About Baptism
 Holy
Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ's
Body the Church. The bond which God establishes in Baptism is
indissoluble. Holy Baptism is appropriately administered within the
Eucharist as the chief service on a Sunday or other feast. Each
candidate for Holy Baptism is to be sponsored by one or more baptized
persons. Sponsors of adults and older children present their
candidates and thereby signify their endorsement of the candidates and
their intention to support them by prayer and example in their Christian
life. Sponsors of infants, commonly called godparents, present their
candidates, make promises in their own names, and also take vows on
behalf of their candidates. It is fitting that parents be included
among the godparents of their own children. Holy Baptism is especially
appropriate at the Easter Vigil, on the Day of Pentecost, on All Saints'
Day, and on the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord (the First Sunday after
the Epiphany).
-From The Book of Common Prayer
To arrange for a baptism, please contact the church office at
310.208.6516
A Sermon on Baptism
Preached by the Rev'd J.R. Lander In April of 2002, I was
visiting my grandparents in Southern Minnesota. It was the occasion of
their 60th wedding anniversary. My father
and his brothers gave a celebration in their honor. I flew in from
seminary for the occasion.
It was well known in my extended family that I was
in the ordination process. They had known from my years in college that
I would probably follow this route. My father’s family is almost
completely Episcopalian. They belong to numerous parishes all over
Minnesota. In me, they had someone they thought they could talk to, and
sometimes at, about what was going on in their parish, their diocese, or
in the larger church. Whenever and wherever we might meet, some of
them would head straight towards me with an intent glare in their eyes.
Normally, I enjoy talking about the church. It is
my vocation. It is my life. I have so much passion for it. And I have
so much faith in its ability to change the world in which we live. But
I do not like defending the church to my family members. I was much
more interested in celebrating my grandparents’ life together. It was
not an occasion that I really wanted to spend discussing the future of
the Episcopal Church.
But I couldn’t escape. At the celebration was my grandmother’s
first cousin. I had met her on occasion before. But our most
recent meeting was several years prior. She was always a
very delightful woman. She was good Minnesota Episcopal stock, having
gone to school at the Episcopal boarding school in the state and having
been a long-time member of a church in the Minneapolis suburbs.
When I caught her eye, I could see clearly that she
had something to discuss with me. I guessed that it was about church. She walked up to me, introduced herself. I gave her a hug and said how
I couldn’t forget her. She then stepped back. Looking at me very
sternly, she said, “Can you tell me what baptism is?”
When I hear this sort of question from someone I
know to have been a life-long active Episcopalian, I know that it is
loaded. Realizing that I could not escape whatever conversation was
about to happen, I decided that at least the conversation would be about
the real issue behind her apparent frustration. I looked with great
concern at her and said, “Why do you ask?”
She gave this great sigh, and sat down on a nearby
bench. She then recounted the recent story of trying to have her
grandchildren baptized. Her daughter now lives in Boulder, Colorado. She is not a member of a congregation, Episcopal or otherwise. She has
no interest in being a part of a faith community. But because of some
programming in her, she wanted to have her twins baptized. My
grandmother’s cousin thought that the children could be baptized in
Minneapolis instead. She called her priest. She assumed he would
agree to a private baptism for the twins. She was quite astounded when
the priest replied, “No.”
After recounting this she asked, “Isn’t baptism
becoming a Christian?” Again, a loaded question.
I replied, “Baptism is initiation into the Church.” I then asked her, “Did your priest tell you why he wouldn’t perform the
baptism?”
“Well,” she said, “he said that baptism was
initiation into a community of faith. The parish’s policy was to only
baptize new members of this parish, and only at public liturgies.”
We chatted for a while more on the issue. She was
obviously still frustrated with the situation. I had to agree with her
priest. She was seemingly more frustrated that her own cousin’s
grandson wouldn’t agree with her on the issue. But my theological
training and my understanding of our catholic faith prevented me. Baptism
is not a private event. And its meaning and its context are well
spelled out in our Book of Common Prayer.
On page 298, in the directions, or
rubrics, for the occasion, it states that:
“Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the
Holy Spirit into Christ’s Body the Church. The bond which God
establishes in Baptism is indissoluble.
Holy Baptism is appropriately administered within
the Eucharist as the chief service on a Sunday or other feast.”
When we baptize someone, it is not simply some
cultural rite of passage; it establishes an unbreakable bond between
God and each one of us. It is not simply a moment when family can look
on the new child with pride, it is the entry into the Body of Christ. It is not a private event, it is a celebration of the whole church.
Somewhere in our history, baptism became less about
the Body of Christ and more about the culture. It became a celebration
of a young life. It became an early rite of passage for young children
and their families. But this is not its root, and it is not what we
teach of it in the Episcopal Church today.
We know a fair amount of early baptism, at least how it looked by the
second and third centuries. Baptism was only performed at the Easter Vigil. Candidates prepared for
three years before being admitted to the church. Before their baptism,
they fasted, prayed, and confessed. At the Easter Vigil, they would be
brought into the church building while it was still dark. After
listening to readings from the Hebrew Scriptures recounting the whole
history of salvation, they would be reminded of the salvific life into
which they were entering.
Then they would remove all of their clothing and
adornments. They would be led naked into a pool of water. They would
renounce Satan. They would be asked questions which later developed into
the Apostles’ Creed. They would be submerged after each answer. “Do
you believe in God the Father?” “I believe in God the Father”.
(Submerge) “Do you believe in God the Son?” (Submerge).
And so on.
When they were finished, they would be led out of the pool on the other
side and clothed in a white garment.
The full immersion was a vital part of the
symbolism. Baptism was, and is, the joining of Christ in death to be
raised with Christ to new life. Placing the liturgy in the context of
the Easter Vigil made this connection more real. Down into the tomb of
water the candidates went. With their faith came their death. Out of
this tomb they were born anew. They were given new life in Christ. They were given life where death would not have the final say. They
were given life where no such tomb could ever hold them again.
As Christianity became the official, and later the
only, religion of most of Europe, baptismal practices and beliefs
shifted. Becoming Christian was not unusual, it was what everyone did. And so
baptism served as a rite of passage in the human cycle of life. Yes, it provided a means of salvation in a time when death was all
around. But it was more a sacrament of the life cycle, with
confirmation, marriage, and the last rites.
Baptismal practices also changed, and moved from
full immersion to what most Episcopal churches still practice today. The
child is sprinkled with water from a small font here in our church. Through this centuries-long process, the connection between death to
this world and new life to Christ slowly was lost. The understanding of
this sacrament as an action of the whole church was forgotten. It
became a private family affair. The harshness of the act was lost.
But, for the past half century, we have been trying
to reclaim the early Church’s belief about this great mystery of our
faith. In our teaching and in our liturgy, we try more and more to
connect this act to its roots. We try to connect death and life again
in how we welcome this new Christian to the Body of Christ.
Baptism is death. Make no mistake about. It is
death to this world. It is death to the materialism that is this life. It is death to oneself. It is death to greed. It
is death to selfishness.
But is also new birth. It is birth into the
community of faith. It is birth into life with God. It is birth into
the promise of life-everlasting. It is birth into deep generosity. It
is birth into love.
Death and life are tied in this sacrament. It is
the horrific with the beautiful. It is the unthinkable with the
miraculous. It is the harsh reality of human existence with the promise
of life everlasting with Christ.
But the life into which this child is being born is
not an easy one. Proclaiming the name of Christ crucified in this world
is never easy. It is never as simple as we would like to see it. Keeping ourselves free of this world that we live, serving only God, is
never an easy task.
Nor has this task been easy for any Christian at
any period in time. Certainly the author of the Letter of James speaks
about it. The Christians to whom he was writing in the first 100 years
of our faith struggled with the challenge of being a Christian in a
world where the Christian message was not often welcomed.
James is seemingly addressing Christians who are
struggling to stay true to the Christian calling in the world. He
admonishes his readers to “Resist the devil” and to “Draw near to God”.
He refers to them as “double-minded.” He calls for their laughter to be
turned into mourning and their joy into dejection. He is calling them
to reject the world, and instead to choose God.
What an appropriate reading for a Sunday baptism. What a call for us all as we renew our Baptismal Covenant. This life,
this Christian life, is not worldly. It is not easy. It is not free. This life calls us to turn away from worldly temptations of greed and
malice and selfishness. It calls to new life with God in Christ. It
calls us to this life together, as a community.
We cannot be double-minded in this faith. We
cannot have both God and the world. Being a Christian calls us away
from the sin of this world. It calls us to repentance, to justice,
to love, to peace.
But this calling to new life is not one that leaves
us lonely. We do not separate ourselves from each other in this
sacrament. It is new birth into the Body of Christ. We walk this
journey of death and life together. We struggle to live into who we are
together. We perform this sacrament within the community of the Church,
so that we might bear witness to the new life that this person is being
given. This new birth is the birth into our common life together as the
church. It is as a community that we traverse this world and try to
transform it in the name of Christ crucified.
You may be familiar with the poetry of John Donne, in particular his poem “For
Whom the Bell Tolls.”
PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows
not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better
than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have
caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.
But you may not know how it continues:
The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she
does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me;
for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too,
and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member.
This baptism is not just a chance for us to smile
at a young child or at a new Christian. What happens at baptism
involves us all, and concerns us all. Our lives and our common life are
being changed by the ingrafting of this new Christian to the Body of
Christ. This newly-born Christian is now all of ours. He or she is
ours to raise in this faith; ours to teach; ours to love; ours to
protect; ours to cherish; and ours to walk with.
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