how we view baptism within this. To remember that the imperative it to disciple, as we go along in our lives, as we baptise and teach. Now with a lot of emphasis on the baptising, I wonder if we put the same weight on teaching?

Baptism is a woke moment – a moment of deep awareness, and a moment of surrender. Baptism is full of both/ands, not simply one way. Baptism is part of discipling. Baptism is an invitation to a relationship.

A couple of quotes to leave you with:

Catherine of Siena (14^th century) said, God is closer to us than water is to fish.

And Tertullian, earlier in the 3^rd century (who I mentioned last week as one of the only church fathers who wrote a treatise on Baptism) said,
"But we little fish, like our Fish Jesus Christ, 2 are born in water, and it is only by remaining in water that we are safe."

Discipleship is about being in the water. It is about being immersed – by remaining in water, we are safe. The word baptism... baptizo in the Greek – means immersion.

So how do we immerse ourselves in this water?

Next time…

Discipleship, baptism, and swimming in the water.