A Note About Baptism

Dear Nicholas,
I woke up this morning to a lot of posts on the Book of Faces about baptism.  It got me spinning in my head a mile a minute.

We are Methodists.  And like good Methodists, we believe that baptism is a sacrament, an outward sign of an inward and invisible grace.  That is the stock answer, but what does it really mean?  Then that got me thinking, what does that really mean to me?  One of the key features of baptism is naming.  Typically, in our tradition, an infant is baptism.  The child is claimed as a child of God, adopted into God's family, and recognized by their Christian name.  Now, in some sense the advent of hospitals, birth certificates, and records offices have made that last part redundant.  The church is no longer the community ledger that officiates naming.  However, we still read the full name when we declare this child, with God's help, to be claimed by God and sealed in the covenantal promised to be raised in the faith.  Why?

I see baptism as a twofold action.  On one hand we have God's action- the unnamed God, the God who is action in itself, acts on our behalf.  The unnamed God names us a divine child and claims us for God's purposes.  The God who cannot be named, claimed, contained, or projected names us, claims power over us and over our lives- the power being love and grace.

On the other hand, we have our action, which is recognition.  It is a recognition that not only have we been claimed in this instant, but that we have always been claimed, that we have always been sought after and contested for.  It is our recognition of God's power in love and grace already ruling in our lives.

Hence, baptism becomes, at the risk of being oxymoronic, a truthful illusion.  Baptism is the truthful action of God having already claimed us through the illusion that God is claiming us that very moment.  Rather, baptism is about God's past and future becoming our present and vice versa.  It is a sign and seal of relationship.

Baptism is about relationship, and relationship implies two things: risk and reciprocity.  To take action is to risk.  To love someone is a risk.  To trust someone is a risk.  Baptism is God's action of taking risk by entrusting us with a beautiful future, a sacred vision and purpose for the world.  And it is a reciprocal act: God acknowledges trust and love towards us and we do the same.  We take on the risk of accepting that sacred vision and purpose.

What if we actually felt that way?  Sometimes I fear that as a society we often lack a concept of duty, and Christians may have helped perpetuate that problem. In the Christian tradition, love is a gift that is freely given.  That is all well and good, but we often leave it at that.  Love is not merely a sentiment, it is a sacred trust and responsibility, a call to duty.  For instance, pets are often given as gifts, but having a pet carries intrinsic responsibility- you care for another lifeform by feeding it, bathing it, playing with it, and tending to it when it's sick.

What if we were to view baptism in the same way?  As loving trust established?  In the rites, the community is called upon to raise that person up in Christian love and teachings- it is a promise made.  What if instead of viewing love as simply a gift, we also were to view it as a sacred duty?

Hope you're not tiring of my ramblings,

Kyle