The Distilled Essence

 HOMILY, ST. PAUL’S, FOLEY – PENTECOST, YEAR B

MAY 23, 2021

 

TEXT:                        SACRAMENT OF HOLY BAPTISM

 

            People may sometimes ask what Episcopalians actually believe.  What is our essential teaching?

 

            It’s, actually, quite simple. We say that praying shapes believing.  In other words, the way we pray describes our theology. Our prayers are based on our theology. Never is it truer than today.

 

            The Catechism, in the back of the Book of Common Prayer, describes Episcopal Church teaching. It says that a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.  In other words, that which we do here is a sign and symbol of a deeper, more profound reality.  It represents how God is moving in our lives.

 

            Today we see that truth at work in the life of Ian MyKah Stuart Hantz. His baptism is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. It is a symbol of the essential rite of initiation into Christ’s body, the Church.

 

            Yes, he is being made a member of the Church.  But so much more. The preface to the baptismal service says that “Holy Baptism is the full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s body, the Church.  The bond established by God in baptism is indissoluble.”

 

            In other words, baptism is not a purely human action.  It is a response to something God has already done – loved MyKah. And by this action, we are recognizing that a bond is established between MyKah and God – and that it cannot be dissolved.

 

            There is more.  In the thanksgiving over the water (my favorite prayer in the prayer book), we recall the saving help of God throughout faith history.  We describe the spirit of God – the ruach, literally the breath of God – moving over the waters in creation. We identify with the wondrous deliverance of the Hebrew people in the rolling back of the Red Sea.

 

            Then we come to the life of Christ – and acknowledge that in baptism our old selves die with him, go down into the grave, and then rise with him as new beings, sharing in his resurrection victory.

 

            That is a lot of outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual graces in just a few moments.  But it has profound, eternal ramifications – for each of us, and for MyKah.

 

            Then we turn to the Holy Communion.  But that is a story for another time.

 

            Thanks be to God.