Baptismal dedication liturgy

Petra,

As your parents one of our duties is to provide you with the things you need in life as well as to provide you with the occasional luxury, the occasional gift, the occasional non-necessity. It will often be joyful and sometimes stressful. Sometimes you will be grateful for what we give to you but sometimes that gratitude will be hard to summon.

The gift we give to you today is a gift that was given to us. The community of God to love and support you and to receive the love and support that you will grow into.

But that is a strange thing to say as it is rather incorrect. We cannot give to you this gift because in a way we have no power over the giving, much in the same way you currently have no ability to reject the gift. As the saying goes, "the best things in life are free" and indeed this thing you are being given today is radically free and certainly the best.

And we kid ourselves when "we," your parents, or "we" the congregation, or even "we" the church are deluded into thinking that anyone but God can give this gift. It is the gift of adoption into God's family. It is the gift of entrance into God's kingdom. It is the pledge of the church to love and care for you as best it can. But mostly it is a promise that the God who created you, found you before you even knew to look for him, surrounded you with the church led by the Holy Spirit, that this God sent his Son to the cross so that he may enjoy your presence with him in this life and the next. This is, of course, what we celebrate today knowing that as we baptize you into this community we can be assured of it's headship and victory over death that defines it's existence.

Now hear this verse as a blessing personalized for you Petra. It is from a book that is attributed, or at least dedicated, to your namesake, the rock of the church: 1 Peter 4:7-11

The end of all things draw near. Therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for your prayers. Above all keep your love of others constant because love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to others without complaining. Just as each one has received a gift, use yours for serving others, as a good steward of the grace of God to you. If you speak, let is be as the oracle of God; If you serve let it be by the strength of God, so in all things God will be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom is the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.

Petra, receive this gift of baptism into God's family the church. It is given to you by your Holy Father who has been, is and always will be with you.

Wearing White. Or, Helping to Choose My Daughter's Baptismal Gown

I can't decide if it is common for a child to have a choice of three different baptismal outfits or not? On one hand, we live in a consumeristic society that loves to buy things and even more so if there is a reasonable excuse such as, "wouldn't that be a pretty outfit for Petra to get baptized in?" Additionally some strains of American culture still value tradition and prize family heirlooms. Finally we just like to have stuff, even if it should be thrown out we try to make it work or keep it for the slimmest of sentimentality. I am quite the sinner concerning that last comment.

But on the other hand, Americans love immersive believer baptisms, in street clothes or bathing suits, and done in a hot tub or at the beach. And we love eschewing the old for the new. And, "hey, we can always throw this out now and replace it when we actually need it."

So my wife and I have 3 outfits to choose from and being the romantic that I am I voted for the one that would mostly make her look like she was in the Corleone family. And no I don't plan on granting any favors that I can't refuse "on this the day of my daughter's baptism."

She looks pretty cute.

What struck me, though, is that the outfit is entirely white.

Now obviously there is precedent to that as this scene from O Brother Where art Thou attests to:


But just as wearing white for the bride on her wedding day is a negotiable tradition in the same way many of our baptismal liturgies can be a take or leave proposition for most pastors and church council members. The early church considered baptism such a momentous thing that the catechumen, the men and women who were to be baptized into the church, would be educated about the faith for an entire year before being baptized during the easter vigil. In the Reformation people were hanged, decapitated, burned and drowned for their views on baptism. The cavalier attitude of Americans toward baptism is seen by many as a correction to the heavy emphasis put on it by our faith forebears, but perhaps the baby was thrown out with the baptismal water?

For me, a good piece of liturgy is a moment through which a symbolic act performed by one person extended to the entire congregation or vice versa; one symbolic act performed by the congregation had profound importance on the individual.

If I were to perform a wedding I would remind the attendees that the ceremony is a time to reflect on how the union of the bride and groom mirrors unity and love extended and received in their lives. The baptism should be the same thing. When a person is baptized it is one, among myriad times in a given year, when a member of the congregation would reflect on their own baptism and story.

This could take the form of my story where I recall that my parents had me baptized when I was very young and while I can barely remember the day, I know that before and after that the vows of my baptism were fulfilled by my community who raised me in knowledge, fear and love of the Lord. For another person, one of my many friends even, it may remind them of the time they received Christ in elementary school, Jr. High or High School and pursued baptism after a time of catechesis.

Because of this I will point out that the white of my daughters outfit does not indicate that she is pure. Rather it indicates that she is being made pure. Even at the time where it is hard to imagine any manifestations of sin emanating from her (trust me, they're there), she is justified, adopted and being sanctified.

I plan on saying a few things to the congregation as usually the parents are allowed a moment to frame the baptism with a particular thought, usually a scripture reading, before answering the questions regarding our commitment to raising her as a Christian. My reflection will invite the folks gathered to reflect on their own story, the ups and downs, but mostly the grace of our God who accompanies us through life and loved us enough to send his son for us, something we will be celebrating in an even more poignant way than usual this Easter Sunday.

I think this will be my final post for this lenten blog series concerning being a dad and considering what that means for my lenten practice. In the overwhelming hurt and violence in this world, I am glad that Ali and I can help usher Petra into a community where hurt and violence, even dust-essence, is not the final word.

"Shattering the brand."

Election years are always interesting and tempting for pastors when it comes to what is said from the pulpit. They tend to be like a medical checkup for the nation: we are living but not thriving, we have these symptoms (hot issues) and there are all these cures (candidates) and each cure has downsides and upsides. We collectively weigh which cure gives us the best promise of perceived health with the least amount of perceived side-effects.

Pastors tend to watch these closely because it is a great way to gauge the fears and hopes of the people in their church. Even if the fears and hopes weren't there last election, or even last year, political strategy demands that we adopt the fears and hopes because it allows the candidates and their parties to manipulate us.

And because the election is always in the fall preceding a winter inauguration, lent and easter tend to come during the predictable fight for their respective party's nomination between the different candidates (I am only referring to Democrat and Republican, which sometimes hold primaries and caucuses on different days in the same state, thus this list does not add up to 50+territories).

• 2 events for delegates happen prior to Lent this year. 
• 26 events for delegate happen after Lent this year.
• 43 events happen during Lent this year.

So a majority of our Lent is, most likely, distracted by our passions for how we think our nation should be governed, how our national symptoms are treated.

Meanwhile one party is experiencing a "shattering of brand" as I read today in a headline on my Facebook newsfeed. I found that a peculiar phrase because in a lot of ways this election has shown how shattered the brand "evangelical" is. It is a phrase I and others like me have tried to hold onto because it seems important to the way we practice our faith, even if we don't actually practice it that often in a society that is dismissive of anyone who holds that title.

It is a title that I have to decide whether to pass onto my daughter who is being baptized into an evangelical community. Or at least a community that is busy trying to cure those who have been harmed in the name of that title.

Does Christianity have a shattered brand? What does that even mean when applied to something that is so radically opposed to the idea of brand? Is Christianity radically opposed though? Some might say being Christian or Evangelical is the ultimate brand. That being baptized, the "coming out" of Christianity, is like branding one-self. 

But Lent challenges anything like branding. Lent says that brand is meaningless. Lent eschews brand. Lent flattens everything before God, betraying shallowness and vapidity of all things. I wouldn't say Lent "shatters" the brand because a biblical scholar would argue that the brand was never really cohesive. The community of God is always constructing and demolishing any possible efforts toward a cohesive christian brand.

As I write this it makes me laugh that election is such a theologically endowed word in the reformed vocabulary and that this post is about the event of the presidential election and the elect of God. I am happy to see that those two things that have been so long conflated, are starting to show how incompatible they can be.

Water. Or, the subversiveness of the Christian liturgical memory.

The rain was coming down sideways today. Unlike my native state, Washington, and Seattle specifically, has been doing quite well with snowpack and rainfall respectively.

"Water year to date (Oct 1-Mar 1)

1.    38.22 2015/16  (as of 1:56 PM)
2.    38.19 1998/99
3.    37.96 1950/51
4.    36.39 1995/96
5.    36.06 1955/56

This is a major record."

From Cliff Mass Weather Blog

When it rains heavily I call it "California rain." It is the sort of rain when your knees are wet within a minute of walking outside. I hated it in grade school because when I would sit down at my desk I would feel the cold, wet fabric against my knees and the top of my thighs.

Usually the rain around here (Seattle) is more of a misty or drizzly rain. Just enough to eventually get you wet and be annoying but not enough to keep you from doing many things. I am sure this is a major contributing factor to REI's success.

And while most people wait for the rain to subside and look out for the rainbow afterward sometimes I wonder if we are missing a more poignant reminder. That of our baptism. 

Working in Seminary we joke all the time about things like baptism and the Eucharist. There is a hyperawareness at my workplace of the concrete liturgical actions that permeate our everyday lives and most people haven't been sensitized to these moments. It is almost an industry secret that if people really understood how many sacramental and liturgical moments they go through in a day and actually were aware when they happened, well then pastors would be out of a job. You don't really need a pastor to help lead you through the exercise of what is sacred and what is profane if you are mindful enough.  But many christians do not practice that sort of awareness and pastors regularly point out and reframe sacred acts from much that is taken for granted as profane.

I am reminded about the scene in Boondock Saints when McManus brothers first learn of their elevation and one "blesses" the cops sitting at their desks in the local precinct (It's 2 weeks to St. Paddy's, I couldn't resist).

via GIPHY

Though it is an example of mockery of Christianity in a movie that glorifies violence, it also shows how mindfulness and knowledge of one's practice allows for opportunities to insert the theological into the everyday. The line between mockery and subverting the profane begins to blur in a world where the profane rules and resists to any attempt to seriously sacralize the mundane. This scene is a bonding moment where a group of men who are nominal Christians (perhaps more than that even) realize that they have the shared experience of Eucharist, asperges, and perhaps even baptism.

A joke we might say if someone came into the office wet from a rainstorm is "looks like you just got through with baptism." A serious and subversive thing we might say to someone who is going through a rough patch and seems to be losing their identity as a child of God is "remember you are child of God, baptized, forgiven and adopted into God's family."

In a small, local parish the pastor would often know the name of everyone coming forward to receive the Eucharist and would say "Martin, child of God, this is the body and blood of our Lord, shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins" or some such. However one lenten practice is that everyone loses their name. Everyone is "child of God." Rich, poor, old, young, everyone. Being a child of God is normalized. It unifies. It flattens.

And that is subversive in today's culture. As subversive as choosing your child's religious path and committing them to the care of the greater community. As subversive as trusting God enough to let go of your child. As subversive as daily remembering your baptism and reminding other people of theirs.

Mindfulness alone is subversive thing. But what if every Christian in Seattle stopped and remembered their baptism EVERY TIME IT RAINED? What would happen to road rage on the 405 or the practice of smiling in the nameless crowds at Pike's Place Market or allowing someone in a rush before you in the fair-trade coffee shop line in the morning? And is that something I can build into my daughter so that as she grows she is comforted by the rain and by the fact that she was baptized accepted into and protected by a God and community before she could even have a voice to advocate for herself?

Extras:
Here is an artist I had in mind as I worked on this post.

Let the children come. Or, the "terrifying playground."

I used to attend a Lutheran (ELCA) church that practiced baptism mainly on Easter vigil but also did one-off baptisms for babies around the year. One of the fantastic practices they adopted was to invite all the children to come up to the chancel area (the "stage" for the liturigcally-linguistically challenged) and they would sit on the steps just below the spot where the baptism would take place. They might even be splashed by some of the water they were so close.

By sitting this close a few things happened:

1. The children were super engaged. Not only could they see well, but they had the best view in the sanctuary.
2. It drew all eyes up front.
3. It created a picture of the family of God as the community of the church. Suddenly the distinction between the "my kid" and "your kid" was blurred and the idea of "our kids," or better yet "God's kids," became clearer.
4. Finally, (and in service to this post) the parents had to free their children so they could run up to the chancel.

I emphasize that last part because this is another thought I have been dwelling on during this first fatherhood during lent. What does that mean to loosen the hold on one's child? Again I will point to the culture wars fought on social media and in legislatures and courts where it seems there is always a balancing act of protecting our children and not over legislating or coddling them. 

How do you find the balance between a scraped knee and a broken arm? Between your own worry of tragedy and your child's desire to be independent. Recently a Facebook friend posted an image with this caption: "Tried a new playground today...only slightly terrifying for parents, but very cool for kids."

Photo Credit Matt Emmett

We all have defaults. Often when I see spats between parents it is them trying to work out two different approaches to what they both legitimately see as healthy and safe parenting. In the final analysis I am would have to say that given a spectrum where left is complete freedom and right is complete control, I am somewhere left of center, but not drastically so. I am excited for my daughter to rush into some things, stumble and/or fall and learn something about potentiality and limitations. I hope to be there to catch her or for her to run to. I hope I can help her process and be a place of safety. But if I am not there I trust the church community to show up in my absence.

There is something analogous in that moment where the children rush forward to get the best seat at the baptism and Mark 10:14 the famous "let the children come" passage (see also Matthew 19:14 and Luke 18:16). In the scene the disciples famously and foolishly rebuke the children and the folks bringing their children into Jesus' presence. I have so many questions that I am not sure would have occurred to a non-parent to ask:

1. Where did these children come from?
2. Where were there parents? Were they the ones who brought them forward or were these children of the community and the folks who brought them were also random members of the community?
3. Were these the children's grandparents or aunts or uncles?
4. Were these children orphans?
5. Did these children know who they were approaching?
6. Were these children scared or confident? Or both? Everything in between?

We tend to focus on Jesus and the disciples and the children in this passage and I am sure some deeper exegesis will allow me to make an educated guess as to why the children were brought forth (I imagine something to do with Ancient Israel's blessing customs and/or Jesus' reputation for healing).

But for a moment my thoughts dwell with the larger community. The folks directing the children could be a stand-in for the baptismal covenant community we are about to consecrate our daughter into. Into this community I freely release her. Church can be dirty and messy and I am sure she will pick up some scrapes and bruises. But if just one person in that covenant community takes her to the house where Jesus is teaching and encourages her to run to him for a blessing then it will be worth it. It is a lifelong labor/joy/pattern that I hope she can embrace early and continually renew to the benefit of her and others as it spills over into her whole life.

Dust-essence. Or, #ashtag.

My first-born daughter Petra turned 4 months old as Lent began this year. She is beginning to interact and explore her voice and is VERY observant. She is also in need of being baptized. Not in the sense that she is necessarily sinful. Rather there is a sense that a ceremony whereby she is committed to the community and the community is committed to her will sanction the love she has already received and the love she has yet to receive. Ultimately this love is from God through the vehicle of the church community. While some folks in the church need no invitation to love her, others do. While some parents have no problem sharing the joys and burdens of raising their own children, others need a nudge. While some of us are excited to assume responsibilities of helping to raise and nurture a family not our own, others are more reluctant.

So at the same time that I was receiving ashes and remembering my sinfulness and my ultimate mortality, I was planning for my daughter to be embraced by the church officially. Amid my daughter's second birth in the span of a year (this time into her spiritual family) I was contemplating my own death.

Her birth, my death. Her life, my moving on. Her growing, me fading.

Bear in mind I am only 35 so--God willing--I have a lot time left to raise my daughter, have a relationship with her and be an important and beneficial influence in her life, but that assumes that she survives and thrives despite the many dangers in this world. Do I worry? Sometimes. Do I do what I can to protect her? Sure.

In the end the hard, revelatory and unexpected thing is how, as her father and parent, I experience Lent on her behalf. As I contemplate my own dust-essence I contemplate her dust-essence. It is easy for me to contemplate my dust-essence as I fill out in my midsection, battle against years of bad posture and observe my youth fading. Immunities that helped me through adventure, physical exertion and passion are disappearing so that those same activities leave scars on my mind and body.

But how can this new thing, this child who is growing and learning and in constant renewal, who is so far from "peaking," have a dust-essence that matters and should be forefront in my mind? Culture tells me to push this thought away and lobby and child-proof and resist/embrace vaccines and avoid triggers but don't cause affluenza, build up self-esteem, and-on-and-on...but the reality is there is so little I have control over.

In one sense I think of the infamous "Christmas" passage of the slaughter of the innocents. And I think of the picture of the child who was found on a beach having drowned trying to cross from Turkey to Greece fleeing instability in the Middle East. These examples, one biblical, one all-too-current, both suggest the dust-essence of a child. Any child. My child.

This child. That we have spent so much time preparing for. Hoping for. For whom we have spent countless hours and dollars on already gearing up both literally and emotionally. In an instant she could be taken from us. It feels so much more acute with something as needy and fragile as a child.

Until Jesus returns this dust-essence defines us as much as our spiritual essence. It is within the dust-essence that our spiritual essence is formed. One of the great things about baptism is that one joins a community in which the dust-essence is acknowledged and accepted... at least one hopes that is the case. Baptism is a symbol in which we acknowledge that we are more than dust-essence and yet can never escape our dust-essence and that this dust-essence is so important to the overall scheme that Jesus joined us in it. Rather than trivialize it Jesus elevated it and over the years one of the great battles of orthodoxy is to keep hold of it. To hold it in tension and resist the urge to resolve that tension.

So in my melodramatic way I hold onto my deterioration and remind myself of the ways I can and ultimately will be renewed. And in my sentimental way I hold onto my daughter's overwhelming march through constant renewal as I also hold onto her common fate of eventual returning to dust.


Sporting ashes and a Russian Orthodox beard in that back of the church.