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SERMONS

All Saints’ Sunday/Baptisms
November 4, 2007

By The Rev. Sylvia Czarnetzky

Ecclesiasticus 44:1-10, 13-14                    
Psalm 149                                                       
Revelation 7:2-4, 9-17                                
Matthew 5:1-12       

I have a friend in Oxford who spent one recent summer traveling in Europe. She was a fairly recent convert to Christianity, so she spent a good bit of time walking though churches and cathedrals all over Europe. Needless to say, she thought the churches and cathedrals beautiful, with their stained glass windows and their elaborate stone carvings. My friend came home and told me that she was surprised at what moved her the most about the beautiful churches and cathedrals she saw that summer. She said that what moved her the most were the worn places in the stone floors and steps – the gentle dips in the cathedral floors that had been worn away over centuries by the feet of all those pilgrims who’d gone before her.  My friend noticed these gentle indentations where centuries of pilgrim feet had trod, and it moved her very deeply when it was her turn to tread the same paths with her very own feet! It seemed to bring her comfort to think of all Christians who walked in the same places before she did. And for her, as a fairly new Christian, there was something about those worn places in the stone floors and steps that gave her a tangible sense of connectedness to generations of Christians who walked where she was walking in the centuries that have passed.

It’s a wonderful image for All Saints’ Day, I think – the image of all those feet wearing down all those stone floors as worshippers and seekers of every generation have brought their prayers and hopes to these ancient places.
In fact, the more I think about it, the more appealing I find this idea – that our ancestors in the faith, our predecessors in Christ, have worn a path down for us to follow!  (Day by Day 2) which means, thankfully, that every new believer doesn’t have to blaze a brand new trail of faith. One of the blessings of membership in a community of faith is that knowledge that all these other human beings walked this walk before us, and left us some signs to go by.  It’s almost as if we were all on some kind of a hike, and realized that the trail had been blazed for us by those who went before. They’re the ones whose feet have walked the way before us, so we will be able to find our way!  (Day by Day 2)

All Saints’ is a day to give thanks for those trail-blazers. Today is a day to remember and honor those who have gone before us in the faith (Taylor 83-4) -- the patriarchs, prophets, apostles and pilgrims,  who in their own time lived lives of  discipleship, often giving their lives for the privilege. (Helmer 2) But it’s also a day for us to give thanks those believers whose names do not find their way into our church history books – the individuals who were part of our lives – the Sunday School teachers, the choir directors, the ministers, the parents and grandparents, the godparents -- the men and women in our own lives who showed us by their acts and their words and their generosity what it looks like to follow Christ.

But I think it’s also a good starting point for talking about baptism, because a big part of what we’re about this morning, as we welcome the newest members into the body of Christ is our commitment to passing our faith along to them.

This morning baptize Amelia and Meredith Bates:
In just a few moments we will take some warm water and some fragrant oil, and we will use these ordinary things to do something very special. By pouring this water on the heads of these babies and by marking  the sign of the cross
on their little foreheads with holy oil, we will, by our words and action, welcome these girls into their new church family. We will mark, by our words and actions, the official entry of these children into the Body of Christ, (Westerhoff 11), even though we know full well that they are too little to really know what they are getting themselves into. Their parents know, or at least are beginning to know. Their godparents know. Their grandparents know. And everybody in this church, to on degree or another, knows that the promises being made today on behalf of these girls’ are promises that they are too little to keep, at least for the time being. And then once we welcome them into our fellowship, we as a church community, will begin to do for them what has been done for us – we are to show them how to become Christians. We are their predecessors in the faith, and it’s up to us to mark the trail for them to follow, as their journey on this earth takes its twists and turns, and and eventually each child begins to figure out for herself what a life in Christ will look like for them.

I like to point out at baptisms of little babies a practical truth  that sometimes gets overlooked, and that is:  these children can’t get themselves to church! They won’t be able to get themselves to church for quite some time, so it’s up to you, parents, to get them here.  (Westerhoff 16-7) Godparents too, to a degree, but the parents are primarily responsible for doing what needs to be done, to get these girls to church and choir and Vacation Bible School, and Sunday School and all those fun things that go on at the church that help us pass our faith along to our children. If they’re not here, they can’t get it.

So I invite you to pay close attention to what happens in the baptism itself–watch how we take ordinary water, and we use that ordinary water in an extraordinary way – to give these girls a little, tiny bath! The water of baptism that we splash on these girls gives us something we can hear and see – something I can touch and the child can feel – to signify, among other things, the abundance of God’s love for this child, raining down, when these children have done absolutely nothing to earn it: it is their birthright as children of God.

So, as we welcome our newest members into the church, let us pray for them as they become members of their church family, and let us pray for and support their parents and godparents, as they try to show, by their lives and their words, what it means to be Christian.  Amen. 

Works Cited:

Day by Day entry for All Saints’ (2004).

Helmer, Ben E. Sermon for All Saints (2005).  episcopalchurch.org

Taylor, Barbara Brown. “The Company of Heaven.” Mixed Blessings.2d ed. Cambridge:Cowley Press, 1998. 79-84.

Westerhoff, John. Holy Baptism: A Guide for Parents and Godparents. Atlanta: St. Luke’s Press, 1996.