Baptism: Do You Renounce the Spiritual Forces...

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Mark 8:31-38 and Romans 6:1-14:

We are now four days into our Lenten journey and so beginning a new worship series that will carry us through this season. Now Lent came into existence for two primary reasons. The first was for people who had been removed from the church to repent and prove their desire to rejoin the church, and part of this practice was to cover themselves in ashes and sackcloth. The other reason, and the one we are going to focus on, was as the final preparation and learning for those who were going to join the church through baptism on Easter Sunday. And Easter was the only day then that you could be baptized and join the church. And so these 40 days were set aside for this work. And someone asked me this week how come there are said to be 40 days of lent, but there are more than 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter. And that’s because Sundays exist outside of Lent because every Sunday is a little Easter, and so a time of celebration, rather than repentance. And so yes, that does mean that if you have given something up for Lent that you can stop doing that on Sundays because they aren’t technically part of Lent, although that then begins to become about rules rather than grace, as we heard in the passage from Romans today, and that certainly plays a part in our understanding of baptism. 

Before we baptize people there are a series of questions that get asked of the person being baptized, or of their parents or guardians, if its for someone who cannot answer for themselves, which is more than just for infants and toddlers. And so, we are going to be looking at each of those questions over the next five Sundays in preparation for Easter when we are scheduled to be doing baptisms, as well as a reaffirmation of baptism. And let me just add that if you are interested in being baptized, please speak with me. But that leads us to the first question, which, like most of them, is actually a multiple part question and that is “On behalf of the whole Church, I ask you: Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?”

And so, we start with the first part of that question which is that we, or I, ask this on behalf of the whole church. That is not just this congregation, or even of the United Methodist Church, but I ask it on behalf of the church universal. Because while you are being baptized here in this church, you belong to the greater body of Christ. While this is certainly not true of every church or denomination, as United Methodists we accept baptisms done anywhere as long as it was done in the orthodox trinitarian formulation, which would include Orthodox, Roman catholic and protestant churches. It only excludes a few other groups who consider themselves Christian, but who have non-orthodox understandings of the trinity, and I will note that includes Mormons. And so, if you ever wonder why we don’t require people to be baptized here before they join, that’s why. Although you do have to be baptized somewhere in order to join the church, because it is by being baptized that we become Christians. No one is born a Christian, it is through baptism that we enter into the faith and into the church universal. And so, we ask these questions on behalf of the whole church.

And although the last of the question is about repentance, it’s really at the heart of where we start. After all Jesus begins his ministry, which comes after his baptism and then the arrest of John the Baptist, by saying “repent, for the kingdom of God has come near.” And so, repentance is at the heart of what we do as Christians. And the word itself literally means to turn around. To stop doing what you had been doing and do something else. That’s where the passage from Romans comes into play, because in Paul’s day, just as much as it’s still true today, there are people who think they don’t need to worry about what they do because all they have to do is ask for forgiveness and it will be given and so they’re fine. They think God’s forgiveness is like their get out of jail free card from Monopoly. But, what Paul says, is nit that we should continue in sin so that grace may abound. But, instead we understand that we had died with Christ and been reborn with him so that we can therefore also die to sin and be reborn in grace.  And so, while some talk about sin as missing the mark, most of you have heard me say that I see sin as brokenness. It is represented by the brokenness of relationship that we have with God and that we also have with each other. That we think of ourselves first, our own needs, wants and desires and so therefore we break relationship with others. And so, our repentance is to understand that and to turn around to go a different way by accepting the healing and wholeness that we find in Christ. And that acceptance of grace is also the rejection of the law, of looking at all the things we’ve done wrong and beating ourselves up over it. And as much as people sometimes want to make Lent about that, that’s not what’s it’s about. It’s about repenting of where we have gone astray so that we can come to know and live in God’s amazing grace and in the love that overflows and overwhelms us when we are truly ready to accept it.

But the other part of this is while we’re good at talking about and emphasizing personal sin, we’re not so good at talking about corporate sin, or sometimes even recognizing or acknowledging that there is such a thing, but it is something in which we participate, even if we might not want to, or benefit from. The prophets are full on injunctions against corporate or societal sins that are taking place, especially at the expense of the poor and outsiders, including immigrants. The prophet Amos, for example, says that God despises the Israelites, and we should read ourselves into this too, assemblies, our gatherings, our festivals because they don’t represent what God has called for, because we have not established justice at the gates. That is societal justice, justice for everyone, or we might say equal treatment under the law. When wealthy people get treated differently, the simply having access to competent legal counsel because they can afford it, means they are treated differently, and thus true justice is not being carried out. And so, when we hear as part of the question, renouncing the spiritual forces of wickedness, that is part of this call, and it’s not just about those things out there, but about what’s in us and the things in which we participate.

Because in hearing about spiritual forces of wickedness, many will think as being things beyond us as humans, demonic powers, or perhaps the devil. I know that is part of the history of that question, but it’s one I reject for many reasons, many of which I will give more detail on next week, so you’ll have to come back, but the biggest reason, and a quick summary, is that we have the capability all by ourselves of doing evil and wicked things, and we are spiritual beings, which means we can have spiritual wickedness. I would say this is especially true when we try and cloak our wickedness in spiritual or religious practices, which happens all the time. American slavery, as well as Jim Crow Laws, to name just a few, were covered in scriptural usage to justify their practices, and are also societal sins, whose ripples continue to be felt even today. Additionally, if we think that these things are beyond human power, it might cause us to think that we cannot overcome it, that it’s too big for us. But, we are co-creators with God in the world, and through baptism, again, we are incorporated into God’s mighty acts of salvation, which means we are participating in them. It’s not just up to God, it’s up to us.

Which is where the middle part of the question comes into play which is about more than just the spiritual forces of wickedness, but reject the evil powers of this world. And let’s just name it there is evil in the world, and it should be called out where we see it. And yet we also have to recognize the simple fact of what Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil, that while we like to point out the big evil atrocities, evil is fairly commonplace and even the major atrocities take thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people to commit, because all of us have evil inside of us. And it’s not just the big things that happen, but the thousands of little things that add up to that, or that we overlook because they don’t seem like much, but which lead to others. We like cheap prices and so overlook sweatshops and literal slave labor that goes into making the items. We like inexpensive produce and so we might complain about immigrants, but we certainly like what they contribute for us, and then overlook the abuses they undergo. So, rejecting the evil powers of this world is not just about those big things, calling out the powers and principalities where they go wrong, and that’s important to, but also taking off the blinders we wear, some intentional and some unintentional, in order to understand our participation in them and the areas in our lives where we need to calm those inner demons. As the old Native American parable goes, we have two wolves within us one representing good and one representing evil, or we might say one is love and one is hate, one is peace and one is violence, one is forgiveness and one is retribution, one is personal responsibility and one is always blaming others, one is grace and one is judgment, and we could go on. And the one that wins is the one that we feed; the one that loses is the one that we starve. And the choice is ours.

Jesus says that the road that leads to salvation is narrow and hard and the one that leads to destruction is what? Wide and easy. And we all make mistakes. Peter gets rebuked in the gospel passage, even though he has just made a confession of faith, because he wants things his way, not the way of God. Not the way of the cross. When we choose the ways of the world, we will lose, but when we choose the way of the cross then we gain everything, not just life but life eternal. We are not called to discipleship because it’s easy because if it was easy then everyone would do it. Discipleship, which means picking up your cross and following, is hard work. And so, our baptismal vows also should not be taken lightly but we should see in them the call to live in and for the Kingdom of God. And so, we are called to call out the powers and principalities when what they are doing doesn't match up with the vision of the kingdom of God, even for those with whom we normally agree or like. But not just call them out, but to reject them and to act in God's might acts to work for change. We are not just initiated into the faith through the waters of baptism, but we are also called to be transformed by the water, not because the water is powerful, but because God is powerful. We are expected to live differently because we are a baptized people. That begins with repentance, a theme of the season of Lent, as well as Jesus’ call to us to repent for the kingdom of God has come near, but also because we are asked, and I ask once again on behalf of the whole church, “Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness and reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?” May we not answer lightly, but as a mark of our call to discipleship. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.