Elemental Christianity--Water

ELEMENTAL CHRISTIANITY -- WATER
TEXT: Mark 1:4-11; Ezekiel 36:24-28

Water has been demanding a lot of attention over the past couple of months. There has been too much and not enough. It has been rushing in rivers overflowing their banks and stagnant and toxic in the streets. It has been airlifted in bottles to save those who have none, even as others are pulled from its destruction. Water is a complicated thing in life, and it is a complicated thing in faith as well. The key place that we encounter water in Christian faith is in baptism, as we did this morning, and so I want to focus today on what baptism means and why we use the water.

At its most basic level, baptism is the way of marking a new Christian—someone just setting out on the lifelong path of Christian faith, just as circumcision was the way of marking someone new to the Jewish faith. In Judaism, this was most frequently infants, but adult converts were also circumcised. In baptism we do not actually make a mark in the flesh, but we symbolize all that is expected in the Christian life through the symbol of the water.

Water is a complex symbol for a complex faith, and we relate to different parts of it at different times in our journey. Water is a symbol of birth...remember the story of Nicodemus that we talked about when we talked about "Air" and spiritual birth. Jesus tells Nicodemus that we have to be born of water and the spirit...natural birth and spiritual birth. We enter this world in a gush of water, so we also use water to symbolize our entrance into Christian life.

Water also sustains us. Our bodies are mostly water and we need water to live. Health magazines are full of the advice to drink 8-10 glasses of water a day, a regimen that helps just about every aspect of our bodies. When Jesus encounters a woman drawing water at a well, He says He can offer her living water...meaning that life lived according to his teaching will bring the kind of benefit to our spiritual lives that water brings to our natural bodies. Water sustains life, so we baptize with water to show the way Jesus pours out His living water on us.

But water is a powerful force that can take life as well as bring it, as we’ve seen all too well. Tsunamis wipe out entire towns, floods destroy homes and crops, people drown. With the waters of baptism we also symbolize the spiritual death that will be necessary before we can enter eternal life. It is in this piece of the symbolism that the practice of baptism by full immersion really shines. By laying a person backwards completely under the water and then bringing them back up again, it is easy for all to understand that death and resurrection are primary to the Christian faith. Water can kill, and we remember in baptism that the Christian journey will require suffering and death.

But water also cleanses. Water washes away dirt, and using water in our baptism symbolizes the way that Jesus makes us clean from sin. Rain can flood, but it also makes crops grow. And so the infusion of God’s Spirit in baptism nourishes us and helps us grow spiritually from that point onward.

Baptism means all those things. Will Willimon has said that baptism means what water means, and so it does. It gives life, sustains life, cleanses life, smooths life, ends life...all of that together. When the waters of baptism become effective in our lives, the rough places are smoothed out, the sin is gradually washed clean and we feel as if we have been born anew.

But the waters are not of our own making...the waters are God's gift to us. And that is why we don't actually baptize a person more than once. For the United Methodist Church, it doesn't matter if you were baptized Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist or any other branch of the Christian faith. The beginning of your journey was properly marked with God's gift of water and we honor that.

But we don't begin that journey alone. Unless there are truly pressing personal circumstances, we don't do private baptisms. We are baptized into fellowship with all other Christians of all denominations around the globe. We become part of the Church universal…the Body of Christ…or, as we call it in the Apostle's Creed, the Holy catholic church. "Catholic" means universal and that line simply means that we recognize that we share the same faith as all other Christians.

And so we are baptized into community. The community is present and the community takes vows that are every bit as important as the vows taken by the parents or those being baptized. As a Christian community, we reaffirm our own faith and baptismal vows and we promise our love, forgiveness, and support to those newly baptized. We affirm that we are one with each other.

Let me tell you what that vow means. A few years ago in the Dover church, a man stood up and asked for prayer for his daughter. She had anorexia. She had been in area treatment facilities a couple of times, but it had not helped. She was close to death, with the doctor checking her vitals daily for signs of organ failure. There was a treatment facility in Arizona that was faith-based and that they had heard worked wonders. But they didn't have the funds. The family was poor and the need was immediate. Even if they had sold their house to pay for the treatment, the sale couldn't have gone through in time to save the girl's life.

I spoke to the man after church. "How much do you need?" He was embarrassed. "25,000." I was stunned. I had no idea it would be that much, and that was after the place gave the family a steep hardship discount. The next night we had a special Church Council meeting. It was February. Not two weeks before we had voted in a church budget that was $30,000 more than people had pledged. How could we go deeper in the hole? How could we let Sarah die?

"It's about baptism," I said. "We took vows. She is not just their child. She is our child, and she is dying." By Tuesday morning we had paid the place in Arizona $25,000 and handed the family three plane tickets to Arizona. We were now starting the year $55,000 in the red. There were nay-sayers. "But this could set a precedent!" they cried. "Will we have to do this for everyone?"

"She is our child," I said. "When one of our children is dying and money has a chance of saving that child, we will spend every dime in the bank." That's what baptism is about.

I got back yesterday from helping to lead a Conference event on Spiritual Transformation. One of the other speakers told about how his church in Tipp City, Ohio carried that even further. At Christmas time, they worked with social services in the town, and every member or family in their church adopted a person or family in need in the community. That didn't mean buying one Christmas gift. The deal was that whatever they spent on their own families, they would spend on their adopted families. Same quality, same expense.

It was a huge success, but as the Christmas season came to a close, there was a heavy weight hanging over the congregation. As they had become involved in the lives of these families to the extent that was needed to provide those gifts, they realized that it was hollow to adopt a family just for Christmas. So they decided to adopt the people all year. What they did for themselves they did for another. The pastor put braces on his own daughter's teeth and he put braces on a girl in his adopted family.

It was about baptism. It was about being one. It was about loving their neighbors just as much as they loved themselves. It transformed their community. It transformed their church. And now they have branched out to the global family. They looked at Christmas again. They gave up buying things for themselves entirely. As the pastor says, "It's not your birthday, it's Jesus' birthday."

Every person now brings what they would have spent on Christmas to a special offering at the church. They collected over $300,000. They partnered with UMCOR and have begun a mission to Darfur in the Sudan, helping with the worst humanitarian crisis in our time. They bought seed and put over 5,000 farmers back in business, providing income and sustenance for over 26,000 people. One church. One Lord. One faith. One baptism.

Baptism means what water means. It means we die to some things and are raised to others. It means we quit playing church and get serious about our faith and the Christ in whose name we are baptized. This is about death and resurrection…there's a world that's dying out there and we have truckloads of living water. Take FEMA out of it. Get rid of the red tape and the pettiness and let's get the life-giving water to those who are dying. It'll cost you. It won't just cost your money. It will cost your life. That much Jesus promised. "Take up your cross and follow me," he said. Death first. Give it up. Give it over. And then there is life, a river of life, flowing through us to the world.

Do you dare go with me? During the meditation time as David plays, I invite anyone who will to come to the water as a sign of your commitment to your baptismal vows or your need to be washed clean and made new. I will be holding the baptismal bowl. You may touch the water and remember your baptism or you may want to experience the water by drinking it. Valarie will have the communion tray filled with cups of water. Feel free to take a cup and drink. If there are any who have not been baptized and would like to do that this morning, tell me as you come forward and we'll do it right after the meditation time. Or we can do it at a later date.

Are you willing to come to the water? Amen.

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