Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Romans 6:1-11

The past seven days added up to another one of those “Here we go again” weeks.

But most of us were left wondering “Just where is it that we are going?”

In the midst of the reactions to the President’s news conference on Monday and his attempted walk-back on Tuesday and Wednesday’s tweet that his initial remarks were appreciated by “many people at the higher ends of intelligence,” many of us at the “lower ends of intelligence” might have missed the words of former President Barak Obama. He spoke in South Africa at an event commemorating the 100^th birthday of Nelson Mandela.

Obama said: “Given the strange and uncertain times that we are in—and they are strange and they are uncertain—each day's news cycle bringing more head spinning and disturbing headlines—I thought maybe it would be useful to step back for a moment and try to get some perspective.”

And that, of course, is one of many things that worship allows us to do: to turn away from the news and the noise, to listen for the Word of God speaking to us, to step back and get a new perspective—so that we might once again go into the world in both peace and strength for the days ahead.

This morning we were helped in gaining new perspective by the sacrament of baptism. In our Protestant Reformed tradition we understand baptism to be one way in which God’s Word is made visible to us.

As you know, we baptize people at all ages—infants and children are brought to the font, teenagers and adults stand up here. All are responding to the love of God in their lives.

Of course, the baptism of infants has long had an important theological significance for Congregationalists. Both the Pilgrims and the Puritans regarded baptism as the seal of God’s covenant with the people. Following the thought of John Calvin, they saw in the baptism of infants a sign that grace comes by divine, not human, initiative.

Because of this, we Congregationalists have always seen the baptism of infants and children as a time to rejoice. I love how the order for baptism in the old Pilgrim Hymnal speaks of “the joy and happiness that come into our lives through the presence of a child.” You understand that, don’t you.

I walked Malia through the congregation and everyone smiled.

With hope and happiness, with the presence of a child, we begin to gain a new perspective this morning.

The joy of this day helps us to look at the world differently. And yes, part of what we see when we look at the world right now involves children doesn’t it. What is it? Hundreds of children are still separated from their parents on our southern border. Many of them are under the age of five.

Let us remember this. In the face of a multi-front trade war, the Helsinki disaster, tapes about our President’s extra-marital affairs, all of the late-night jokes and outraged Facebook postings, let us remember that children are still being held in cages. These children, too, brought hope and happiness into the lives of their parents and their communities.

And now we are citizens of a nation that has imprisoned them. Our senators and representatives stand by and do nothing. This is our nation. It is who we are.

But in baptism we are told that we are part of another realm as well. And we are called to live as though we have moved from the realm of death into the realm of life.

Early Christians often built baptismal fonts in the shape of a tomb.

Maybe all those nametags that we have should be shaped like little tombstones. And, yes, your name would be on one of them.

After all, we were buried with Christ in baptism. 

Paul writes to the Roman Christians: "So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." 

Our baptism—our burial—becomes the key for understanding how we can live.  

Baptism gives us over to a new power—the power of God. Because of Christ we have a real choice for the first time—we can choose good, not evil; we can choose the way of life, not of death.

This not about being perfect—because none of us ever will be. It’s about choosing what builds up rather than what tears down; choosing honesty over lies, choosing compassion over hatred. Often these are not easy choices, but because of our baptism, because of God working in our lives, they are real options.

Listen again to what Paul says: “If we have died with Christ we believe that we shall also live with him.” Paul looks toward the future for the completion of the work that God has begun in each one of us.

As we participated in Malia’s baptism and as we listened when the scriptures were read, we saw and heard two pieces of good news:

God loves us as we are.

And because God loves us as we are, God does not leave us as we are.

Look! We are God’s, not because of our goodness but because of God’s great love and mercy for us.

Look! We are God’s not because we have accepted God but because God has accepted us.

Look! We do not earn God’s love and forgiveness as children or adults—it is a gift. It is always a gift.

Of course, we experience something like this in the rest of life as well.

A mother and father don’t wait until their baby understands before they lovingly cuddle him and speak to her. Love is not withheld until it can be returned.

Parents do not wait to give a name until their child is old enough to choose a first name and the name of the family. Parents give a name and share the family name with their baby in the hope that she will grow up proudly bearing the given name and the name of the family into which she was born.

Even though voting is years away, parents also immediately share their citizenship by registering the birth in the hope that their child will grow up as a responsible, active citizen.

In being baptized, we don’t first prove that we deserve to be baptized. Baptism is not an award for faith. It is God’s action that is central, not ours. Baptism is done to us. It is not something we do for ourselves.

But we forget.

With a combination of sadness and exasperation, Paul asks the Christians in Rome: “Have you forgotten? Have you forgotten that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”

When we forget our past, we lose track of who we are and where we are going.

Forgetfulness is a constant danger for people of faith.

So Moses is portrayed as reminding the Hebrew people to be vigilant in remembering who they are and where they came from. They were to remember both the bad time of slavery in Egypt and the joyful time of God's deliverance through the waters of the Red Sea.

Without the memory of slavery, they could lapse into a smug self-righteousness. Without the memory of deliverance, despair and hopelessness would always be companions on their journey.

The Hebrew people were told: “The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”

But hearing these words would not be enough. They were to speak them to their children, talk about them when they were away and at home, when they would lie down and when they rose up. They were to bind them on their hands and foreheads. They were to write them on their door posts and gates.

This wasn’t just a matter of religious ritual. The price of forgetfulness was too high. It was a matter of life in the fullest sense of that word.

True, God would never forget the covenant God made with these people. Even if they were unfaithful, God would still be faithful. Even if we forget God, God does not forget us.

“Have you forgotten?” Paul asks.

Perhaps. We all do.

We forget that God loves us unconditionally. As a result many people continue to think that some part of them—or all of them—is simply unlovable. And many people continue to think that some part of other people—or their whole being—is simply unlovable.

We forget that God forgives us unconditionally. As a result many people imagine that there is something they have done that God cannot forgive, will not forgive. Or they imagine that there is something in others that God cannot, will not forgive.

We forget that God was in Christ so that we might have life and have it abundantly. As a result many people seek to live cramped and restricted lives.

Paul speaks to all of us with short memories, those of us prone to forget. Paul reminds us of our watery beginnings in the life of faith. Paul reminds us of our baptism—that we are loved as we are but not left as we are. This is too important to forget.

Baptism is about love, forgiveness, and life.

Love, forgiveness, life. We forget that we have been embraced by a God who offers us all three. Baptism reminds us again.

This is one reason why, as Congregationalists, we ordinarily baptize in a public services of worship on Sunday morning instead of at other times. Baptism is an act of the entire congregation. It is something to be seen by all of us because each time we participate in baptism, we are given the chance to remember, to remember our baptism, to remember where we have come from so that we get a better sense of who we are and where we are going. This renewed awareness can restore our senses and bring a new perspective to difficult situations.

The love of God calls us to be loving—to look with the eyes of compassion, to listen with the ears of understanding, to open hands and heart in reaching toward others.

The forgiveness of God calls us to be forgiving—humbly recognizing the log in our own eye more than the speck in the eye of our neighbor.

The life of God calls us to live toward life—freely giving as we have freely received, being merciful because we have received mercy, remembering our public as well as our private lives.

And because baptism is an act of the whole church, it is an occasion for a congregation—for this­ congregation—to remember who we are: a community of diverse individuals that welcomes others into this often joyful, often confusing, sometimes crazy life of faith. We celebrate together—which means we laugh and cry together. We share the love of God with each other and show that love to a hurting world as well.

We do these things not because we’re good people but because we are baptized people—those who know death and hope in the resurrection. That hope is so strong and fierce that we find the courage to say even to small children and their parents: “Welcome to the journey!”

Remember your baptism.

It tells us where we are going.

It gives us new perspective by showing us the kind of people we might yet become.

Remember that you have been called out of death into life.

Remember that you too are a child of the covenant, a resident of the land of grace, and live like that in these strange and uncertain days.