Being Baptized, and Being "The Baptized"

A sermon preached by Father Dwight D. Duncan, ssc, Rector, St Matthias, Dallas, Texas
12 January 2003 - The Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ (Year B, Epiphany 1)


Two births are going to occur among us today. Through the washing of sanctified water and anointing with sacred chrism, Allison Isabella Mopsik and James David Chilek will be born into the Family of God and united with Christ forever. How right it is that this, their identification with Christ and union with him through his Church, should occur on this feast of his public identification and union with us, this feast of his baptism.

The birth of new Christians is an opportune moment for us, the baptized, to recall something of what it means for us to BE the baptized. As well, it is a good time to recollect our responsibilities to all the baptized. So, let us do this by considering three things which are happening to Allison and James this day:

1. Allison and James are being given up by their natural families for adoption.

2. As animals are branded, so will they be, and for the same reason.

3. They are being given permission to be traitors to us all.

Let's deal with each of these facts in turn.


Fact One: James and Allison are being given up by their natural families for adoption.

In Baptism, a human being is returned to his Creator, adopted by God as no longer just one of his creatures, but now as his own child. This means that once Allison and James are baptized, their primary belonging will no longer be to the general human family, nor to the Mopsik and Chilek units of it. Their primary belonging will be to the Catholic Church, the Family of God, the Tribe of Christ, that new race of humans brought into being by the death and resurrection of Jesus. Their true Father is the very Father of Jesus; their true brother is Jesus himself. Their true home is heaven, and their inheritance is that kingdom of God which has no end.

To be sure, James took flesh and entered this world through Matthew and Stephanie, Allison through David and Marie. But by the baptisms of their children, Matthew and Stephanie, David and Marie accept the fact that James and Allison do not belong to them; they belong to God. David and Marie, Matthew and Stephanie are parents by proxy, stewards of God to these children they and we call their own. To them, and to the rest of us, God entrusts the care of Allison and James, that they may become what this day they are made: citizens of heaven, saints.

Fact Two: As animals are branded, so will Allison and James be, and for the same reason.

Why do we brand animals? So that everyone will know to whom they belong. But since human beings are self-conscious while animals are not, James and Allison, by their branding, will know, as will others, to whom they belong.

They will be branded with the Cross of Christ, marked on their foreheads with sacred chrism, seared on their souls by the Holy Spirit. From that moment forward, they are marked out before humans, before the holy angels, and before Satan and his evil legions as people who belong to Jesus.

Should they choose to rejoice and live into their patrimony as Christians so that they come at last to heaven, this sign of the Cross will be the one common mark of beauty they will share with all the hosts of heaven. And should they choose otherwise, this sign of the Cross will be their enduring wound in hell.

Fact Three: By our presenting James and Allison to God for baptism, we are giving them permission to be traitors to us all.

Today, by their baptisms, Jesus is owned by Allison and James as their Savior, the One promised to our Jewish forebears and to all creation millennia ago. This is the one aspect of Jesus' ministry to creation which few would reject. Once you've lived long enough and made enough choices to taste how many of them were mistakes ... once you've lived long enough for life to do its trip on you, if there is one thing you long for, it is a Savior.

But you cannot have this Savior without taking all of him. And Jesus is not only Savior, he is also LORD ... Boss. He takes precedence over every human attachment. (Mt 10:34-39) His values, his priorities, his agenda claim our allegiance.

Therefore, when we baptize people, we are proclaiming that the most important thing in their lives is their faithful following of Jesus. And we are declaring that if for any reason they have to choose between him and us, they are to choose him. Indeed, we ourselves vow to raise them up so to choose him before us.

There is only one reason to baptize anyone: to give them the one thing needful which will enable them to become their true selves and to achieve their destiny as citizens of heaven. That one thing necessary is actually a person. His name is Yeshua/Joshua/Jesus. He is the Son of God and he and his Father, through their Spirit, dwell in the assembly of his people, the Catholic Church. (John 14:23 )

Because God dwells in his Church, by incorporation into her, we receive him who alone can remake us in his likeness and fit us for heaven. By a life of active, faithful worship, study, fellowship and service, we "get into" Jesus and Jesus "gets into" us ... and we end up together, forever, in heaven.

Often parents say they intend to "teach" their children about Jesus. NOT SO. We do not teach people about Jesus as we do history, just as we do not teach people about our friends. What we do is bring our friends together.

So with Jesus: what we must do is GIVE Jesus to others. He is alive, not dead. He is discoverable within the community of the Church, as he promised: "Where two or more are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

Faith, values, a way of life, friendship with God are things which are communicable. It is our responsibility as the Community of Faith to communicate these things to the newly baptized, to form these things in them. And we achieve that in these ways:

• When they see and hear us pray, and we pray with them, they will find it natural to pray themselves.
  
• When they hear us talk of God and our relationship with him and of the supreme value of the way he wills us to live, then they will come to realize that God's kingdom and values are of supreme importance to them.
  
• When they see us studying the Bible and intentionally continuing to grow in our knowledge and practice of the Christian Faith and Way of Life, and we bring them with us to do this themselves, then they will come to know that such growth is essential to themselves.
  
• When they see us coming Sunday by Sunday to Mass, and we bring them with us - especially when we do this when we don't want to or when we have the opportunity to do something else we would at that moment prefer, they will intuitively absorb the fact that they belong and have a place in our Father's house, gathered at our Father's table with our Father's family. And long before they regularly will be fed with the Body and Blood of their Savior, they will long for it. And when at last they come to receive that Holy Food, it will mean all the more to them, because they know it means the world to us.
  
• And when they see us serving and caring for others even when its costs us time and money which we would rather spend in other ways, they will come to understand that this is a hallmark of the Christian life, a way in which Jesus ministers to others through us.
  
  

These are some of the things we, the already-baptized, vow to do and must do for the newly-baptized. By doing them, we simply are doing our best for the precious gifts God entrusts to our care, whose future will be greatly determined by us. Surely they, like we, deserve the best from us all.


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