"From Every Nation, Tribe and People"
A Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Hilary J. Barrett for Good Shepherd & Baptism Sunday
Preached at Pleasantville UCC, April 25, 2010
Revelation 7:9-17; Psalm 23; John 10:11-18

“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count,
from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.”
(Revelation 7:9)

I can still see it all quite clearly.  It was in the Vere Loper Chapel on Dana Street in Berkeley, California.  Lloyd and Genie Bridges were there – they were like our own George and Charlotte Klein – always at church, the first to make you feel welcome.  Bob Lyness was there – Bob worked for Safeway.  He traveled all over the world setting up new Safeway markets in places like Saudi Arabia and France.  Margie Coates was there too; she was like our Marion Weisel – wise and loving and open to all kinds of people.  And my Dad was there too -- a little bewildered but supportive.

My devout Quaker friend, Elizabeth Perry, was late – she had trouble finding the place.  And when she arrived, after it was all over, there were tears streaming down her face because she felt so bad that she had missed it.  But I was so joyous that it did not matter.  I was just glad she tried to be there because she was the only one of the seven friends I always hung out with who would have understood.  I was sure of this.  So sure that I didn’t even tell the others what I was going to do.  Not only that, I didn’t tell my mother.  She would never have understood.

I stood in the middle of the circle and Bill Livingston, one of the Pastors, asked me some questions.  I remember they all chuckled a bit because I kept answering when I wasn’t supposed to.  I just kept saying ‘Yes,” “I do,” and “I will,” “I promise,” over and over again.  Apparently I gave about three times the numbers of answers ‘yes,” as were scripted.  But I didn’t have a script.  I just kept saying yes.

Do you desire to be baptized into the faith and family of Jesus Christ?

Do you renounce the powers of evil and desire the freedom of new life in Christ?

Do you profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?

Do you promise, by the grace of God, to be Christ’s disciple, to follow in the way of our Savior, to resist oppression and evil, to show love and justice, and to witness to the work and word of Jesus Christ as best you are able?

Do you promise, according to the grace given you, to grow in the Christian faith and to be a faithful member of the church of Jesus Christ, celebrating Christ’s presence and furthering Christ’s mission in all the world?

Yes I do, yes I promise, yes I will.

It was 31 years ago on a Maundy Thursday afternoon, when I made those promises and was baptized into the Christian faith at the age of 17.  Not many people in my life would understand what I was doing, and the ones who would were standing right there with me – Lloyd and Genie and Bob and Margie – all white-haired older people of the congregation who devoted themselves to ministry with youth and young adults who needed someone to show them the way, my Dad -- who would always support my journey – even if he didn’t exactly understand it, my friend, Elizabeth, with whom I could always share my spirit.  And the pastor who told me, when I was struggling with my decision about whether to become a Christian or not – “It takes as much courage to say ‘no’ as it does to say ‘yes.’”

My colleagues from the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference have asked me to share my faith journey at this year’s Clergy Convocation.  It’s an annual gathering of clergy from this region.  Pastor Amelie is on the planning committee.  I suspect that’s how they got my name.

Sharing one’s faith journey is difficult to do – even for pastors.  You should try it sometime.  Try writing the story of how you came to faith, where it’s taken you, and where you are now – and then try sharing it with someone; ideally someone you love and trust.  It will speak things to you that you forgot you knew.

Preparing to share my faith journey with my colleagues in ministry, reminded me of how profoundly I believe in the power of baptism; how life-changing that moment was for me; and how life-changing I believe it can be for anyone of us.

Baptism is the central theme of our worship this morning -- and the reason is most certainly to celebrate the baptism of Joshua Steven Nakonetschny at the second service.  But we are not only celebrating this event in the life of one family.  The fact is, every time we baptize someone in the congregation it becomes an opportunity to remember our own baptisms.  So today I want to do that with you – to remember your baptism (even you were a babe in arms when it occurred); to dwell upon your baptism; to pray about it; and ponder what grace is made real to us through that covenant with God and one another.

In some Christian traditions, baptisms are held privately – before or after a service – with only the family gathered around.  Some of you may have attended a baptism like that -- and in some ways, that’s how I was baptized: it had to happen.  I was about to be Confirmed that night.  But the baptism wasn’t a private matter between me and God, or between me and the minister, or even between me my family.  There were witnesses there; people who represented the wider congregation; folks who had been important in my journey and had made it possible for me to get to that point.  It had already been five years since I had started attending that church’s youth program and now, five years later, I had finally made the decision to become a Christian.

Here at Pleasantville, we baptize babies and children and adults in the center of our common life.  That is why we take time in the middle of the service to witness and celebrate the sacrament: because in doing so not only do we bless these children and their families, but because we ourselves are blessed.  Baptism is meant to be at the center of who we because baptism is the church’s doorway to membership in the Body of Christ.  And when a person is baptized a hundred metaphors come into being:

When a person is baptized into Christ, they are grafted into the body of Christ;

they are grafted onto the Vine which is Christ;
they become children of the living God;
they are made heirs to the promise of Abraham.

When a person is baptized, they are set free from all their sin;

they are washed clean in the waters of creation;
they are washed in the blood of the Lamb;
the past is finished and gone, everything has become fresh and new.

When a person is baptized, they are given a new name and a new identity;

they are marked with the thumbprint of God;
their spiritual DNA is altered and they are born again and born anew;
everything that used to divide us no longer exists;

The Apostle, Paul said that in baptism “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female;” and we might well add, “there is neither Democrat nor Republican, gay nor straight, rich nor poor,” for we are all one in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The sacrament of baptism is now and has always been a ritual of radical egalitarianism.  When Paul named the categories of Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, he was naming the fundamental ways that people were categorized and divided from one another during the first century of Roman Empire.  He named the things that kept people apart, and he showed them how the sacrament of baptism changed all that.  Now, those who had been far off were brought near, and those who had known only estrangement were brought close.

In the passage from the Revelation of John, we are once again reminded that the faithful in Christ are comprised of a far greater wideness and mercy than our meager attempts to keep people apart from one another.  John writes:

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’

From every nation, tribe and people, from every language under heaven, “They cried out in a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God!’

I think it’s very important for us to dwell upon the meaning of our baptism from time to time.  I think it’s important for us to remember what it’s about.  Because, baptism meant back then and still means now that something genuinely different is going to happen in the life of a person.  And that difference is going to live itself out in the community of faith.

No longer will we be claimed by the divisions that keep other people apart.  Labels that separate us from one another will have no currency with us.  Because we are claimed by something far more important: we are marked with the very imprint of God, and we know that that identity trumps all others.

            We live in days when it is political sport and fodder for social commentators and politicians to take pot-shots at one another.  We live in a time when our politics can easily divide us – sometimes in irreparable fashion.

            But the people who belong to Jesus Christ; those who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb; those who have been anointed with the water of life – those people have no business being divided by politics.  We may agree to disagree about politics.  We may engage in lively conversation and debate.  But we will not permit the strength of our bond with one another to be diminished by categories that the world may try to impose upon us.  Because we are part of the Body of Christ, and by our baptism, our relationship with one another is both more fundamental and more sublime than any other category that the world may try to impose upon us.

The United Church of Christ just put out a new advertising campaign called, “The Language of God.”  You can see it if you go to the church’s website.  It’s a well done and moving and features image after image of people who look like you and me, and maybe some people who don’t bear any resemblance to our lives at all – all of whom are members of the Body of Christ.

From every nation, tribe and people: that’s what it means to belong to the Church of Jesus Christ.  It certainly isn’t easy.  It’s not meant to be.  But it is meant to teach us how to be a blessing to the world.

The Body of Christ: what a privilege; what a mystery; what a wondrous and holy calling!  May it be so.  Amen.