A little bit brighter
I was recently at [name of a family member - redacted]’s place when I spotted a couple of
vaguely familiar looking objects in her china cabinet. I took them out for a
closer look, and I immediately recognised them. They were a cup and spoon that had been given to me at
my baptism some time last millennium.
As you may have worked out by their presence here, today we are going to
baptise [name of a child - redacted] and welcome her into the
Church. I would like to acknowledge their wider whanau who have joined us
today. Thank you for coming to share in this special time.
But before we baptise [name of a child - redacted], I am going to try to reflect on what exactly
this means in 2023.
When I was a child, it was the norm for children to be baptised in countries
with roots on Christendom, and Aotearoa New Zealand was no exception. I was
too young to remember my baptism, but I have photos of the celebration that
was held afterwards. My whanau were all dressed up and it looked like quite
a significant event.
While some parents chose not to baptise, this was often because they were
Baptists or members of other evangelical Protestant denominations that did
not believe in baptising children, as opposed to them eschewing Christianity
altogether. So engrained was infant baptism in our culture, that it was not
uncommon for nurses to perform emergency baptisms when newborn babies were
not considered likely to survive.
That would never happen today. It is no secret Aotearoa New Zealand is far
more secular today than it has ever been. When I first became part of the St
Mark’s community some 20 years ago, we would have up to around 80 people
here on a typical Sunday morning, if I remember correctly. These days, we
are doing well if we hit the mid twenties. The 2018 census results showed
that almost half of the population reported no religious identity, a figure
I fully expect to be a majority when the results of this year’s census are
released. Of those who do identify with a religious tradition, Christianity
retains the largest adherence overall, but the numbers would be noticeably
lower if it wasn’t for migration from strongly Christian countries like the
Philippines and other Pacific nations.
And not only are we reaching the point where those who do not identify with
any particular religious tradition will soon comprise a clear majority, many
parents today will not even let their children participate in any kind of
Church activities. It was not that long ago that
people who did not consider themselves religious did not
usually have a problem
with their children
attending
Church programmes. But
these days, many parents won’t,
because they fear their
children
might
be sexually abused.
And can we honestly blame them?
While sexual abuse
also happens in schools,
children’s homes,
and anywhere
else where there
is a combination of vulnerable
young
people
and predators
with
the
power to prey on them,
it is particularly disturbing that this happens in an institution that
not so long ago was
seen as something of a moral guardian in society as well a safe haven
for all.
And sadly, this is the only sin of the Church; its complicity in
antisemitism, war, colonisation, slavery, and controlling and silencing
women cannot be overlooked. There are politics and power games and egos and
ambitions and nepotism. And there are some people in authority who quite
frankly shouldn’t be there.
And don’t get me started on the Church rejecting people on the basis of how
they were created, toxic fundamentalism, and the truly evil psychological
abuse of frightening people into believing that if they don’t undergo a
precisely defined conversion experience, they will go to hell, which I would
call the most harmful false doctrine ever constructed; what is translated as
hell in the Bible is actually a valley outside Jerusalem, where people’s
bodies were burned after the Romans sacked Jerusalem in 70 CE. But I
digress.
All up, the Church has got a lot to answer for, and
I must say I have been pretty disappointed by the
overall response of the
Church
to its wrongdoings. Quite frankly, we need to own it better and atone for
it.
So why would we want to subject a child to an ancient ritual in an
institution that seems not only seems no longer relevant to many but is seen
by some as an unsafe environment for a child?
Well, I would argue that, despite its sketchy past, its flaws, and its
diminishing role in public life (exceptions like royal coronations and state
funerals aside), the Church still has a lot to offer.
The Church is the Body of the Christ in the world. We may not always get it
right, but we are good news for the poor, release for the captives, recovery
of sight for the blind, and liberty for those who are oppressed. Our primary
purpose is being a community establishing justice and peace on Earth here
and now. We are not a fire insurance policy for when we die.
Life in Aotearoa New Zealand today is very different today from what it was
like when I was a child. We can now buy fresh strawberries in the middle of
winter, adorn our homes with consumer goods our parents could never have
dreamed of, and access much of the world and its knowledge through a device
we carry in our pockets. But there is also deprivation at a level that
simply did previously not exist in my living memory. Beggars have long been
part of the landscape, and walking past people sleeping on the street while
on the way to work is now normal. And those of us who do work seem to be
working harder and for longer hours than ever before.
We have become so focused on the material aspects of life that many have
lost any meaningful connection with anything beyond that. It would be all
too easy to think we are born, we live, and we die, and that is it.
But I say our existence does not end there and it is not confined to the
physical world. I say there is also a spiritual world that can be compared
with – but is not necessarily synonymous with - the higher dimensions
proposed in theoretical physics that we cannot directly experience.
I also say the physical and spiritual worlds can and do meet. and this what
the Celts refer to when they speak of thin places, where the veil between
this world and another world is thin, thereby bringing us closer to that
other world.
The physical and spiritual worlds meet we are born. They meet when we die.
They meet when we have spiritual or unworldly experiences that have no
rational explanation. And, remembering the primary purpose of the Church I
spoke of earlier, I believe they meet when we
when we feed the hungry, refresh the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe
the naked, care for the sick, and visit those in prison;
Jesus the Christ said that when we do these things, we do them for him.
And they also meet when we partake in sacraments like baptism, and the
Eucharist, which we will be sharing later this morning.
A sacrament is perhaps most typically described as being an outward sign of
an inward grace, a definition we can trace back to St Augustine of Hippo.
But I would take it further than this. I see a sacrament as being both
material and divine in nature, something that brings the physical and
spiritual worlds I have just been speaking of together. It is like a portal
between the two.
Through the sacrament of baptism, we are cleansed and take on a new life.
And the water is the outward physical sign of the inward spiritual grace
that is imparted to us.
The original version of baptism was the Tvilah, a ritual purification
ceremony undertaken by converts to Judaism. Later, St John the Baptiser
offered a baptism of repentance for people who were mostly already Jews and
who wanted to change their ways. And baptism ultimately become the sacrament
of initiation into the Church. All of us who are members of the Church
became part of the Church family through baptism, as [name of a child -
redacted] will shortly.
But wait, there’s more. As well as being the day of [name of a child -
redacted]’s baptism, today is
also the Day of Pentecost, a principal feast day, so there is no way I can
get away with not mentioning it. The text we heard earlier from the Acts of
the Apostles describes the outpouring of the Spirit that empowered the
gathered community nearly 2,000 years ago, which is considered to be the
birthday of the Church.
Along with schools, businesses, charities, the government, and any other
institution comprising humans, the Church has its flaws. But they are our
flaws.
In his song ‘Anthem’, Leonard Cohen sang:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
The cracks in the Church can open our eyes to God’s unfailing love
comforting a bruised Church and healing a broken world.
And that's how the light gets in.
As flawed as the Church may be, it offers light to a world that right now
needs light more than ever.
I am grateful [name of a child - redacted] is going to add to its numbers, and in doing so make this
light shine a little brighter. May she be blessed and empowered to play her
small part in helping to heal a broken world.
Darryl Ward
28 May 2023