From a Distance Comments

From a Distance comments

Mike (ok, FrostyPastor), you commented,

"I remember the first time I heard this song. When it got really popular I had someone ask me about having it sung by someone in church. I declined - as much as most everyone seemed to like it, I reject the "theology" of the lyrics:

God is not watching us "from a distance" but from an unbelievably intimate presence in and with us. He doesn't have to "back off" far enough so as not to see our differences and love us all together. He knows us each and all as we really are - and loves us "warts and all." The people who wanted it done in church couldn't get a handle on my argument - I guess it was over their heads, but I still decided against it being "church music."

What do you think?

Here's part of my email response and some additional thoughts:

Yes, I mostly agree; of course our God is immanent, and likely you know how I'm in total accord with Luther's theology of the ubiquity of the risen and ascended Christ. But just as much as we need to look to the manger and to the cross to *see* the fullness of God's power, sovereignty and glory, we also need to affirm His transcendence as the One whose presence in glory, sovereignty and power fills all of creation as well as the heavens and spreads out far beyond the finite limits of the humanly knowable cosmos.

I posted both "From a Distance" and "Save the Country" (styled "Glory River" in my title, since Glory River so fittingly describes the waters of baptism) in response to the current war (no surprise...well...duh?). And I absolutely agree the theology is far too complex to visit it upon that prototypical parishioner, so further to answer "What do you think," because of your pointing out some people "couldn't get a handle" on your theological argument and my observation about "complex"—or maybe "complicated" would be more accurate—theology, I'd definitely not program "From a Distance" for worship or at any other church-related event, either. A whole lot of what I call pre-catechism folks are hangin' out there in the world and hangin' out here in church, too, and I need to rejoice in the fact they acknowledge God, talk about God's acting in their lives and want to know God better and trust God more, while saving the fancy God-talk for people who can do it. That's a perspective I'm slowly learning. Really!

Then again from FrostyPastor:

Leah,
No question.
I had a great class session with a Thursday morning study group yesterday over issues of doubt and faith and knowing and believing and mystery and transcendence. Even as I experience God's immanent presence I have to realize that this One is far more than I can ever hope to explain or understand. … A point I really liked was "we have to set aside what we believe we know about God to open ourselves to what God really is." Something like not trying to restrict God to the box we have used to define God. J. B. Phillips — Your God is Too Small: A Guide for Believers and Skeptics Alike.

More of my observations:

Yes, Martin Luther talked about the *domesticated God*—a God at humanity's beck and call, actually a God very much like those others gods of the Ancient Near East, the ones in competition (not!) with Yahweh, those pathetic, petty twerp-tyrant gods who demanded and required tribute, propitiation and even human sacrifice but still remained far-off, at "a distance." And sad to say, though while trekking through the Exodus desert Israel learned to live in covenant with the free and elusive God Who cannot and refuses to be contained; just like us they wanted a tame domesticated God rather than the wild, completely untamable and totally undomesticated God of their Exodus into freedom, and that old, old story of that oh, so very human desire played out in their begging for, building and finally in the fall of the Jerusalem Temple. The God of the Bible chooses not a temple made of brick or stone, but in mercy and love elects us as living temples. And for all concerned parties, that's scary and risky.

"Your (our?) God is too small?" Luther spoke about the God Who became small for us in Christ—small enough to die: for us! But that's not the*smallness* we humans often crave; rather we're looking for a littleness we can manipulate and control, we tend to look for maneuverability and manageability rather than the very opposite. Evidently we don't want or expect surprises, despite our histories with the God of the prophets, the God of Jesus the Christ?! "God is watching us from a distance?" Yes, watching us and caring for us from a distance, while just as much God remains with us and shepherds us closely and nearby. Humans might be ok with a far-off god or a nearby god, but One Who is both at the same time and Who has other attributes humanity only can remotely imagine, is far too much for comfort, though more than plenty enough for everlasting sanctuary.

From A Distance

from Bette Midler’s album Some People's Lives

From a distance the world looks blue and green, and the snow-capped mountains white.
From a distance the ocean meets the stream, and the eagle takes to flight.

From a distance, there is harmony, and it echoes through the land.
It's the voice of hope, it's the voice of peace, it's the voice of every man.

From a distance we all have enough, and no one is in need.
And there are no guns, no bombs, and no disease, no hungry mouths to feed.

From a distance we are instruments marching in a common band.
Playing songs of hope, playing songs of peace. They're the songs of every man.

God is watching us; God is watching us; God is watching us from a distance.

From a distance you look like my friend, even though we are at war.
From a distance I just cannot comprehend what all this fighting is for.

From a distance there is harmony, and it echoes through the land.
And it's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves, it's the heart of every man.

It's the hope of hopes, it's the love of loves; this is the song of every man.
And God is watching us, God is watching us; God is watching us from a distance.
Oh, God is watching us, God is watching; God is watching us from a distance.

–by Julie Gold–

Glory River!

Save the Country

Come on people, come on children
Come on down to the glory river
Gonna wash you up, and wash you down
Gonna lay the devil down, gonna lay that devil down.

I got fury in my soul, fury's gonna take me to the glory goal…
In my mind I can't study war no more.
Save the people! Save the children! Save the country now!

Come on, people! Come on, children!
There's a king at the glory river.
And the precious king, he loved the people to sing;
Babes in the blinkin' sun sang
We Shall Overcome.

I got fury in my soul
Fury's gonna take me to the glory goal…
In my mind I can't study war no more.
Save the people! Save the children! Save the country now!

Come on, people! Come on, children!
Come on down to the glory river
Gonna wash you up and wash you down.
Gonna lay the devil down, gonna lay that devil down.

Come on people! Sons and mothers!
Keep the dream of the two young brothers.
Gonna take that dream and ride that dove…

We could build the dream with love, I know,
We could build the dream with love, I know,
We could build a dream with love, children,
We could build the dream with love, oh people,
We could build the dream with love, I know,
We could build the dream with love.

I got fury in my soul, fury's gonna take me to the glory goal…
In my mind I can't study war no more.

Save the people! Save the children!
Save the country, save the country,
Save this country now!

Laura Nyro October 18, 1947 – April 8, 1997

Mission Statement

Statement of Mission

Here's the mission statement I wrote when I was on staff at the church in City of History. Though it was (quite) a while ago, I don't want to lose it, so again I'm going with the online option! (Vanity note? The denom's deployed mission staff declared this mission statement a model and said he'd show it to other congregations as an illustration of what they could do.)

We are the people of God, forgiven and set free by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ; by the power of the Holy Spirit we are called together and sent into the world as witnesses to his resurrection. God calls us, a servant people, to proclaim in word and action the presence of the risen Lord to all those whom our lives touch, especially in this community.

BWV 82

BWV 82, Cantata, Ich habe genug | Johann Sebastian Bach, the Fifth Evangelist

The Google Translation

1. Aria
Oboe, Violino, I/II, Viola, Continuo

1. I have enough,
I have the welfare and, hoping the pious ones,
On my begierigen arms taken;
I have enough!
I it saw,
My faith pressed Jesum to the Herze;
Now wish I, still today with joys
To separate from hinnen to.

2. That Jesus mine and I its own would like to be.
In the faith stop I it,
There seh I also with Simeon
The joy of that life already.
Leave us with this man ziehn!
Oh! would like me of my body chains
The gentleman erretten;
Oh! would be nevertheless my parting here,
With joy says I, world, to you:
I have enough.

2. Recitativo B
Continuo

I have enough.
My comfort is only alone,

3. Aria
Violino I/II, Viola, Continuo

Schlummert, their matte eyes,
Are assigned gently and blessedly!
World, I remains no longer here,
Have I nevertheless no part at you,
That the soul could be suited.
Here I must build the misery,
But become I there, there look
Sweet one peace, satisfies rest.

4. Recitativo
Organo

My God! if the beautiful koemmt: Now!
Since I will drive into peace
And in the sand coolly earth
And there with you in the lap ruhn?
The parting is made,
World, good night!

5. Aria
Oboe, Violino I/II, Viola, Continuo

I look forward to my death,
Oh, he haett himself already appeared.
There escape from all emergency,
Me still in the world bind.

God, Strangers and Saints part 3

God, Strangers and Saints
part 3

But how does this gospel requirement of strange living align with our need for belonging, our need for being at home, and particularly with the gospel assertion that in Christ we no longer are strangers, in Christ we've come home to a circumstance and even to a place where we truly belong?!

Throughout the Hebrew Scripture's witness God keeps addressing (though not always immediately meeting!) the people's need to live on the land, to work on the land and thrive on the land, their absolute requirement for physical provision, as well as for spiritual sustenance. Scope out this New Testament text, too:

Ephesians 2

¹⁹ Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, ²⁰ having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, ²¹ in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, ²² in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

---

some words from a haunting song (you need to scroll way down the page for the complete lyrics) sung by Linda and Robin Williams:

Don't Let me Come Home a Stranger

As I walked out one evening to breathe the air and soothe my mind
I thought of friends and the home I had and all the things I left behind

CHORUS:
Will there come a time when the memories fade
And pass on with the long, long years?
When the ties no longer bind, Lord save me from this darkest fear:
Don't Let me Come Home a Stranger
I couldn't stand to be a stranger

In this place so far from home, they know my name but they don't know me
They hear my voice, they see my face; but they can lay no claim on me

© Robin Williams, J. Clark


more later. about strangeness and being strangers.

God, Strangers and Saints part 2

God, Strangers and Saints
part 2

Strange lives, still stranger lifestyles and truthfully being very *different people,* since we've already experienced both our first death and our second birth: the apostle Paul resolved to preach "only Christ crucified," and the baptismal theology Paul gives us in Romans 6 is a gospel of death and resurrection, in which each of us takes upon us the life and the death and the actual name of Christ Jesus, *Christian.* How do we, people who already have died and who in the here and now in really real life are alive to new life in Christ, demonstrate our newness and differentness?

...the church needs to attract the world and at the very same time it needs to be attractive to the world...

Some reflections vis-à-vis our identity in Christ:

• Life of Christ: for starters...socializing, especially eating, with outcasts, ritually impures and just plain unpopulars! And, of course this means violating a lot of the contemporary parallels to the levitical and deuteronomic codes.


• Death of Christ: the Son of God emptied himself of his God-ness and became obedient to the Father's will, rather than self-defining and self-determining his own mission and call, which as a human, as one "like us," well could have been to comfort, ease and prosperity. In plain English, Jesus became a servant and acted in the image of Yahweh, the Servant-God, so we also need to.


• God and strangerness: Abraham our faith-mentor, was an Ivri, a Hebrew, one "from the other side," and in his otherness than and differentness from the resident insiders, Abraham still forms the model for our faithful response.


• God and strangeness: God overcome His *otherness* in Jesus Christ's incarnation…what does this mean for us?


• Saints and strangerness: living in faith's deep-seated trustingness; living within the imperfection of community; experiencing disarticulation of institutions and infrastructures; learning the finely-tuned morality and consciousness of living in Christ; living with human frailty, vulnerability, brokenness and ultimately, living in and rejoicing in Jesus Christ's resurrection victory.


• Saints and strangeness: actually, I wanted to write parallels for each of these points, but for this one you basically can compile all of the above?!

God, Strangers and Saints part 1

God, Strangers and Saints
part 1

Disguised as a stranger sojourning among the people is a frequent form of our Living God's incarnational presence in the world; to describe how transitory, impermanent and continually changing God's enfleshment was and still is, St John's gospel tells us God "pitches a tent!" We are created in a polyfaceted Imago Dei,and one of the multitude of God-images in which we're to live is as sojourning strangers, so the Holy Spirit calls the assembly of Saints, the Church, to be and to flourish as people of radical trust (and freedom? Amen!?), people without a fixed and permanent home, who "pitch their tents" for a time and then move on. Being sojourning strangers has major implications for our lifestyle and for our social location...no surprise?! And living as nomads is a way replete with Eastered hope: we know the saga of Israel's wandering trek through the desert as they slowly assumed their identity as a covenanted community while they learned their God, Yahweh's reality as God of the Covenants. Consequently, for Israel, just as for us as the New Israel, the Church, a nomadic *religion* became a way of trust and then one of hope as moving step by step and making a path toward the Land of Promise they gradually learned it wasn't about the destination at all, but rather about the journey. It wasn't about the promised place where they *imagined* they'd be settled and secure, but about learning to trust the God of the Exodus from Egypt's bondage, the God of Life Who never at any time ever was, has been or ever could be other than God of the departure from slavery and the journey into liberty and responsibility!

Given the fact of this call to the Church, how can our lives as tent-making, tent-toting, tent-pitching wayfarers play out every day? This community of the holy, society of saints at very minimum is supposed to be out of the ordinary, "different from" and plain unusual in the world's terms. But the church needs to attract the world and at the very same time it needs to be attractive to the world, so the world will meet it part of the way and so the church will have the nearness it needs in order to respond to Jesus' call to "take the world in a love embrace," to quote Steppenwolf's song, "Born to be wild,"that's currently in a Chevy TV commercial!

Baptism again 6

Baptism again!     6

Right now, as this very particular time, God's mighty action in your baptism is lively and well. Through Jesus, in our baptismal covenant, God calls all of us and God leads all of us, as individual Christians and as a gathered community, to the Cross of Calvary but also to the glorious empty tomb of Easter dawn. The sometimes barely discernible early light of Easter sunrise reveals the Easter Resurrection God has made for us during the depths of night's deepest, darkest moments. The pale but absolutely glorious Easter light reveals the triumph that is all of ours as Jesus walks beside us to our cross and to our new life in him, as we walk beside our friends and neighbor through their pain and suffering, to their cross and to their Easter break of day.

In baptism we become Christians, "little Christs." In baptism, Jesus leads us to the cross; Jesus not only goes to the cross for us; he goes to the cross with us! As Christians, "Little Christs," we are called on a journey to the cross, a journey into suffering, sorrow, anguish, agony, even a walk to the cross of death, in solidarity with others, in solidarity with the world. In the words of the first answer in the Heidelberg Catechism, "My only comfort in life and in death is that I belong, body and soul, not to myself, but to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ." May we, the people of God baptized into the death and resurrection of our faithful Savior Jesus Christ, be the comfort of our world in the world's life and also in its death. May the world belong to the crucified and risen Christ through us, Christians, because of us "Little Christs!"

In baptism God tames us, shapes us into the people of God, to draw us freely and in love into covenantal relationship with our Creator and with each other. We are connected: we establish ties. We've come home to our Creator, to ourselves, and to each other. We've come home to a relationship in which each one of us walks and stands beside the other, beside each other as the Christ. May we always be, may we eternally live as God's baptized servant people of the cross and of the empty tomb!

Amen!!!

Baptism again 5

Baptism again!     5

We people of God are the people the Holy Spirit of God sends into the world to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Sent into the world at Jesus' command, empowered, enabled, "Spirited" into the world in the power of the activity of the Holy Spirit of God and of the Christ. And doesn't our baptism, our baptism into Jesus' death and resurrection—baptism into Good Friday and Easter Sunday—reveal the content of our proclamation to us? For Paul, the Gospel is "Death and Resurrection." We are baptized for events like September 11; we are baptized for times of loss and grief and sorrow; we are led to the living waters of baptism in order to make real and to reveal to a world in pain the promised presence of Jesus the Christ. We are baptized to be the Body of the at once crucified and risen Christ to the world, to be and to speak the Word of Life, the life-giving Word.

Our baptism is about Immanuel, "God With Us" (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23) the God Who, as Spirit—and as flesh!—makes Shekinah, makes a dwelling-place, a home and a space in the midst of us and within us. Empowering us with the Spirit of the Living God, the Spirit falling afresh on us every moment. The Spirit of the Living God and of the Christ indwelling each of us individuals, indwelling our community of the Church, the Body of the at once Crucified and Risen Christ. Enabling our response. We are Immanuel, "God With Us" to a broken, shattered and alienated world crying aloud in its pain and to a world suffering in silence. And we are Immanuel, "God With Us" to a world rejoicing in its healing and wholeness!

In 1^st Corinthians (1 Corinthians 5:18-19) Paul unmistakably tells us, twice in a row. the content of our lived ministry and proclamation: our ministry is reconciliation; we proclaim the God of Life has overwhelmed and overcome the powers of death. (Romans 6:9) Life and death have contended, but the victory decisively belongs to the God of Life, the God of Life Who hands over to us the defeat of the powers of death in Jesus our Christ. Our triumph is freedom from bondage/slavery, forgiveness of sins/transgressions and homecoming from exile/alienation. Theologian Jürgen Moltmann describes baptism, our baptism as "representation, witness, sign and illumination of the Christ event." He says, "it points away from itself in the direction of Christ alone." So very true!!! Just as Jesus goes to the cross with us and beside us, we are baptized into Jesus' death and resurrection to go to the cross with and beside our neighbors in the world into which we've been sent. We are baptized for events like September 11; we are baptized for times such as loss and grief and sorrow; we are led to the baptismal waters in order to make real and reveal the promised presence of Jesus the Christ. We are baptized to be the Body of the at once crucified and risen Christ to the world, to speak the redemptive and redeeming Word of Life, the Word God promises never will return to Him empty.

Baptism again 4

Baptism again!     4

Immediately before beginning his public ministry, Jesus went into the wilderness desert after his mikvah, his baptism in the River Jordan. All three synoptic gospels: Mark (1:12-13), Matthew (4:1-11) and Luke (4:1-13) record Jesus' time in the wilderness with its accompanying temptations. In Luke and Matthew the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness; writing with his typical sense of immediacy and urgency, Mark says the Spirit drives Jesus into the deserted-ness! One translation says Jesus was "urged on by the Spirit!" And when Jesus leaves his experience of "wild-ness" and returns to his hometown, Nazareth in Galilee, to begin publicly ministering to the world, he returns from to *civilization* "In the Power of the Spirit!" (Luke 4:14) The Great Spirit gives power to Jesus to initiate God's kingdom on earth and to have authority over the forces of death and defeat, authority over the powers and principalities that rule the world. (Ephesians 6:12; Colossians 2:15) Joel, one of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible, promises God's Spirit will be "poured out on all flesh. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old people shall dream dreams, and your young people see visions. Even on the slaves, men and women, shall I pour out my spirit in those days." (Joel 2:28-29; Acts 2:17-18) Then, as Luke records in Acts, on the Day of Pentecost after the gathered followers of Jesus receive the Holy Spirit in its visible, tangible, audible manifestation, just as Jesus returned to the world in the Power of the Spirit, (Luke 4:14) Jesus tells his followers to wait "in the city," to stay in Jerusalem, until they are clothed with, dressed in, arrayed with "Power from on High," (Luke 24:49) which is exactly what happens on the Day of Pentecost, the day that births the church. (Acts 2:4)

The church receives the same Spirit Who is active throughout the biblical witness from the very beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation. It's hardly surprising the Holy Spirit is in the texts of every one of the writers of the New Testament. All four gospel writers begin their gospels with the Spirit's activity. The Spirit's purpose is to bring order, light and life to the people of God, to bring glory to God. The Great Spirit's purpose is to raise us from death into new, resurrected life, and to make possible our witness to the cross and our witness to the empty tomb. The Spirit gathers, nurtures and cherishes the covenant community, the church, the covenant people of God. Again from Luther's Small Catechism "I cannot by my own effort or understanding know Jesus my Savior or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me…calls, gathers and enlightens the church…" In other words, it's all about gift, it's all about immersion in grace, in the presence of the at once crucified and risen Christ in baptism and in the Eucharist, submersion in God's constant, ongoing free, gracious activity in each of our lives. About Immanuel, "God With Us!" About God making Shekinah, dwelling-place with us. The Spirit of God brought Jesus from death to life and moves us into life from death, into life from the little deaths we each experience all the time and ultimately, from the final death of our mortal bodies. Because in baptism we experience the "First death," the second death, the death of our physical bodies, no longer has power or dominion or any sway over our lives. (Romans 6:9) The Apostle Paul talks about that a lot!

Baptism again 3

Baptism again!     3

Just like so many of the Bible's witnesses: like Noah (Genesis 7-9), Jacob (Genesis 32:33), Moses (Exodus), and Joshua (Joshua 1-3), and like Jesus (Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:9; Luke 3:21) our journey to wholeness and holiness takes us to the saving fountain of living, lively water: down to the riverside. For Christians, our Christ-walk begins with God's gracious invitation to the waters of baptism! Our Christian pilgrimage begins with our Creator's invitation to relinquish control of our destiny, Her invitation to be fully embraced, restored, and reclaimed from "sin, death and the devil," as Martin Luther paraphrases Paul in his Small Catechism. God's invitation to us, for us to be "the beloved," to enter freedom and forgiveness, to return from exile and to be at home with our Creator and with one another, to achieve our "chief and highest end" of living in Covenant with God and with one another, to partake of the purpose for which we were created, God's welcome and beckoning to us begins with baptism and continues forever into eternity. In our baptism God Himself makes Shekinah, "dwelling place" with us! (Zechariah 2:10-11; Romans 8:9-11) God is our Redeemer, dwells with us in the midst of us, making us the People of God, making all things new! (Isaiah 42:9; 43:18-19) Our baptism is a river in the desert of the wilderness of our lives! (Isaiah 41:18:b; 43:19b)

What a prevalent image and symbol water is throughout scripture! From Genesis through Revelation water occurs and reoccurs constantly and incessantly! (Genesis 1:2 - Revelation 22:17b) Have you ever thought about how essential water is for our ordinary, everyday physical lives and existence? What does water do that makes it so necessary? Water does a multitude of wonderful and necessary things! You probably can think of more than I'll mention right now, but for a short list water helps create and recreate; it cleans, renews, refreshes. Water forms two-thirds of each of our bodies; water covers more than three-quarters of the earth's surface.

Just as the river meant the boundary and the border between the old life and the new life for many of our biblical heroes, the living waters of baptism form the border and boundary between our old, disconnected, alienated shattered and tattered lives and our new life in Christ, our new life in the community, which is the Body of the Risen Christ, the Church of Jesus Christ. The baptismal waters bestow on us a brand-new name, the name "Christian," a name that for us is new but that name also is the name of the One who was present at creation's dawn and through whom everything was created. (Genesis 1; Proverbs 8:22-31; Colossians 1:15-16) To us baptism gives the name of the Holy One who calls worlds into being and who sets before us the ways of life and death, naming us "Christian."

In baptism God calls us "Christian" and we're forever transformed! Just as Jesus rose from the moving waters of his baptism, his mikvah in the River Jordan and the Great Spirit hovered above the waters as the Father declared Jesus "Beloved Son," (Matthew3:17; LK 3:22) so also the Dove is on the wing at each of our baptisms, as our Beloved Creator names us "Beloved." Since baptism changes us forever, what is this transformation? What does it mean for us, what does it mean for the community into which we're gathered, and, perhaps most of all, what does it mean for the world into which God sends us as Christians, as members of the baptized Body of Christ? At the end of his gospel, Matthew records the words of Jesus: "Go now into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age." (Matthew 28:19) Then, quoting Jesus, in the book of Acts Luke writes: "But you shall receive Power from on High when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8) In other words, we are "Spirit-sent people," sent into the world by the command of Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit. In baptism we seek to discern and delineate our call to ministry, to service: we are baptized for events such as September 11; we are baptized for times of loss and grief and sorrow; we are led to the baptismal waters in order to make real and to reveal to the world the promised presence of Jesus the Christ. Above all, we are baptized in order to enter into the joy! To quote from 2^nd Isaiah again: "You shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands! (Isaiah 55:12)

Baptism again 2

Baptism again!     2

In his letter to the Church at Rome (Romans 6:2-11) the apostle Paul tells us we're baptized into Jesus' death and resurrection; we're marked forever with the mark of the tomb and the mark of the empty grave. In the epistle to the Galatian assembly, (Galatians 3:28) Paul says we're baptized into an inclusive community, a community without any borders or barriers to fully belonging. Because it holds the enduring promise of the everlasting Word of God, Baptism has a definitive, unrepeatable character: in addition to the binding quality of God's Word given to us in the font of life, there is "One Baptism," (Ephesians 4:5) so we need to be baptized only a single time; there is "One Baptism" so whether you're baptized in a church that defines itself as some kind of protestant, as Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or simply as evangelical or other or just plain independent, there's never any need to repeat the baptism. Just as we speak of the "Christ Event" when we talk about God's invasion into human history with the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus the Christ, we also can speak of the "event" of our baptism: the eternal, transcendent God, the God beyond time and beyond history once again enters human history, coming into each of our lives, and becomes present to us, revealing Herself in the everyday activities of our daily lives. Baptism transforms us forever! We're both dead and alive: the apostle Paul says, "Dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." (Romans 6:11) Like the Israelites of the Exodus, we're at the same time both wet and dry. (Exodus 14:22) Both free from all peoples yet slave to all. (Romans 6:18; 1 Corinthians 9:19) Central to Paul's theology is his conviction our human Redeemer, Jesus, becomes the Divine Christ, God Himself, in his death and resurrection. (Romans 1:4) Central to Paul's theology is his conviction that we, the people of God, are Christed, meaning we ourselves become the Christ so we can live as the Christ, as we are baptized into Jesus' death and resurrection, into Good Friday and into Easter. (Romans 6:2-11) For Paul of Tarsus—and for us—Jesus of Nazareth, the man of Galilee, our Crucified and Risen Lord, our Lord of Life, is always at the same time both the Crucified and risen One. In fact, for Paul the Gospel is Death and Resurrection! In baptism, we become Gospel; we become Good News! In this daily Christian walk by trust in the Son of God we constantly dance both as people of the cross and as persons of the empty grave of Easter dawn!

In baptism we've been drowned in the font, drowned and revived in the fountain of the River of Life (Revelation 22:1). We've been crucified on the tree of death, the cross that paradoxically at the same time is the tree that bears the fruit of the healing of nations, the life, the healing and the reconciliation of all. The tree that at the same time is the Tree of Life: in the words of the Colonial American hymn, the Tree that is "Jesus Christ, the Apple Tree." No longer is the tree our separation and our "fall" from Paradise but the Tree of the Cross is our entryway into the Paradise of covenanted community. (Revelation 22:2) We are drowned in the floodwaters to be the Christ who suffers, grieves and rejoices with every breath creation takes, with every step creation makes. We are baptized to be the covenant community of the Living God, people of the Holy One of Being; we are baptized for events such as September 11; we are baptized for times of loss and grief and sorrow; God leads us to the tomb of death and font of life in order to reveal and make real the promised presence of Jesus the Christ. We are baptized to be the Body of the at once crucified and risen Christ to the world, to speak the redemptive and redeeming Word of Life, the Word God promises never will return to Him empty. We are baptized to be who we were created to be: in covenant with our Creator and with one another. "To glorify God and fully to enjoy Him forever," in the celebrated answer to the first question in the Westminster Catechism.

Baptism again 1

Baptism again!     1

I'm not sure all of this will fit on one post; besides, it's somewhat dense reading.

Recently a friend wrote to me:

Leah, do you "belong" to a church.... I mean, do you have membership, have you signed on the dotted line for any church? I have not, and so I wonder about other bloggers. I desire to be re-baptized. I was baptized as an infant and now I need some sort of a public announcement of my faith. What do you think? Do you belong to a church?

Here's the substance of my immediate reply to her, and after that I'll say more:

I'd like to respond particularly to your feeling you might like to be rebaptized, which, I believe denies the efficacy of God's Word and action, since in baptizing it is God Who by water and the Word covenants with us, but more about that later. But I also know God calls us to live out our discipleship in Christian community just as God calls us to live out our baptism in the world, so though that dotted line's not at all essential, belonging to one of those always highly imperfect though resurrected communities of faith absolutely IS of the essence.

Here's sort of a summing-up of what I wrote about baptism in a paper that later I presented as a talk:

As you read this, please remember I identify specifically with the theological tradition(s) of the continental European Reformation of the 16^th century, the church bodies and the theologians that evolved from the Reformation.

In all of their theology, though particularly in their theology of the sacraments, Luther and Calvin explicitly and powerfully recovered for the church the pervasive biblical metaphor of the descent of God to creation, God's willing embrace, redemption and indwelling of everything created, not solely human creatures, but hills, trees, rivers, mountains, deserts and streams and finally the redeemed and restored city into which God pours the glory of His presence; to the extraordinary extent the commonest *stuff* of creation—like water, grain and grape—in the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion become the vehicle of God's hidden yet evident self-revealing.

In grace and freedom God calls every baptized person, offering us gifts and inviting our response. To live baptized means to be a people both of the empty cross and of the empty tomb. People of Good Friday and people of Easter Sunday, so we're both dead and alive. Both wet and dry. Both slave and free. Later I'll say more about this paradoxical state of existence, about thriving within the embrace of the faithful God Whose passion always is Life, the God of Life Whose answer to death and defeat remains Resurrection. God's faithfulness to our baptism, to Her complete and unconditional, gracious Divine embrace of our life and being remains the central reality of the church's life.

Our baptism is the event that defines our individual lives and designs our community in Christ, here in this city, beyond the gates of this city, beyond this country's confines and throughout the world. (Romans 6:2-11; Galatians 3:28) Our baptism, the cosmic event in each of our lives that defines our ministry and God's call to each of us, is the absolutely cosmic event that describes and delineates the inclusive community that is the Body of the at once Crucified and Risen Lord Jesus Christ, the Church.

After Jesus himself, baptism is central for us Christians, as baptism defines the Christian community and enables its witness and response; in baptism we seek to discern our call to service. We are baptized for events such as September 11; we are baptized for times of loss and grief and sorrow; the Spirit leads us to the baptismal waters in order to make real and to reveal to the world and to one another the promised presence of Jesus the Christ. We are baptized to be the Body of the at once crucified and risen Christ to the world, to speak the prophetic and redemptive Word of Life, the Word God promises never will return to Him empty. To quote God's Word to us given through one of the prophets we know as Isaiah: "…my word that goes forth from my mouth…shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and prosper in the thing for which I sent it." (Isaiah 55:11) Above all, we are baptized in order to enter into the joy of covenantal community with our Creator and with the world! (Matthew 25:21) Baptism is a sign of God's presence and the embrace of the baptized community of faith may be the primary evidence we know of God's unconditional, graceful, and faithful baptismal embrace of each of us. Although both of the sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper or Eucharist, are God's free and gracious gifts, as you also know in the sacraments the Living Word of the Living God encounters earthly, created matter in order to become vessels and vehicles of grace for us. Although they are gifts of God, the sacraments actually depend upon us humans for their existence! The living Word of our Living God evokes God's presence in our sacraments calls grace, freedom, forgiveness, unity and reconciliation into the gathered community enabling the people of the Font and of the Table, we people of the Table and of the Font who are sent into the world, to proclaim grace, freedom, forgiveness, unity and reconciliation to the world. God sends us into the world to be the Body of the Risen Christ and to speak the healing Word of God.