Baptized with Christ (Romans 6:1-11)

On these Sundays between Easter and Pentecost, we are engaged in a sort of Pastor’s Class, which is a class designed for those who are thinking about joining the church.  Traditionally – or at least back in my day – this was done on weekdays after school, at least for youth who were planning on being baptized.  I remember learning about the church and how it works, and getting things like stickers and rulers when I successfully memorized all the books of the Bible in order.

Well, times have changed, and so has the class.  All of you, simply by being present, have been enrolled in the class.  Just remember that class is not finished until you discuss the questions during fellowship time. 

And for those of you who are not yet members of Bixby Knolls Christian Church and would like to find out more, please let me know.  I’d love to talk to you about that.

Last week, we talked about the confession of faith.  The week before that, our topic was communion. 

We’ve also talked about how we in the Disciples of Christ embrace diversity, about how we are called to participate in God’s mission for the world, and how we anticipate God’s coming reign or kingdom.

Today’s topic is baptism.

For much of my life, I have tried to understand my own baptism.  What does it mean to be baptized?

I couldn’t quite figure it out.

And this bothered me, in part because I knew that pastors are supposed to have things like this figured out, so that they can help other people figure them out.

I think the problem was that I tried to find an answer that I could grab on to. I was very good in school, grabbing on to answers.  I could store facts in my brain, and at test time, I could take all the information I had acquired and do quite well.

Understanding baptism should work the same way, I thought.

But it doesn’t.

I’m beginning to learn that baptism isn’t about grabbing on to answers. It isn’t about grabbing on to anything. 

And I’m beginning to learn that baptism isn’t about acquiring information.  It isn’t about acquiring anything.

Baptism isn’t about grabbing on to anything or acquiring anything.  It’s about letting go.

I just read an amazing book by Daniel Robert Anderson.  The title of the book is Losing Your Faith, Finding Your Soul: The Passage To New Life When Old Beliefs Die.  It is a book that I think I am just now – at age 43 – almost ready for.  Perhaps I’ll be more ready in another five years, and I’ll read it again.  And five years after that.

Because it’s really a book about faith for people have realized that life isn’t about grabbing on to things, acquiring things.  It’s a book about faith for people who have learned that life is really all about letting go. 

And for most people, learning to let go is something that doesn’t even start until one enters the second half of life’s journey.

In certain areas of my life, I did have a head start in learning to let go.  Like all of you, I grew up in a world that taught me that it’s all about how much you have.  You go to school to get good grades.  You get good grades to get in to a good college.  You graduate from a good college so you can get a good job.  You get a good job so you can earn a lot of money and have a nice house and go on a vacation every couple of years.

And while I was growing up, I worked some jobs so that I could start acquiring things right away.  One of my first teenage purchases was a stereo system for my bedroom, and of course the vinyl records to play on it, the first two being Boston and Julian Lennon. 

And in the summers, one of the things I did to earn money in between school years was work at a Boy Scout Camp in the Sierras.  There, I spent many weeks in a tent cabin with a wooden floor and canvas roof.  Everything I had for those weeks fit in a large duffel bag.  If I was able to secure a milk crate from the camp kitchen and attach it to the wall next to my cot so that I’d have a little shelf, I felt like I was living in luxury.

And I loved it!  Camp was amazing.  It was a great way to earn some money.  I loved the pine trees and the view across the lake and watching the clouds, wondering if they would develop into thunderstorms, and teaching younger scouts about nature and astronomy and environmental science while sitting on picnic tables beneath towering red fir trees…

What was I talking about?  Oh, learning to let go.  Well, it wasn’t until some years later, when I looked back on the time I spent in the mountains, that I realized that they were among the happiest times of my life.  And yet, they were the times I had the fewest possessions.  I didn’t have my stereo with me.   I just had my sleeping bag, a few changes of clothes, and not much else.

And I thought, maybe there is more to life than grabbing on to things, acquiring things.

I still have not mastered this important teaching.  Some things I still hold on to too tightly. Some things I’m not ready to let go of.

My body, for example.  I enjoy exercising and staying healthy.  And yes, there is just a little bit of vanity in that.  But at the same time, I know that I will, one day, have to let go of all the things that my healthy body now allows me to do.  Things like sight, hearing, and smell will begin to fade, and in fact that process has already begun.  And while I know some 70 and 80 year olds who ride their bikes much more than I do – and while I hope to be as active as them when I’m 70 or 80 – there will come a day when none of us are riding bikes anymore.  I’m not ready for that yet.  I’m not ready to let go.

But here’s something else that I’ve learned:  although I may not be ready to let go of things before the time comes, I’m becoming increasingly confident that, when the time comes, I will be ready.

To take the most extreme case:  I’m not ready to die.  The truth is that death scares me.  As a pastor, I probably shouldn’t say that, but it’s true.

I’m not ready to let go.

But I do believe that, when the time comes, I will be ready.  And when I say that, I mean that I actually see that happening.  The more I learn to let go, the more I know that I will be able to let go. 

This is the type of stuff Daniel Robert Anderson talks about in his book.  And that’s why I say that I am just now – at age 43 – almost ready to read it.  Because I’m just now at that point in life where my faith and my whole outlook on life is able to start thinking about letting go in a whole new way.

And because of my experience at scout camp, I know that letting go can be liberating.  It can be exhilarating.  It can be life-giving.

Even letting go of one’s life can be life-giving.

This is the life and the faith that I can see out there on the horizon for me.  I’m not there yet.  I think I’ve got a long way to go, and God willing a long time to get there.  And even though letting go of some things – like this body that, right now, can still do so much – is hard, I am looking forward to the journey I can see ahead of me, a journey in which I find freedom by letting go.

For those of you who are older than I am… I don’t know, I hope this makes sense.

For those of you who are younger than I am, perhaps your only thought right now is:  What the heck does all this have to do with baptism?

OK. Let’s talk about baptism.

First of all, our principle of identity.  For you young people, this is something to grab on to.  Remember, each sermon in this series is based on one or more of the Disciples of Christ principles of identity.  Today’s principle states:

We practice the baptism of believers, which emphasizes that God's grace demands a response of faith and discipleship, while also recognizing the baptism performed in other churches.

“We practice the baptism of believers…” This means that we wait to baptize someone until they are old enough to decide for themselves.  In other words, they are old enough to respond to the question I talked about last week: “Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living God, and do you proclaim him Lord and Savior of the World.”

We believe that waiting to baptize people until they are old enough to make that decision for themselves more closely follows the Biblical practice.  Jesus, after all, was baptized as an adult.  He was dedicated and anointed as a small child, but baptism came later.

However, the Bible does describe situations in which whole families were baptized together.  Did that include children too young to make that decision for themselves?  It’s not clear.  What is clear is that, even in scripture, there are different ways of practicing baptism.

For this reason, we do recognize the baptisms performed in other churches.  If you have been baptized elsewhere, even as an infant, we will never ask you to be re-baptized.  In fact, I would discourage it.  In baptism, God’s Spirit is active, and far be it from me to declare that what the Spirit has done on a previous occasion is invalid. 

What’s more important than how one is baptized is the meaning of baptism.  I already said that this is something that I’m still learning today, and that’s true of just about everything concerning faith:  Learning and understanding are life-long processes. 

But some things I can say.  The Apostle Paul says that all of us who have been baptized into Christ have been baptized into his death.

Think about that for a second:  we are baptized into death.  What does that mean?

It means that baptism is an act of letting go.

And what are we letting go of?

We’re letting go of the life we thought was ours.

We’re letting go of what the world says will make us happy.  We’re releasing our grasp of things like money and security and “settling down.” 

We are giving over control of our life to God.

“Not my will, but God’s will be done.  I surrender my life to you, Lord.  What do I know about what makes me happy?  What do I know about what gives life meaning?  I chase after all the wrong things.  I think all these things will make me happy, but they only add stress and worry.  Only following you, Lord, and allowing you to direct my life, will bring me any purpose and any lasting satisfaction in life.”

The apostle Paul – the one who wrote that we have been baptized into Christ’s death – was once a person who tried to structure the world to fit his own ideas and his own desires.  But then he met Jesus – literally – in a blinding light.

Methodist bishop William Willimon says that after that, Paul didn’t know whether to call that moment a moment of dying or a moment of birth.  In a way, it felt like both.  Most certainly, it involved Paul letting go of the world as he understood it, the world as it existed within his own mind.  It involved dying to that world, and allowing God to lead him into a whole new world, and a whole new way of understanding.

I’m a person who likes to be in control of all situations.  But when I was baptized, I was lowered into the water by a minister in whom I placed my trust.  He lowered me into the water, where, for just a moment, I could not breathe.  For that one moment, I gave up trying to save my life, and literally placed it in his hands.

It was all over in an instant, but ever since that day, I’ve been learning to do the same thing with God.  I haven’t learned it all.  But every day, I learn a little more about what it means to give up trying to save my life, to let go, and to place my life in God’s hands.