A Rock And A Hard Place

A Meditation for 10 January 2016, the Baptism of the Lord (Year C), based on Isaiah 43: 1 – 7, Acts 8: 14 – 17, and Luke 3: 15 – 17, 21 – 22

The title for this week’s message comes from the heading for the reading from Isaiah as translated in The Message. I use this translation (along with Clarence Jordan’s Cotton Patch Gospels) as it offers a more modern reading of the Scriptures without losing its meaning. I think this is critical in today’s society simply because it shows how the Bible is alive today; when you use an old translation or you do not provide for a modern setting, you risk loosing both the meaning of the words and the people who hear the words.

I suggested in last week’s post (“Seeing The Future”) that I felt that there was a need for a fourth great revival in this society. Now, there are some who might feel that having a revival is more the sign of a fundamentalist approach to Christianity than a progressive one but I think that it is just as appropriate.

It goes with the idea of today’s corporate church. Church has, for the lack of a better term, become part of our lives. We expect it to be there for the baptism and confirmation of our children, our marriages, and our funerals but we don’t expect it to be there at any other times. And, sadly, when there are schedule overlaps around 10 am on Sunday morning, we put church attendance on the back burner in favor of the other event.

I always found it interesting that Constantine, the Roman emperor who legitimatized Christianity was not baptized until just before he died. While his actions as emperor ended the legal persecution of Christians and he became, perhaps the single most important patron of the church in all of its history, he waited until the last moments of his life to be absolved of his sins. And I cannot help but think that too many corporate Christians see their baptism in something of the same way. Oh, they were baptized at some point in their life (as a child, a youth, or an adult) but they see only in terms of the end times. Oh, and by the way, I see the actions of too many fundamentalists in the same way. Only at that last moment in their conscious life will they call upon their baptism in a last ditch effort to save their souls.

Oh, they might do it and if they do, so be it; that is the nature of grace.

But baptism is also the sign of a new life, a new beginning. I have told the story before (“My Two Baptisms”) about how I was stuck in the dorm of a Bible college in Moberly, Missouri, during the spring of 1969 and being told by a soon to be preacher that my baptism as a child did not count. And as I said then, were it not for what happened after that baptism, that preacher-to-be would have been right. But I was raised to respect that baptism and, when the time came, to do what was expected of me.

The key points given in the reading from Acts and Luke for today point out that the Holy Spirit was involved. Through the Power of the Holy Spirit, lives change (as Luke noted John saying, it changes you from the inside out).

What I did not mention in the story of the two baptisms was what had taken place about week before that encounter in Moberly. And that was my meeting with Marvin Fortel, a meeting I have written about many times before and one in which I knew that my life had changed (“The Changing Of The Seasons”). While I know that my refusal to do the adult baptism was more me than my soul, I also had a sense that I was living the life one was supposed to be living and I understood why.

Most of you who read this have been baptized so calling for you to be baptized would be along the lines of that student preacher I met in 1969. So I call upon you to think about your baptism and ask if your life today reflects that baptism.

One of the things that I have thought about is where I am being called in my own ministry. And while I will still hold to the teachings of the Evangelical United Brethren Church in which I was confirmed and the United Methodist Church in which I have lived and served for the majority of my life since confirmation, I am beginning to think and believe that I need to be a little more independent. I see a need for something different, something a bit more progressive in nature. I am not entirely certain that the United Methodist Church will survive the upcoming 2016 General Conference; it might but what comes out of the conference may not be in a position to move forward the Gospel message that Christ charged us to follow.

I suppose that when you find yourself between a rock and a hard place (which was the subject heading for the reading from Isaiah for today), you can let yourself be crushed by the rock or you can move the rock out of the way. I am choosing to move the rock out of the way. What will you be doing?