January 11 , 2004

Ian Lawton

The call came through from an Auckland mother. It was like many calls I have taken over the years. She had been refused baptism at her local Anglican church because she was not a regular enough worshipper. If she wanted baptism she would have to attend church weekly for six months, attend Jesus classes and turn up on baptism day. When she rang the archdeacon he suggested she should just fit in with the local parish. She had heard that St Matthews was open, literally during the week and open for people to use in a variety of ways. Would we baptise her little boy? Yes, and there would be no Jesus classes or run arounds. She would have the use of the space and my attention for her own family ceremony.

The inability of many churches to get past their ancient paradigms of what is sacred and secular - who belongs and not - rears its ugly head when people from the community approach for help with significant family occasions.

The church still seems to often be working within a medieval understanding of baptism, where in response to high infant mortality a baby would be baptised within days of its birth to purge it of its original sin, usually without mother present as she was both recuperating and being kept away as she was unclean due to giving birth.

Very few people today want their children baptised because they want their sins forgiven. They want instead to get their loved ones together and celebrate life. The church, rather than spiritualising the occasion, should embrace this very good logic and affirm the possibilities of life bound up in a child.

One point I emphasis in baptism is that we are not here to purge the baby of original sin; we are here to honour the baby's original perfection. Three children and nine years of tantrums, sleepless nights and power battles into being a parent and I believe even more firmly in original perfection.

In baptism we honour possibility and perfection. We celebrate a unique human being who will grow up and explore being and essence, who will achieve great things in their life, who has nothing to prove or improve.

In baptism we don't so much seal the child's soul with sacred security, we rather affirm the sacredness of the human, the physical, the real; that which is already there. Baptism is one of our great moments where the sacred and the secular become meaningless distinctions.

Water is like that. Like fire it has extreme and opposite power; to sustain life and to destroy life. It is one of the elements which defies duality as who can say which is happening and to what degree. Its opposites exist in dynamic tension. Water is like that. Life is like that. God is like that.

There is a Hindu story about the origins of the mystical Ganges River. The god Vamanadeva, expanding his form to gigantic proportions covered the entire universe with his first step. With his second step, Vamanadeva kicked a hole in the universal shell with his toe, causing a few drops of water from the spiritual world to leak into the universe. This water flowed into the universe and became known as the Ganges River. The Ganges is thus considered sacred because it originated from the spiritual world.

In many minds, as the Kumbha Mela is the greatest spiritual festival, so the Ganges is believed to be the greatest spiritual river. Throughout the ages, the Ganges has played a dramatic part in the spiritual lives of the Indian people. It is said that to know the Ganges is to know India and her peoples. The river is strong, proud, and overbearing; she is also humble, peaceful, and stern; she is always changing yet ever the same.

At another famous river, the Jordan, a mission was launched which had just that blend of gentleness and strength. John was expanding his radical social movement. The momentous occasion had Jesus being initiated into the protest group as leader. He was baptised to fulfil righteousness, not so much a personal piety, but a radical mission to make right those corrupt practices of his world which had the powerful lording it over others. This was a people's movement for justice. It was no accident that they were in the wilderness. It was a safe place to retreat and prepare for the revolution. The wilderness was also a reminder that God's vision would always find its heart at the margins of institutions, including the church. It was a human movement, full of real danger and anxiety. The water was a symbol of courage and a spark to be gentle and tough in just the right measure.

Nowadays in our tradition, we baptise babies. I have no problem with this. After all, children have special insight into being real and present, although I see no reason why baptism should be exclusively for children. We should rediscover the earthy origins of baptism in Jesus experience. It's a token initiation to an earth shattering vision.

Liberation theology in the 1960's and 70's taught us that poor people both had special understanding of God's grace and that the church had marginalised them at their peril. Liberation theology was right, but the dilemma the church now faces is so much broader and more severe. Those who have nothing to do with the church, as well as those who come to church regularly but don't buy into the institution and the dogma, have such depth of understanding of God's grace experienced as being fully human that the church will marginalise them at its peril. Think here of families wanting baptism, couples wanting to be married, people wanting to use church space for their own purposes. Think here of those who think or practice new age spirituality, those who respect scientific advance. This is in the new opportunity for the church.

It can be done, and the steps churches such as St Matthew's needs to take are so small, yet so profound. Simple acceptance and open doors will make such a difference.

There's a love song by the Indigo Girls, called "Ghost" that says:

And the Mississippi's mighty


But it starts in Minnesota


At a place that you could walk across


With five steps down


And I guess that's how you started


Like a pinprick to my heart


But at this point you rush right through me


And I start to drown.

I wonder if we might reclaim God our lover, our ability to love and be loved and baptism as that pinprick to our heart, a pinprick which sparks an earth changing revolution of love and humanity and inclusiveness.