A Homily Preached on The Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year A
On the occasion of the Baptism of Josephine Carol Eyford
at Saint Matthias’, Bellwoods, Toronto, 20 April 2008
This is a very joyful morning; today we welcome Josephine Carol into household of God. Through the waters of baptism she will symbolically die to sin and rise to the new life of Christ; through the anointing of Holy Chrism in sign of the Cross she will be marked as Christ’s own for ever; by the light from the Easter Candle she will receive a pledge that she has passed from darkness to light, so that she can do good works to lighten others and show forth God’s glory. Even more; after centuries of infant baptism this rite has also become a sign that the community welcomes this child and rejoices with her family. All these symbols are mixed and jumbled in a rather wonderful way. A family party comes into Church; the Gospel is proclaimed in the middle of a family party. Her parents show her off proudly, as if to say, “Look what we’ve got!, but the community replies “Oh but she’s one of us, you know!” It’s all wonderful, it’s all fun, and it’s all important.
Now experience has taught me that parents bring their babies baptism for a variety of reasons. One might be that since the parents are themselves part of the Church, they want it for their children, as well, so that they may grow up knowing the fellowship and the faith. So perhaps our question should be why people come to the Church. John Baycroft, in The Anglican Way, notes two main reasons: some come primarily for the fellowship, and some come for what he calls ‘the transcendent’, but he notices that in reality whichever you come for, you get both. This is very true, but it is only one side of a more important range of ideas. Both reasons see coming to Church and seeking Baptism as our choice and decision; but when we turn to the Bible, we find a different picture.
From the very beginning, the history of salvation has been the story of God seeking men and women and calling them into fellowship. Indeed, even when Adam and Eve sinned and hid themselves away, God called, “Where are you?” After that God called Noah and Abraham and Moses and Samuel and all the rest; $until at last he sent his Son into the world to seek and save the lost. Jesus went about calling people: fishermen from their boats and tax collectors from their offices or their sycamore trees. And so it has continued. In the last few weeks we have been reading from the Acts of the Apostles. The first converts surely thought they came because they found the teaching of the Apostles convincing or the life of the community attractive, or for a myriad other reasons, but when the author of Acts describes the growth of the Church he says “three thousand persons were added” and “day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved”. To all of them, apostles and disciples, men and women and children, whatever they thought they were doing and for whatever reason, Jesus said, and he says to us, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” (John 15:16)
This call does not always come with a flash of light or a choir of angels. The Wisdom of God, who mightily and sweetly orders all things, desires our cooperation. He wants you to want him; he doesn’t much care, I think, if it seems to you to be your own idea.. The dramatic call, the Damascus experience, probably means that we weren’t listening. But our coming to faith and baptism is no more our own bright idea than was our creation. It is as C. S. Lewis describes in The Silver Chair: When Aslan tells Jill that he has called her out of her own world, she replies, “Could there be some mistake? Nobody called [us] … It was we who asked to come here.” Aslan says, “You would not have called me unless I had been calling you”.
Now this is mysterious; but in Christian language a mystery means not a puzzle to be decoded but an unseen reality that is revealed in God’s good time. The Church might seem to be a very human community, an odd assortment of people trying to live by God’s grace and to love one another, and muddling the job as often as not. But the First Letter of Peter shows us the Church as it is in God’s reality, a reality we can only know by faith. In this reality it is a temple built up of living stones, a people sharing in Christ’s royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people God claims as his own. The church as temple and priesthood is the Body of Christ, the Word of God to the world and the offering to God for the world. And while God does promise us all that we seek: life and salvation for our souls; healing of our hurts; and finally a place in the Father’s house, God has called us to be his instruments, to be knit together in this fellowship, to work together in this priesthood, to be built together into his temple, to be a sign to the world of the mystery of Christ.
Sheri and Dean: this morning you are answering Christ’s call for Josephine Carol. Remember that he is not calling her only for the sake of the good he wants to do her, but also so that she can serve him. Today you are promising that, just as you will take care to nourish her to grow strong and healthy, so you will feed her with spiritual food, so that she will grow to be a living stone, making God’s house strong and beautiful, and come to take her part in the royal priesthood. Now my friends, this speaks to us as well as to these proud parents; all of us are here because in many and varied ways we have answered God’s call. So let us remember that we, too, must always seek the spiritual nourishment that will build us up as living stones into the temple of God in this place.
Now experience has taught me that parents bring their babies baptism for a variety of reasons. One might be that since the parents are themselves part of the Church, they want it for their children, as well, so that they may grow up knowing the fellowship and the faith. So perhaps our question should be why people come to the Church. John Baycroft, in The Anglican Way, notes two main reasons: some come primarily for the fellowship, and some come for what he calls ‘the transcendent’, but he notices that in reality whichever you come for, you get both. This is very true, but it is only one side of a more important range of ideas. Both reasons see coming to Church and seeking Baptism as our choice and decision; but when we turn to the Bible, we find a different picture.
From the very beginning, the history of salvation has been the story of God seeking men and women and calling them into fellowship. Indeed, even when Adam and Eve sinned and hid themselves away, God called, “Where are you?” After that God called Noah and Abraham and Moses and Samuel and all the rest; $until at last he sent his Son into the world to seek and save the lost. Jesus went about calling people: fishermen from their boats and tax collectors from their offices or their sycamore trees. And so it has continued. In the last few weeks we have been reading from the Acts of the Apostles. The first converts surely thought they came because they found the teaching of the Apostles convincing or the life of the community attractive, or for a myriad other reasons, but when the author of Acts describes the growth of the Church he says “three thousand persons were added” and “day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved”. To all of them, apostles and disciples, men and women and children, whatever they thought they were doing and for whatever reason, Jesus said, and he says to us, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” (John 15:16)
This call does not always come with a flash of light or a choir of angels. The Wisdom of God, who mightily and sweetly orders all things, desires our cooperation. He wants you to want him; he doesn’t much care, I think, if it seems to you to be your own idea.. The dramatic call, the Damascus experience, probably means that we weren’t listening. But our coming to faith and baptism is no more our own bright idea than was our creation. It is as C. S. Lewis describes in The Silver Chair: When Aslan tells Jill that he has called her out of her own world, she replies, “Could there be some mistake? Nobody called [us] … It was we who asked to come here.” Aslan says, “You would not have called me unless I had been calling you”.
Now this is mysterious; but in Christian language a mystery means not a puzzle to be decoded but an unseen reality that is revealed in God’s good time. The Church might seem to be a very human community, an odd assortment of people trying to live by God’s grace and to love one another, and muddling the job as often as not. But the First Letter of Peter shows us the Church as it is in God’s reality, a reality we can only know by faith. In this reality it is a temple built up of living stones, a people sharing in Christ’s royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people God claims as his own. The church as temple and priesthood is the Body of Christ, the Word of God to the world and the offering to God for the world. And while God does promise us all that we seek: life and salvation for our souls; healing of our hurts; and finally a place in the Father’s house, God has called us to be his instruments, to be knit together in this fellowship, to work together in this priesthood, to be built together into his temple, to be a sign to the world of the mystery of Christ.
Sheri and Dean: this morning you are answering Christ’s call for Josephine Carol. Remember that he is not calling her only for the sake of the good he wants to do her, but also so that she can serve him. Today you are promising that, just as you will take care to nourish her to grow strong and healthy, so you will feed her with spiritual food, so that she will grow to be a living stone, making God’s house strong and beautiful, and come to take her part in the royal priesthood. Now my friends, this speaks to us as well as to these proud parents; all of us are here because in many and varied ways we have answered God’s call. So let us remember that we, too, must always seek the spiritual nourishment that will build us up as living stones into the temple of God in this place.
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