Baptism

I submit to you this piece of a sermon I preached in January on Mark 1:4-12. It was for a Sunday service where we celebrated remembering our baptisms, and it was a great joy to preach about baptism just a few weeks after I had been privileged with baptizing a baby for the first time. It was a baptism that I will not easily forget... During the liturgy, as I was praying through the statements of commitment, the baby was studying me intently, as though he knew I was talking to him and that this was a moment of deepest truth. But, I reached the question regarding whether, or not, the baby is ready to be baptized. And that sweet boy who is no more than a year and a half old looked me square in the eye and said loudly, "NO!"

What a fantastic moment. Everyone laughed, and obviously, I baptized the baby anyway. But isn't it true that we often protest our baptisms? How often do we say no, when God's grace is desiring us so desperately to say yes?

January 11, 2009 - I performed my very first baptism a couple of weeks ago, and it was a very special service for me – one that I have been anticipating – and fearing – for a long time. This was the moment, when so much of my training about the theology of baptism, my preparation for ministry would come to fruition – I would finally be able to bring a child into Christ’s family. What a great privilege – finally to be “Anna the Baptist.”

But then I dipped my hand into that water and found it to be surprisingly warm and enveloping - and I held that squirming baby who felt like he was trying to leap into the baptismal font on his own volition. I splashed some water on his head and signed him with a cross and prayed for him, and I could not have been more aware of the fact that that baptism had very little to do with me and my own strength and power and training – and it had everything to do with the power of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit, making that water and those rituals and that child anything but ordinary.

God made him worthy of receiving grace – God named him a child of God, and there was nothing I or he could have done to earn it, deserve it, or change it.

As a minister, I am not “Anna the Baptist.” As a minister and a person, I am “Anna, beloved child of God.” And this designation and the power and strength that come with it are not reserved for clergy. Ministers are in no way more worthy of God’s grace than any other person on this planet.

We’ve spoken this morning primarily about being a child of God. But baptism is actually about being children of God in community. When we baptize a child into the community of faith, together we commit to these words: with God’s help “members of the body of Christ will so maintain the common life of worship and service that all children among us may grow in grace and in the knowledge and love of God and of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.” This is anything but a selfish and individualistic act.

In baptism, we understand ourselves to be beloved, but we also affirm the belovedness of others around us – even when we don’t feel like it, or we’ve been hurt by others. Just as no one is prevented from being baptized, God affirms all of our belovedness and uses all of us in this family to transform one another gracefully and to walk with each other through times of being in the desert wilderness. We are all called to different things – but no matter what our specific gifts or vocations, each one of us in this congregation has the ability to accept and extend grace, following the example of John the Baptist and preparing the way for Christ to do his great work of forgiving and redeeming.

Commissioned

Not long after my graduation from Divinity School, my family and I packed up my life and moved most of it back home to Pennsylvania, as I prepared to be commissioned as a minister in The United Methodist Church. People ask me about what I do all the time. It's the standard question everyone gets asked - Hi, my name is Joe, what's yours? Nice to meet you - what do you do?

What do I do? Some people joke that well, you're a minister - so, that means that you only work on Sundays, right? These people clearly do not know any ministers. And definitely did not grow up with a minister, as a mother, like I did. No, the job entails more than Sundays.

Other people who are a bit more familiar with church lingo will ask if I'm ordained. Well, the answer is no. But then, they ask, what do you do? How can you be a minister, if you're not ordained? Excellent question - one that we debated often in classes on Methodism.

An inevitably, regardless of peoples' myriad understandings of what it means to be a minister, ordained or otherwise, after I finish explaining that I am commissioned, not ordained, but that I am a minister who does all of the same things that ordained ministers do, they will still look me up and down and proclaim knowingly: Well, you're awfully young to be a minister.

This happened to me just yesterday. And I suppose, in response to that conversation-deadening statement, I could attempt to describe my credentials and life experience, handing them a copy of my CV. But, I really want to tell them two other things, which I believe to be far more important.

First, is that I am in no way too young to be a minister because we don't become ministers. We are born as ministers, all of us. Not just the people who accept God's call to make ministry their vocation. It's not even that some are called to full time ministry while others are not. We are all called to full time ministry. The ministry that God has for me just may look different from the ministry God has for you, depending on what your gifts are or who you were made to be. The important part of what I do is not what I do at all but who I am - and that is a beloved child of God, someone that I have been since before I was born. And it is the same for everyone.

And so, people ask, what is the point of this commissioning - ordaining thing? Why do you need to sew a special collar onto your shirt?

On the way to the interviews that would decide whether, or not, I would be commissioned as a minister, my father and I drove past a place in rural Pennsylvania where there used to be a shirt-making operation. And my dad described to me the process of making a shirt, as he understood it from a woman he knew whose job it was to sew on the shirt collar. She told him that sewing on the collar is the last step to finishing a shirt.

It seems it is similar in life and ministry. Wearing a collar does set ministers apart, and being commissioned or ordained to that role sets ministers apart, as well. But putting on the collar doesn't make me who I am. It doesn't make a shirt a shirt. It simply reminds me of what I am supposed to look like. It reminds me of who I am, who I have always been, and who I am called to be.

Sewing on a collar only happens when the rest of the shirt has been fitted and shaped to a specific pattern that will fit your body. It only happens after sewing in different pieces and finding the perfect buttons to hold it together and matching the perfect threads to sew everything in place and create beautiful designs.

As I stood at the front of the congregation when I was commissioned, as a minister, I was excited, having anticipated that moment for a long time. It was a weighty moment, when I was quite aware that all of the papers I had written and interviews I had passed and prayers I had prayed were at a point of culmination when while I had done a lot of work, it was the huge, swooping dove of the Holy Spirit who had been working and continued to work in that moment in ways far beyond my understanding.

I was aware that the Spirit had been busily threading and sewing piece after piece of my life together, slowly helping me put on a new identity and leading me to that point. After the bishop prayed over us, we turned around to look out at the congregation. What looked like two thousand people all smiled back, and from out of the deepest part of me welled up a rushing, uncontrollable sob. It was a sob of sadness and of overwhelming gratitude. Because from where I stood, I could see person after person who had walked beside me, sewing and piecing me together. People from childhood camps and parents of friends. One of my own dearest friends and her mother. My dad, smiling and crying in the front. Friends and colleagues of my mother who had known me since before I was born. My family and mentors. And my mother was not there - and yet, she was. It was all too much, to see the threads and pieces of life coming together before your own eyes. To see the love of so many people whose love had sustained me, taught me, and reminded me who I was, who I am, and who I am called to be.

I am commissioned as a child of God who wears a collar that says I am committed to allowing the Holy Spirit to work through me, as it has worked in the past and as it will work in the future in extraordinary ways. It is a collar that says I am committed to being a part of God's work in piecing the world together through seeking justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. It is a collar that says, I desire not just to look more like Jesus but to be more like Jesus - to fit the pattern and form of Christ. And I have discovered for myself, although I was told it before, that this is the greatest privilege and delight, but it is going to take more than a lifetime, and it often comes with great cost.

I was reminded of this joy and this sacrifice in the covenant prayer that we all prayed, as a church, this past Sunday, as we recommitted our lives - recommissioned one another - to the calling of Christ:

"I am no longer my own but yours.
Your will, not mine, be done in all things,
wherever you may place me, in all that I do
and in all that I may endure;
when there is work for me and when there is none;
when I am troubled and when I am at peace.
Your will be done
when I am valued and when I am disregarded;
when I find fulfilment and when it is lacking;
when I have all things, and when I have nothing.
I willingly offer
All I have and am
To serve you,
as and where you choose.

Glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
You are mine and I am yours.
May it be so for ever.
Let this covenant now made on earth
Be fulfilled in heaven. Amen”

(Adapted by John Cooper)

Backtracking

It is impossible to communicate any of God's sustenance in my life over the past year without first backtracking a few paces and mentioning the joy of graduating from Divinity School and being commissioned as a minister. The picture of graduation that I include here, I include not because it is any great photographic feat. In fact, it's obviously blurry. But, it reminds me of the joy with which I initially embraced this calling - the kind of joy that sustains us through pain and frustration. It is the kind of joy that can only exist in the context of community, and so I am supremely grateful for the community of people that I remember every day in the United States and for the community of people I have found here in South Africa. I have seen God's faithfulness and creativity and hope in the faces of all these people, and I will, thankfully, never be the same.

Graduation from seminary was also a moment of truth because I realized then that I had learned a lot of knowledge and an entirely new vocabulary for how to view and describe the world at school, but I would never be able to find all the experience and wisdom there that I would need to be the kind of minister Jesus calls us to be. For that, I would need a whole different kind of schooling - one that has often brought me to my knees, where, it seems, true wisdom is found.

Rolling out the red carpet

Durban Airport. August 25, 2008. 6:50 p.m. It's been a long time, my friends, and over a year later, it is now coming on Spring in Durban. My eye caught a glimpse of Roger-the-crazy-man- Scholtz - my kindred friend and pastor - through the frosted glass of the baggage claim doors. At least I thought it was Roger - he was turning around and walking in the other direction, out of view. Knowing that it would just be too much to have come so far and see more without being able to reach out and hug these people who are so precious to me, I skirted around the corner and got as close as possible to the baggage unloading, practically praying those bags out of the rubber-flapping door. Over a year of paperwork and prayer, revolving around within me, as I eyed the bags flipping out one by one. And miracle of miracles, it seemed barely a moment passed before my burnt orange duffel fell out, followed by the other two bags holding two years of home's sustenance.

Amazed by my own energy after about twenty-two hours lofing in airports and airplanes, I chucked the bags on a cart (they're free in South Africa...), and sped out the door only to find my eyes landing first on Janice, my loving South African mom, then Christy my sister, and Candy and Phelo, and on, barely noticing Sue flashing pictures, as she said merrily - you're just a blur, I can hardly get a proper photo! And then, Gareth and Roger - supervisors, but always first colleagues in ministry and dear friends - the only two I had expected at the airport. I cannot say how joyful these moments were. These people have been in my thoughts and prayers every day since I left them last. Who, but God, could have imagined that such joy could come out of such grief? I had thought after leaving them in tears last, that I would be unable to control my tears upon seeing them. And yet, I can describe no other feeling from this meeting than absolute, full joy. It was like seeing family. It is seeing family. I have never been one to use the word, "merry," other than in the context of Christmas - it reminds me too much of cheery, rosy-cheeked, whistling elves - but that is exactly what we were. Cheery, cheeks a little worse for the wear in exhaustion, but whistling, smiling spirits, and laughing faces. I hardly knew where to look first, trying to drink in everyone's expressions and voices.

I turned around, however, and saw the strangest sight - Roger, approaching the baggage claim door and carefully rolling up the long roll of carpet that led up to it. Yes, yes. He was rolling up the red carpet... Brought especially from Manning Road in the boot of Roger's minivan and rolled out for my arrival. I must remember to be careful about the ways that I tease Roger - it only incites action for his imagination. But, it was quite ironic, actually. The red carpet is the bride's carpet - the one that goes down the center aisle of the church at Manning Road. Early then next morning, I awoke to hear the housekeeper, Clarabelle, cleaning in the room next door. When greeting her, she asked how long I was staying. I replied - two years! She said - Oh! You will be married to the church!

That may not have been what she meant... But, I could not help but think that it is true. I am married to the community of people that we call the church. And, it has been a merry wedding, indeed. For better, for worse, I am more than delighted to be joined in a holy covenant, as one of the pastors of Manning Road Methodist Church. I think I hear the Trumpet Voluntary playing just now...

Give a week

Today, I traveled in taxis through Durban, one of the most dangerous and prolific forms of transportation available. 2.50 rand to get from anywhere to anywhere in Durban. Taxis are not the standard New York Yellow Cab. they are vans that cram in over 16 people and practically fly across lanes of traffic. The person in the front seat with the driver is in charge of collecting the money from everyone else. They must count it and make proper change. Most people in Durban travel this way. I, on the other hand, upon arrival in this country was given a car for the duration of my stay... This was the start of our week at the church called "Give a Week and Change Your Life," more commonly referred to as "Give a Week." This is the second annual such week, wherein members of the congregation journey through parts of Durban and the surrounding areas to experience different aspects of community life. It's a pilgrimage, a time to see and hear the pain and hope all around us that we seldom take time to perceive.

Sidenote. Janice just walked into my room with the grandbaby of our gardener. He is but six weeks old and perfect. These are the things in life that I don't mind noticing at all.

Back to the reality of the day. Paul (half)-jokingly sold me to someone at the market in Downtown Durban for 200 cows. It was to be 150 cows, but Paul jacked the price for me up, since I was American. The people responded that I didn't know the local language, and Paul said he would be happy to teach me isiZulu for 200 cows...I also ate cow head at the market, while the cow head next in line to be cooked sat on the table nearby - it was a sweet brown cow that looked like it was sleeping...without a body. I won't be eating cow head any time again soon. That's all I have to say about that.

More later on "Give a Week." What does it mean to "give" a week? I'm not sure, but I'm so very grateful that it is my job to "give a week," as I'm sure I receive much more than I give - whether it be the cow fat that is currently lining my stomach, or the grace.

Emigrating to the New South Africa

What does it mean to emigrate to the New South Africa, you ask? I wish I had enough insight and time to reflect fully on that and explain, but for now, I must relate part of my understanding to you by describing some more of my week.

Emigrating to the New South Africa means engaging with humanity's issues with patient hearts and creativity. We attempted to enter into this through preparing for our Faith and Science evenings on Monday and Tuesday, helping people of the congregation and the community to engage with Scripture and the insights of culture imaginatively and with humor and academic exploration.

Emigrating to the New South Africa means, however, that while this engagement is taking place, we have no choice but to be mindful of the desperation, anger, and suffering that circles and attempts to wipe out that imagination.

On Monday morning, I went to the hospital to visit Sidney, a patient I had seen before - a woman dying of lung cancer. Her grown children and husband were beside themselves, not knowing what to do in the face of her death but also in the face of her fear of death. She was so very afraid. Such a strange feeling for me, to begin a day in the midst of the helplessness of imminent death. It was a moment in life, when you know that your words will never be enough - that you can tell someone not to be afraid until you turn blue, but ultimately, the only thing that will make a difference is expressing God's love for her and trusting that God is present. Trusting Maranatha - that Jesus comes. She was in Parklands, one of the most beautiful hospitals I have ever seen - one of the private hospitals in Durban, where only those with private medical aide may go for care. She was hooked up to a million machines in an impeccably clean room with nurses scurrying to and fro. It was such a different scene from that of other government hospitals for those without medical aide where I have visited here, one of which is literally two blocks away from the private hospital. In the government hospital the roof leaks rain inside and patients are stacked six or more in a cluttered ward. I began my day in Parklands and ended it with visions of just such a government hospital, but in between, many preparations had to be made for our evening of Faith and Science.

After an afternoon of preparation, wherein one of the young ladies of the church had her cell phone stolen by another congregant homeless man from the church sanctuary, I was sitting at a desk in the office, furiously scribbling out equations from organic chemistry to decorate the walls of the church, Gareth popped his head in with more bad news. Gideon, a young adult friend (a member of Manning Road, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and a gentle, intelligent university student) had been stabbed in the back, while walking from university to church. Paul, our youth and young adults director, was called to rush him to the hospital, while we all sat stunned and attempting still to present an evening of "fun" and lectures on the intersection of faith and science, while Gideon bled for four hours in Paul's arms in the waiting room at Addington Hospital because the government hospitals are on strike here, and only one doctor was on duty for an entire hospital. Some might call this madness. And it is. But, part of the challenge of the New South Africa seems to be to stop placing blame.

This night, however, was a night of many tears, as it is difficult not to place blame, when violence and suffering seems so very senseless. At first, we thought that the person who stabbed Gideon had stolen his bookbag, which seemed senseless enough, in and of itself, since all the bookbag held were textbooks. We have now discovered that the stabber took nothing. Absolutely nothing. It was pure violence. "The bastards," we said - they're not worth our time. And yet, it is in exactly this climate of desperation and anger where we do minister and must. In a world of so much fear, as much as we lash out in the face of such violence, claiming to want nothing to do with it, if we do not meet it in all its gruesome reality, we let it win.

And so, as I had begun the day by praying, we ended the day by praying - this time for Gideon and for the attacker. Praying that Gideon would survive this, and he has so far. His lung was punctured. He thought he was going to die, and yet Tuesday came, and he is yet alive.

Tuesday was a day of reflection on the madness. A day of trying to improve the previous night of Faith and Science. In the midst of this reflection, we were privileged to visit Gideon in the hospital, privileged to see him alive. And I was distraught to discover upon taking communion to Sidney at Parklands that she had died early that morning. The life of Gideon. The death of Sidney. The death of a part of Gideon's innocence. The life of Sidney now without fear. The madness of the guards walking around with AK-47s and six patients to a ward in Addington Government Hospital. The madness of cancer at Parklands. The awe of persistent joy and compassion - the persistent presence of God through it all. The New South Africa.

Tuesday meant, also, my regular visit to the local Children's Home. It meant the joy of photographing the lives of the girls there and working with them to join the wisdom of Scripture to the beauty of their lives in the making of scrapbooks. This is joy and pain united into one. Mixed in with this joy and pain was the news that one of the girls had cut herself the past weekend out of frustration and anger, and another young girl had overdosed on pills, landing in the government hospital I had visited on Monday. And thus, life comes full circle.

She wanted to die, but she is yet alive. I began this day by a visit to see her. Surrounded by a team of psychologists in a ward of six miserable women, as rain absolutely poured down from the heavens, I could not help but think that these must be the tears of God. I glimpsed her through the door, and she gave me a weak smile. I waited my turn, and it seemed the tears of God were raining on me, when she collapsed in my arms in sobs. I have never seen a young person with as much trauma in her life as this child has seen - I could not bear to relate all of it to you, but if you can imagine it, I can pretty much guarantee that it is a part of her story. She cannot see herself with a future, and it takes little imagination to wonder why. She's covered in cut marks and burn marks and now, holes from IVs, and yet, she is still beautiful, and I pray tonight that she - that we all - will continue to comprehend that death doesn't win - if we die of an insidious disease, if we descend into violence, even if we attempt to bring it on ourselves - death still does not win in South Africa or any other place in this world because this is God's world.

This is a world of faith and science. Science may prove that death exists, but regardless, in the New South Africa, faith says we are yet alive.

The bishop

This is how my week began. When picking up Peter Storey, former Methodist Bishop of South Africa and one of the people that I admire most in the world, from the airport on Sunday night, I arrived at the airport just fine (after missing a turn-off and having to drive in a circle around a big chunk of Durban). After driving by the Arrivals terminal, having Peter Storey fling himself into my bitty car, clutching his bag and offering to drive for me, I gave in to the pressure of traffic around me and drove out of the airport to get back on the highway. Things went fine for the first few minutes, as I attempted to merge into oncoming truck traffic in the dark on the wrong side of the road, while reflecting theologically to one of the greatest practical theologians of this century. Yes, things went fine, until I turned off on the first exit to Pinetown - the wrong exit to Pinetown - since no one had ever told me that there were two, and I was actually to take the second one. And so, there we were, the bishop and I, sitting in the dark on a fairly deserted road in South Africa, as I wondered why the scenery didn't look familiar to me and what on earth I was to do next. Redemption finally came when we stopped at a petrol station, and someone miraculously could direct us in the proper way. The bishop took over the steering wheel, and I was demoted to "navigator." Which, I thankfully accomplished with a minor amount of miraculous finesse, as we got to our destination, Pinetown Methodist Church. Peter Storey thanked me for the ride, described me as his "blind navigator," and we all went to tea at a Pinetown Methodist member's home and shared experiences about South Africa and listened to Peter Storey describe stories from his life, including his experiences in situations such as being the man in charge of peacekeeping in Soweto during the first South African democratic elections in 1994. It was a fairly awe-inspiring evening, listening to the Bishop's sharp mind relate how we need to emigrate to the New South Africa.