“Baptism in our Culture of Fear”

by Bruce J. Johnson

March 14, 2004

(Scripture Luke 13: 1-9)

Baptismal Sundays have always been very special in the worship life of this congregation. They give us pause to ponder the awesome significance of the truths about God and God’s covenant of love with us in Jesus Christ and what it is suppose to mean for us in the midst of the real lives we live in the world.

This morning, in baptizing both Stacia May Porter and Kayla Elizabeth Tingey, this is particularly true and in some ways, profoundly poignant. We don’t leave the world out there at the door but we bring it in—within us and around us and we seek to discern what it means with the context of our culture, which today is best described as a culture of fear.

In baptism, we celebrate the gift of God’s love but we do so in a world of fear. We point to a God of mercy in a world of terror. We lift up and God forgiveness in a world of injustice; and we say boldly that we will trust the ‘promise’ in an unpromising world.

The other day I was given quote by the popular writer, Marianne Williamson:

“Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn here. The spiritual journey is the relinquishment---or unlearning- of fear and the acceptance of love back into our hearts.”

Indeed, the world will soon enough teach them fear--- won’t it? And what our mission in the world is, should we choose to accept it, is to make sure that fear is unlearned and that love lives in the heart.

That’s it--- in nutshell! Our responsibility as parents and as the church is to help the children unlearn fear and accept love back into the hearts.

It is said that sometimes we can see the world through the smallest of windows.

What happened in Madrid on Thursday is a case in point. Three trains and ten bombs. We have a Spanish teacher from Spain at the high school this year and he traveled to New York City to be with others from his country to mourn the tragedy. The Hartford Courant described it beautifully:

“Thursday was a day of tears in a city known for its bright gaiety, a day of trepidation in a city known for its optimism.”

Comparisons were being drawn to 9/11 or any numbers of days in Baghdad, or Jerusalem.

Is anyone safe anywhere? What should our response be? How should we live amidst all this fear? What must we teach our children?

I was so moved by the accounts of the demonstration in Madrid during their three days of national mourning. Millions gathered in the streets in opposition to terror.

The Spanish novelist, Javier Marias described it for the NY Times:

“At noon, the local officials in every Spanish city stand outside the doors of their buildings, in heat, cold or rain, for a minute or two of silence. They’re joined by anyone who want to join them, whoever happens to be nearby. It makes a strong impression, this silence of mourning and condemnation, a collective hush maintained by people who interrupt their tasks and errands to stand wordlessly in the middle of the street. Any curse or outcry against the murderers is usually quieted, because at those moments true condemnation consists of saying nothing. And no matter how many times the tradition has been repeated over the course of far too many years, it loses none of its force.” (NY Times, 3/12/04, A21.)

I believe that birth and baptism are similar stands that never lose their force. They stand as a sign that love will triumph over hate; faith over fear, life over death. In baptism we say that we are joined to Christ. We say that because we die with Christ, we will also live with Christ and the life we now live is in fact, the resurrection life.

Sometimes, unfortunately, it just doesn’t seem like that’s true.

I’m reminded again of that story I’ve told before but it is always worth telling again. It is the news account about the discovery in 1959 of two Japanese soldiers in the wilds of the Philippine islands, two men who fired upon anyone who approached their jungle position. Either they had not heard or had refused to believe that World War II was over. For fourteen years, they lived an illusion. For fourteen years, no one could disabuse them of their misinformation and misapprehension of a world in which killing was still the order of the day.

Well, would you believe that for over 2000 years, no tiny minority but the vast majority of the human race seems to live by a similar illusion—some to a lesser degree and others, to the greater.

It is, of course, a believable illusion. It is actually remarkable what we see so encapsulated in Good Friday---

For like Pilate, most political bureaucrats are still seeking to minimize their responsibilities.

Like Peter, most of Christ’s disciples still fear to confess the object of the devotion before a hostile world.

Like the elders, scribes, chief priests and Sadducees and Pharisees many religious leaders still deify not God but their own virtue; while the majority of citizens, like those who on Calvary, gather not to cheer a miscarriage of justice, but also not to protest it.

(Indebted to William Sloan Coffin, 4/15/79)

I mentioned last week that I have seen Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” and that one of the impressions from Gibson’s film that will last for a long time is the sight of those Romans sadistically beating Jesus and deriving such pleasure. The scene causes one to pause and painfully ask if humanity is truly capable of such inhumanity.

On Thursday’s Op-Ed page of the Hartford Courant, there was a promotional ad for a movie that will be broadcast this evening called: “Coliseum: A Gladiator’s Story.” One of the captions reads:

In this arena, the score is kept in blood!

Ironically, it is being broadcast on the “Discovery Channel” whose motto is--- “entertain your brain.”

There are many if not most who believe that we live in a culture of fear and we all know, it is fear that gives rise to hate.

I remember what Mitch Albom wrote about his Eleventh Tuesday with Morrie, when they talked about our culture.

“Morrie believed in the inherent good of people. But he also saw what they could be become.

‘People are only mean when they’re threatened,’ he said later that day, ‘and that’s what our culture does.’”

(p. 154)

I was glad that I went to see it and I will go again with our group from the church next Sunday. As I said, the violence graphically depicted in the movie, in my judgment, goes way over the top and to some degree diminishes the power of the crucifixion. However, as the days pass, and the visceral experience eases, I have been surprised by how effective the movie has proven to be. The other day, I read a review of the movie, ‘Welcome to Mooseport,’ starring Ray Romano and Gene Hackman and Maura Tierney. The key line in the review was the following:

“You won’t mind having seen “Welcome to Mooseport,” but it will exit your mind as soon as you exit the theater.”

(People, 3/8/2004. p.28)

(Sounds like a review of some of my sermons!)

Not the case with Mel Gibson’s- “The Passion of the Christ.” It stays with you and since reading more about what motivated Gibson to do the film, I am all the more reflective. Indeed, for him it was personal. At the height of stardom, he has said that he was drowning in fame, wealth, drink and despair. In the grip of a near-suicidal depression in his mid 30’s, he turned to Christ and the Catholicism of his childhood--- which emphasized that by Christ's own suffering, by his wounds ---our wounds are healed. Through His death, we are given new life. The movie may portray— “The Gospel according to Mel” but I don’t see anything wrong with that---would that all might have such a Gospel--- that Christ’s ‘Passion,’ if you will, is that we may be healed of our hate, purged of our violence and empowered to live with love in a world that doesn’t always love back.

Like the plant in today’s lesson, God the gardener is attempting to do all that is possible to make it flourish—so also with us--- even to the dramatic extent Christ suffers and dies for our sins. Indeed, in the film, amidst all the anger, all the betrayal and all the violence, the clearest lament from Jesus’ lips is simple this:

“Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

Someone recently gave me a copy of Father Paul Boudreau’s Lenten Study Guide for 2004. Beneath today’s lesson from the Gospel according to Luke is the following quote:

“Forgiveness flows from a heart full of forgiveness.”

(Today’s Parish-13 February 2004)

God’s heart is full of forgiveness! God’s mercy flows from it--- creating in the hearts of all those who receive it--- the incredible potential and promise to be sources of love in a world of hate; fountains of forgiveness in a world of injustice, a people of faith in a culture of fear, who because they have accepted love back into their hearts are living reasons to trust and welcome tomorrow and all of its God given promise.

This is baptism means in our culture of fear.

Amen