September 19, 2004 - Baptism Sunday
Sacrament of Baptism
Jane Clarke: On behalf of the Board of Westminster United Church, I present the following child for initiation into the body of Christ through Baptism:
Mackenzie Lauren
daughter of
Warren & Kimberly Hanson
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Electra Unit UCW will be selling pie following worship. Tickets ($3/slice, $7/frozen pie) may be purchased in Memorial Hall. This is a “Pew Cushion” fundraiser.
by Rev. James Farrell
Much of this material is used with
permission from Jim Taylor’s Sharp Edges Column of September 5, 2004.
A baptismal service is a wonderful thing.
It’s a time to reconnect with an ancient faith and to vision into a future faith
while all the time being present in this moment with God and one another.
We all know that the world that Mackenzie
will grow up in is not a simple world. Choices will need to be made for and by
her that people in other places and times have not had to make. In fact, the
very system of commerce that we all take for granted forces choices that our
“subsistence seeking” ancestors never had to make.
Perhaps it’s a good problem to have, perhaps
not, but we can hold these truths as self evident that the value choices and
ethical dilemmas that Mackenzie will have to wrestle with shall be far less
clear than those confronted by other generations.
Stem-cell research, invitro fertilization,
Genome mapping and genetic copyrighting are all part of our common culture and
we can’t even speculate about the phrases that will come into our culture in the
years ahead. Yet, most everything we try to do has an ethical implication.
The outcry this past week over the choice of
The Canadian pension plan to invest in the machinery of war as a secure
investment to provide the returns that will be needed to ensure burgeoning baby
boomers their pensions upon retirement is only one current case in point.
Yes, people expect a pension when they
retire…but few consider the investment road that is traveled to yield that
pension… Of course, these are not easy issues when so many interests are
involved.
Indeed, the world little Mackenzie will grow
up in is also one where fanatical voices will scream for her attention. She will
grow up, hopefully learning that fanatical voices won’t often have her interests
at heart. She will grow up in a world where voices will clamour for her
attention to their literal religious agendas. If we are maintaining our promises
to help her through opportunities of study and prayer, we will pray that she may
grow up balanced in her faith. Literalism and extremism often go hand in hand.
It is my belief that health in the spirit is not found in either.
The Olympic Games, that concluded a few
weeks back, had a higher level of security than any previous games as an effort
to thwart terrorism by Islamic extremists. But in the final event of the final
day, it was a Christian extremist who breached security. Cornelius Horan, a
57-year-old defrocked Roman Catholic priest originally from Ireland, tackled
marathon racer Vanderlei de Lima of Brazil, causing him to lose his lead and
come in third.
The Roman Catholic Church has room for an
astounding range of views much as our church has. But Horan’s views were too
much, even for the Roman Catholic Church. The Church rescinded his ordination
last year after Horan ran onto the track during the British Grand Prix at
Silverstone Raceway to promote his interpretation of the Bible.
Horan treats every word of the Bible as
literally true. Last year, he challenged his bishop to a public debate on the
truth of the Bible. At the time, he said, “I have never received a supernatural
message or vision. God has never spoken to me. I do not hear voices. I base
myself entirely on the Holy Bible… The Bible is the utterly dependable word of
God.”
Treating the Bible any other way, he
concluded, is “accusing God of lying and deceit.”
According to his reading of the Bible, Jesus
will return within 20 years to reign for 1000 years of peace.
Horan is clearly less dangerous than, say,
Osama bin Laden. But their reasoning is remarkably similar. It treats the
written text of a particular set of scriptures as sacred, unquestionable.
Extremism is always dangerous. Not because
it is necessarily wrong, but because it blinds its holder to other
positions. It allows for no alternatives.
All religions have had eccentrics who took
dramatic measures to draw attention to their cause. Think of Martin Luther
nailing his 95 theses to the door in Wittenberg. or St. Francis stripping naked
in Assisi, Italy. Think of the nameless Buddhist priests who set themselves on
fire to protest the war in Vietnam.
The mass media commonly dismiss Horan, bin
Laden, and others as “fundamentalists.”
It may not be that simple. Robert White, a
former Kelowna religion columnist says in the Christian tradition, a
fundamentalist holds five beliefs:
· The inerrancy of Scripture – every word
is the word of God and does not just point toward God.
· The divinity of Jesus Christ (and as a
corollary, the virgin birth);
· The substitutionary atonement (that is,
that Jesus had to die as a sacrifice to pay the price for all human sins);
· The bodily resurrection – of
Christ, and eventually of all believers;
· And the second coming of Christ in the
physical to establish government.
None of those, you might note, require their
holder to hi-jack airliners, become a suicide bomber, take hostages, shoot
doctors who perform abortions, or tackle marathon runners.
I’ve no doubt Islam has its own fundamental
beliefs. But for centuries, those fundamentals did not prevent Islamic scholars
from leading the world in their studies of science, of mathematics, of history.
Their scriptures did not stop them from integrating theological study with
scientific insights.
Only in the last century or so has a narrow
literalism come to dominate Islamic thought.
Literalism is a conviction – a wrong
conviction, I believe – that every word of scripture means exactly what it says.
It contains no cultural or social distortions, no limited human understandings,
no exaggerations or deliberate distortions, no tongue in cheek phrases like the
one in today’s gospel reading.
With literalism there is no life-giving
essence of metaphor that can exist for a person…it is literal …take it or leave
it. Metaphor, on the other hand, provides opportunities for reflection,
analysis, and life at every turn…if we can breath the life of metaphor into
Mackenzie and her contemporaries the true power of sacred faith is without
limit.
When I consider Cornelius Horan at one end
of the spectrum, and Osama bin Laden at the other, I can’t help thinking that
religious literalism lies at the heart of many modern conflicts.
Literalism in the Arab world seems to lead
to terrorism in the name of Allah. In the Christian world, it fosters an
apocalyptical mindset that welcomes war, because such a war will hasten the
Second Coming of Christ.
Literalism in the west supports Israel
unquestioningly; it encouraged George W. Bush to launch his crusade against Iraq
and probably Iran, next. And literalism is currently splitting the worldwide
Anglican communion.
One group of Anglicans – mainly in northern
nations – looks at Jesus’ spirit of openness and inclusiveness, and concludes
that the church must treat women as equals, and must support gays and lesbians
who wish to live in lifelong commitment to each other.
The other group – mainly southern – finds a
few verses which condemn homosexuality, ignores cultural conditions or contexts,
and arbitrarily rejects any diocese or national church which condones same-sex
unions or ordains homosexual persons as priests (let alone bishops).
I do not believe that every word in the
Bible is literally true. Nor does every word carry equal importance. Jesus was
not saying gather up ill gotten gains.
Blind literalism requires readers to set
aside what we generally believe to be God’s greatest gift to humanity – a
critical intelligence. It restricts human intelligence to deciding whether or
not new information fits a predetermined standard. Within that framework,
intelligence is permitted only for stringing isolated texts together into a
superficially uniform necklace.
Literalism leads, ultimately, to extremism,
of which terrorism is just one form.
Journalists today, at least in the western
world, tend to treat religion as passé, irrelevant, outdated… I disagree. I
think religion – or, more precisely, one style of religion that lives today as a
gathering storm – is the primary source of conflict in our world today.
If Jesus is going to bring 1000 years of
peace, the first thing he’ll have to get rid of is this kind of religion
for it is this kind of religion that destroys.
Yes, Mackenzie, and her contemporaries will
grow up in a world where the spirit of Jesus will need to be very prevalent …
offering insight and wisdom to the hearts and minds of all who seek to find the
spirit of creation and unconditional love in a world that will be tempted to
polarize, isolate and ostracize in the name of a very literal religion.
The work of the church has never been more
important…its mission to teach tolerance, personal integrity, conciliar
conversation remains paramount to the development of a sustainable world, and
the nurture of personal spiritual growth.
The literalists are willing to destroy the
earth to usher in a new age…the spirit of God is present right now to help us
see the new creation that is ever before us…the resurrection that is a daily
occurrence, new life springing forth in a myriad of ways.
The opportunities we provide for all our
Mackenzies will bear the test of time only insofar as we share those ideals—only
as we provide those opportunities and only as we demonstrate “that” life of the
spirit to our children.
In the world of literalism she doesn’t stand
a chance…but take heart, Mackenzie and all who care for the Mackenzie’s in our
lives, for in the words of the poem Desiderata written by lawyer Max
Ehrmann (1872-1945) “You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees &
the stars, you have the right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should, therefore, be at peace with
God, … and whatever your labours & aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life
keep peace with your soul…[for] with all its sham and drudgery & broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world. Be careful, strive to be happy.” You are
genuinely loved. Amen.