“Baptized into Ministry”

Pentecost Sunday

Sunday May 23, 2010

Genesis 11: 1-9

Psalm 104: 24-34, 35b

Acts 2: 1-21

It is quite appropriate that we have the opportunity to celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism on Pentecost Sunday.

After all, the day of Pentecost was also a day of baptism, albeit of a slightly different sort than the baptism that we celebrated today.  Fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, and only a few days after his Ascension, the disciples and followers of Jesus – who had been instructed to go back to Jerusalem and wait for a gift from God to be sent to them – were transformed by the experience of receiving God’s Holy Spirit.  That baptism in the Spirit changed them – and the Church, and the world – forever.

Before that moment, the disciples had been confused, unsure and unclear of what to do next, in light of the fact that Jesus was no longer with them.  They had been told to go and to wait in Jerusalem for a mysterious and unexplained gift that Jesus had promised would be sent to them.

It was difficult to wait; and Peter, at one point, found it so difficult to wait that he set out to find a twelfth disciple to replace Judas Iscariot.  But then, on the day of Pentecost, as they were gathered together, the promised gift of God’s Spirit was unleashed among them and within them.  We read, “and suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”

The experience was so overwhelming that they could not keep it to themselves.  They poured out of the house in which they were staying, and began to speak to the gathered crowds that were assembled in Jerusalem. 

And quite a crowd it was.  Just over a week ago, Sandy Aird and I were speaking, and he was jokingly lamenting the strange list of words that he was going to have to read in today’s passage.  “Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia…” and the list goes on.  We might laugh at having to read such a strange list of names, but the point of the passage is that those first disciples were given a Spirit that not only helped them to pronounce those names, but to speak to all of those cultural, ethnic and linguistic groups in words that they could understand and comprehend. In a striking metaphorical undoing of the confusion of languages that is described in the story of the city of Babel, the disciples’ words were demonstrating that the power and the presence of God’s unifying, loving, enfolding and inspiring Spirit was a gift that was intended for all people of all languages and cultures.

The ministry of the Church -- inspired and empowered by God’s Holy Spirit – began on that Pentecost day, so long ago.  It was, quite literally, a baptism by fire, as the Spirit was poured out upon the Church, and the Church was baptized into ministry.

And the world has never been the same.

So what does this have to do with Jean-Jacob’s baptism?

Baptism is a wonderful and multi-faceted experience in the Christian life. 

But one of the dimensions that we cannot, nor should not overlook is the fact that baptism signals the moment when a new life is joined into the ministry of the Church and the ministry of Jesus Christ in this world.  Even as the early Church was baptized into the ministry on the day of Pentecost, so too each one of us is baptized into ministry when we are baptized in water and the Spirit on the day of our baptisms. 

But, some might say, how can we speak of infant children being baptized into ministry in the Church?  Isn’t the baptism of an infant little more than a nice sentimental, somewhat archaic cultural ritual that we celebrate close to the beginning of the life of a newborn?  And isn’t ministry something that is done ‘to’ children, and ‘for’ children, and both ‘to’ and ‘for’ most of us by people who have been ordained to become ministers and thereby exercise their ministries?  Isn’t ministry something that is done by specially trained individuals who wear strange collars and only work on Sunday mornings?

Far from it.

The fact is that every baptized person has tasks, callings and responsibilities to fulfill if the Church is going to live up to its true potential in the world.  Without a doubt, ministers and clergy have certain roles and responsibilities to perform – but each and every one of us has been called by God to seek to discern and discover our talents and our abilities, and then to find ways to use those talents and skills in our common task of being the Church, of seeking to establish, in this world, a community that is shaped by the love, the peace, the justice and the holiness of God.  When Jesus invited his followers to “seek first the kingdom of God”, he was not just talking to clergy; he was talking to all of us.  When he invited his followers to go and to declare good news, he was talking to all of us.  When he commanded his friends to go and to live in love, to care for those in need, and to reveal, in their words and actions, that the reign of God had begun, he was talking to all of us.  Every one of us is called to be involved in ministry.

And, all these many centuries later, his words have been fulfilled; and his words are being fulfilled, in so many ways.

Consider, after all, that even though we seldom stop to ponder the strange and remarkable phenomenon that is the Church of Jesus Christ in this world, it is a sociological and histoical reality of unprecedented scope and diversity.  On every continent, in every language, in every cultural group, at every level of educational and economic status, across political and ideological lines, the followers of Jesus Christ are at work.  Followers of Christ, baptized in water and in Spirit of God, are continuing to declare good news, to do justice, to live with love, to hold up the noble ideal of forgiveness, to strive to make the reign of God’s love a reality in this world.

And this is the movement into which Jean-Jacob is being baptized.   Jean-Jacob is not simply being baptized into the organization of the Church, but rather into the organism that is the Body of Christ in this world.  In the simple elemental symbol of water, a new spiritual reality is being revealed.

But just as we need to accept that every baptized person is called to be involved in ministry, it is equally important to ponder the nature of that ministry – and, perhaps more specifically, to ask ourselves whose ministry it is that we are called to accomplish?

The truth is that those of us who have passed through the waters of baptism are not undertaking our own ministries, but rather that we are continuing the ministry of Jesus Christ.  It is into Christ that we are baptized; it is into the Spirit that was sent on the day of Pentecost that we find the power to achieve what God calls us to do; it is, therefore, into Christ’s purposes, Christ’s intentions – Christ’s ministry -- that we are called to dedicate our lives.  To put it another way, we should not ask ourselves what ‘our’ ministry is, but rather how Christ wants to accomplish ‘his’ ministry in us.

It is when we realize that it is into Christ’s ministry that we are baptized that we begin to realize that every baptized person – whether young or old – can achieve something for the cause of Christ, regardless of their own abilities or their own power.

Consider, for example, the ministries that Christ can accomplish in and through even infant children. 

Go into a nursing home, some time, and visit an elderly friend or an elderly relative.  Your loved one will enjoy your visit; people in the halls and corridors might smile or nod as you go past; the nursing staff might acknowledge your presence.

And then, the next time that you go, take a child with you.  Faces will brighten; smiles will appear; people will stop and talk with you.  Light will shine in the darkness of those lonely corridors.  And if the light and the joy that those children carry with them is not a part of the ministry of Jesus Christ, in this world, reaching out to the lonely, the sick and the despairing, then it is hard to imagine what is.

But even that ministry goes both ways.  That is, just as those children often brighten the days of those elderly people, the love and the acceptance that the elderly offer to those young children serves an important purpose.  Their response to them helps to show the young that they are important, that they are beloved, that their very presence is a blessing.  And what a transforming experience it can be for young people to feel that they are loved and that their lives are a wondrous blessing.

Or take the time to teach a Sunday School class.  You, as a teacher, might have a wonderful lesson plan all worked out; but if you create a safe space for kids to explore the mystery of their faith and truly talk about God, you will learn infinitely more than you could possibly hope to teach.

Or take the time to talk to a young person, not in the patronizing way that most of us tend to approach young people, but really to talk to them – about their perspectives on God, about their questions about faith, about their hopes for the world and about their observations about what is right and what is wrong, what is just and what is unjust – and what might be done about it.  I am constantly amazed by the contributions that young people – and even young children – can make to a community of faith and to the fabric of human community.

Kids are, by no means, perfectly kind, or perfectly good.  Such innocent and wonderful notions are quickly dispelled by anyone who has seen the meanness and pettiness that kids can demonstrate towards each other.  But even in spite of their very human flaws and foibles, there can be very little doubt that the Spirit can be active in the lives of young people – even of infant children.  And if the ministry of Jesus Christ is performed when the Spirit is active in this world, in and through the lives of the baptized, of any age, then we cannot doubt that all people – even young children – are participants in the ministry of Jesus Christ.

The moment of baptism, of course, is not the end of faith or the destination of Christian spirituality.  Whether we were baptized as infant children, or whether we are baptized in our adult years, baptism is only the beginning.  Just as Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River was the beginning of his ministry; and just as the day of Pentecost occurred at the beginning of the early Church’s ministry; so too does baptism stand at the beginning of each one of our journeys in the company of Christ and of his people,

And it is for this reason that baptism looks forward to, and is meant to lead us, to the moment when we make the conscious and intentional decision to align our lives with the work of Christ and his Church, and when we dedicate our skills, our time, our resources, our energy, our priorities, our lives to the cause of Christ.  Baptism looks forward to the profession of faith for oneself.  But the vows that we all make, during the sacrament of baptism – that we will be a community in which those who are baptized will find guidance, encouragement and support – are vows that are rooted in the awareness that the baptized person, whether young or old, needs a community of people in which to grow, to learn, to ask questions, to delve ever deeper into the mystery of God and the call of Christ upon their lives.  It is our calling to be such a community for Jean-Jacob, for every child, and for every person, of every age, who seeks to embrace their calling to become participants in the ministry of Jesus Christ.

May we be such a community.  And may God continue to bless the Church, in this world, as we seek, in our time, to be faithful to the task of continuing the ministry of Jesus Christ in this world that God so dearly and so unconditionally loves.