Baptism

We had a marvelous baptism at church on Sunday. The church was packed with people (102 vs. our usual 50-70!). And this baby was amazing... he was so mellow, which seems unusual to me for the tender age of 3 months. He looked at me as I poured the water over his head, as if to say, "Oh, ok; you're pouring water on my head." (It was warm water, which probably helped.) And he cried a little, but then, after I signed his forehead with the chrism and lifted him up so that everyone could see him, he just LOOKED at all of them. Just calmly surveyed all these people, who were clapping for him, like, "Wow, who are all those people? Are they clapping for ME? Huh."

And it is so moving to be a part of a family's journey in faith. This was their second son, and so they had the baptism gig down pretty well. We had great discussions in baptism prep classes together.

It was a fabulous day. Not one of my favorite sermons that I've ever preached, but the energy and beauty of the sacrament of baptism made up for it!

I've done one other baptism. It was when I was twenty-five, at the little church in Massachusetts where I was lay pastor for a year. That was fun, too -- but the ritual of an Episcopal baptism is so beautiful and so powerful. I just made up the liturgy in Monterey, but on Sunday, we said the same words that people say throughout the Episcopal Church when people are baptized -- powerful questions and statements and prayers with words like witness, evil powers, whole trust, deliver them, gift of water, new life of grace, and household of God. And my favorite: "give him an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works."

And it's powerful to hear myself saying the same words that I've heard said so many times before, as my professor John Dally told us at my ordination. The interesting part is that I feel less like "me, Heidi" than I feel like I am standing in for the whole community of my church -- or even the whole Church Universal. Because I think it's more that WE baptize, than that I baptize. I baptize in their name, because it is something that WE have to do, all together. Just like the Eucharist isn't complete until we all say AMEN! together.