After a huge rainstorm filled all the potholes in the streets and alleys, a young mother watched her two children playing in a puddle outside her kitchen window. The older of the two, five year old Julie, grabbed her little brother by the back of his head and shoved his face into the water hole. As little Joey recovered and stood laughing and dripping, their mother ran to the yard in a panic. “Why on earth did you do that to your little brother?!” she asked Julie in a very stern and angry voice. “We were just playing ‘church’ mommy,” said the little girl. “And I was just baptizing him…..in the name of the Father, the Son and in…the hole-he goes.”
This story got me thinking. As I look around at what’s happening in the name of religion and God it seems a lot of grown-ups who should know better are really just playing “church.”
I was watching a short video last night put out by the Catholic News Service and featuring Cardinal Burke, the former archbishop of St. Louis. The video is titled “The Call of Beauty.” In it Cardinal Burke explains what he considers to be the ideal form of the Mass as we watch priests and deacons moving about an altar several steps high and against the wall. All are dressed in medieval style gold vestments and lace, ceremonially greeting each other, bowing, genuflecting, with hands properly folded. It’s all very solemn. Everyone faces the altar at the consecration. There is gold everywhere—vessels, candlesticks, statues.
The Cardinal looks into the camera and here are his words: “[This form of the Mass] conveys in a very strong way that it is Christ himself who is acting, making present for us his sacrifice on Calvary. There’s a strong sense of the transcendent, that heaven is meeting earth in these treasured moments of the offering of the Eucharistic sacrifice.” Apparently that’s his experience. When the camera focuses momentarily on the congregation we see people sitting, watching, not completely dis-interested, but also not engaged. A couple are fanning themselves. Their role is…what? To be the audience?
To simply watch the actors on stage?
Maybe, like little Joey, we could laugh at these antics if we were to recognize that the boys are just playing “church”! Sadly, though, they make a mockery of what Church is for so many of us. How are we to imagine Jesus amid all the finery of that altar? Re-enacting Calvary? The mentality behind such belief has mostly disappeared from our theology but many in the Vatican are determined to bring it back. And even more sadly, many of our sisters and brothers have long ago walked away and many more will follow because these behaviors and the words and ideas and punitive attitudes that accompany them are so intolerable. And because they don’t see THEMSELVES as CHURCH.
This is the context for my thoughts about baptism. It’s the frame in which we meet Jesus today in the Jordan river. After he emerges from the water, having been baptized by John, he hears a voice from heaven saying “you are my beloved son; in you I am well pleased.”
The first point I want to make is this: Jesus didn’t BECOME God’s son BECAUSE he was baptized. Jesus was already God’s son before he entered the water. We might say his identity was revealed to him and everyone around him that day. Likewise, we are all children of God whether or not we are baptized into the Body of Christ we call the church. Everyone is a beloved member of God’s extended family.
The Gospel calls us to learn how to live this truth—because it isn’t easy. Our natural tendency as human beings is to separate people into “them” and “us”. We have rules for inclusion and exclusion from our organizations and clubs, and the boundaries can be harsh and rigid at times. But the church is not a club. The church is the Body of Christ. Jesus himself excluded no one, and neither did HIS God.
This is the truth that Peter learned at the home of Cornelius. Peter’s religious culture made a strict distinction between Jews and Gentiles. Jews were rendered “unclean” if they associated with Gentiles. Eating with them was a disgusting thought in and of itself. Yet Peter had a vision before being called to the home of Cornelius in which he was shown all the foods Jews had been taught to avoid because they were unclean. In the vision Peter heard a voice from heaven telling him “what God has made clean you are not to call unclean.”
Once he was sitting with Cornelius and his household, Peter was able to make the connection. As he witnesses the Holy Spirit descending on the people in that household, Peter sees that these Gentiles are already incorporated into the family of God. That’s why he wants to offer them baptism. He says to the other disciples “I see God shows no partiality. Anyone who honors God and does what is right is acceptable to God. This is the message God sends to the people of Israel. This is the good news of peace proclaimed through Jesus, who came for ALL.” It’s at this point Peter asks “how can we not baptize these people who have been claimed by God just as we have?”
Baptism symbolizes our inclusion in the Body of Christ. It symbolizes our recognition of God’s life in each and every person who enters our doors, and it symbolizes our welcome and acceptance of them as part of the family of God. Baptism doesn’t establish that family connection. It recognizes and affirms our family bonds and creates a covenant of mutual responsibility for the relational dynamic within the family. When the relationships become unbalanced we share the pain and we share the task of finding our way back to balance–through respectful dialogue, thoughtfulness, care and concern for one another.
The second point I want to make is: the sacrament of Baptism has been used as an entry ticket into the community for centuries. If we view it THAT way, it’s important to acknowledge that once in, you’re IN. Once baptized, according to traditional Catholic theology, you are part of the church forever. No one can kick you out. I make a point of saying this because there is a statement being used over and over again by some church officials unable to handle a diversity of viewpoints within the Body of Christ. The phrase that gets repeated is: “you’ve put yourself outside the church.”
Our baptismal theology says this is impossible. You can’t be cut off from the Body of Christ. Once baptized always baptized. No one can throw you out and you can’t put yourself outside, either. This statement is heresy. You can choose not to relate to the family, but you’re always part of the family.
We are all part of the family of God. Baptism ritualizes our reception of this truth. It directs us to take full responsibility for living as a loving family with our brothers and sisters in all our daily interactions. It encourages us to know who we are, daughters and sons of God, and to stand in this truth with strength and conviction.
The final point I want to make is this: baptism calls us to get our hands dirty, to walk in the mud and muck of this earth joining hands with those in pain who feel they don’t belong, and helping them know they are valued members of an enormous family. We are called to serve our sisters and brothers the bread of life and the cup of mercy, to spread the good news that everyone belongs and everyone is family. Doing church this way is not a game. This is what baptism calls us to. This is what it means to be the Body of Christ in the world.
If we live into our baptismal responsibilities we won’t be “playing church.” We will be the living Church, alive and on fire, within the human family. That’s what BEING CHURCH is all about. It’s what the daughters and sons of God are called to be and to do.
Rev. Toni Tortorilla, Sophia Christi Catholic Community
January 13, 2013, Feast of the Baptism of Jesus
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