Understanding Baptism

After church on Sunday, I talked with a mother who wants to schedule her son’s baptism. He is not an infant and would be taking the vows for himself. I told the mother that I would want to talk to him about what he was doing, and she asked how long we would need. It was a simple and logical question. The trouble was I couldn’t give her a simple answer. All day wouldn’t be enough to explain the sacrament of God’s covenant with us. I’ve been baptized for almost five decades, and I still don’t know that I understand what it means.

The date she wants to do the baptism is in the middle of Lent, and, generally, we don’t schedule baptisms or weddings during Lent. Her family is going to be in town that day, so it made sense with their calendar, even if it didn’t quite fit the church calendar. I told her that rules like this were made to be broken, and I certainly thought this was a good one to break.

In a sense, baptism is about breaking rules. I mean who of us deserves to receive the unrelenting grace/favor/love of God that baptism signifies?

In our capitalist culture the core doctrine is that you get what you earn, there are no free lunches, quid pro quo …. True grace—a genuinely free gift—has no place in a capitalist culture where the economic system permeates everything, including the church. We sing about grace, but we don’t live it or give it much. There are no role models for it. It isn’t one of the rules/principles of life that we see lived out every day.

No, I can’t really explain what baptism represents because there are no illustrations and every preacher needs good illustrations. Won’t you become one?

by Michael Piazza
Center for Progressive Renewal