Towards a Baptismal Ecclesiology

What Not to Do:

Holy Water font filled in with sand for Lent.

The 1979 American Book of Common Prayer accomplished an extraordinary thing for The Episcopal Church by reuniting--in theory--the ancient rite of Christian initiation of water and post-water bath anointing.  The Church, through this prayer book reform, has re-ordered the entire life of the Church around baptism, or moving towards a baptismal ecclesiology.

The rubrics contained in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer concerning the rite of Holy Baptism describe clearly the Church’s teaching on initiation, “Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body the Church.  The bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble” (BCP, 298).  From the inception of the 1979 Prayer Book, a new ethos of Baptism, its theology, and its ecclesiology permeate the whole of the American Prayer Book.  Gone are the days of private baptisms and now the rite is placed on appointed Sundays throughout the Church calendar to be celebrated as a ritual mass in the midst of the full assembly of the faithful.  The Liturgical Movement, along with the initiation reforms of the Second Vatican Council, swept across liturgical churches to instill principles of clear and simple symbolism while reaching back to the ancient rite itself for insights into developing reforms. Here's an instance, at least arguably so, when Prosper of Aquitaine's saying,  lex orandi, lex credendi, does not apply.  With the new addition of a Baptismal Covenant, the Church is proclaiming to all of God’s people the ongoing responsibilities of the bonds forged in the waters of Baptism.  The past event in the believer's life is to made known and re-presented every day.  Moreover, there is a greater emphasis on the ministry of all the baptized, seeking to involve the laity in every possible way into the worshipping life of the Church.  

The Baptismal Covenant, a new interrogatory innovation prior to the water bath, created a new ethos which has taken root in the life of some parts at least of the Episcopal Church.  The 1979 prayer book has taken hold and permeated its inclusive baptismal theology into all aspects of church life.  Most sermons today somehow inevitably allude to the theology and ecclesiology of the Baptismal Covenant found in the rite of Holy Baptism because of the efficacy of the Covenant and its relationship to ongoing discipleship.  Even on appointed days for Baptism on the Church calendar when there are no candidates to be baptized, it is recommended to use the Baptismal Covenant in the liturgy to remind the assembly of the promises made at the font.  The Baptismal ecclesiology revealed in the Baptismal Covenant is clear:  that Baptism is now the primary identity marker for all Christian people and from that comes responsibility to God, to the great fellowship of believers, and to the whole of God’s creation.  Everything is ordered around Baptism because this is how we are fully and completely initiated into the Body of Christ.  With this ecclesiology, then, all baptized Christians share the responsibility of participation and governance in the Church.  While the clergy retain important sacramental functions relating to their orders, the laity has been empowered and approved to serve in additional liturgical and governmental roles in the Church. 

“Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body the Church.  The bond which God establishes in Baptism is indissoluble”

With the ecclesiological implications in place, the Baptismal theology that flows from the Baptismal Covenant effectively ends an age-old two-tiered system of initiation, meaning Baptism and Confirmation.  Baptism is the full and complete rite of initiation in the Church now in the 1979 prayer book.  Even small children who have been baptized are now encouraged to receive Holy Communion.  This radical change sets us apart from some of our brothers and sisters in the Anglican Communion where Confirmation still holds the meal ticket.  The promises made in the Covenant help move the faithful into a greater participation in the Paschal Mystery—the life in Christ.  There is a call for social justice and stewardship.  There is a call to work for peace among all people, and the invitation to seek and serve Christ in every person.  The Baptismal Covenant shifts the Episcopal Church away from seeing Baptism as simply a way to wash off sins; rather, this new covenant is about enacting discipleship.  This is a major move away from the medieval idea of infant baptism, especially by making adult baptism the norm.

Now with my official GOE (General Ordination Exam) answer out of the way, why do we find sand in some baptismal fonts during Lent?  What image and message, then, does that symbol send the faithful?  I maintain that the "tradition" of filling up fonts with sand diminishes the ongoing, ever-present reality of Christian baptism.  No liturgical season can supplant this; the water is living and flowing ever deeper into the hearts of the faithful especially in a season such as Lent.

While there is the invitation in the prayer book for observance of a Holy Lent, this does not mean that the baptismal water and its implications for discipleship magically disappear for a time.  The symbolism of sand and the notion of wrestling with temptation in the desert is a good one, but it confuses baptism and thus not appropriate for baptismal fonts.   

Chad, Bishop and Saint

Today, the Church commemorates the death date of Chad, Bishop of Lichfield (c. 672).  We know some of Chad by the historian Bede.  Below is the excerpt from The Oxford Dictionary of Saints.

St Chad was the first bishop of Mercia and Lindsey at Lichfield. He was the brother of Cedd, whom he succeeded as Abbot of Lastingham, North Yorkshire, and a disciple of Aidan who sent him to Ireland as part of his education. Chad was chosen by Oswi, king of Northumbria, as bishop of the Northumbrian see, while Wilfrid, who had been chosen for Deira by the sub-king Alcfrith, was absent in Gaul seeking consecration shortly after the Synod of Whitby (663/4). Faced with a dearth of bishops in England, Chad was unwise enough to be consecrated by the simoniacal Wine of Dorchester, assisted by two dubious British bishops. Wilfrid on his return to England in 666, found that Alcfrith was dead or exiled and retired to Ripon, leaving Chad in occupation. But in 669 Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, restored Wilfrid to York and deposed Chad (who retired to Lastingham), but soon reconsecrated him to be bishop of the Mercians. This unusual step was due both to the new opening for Christianity in Mercia and to the excellent character of Chad himself, whom both Eddius and Bede recognised as being unusually humble, devout, zealous and apostolic. Chad's episcopate of three years laid the foundations of the see of Lichfield according to the decrees of Theodore's council at Hertford, which established diocesan organisation. Wulfhere, king of Mercia, gave him fifty hides of land for a monastery at Barow (Lincolnshire); he also established a monastery close to Lichfield Cathedral.

Chad died on March 2nd 672 and was buried in the Church of St Mary. At once, according to Bede, he was venerated as a saint and his relics were translated to the Cathedral Church of St Peter. Cures were claimed in both churches. Bede described his first shrine as 'a wooden coffin in the shape of a little house with an aperture in the side through which the devout can...take out some of the dust, which they put into water and give to sick cattle or men to drink, upon which they are presently eased of their infirmity and restored to health'.

His relics were translated in 1148 and moved to the Lady Chapel in 1296. An even more splendid shrine was built by Robert Stretton, bishop of Lichfield (1360-85) of marble substructure with feretory adorned with gold and precious stones. Rowland Lee, bishop of Lichfield (1534-43), pleaded with Henry VIII to spare the shrine: this was done, but only for a time. At some unknown date the head and some other bones had been separated from the main shrine. Some of these, it was claimed, were preserved by recusants, and four large bones, believed to be Chad's are in the Roman Catholic cathedral of Birmingham. A fine Mercian illuminated Gospel Book of the 8th century called the Gospels of St Chad was probably associated with his shrine, as the Lindisfarne Gospels were associated with the shrine of St Cuthbert; it is now in Lichfield Cathedral Library. The 11th century shrine list mentions the relics of Cedd and Hedda resting at Lichfield with Chad. Thirty-three ancient churches and several wells were dedicated to St Chad, mainly in the Midlands. There are also several modern dedications.

From The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, by David Hugh Farmer, 3rd edition, 1992

Now I doubt that my parents had all this in mind when deciding on my name in 1980.  However, I was not to discover Chad's witness to the faith until my teenage years when a friend and Orthodox priest told me the story of Saint Chad.  From that point forward, I was committed to celebrating this great, humble witness of the Church in pre-Roman Britain!  

I searched for a number of years to find an icon of Saint Chad.  When I began my discernment in 2005, I decided that I would take up the holy practice of icon writing.  The icon above was the fruit of that labor and it hangs above my desk in my study.  

Here are the arms of Saint Chad's College, University of Durham.  I was able to visit the College when I was in Durham this past summer.  There are numerous parishes in the Church of England bearing this great saint's name.  Ironically, our seminary recently hired the chaplain from Saint Chad's College to be our theology professor.  We've swapped icons of Chad.

I pray that I may seek daily to embodied the humility and faithfulness that Saint Chad serves as an exemplar for us today.  

Not Another Temptation Sermon

First Sunday of Lent, Year C
February 21, 2010
Christ and Grace Episcopal Church

Petersburg, Virginia

Romans 10: 8b-13

Luke 4: 1-14

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted. 

         

Woe is me!  Temptation, Lent, ashes, woe is me!  You know what I'm talking about.  Whoever says, "I'm looking forward to Lent this year?"  Huh?  We don't need another sermon on temptation, heck we could give that one!  That dessert looks mighty tempting.  Those prices at Sam's Club are just too good, let's sock up for the winter.  But that job would give me so much power and prestige if I accept it, think of all that we have!  That investment firm is really promising me assurance and prosperity for my future, if only I promise them my faithfulness in giving.  Woe is me! Temptation, the basic human condition we fight day in and day out.  We know temptation so very well.

        

Luke's Gospel today reminds us of Our Lord's exile in the wilderness, and the temptations by the Adversary which serves as the capstone moment in Jesus' formation before his public ministry begins.  There in the wilderness, the desert of wasteland, Jesus is confronted not once but three times by the Adversary to tempt the Son of God to show his hand and see if this new Light in the world could be snuffed out. Perhaps this would have made him so weak and vulnerable that Jesus would do almost anything.  Wouldn't we?  Bread, power, and fidelity.  Simple temptations, promising and awesome: great power over creation, authority over the kingdoms of the earth, and all the promised glory and honor due a mighty king.  Bread, power, and fidelity.  Simple, eh?

"If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread!"  There is no doubt, that Jesus the Son of God could in fact do this.  If he would only do this, he could have something to eat.  But this question goes deep into the heart of the ministry of Jesus, for what would the Christian narrative be if Jesus was simply bread for himself?  A selfish Jesus, that doesn't seem to fit.  Jesus' whole earthly ministry was spent being bread for everyone--feeding, nourishing, sustaining, and filling hungry mouths with the Word of God. "One does not live by bread alone," Jesus says, and so we know that we ourselves cannot sustain life without the spiritual nourishment from God alone.   

         

"But, I'll give you glory and authority over all the kingdoms of the world, and I can give it all to you in a nanosecond!  It's yours, if you will only worship me.  Come on, it's easy!"  The King of Kings, a king whose Kingdom is not from this world, without missing a beat says, "worship the Lord your God and serve only him."  But the world could have changed in an instant!  No more injustice, war, famine, or disease!  But would the price be?  Whose power would be exalted?  Surely it wouldn't be God's. 

         

Stubborn until the end, the Adversary tried once more, "if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from the temple, and let the angels catch you."  From the dizzying heights of the pinnacle, looking out over creation, Our Lord fights vertigo, "do not put the Lord your God to the test."  Bread, power, and fidelity the testing of the soul, the triumph of Christ.

         

It is no accident that our Gospel lesson falls on the First Sunday of Lent.  The Lenten journey can easily be mistaken for a time of "woe is me" and heaped upon by teachings against temptation, selfish abstinence for the avante garde, and a great way to show others that we're really working hard at this Lent thing.  Perhaps this is why some don't look forward to Lent.  So then, what does it all mean?  

         

The Gospel truth in all this is: bread, power, and fidelity.  Consider these temptations of Christ in the positive.  What are we tempted to do with our bread?  Or better yet, who are we being bread to?  What are we doing with our God-given power, prestige, or influence when we are vaulted to the pinnacles?  Are we tempted to work for justice?  Are we tempted to use what we have to fight disease, end hunger, heal addiction, and eradicate homelessness?  Are we tempted to be faithful to God?  Tempted to a life of discipleship and prayer?  Are we tempted to live in forgiveness to ourselves and those who have wronged us?  After those forty days, without food, our Lord took up his public ministry.

         

If we look to Christ for the answers, than, yes, you guessed it.  We should succumb to those temptations.  These are the temptations to us, the beloved of God, not from the evil in our world.  The Lenten journey is the greatest season in which we are invited to deepen our walk with Christ, to see in ourselves the God-given love that drives us out from our own deserts and into the streets--witnessing a message that the Adversary and the powers and principalities of this world don't want to hear!  We cannot live on bread alone.  That's what our Eucharistic fellowship every Sunday primes us for, and this happens year-round.

         

St. Paul's letter to the Romans furthers this idea that Christ is so near to us He is in on our lips and in our hearts.  Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved--no one is excluded or left out.  To confess with our lips that Jesus Christ is Lord, then we cannot ignore the temptation to follow the Master.  This Gospel truth is not about who is saved and who is out, it's about our ability to "walk the talk"--being bread to our neighbors, striving for the Kingdom with every thing we have, and a complete and total dependency on the wounded, risen Christ. 

         

Leaven, influence, and faith.  If we wait for Lent to be the time of "giving something up" then we truly miss the mark of the Master's call to discipleship.  Our temptation is corporate and communal.  The Kingdom is not about individuals, but the whole of the creation moving sweetly to God's song of love.  The temptations of Our Lord reveal the ingredients for a life of discipleship:  the need for spiritual, enriching food, striving for justice and peace, and a complete trust in the sovereignty of God.  Our Lord is modeling these staples in the face of great evil and temptation that promises all the riches and glory of the world.  But that's just it.  We are in the world but not of it.  We are working to bring about God's Kingdom here and now.  

May our Lenten journeys be full of temptation: temptation to be rising bread for a hungry, hurting world; temptation to use our power and influence to bring about the Reign of God in the streets of Petersburg and beyond.  May our Lenten journey be full of temptation to walk each and every step of the way with the Lord and Master of love and mercy.   

Monster Sunday School

Lighten up your Lenten journey and enjoy, I did...