Sermon – March 14, 2010: Always with Me
Sermon for Sunday, March 14, 2010 The First Baptist Church of Lewisburg
Always with Me
Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 5: 16-21: 1; Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32
In the fourth century the Emperor Constantine credited the god of the Christians for
his victory over his rival at the Milvian Bridge. For the rest of his life the emperor continued
to favor Christianity and to take a hand in settling its controversies. It was only on his
deathbed, however, that he accepted baptism.
It was not uncommon in that era for persons to postpone baptism until they were
reasonably sure they would have no opportunity to backslide. There always is, in baptism,
a renunciation of the temptations of the world and an implicit remission of sins, and delaying
baptism to the deathbed guaranteed that this sanctified status wouldn’t be forfeited prior to
meeting one’s Maker.
The official church tried to get people to see things differently. Infant baptism, which
we Baptists have notoriously rejected as unBiblical, owed its emphasis partly to a desire to
insist upon baptism as a life-beginning, rather than a life-concluding, event. The resolve and
the spiritual resources of baptism were intended by God, the church preached, to equip
persons for the living of their lives rather than the dying of their deaths.
Well, that’s right. Jesus was baptized in order to begin the wonders and the work
which eventually led both to crucifixion and resurrection. He didn’t accept being baptized in
order to be forgiven and start over–the gospels all have John the Baptist himself refuse to
understand Jesus’ baptism that way. Instead the gift of the Holy Spirit at Jesus’ baptism
and God’s claiming of Jesus as his own marked a new kind of life for God lived in the midst
of others. That’s the model of baptism the church has followed ever since. Even the
Roman Catholic church now teaches that infant baptism is merely an anticipation of
believer’s baptism, and that makes it less an inoculation against death than a starting-place
for faithful living.
So what we’re going to be doing, in a couple of weeks, when we baptize people in
this church, is imitating the baptism of Jesus by John. The traditional elements of
renunciation and spiritual renewal are there, but the emphasis is on the candidate’s life in this
world. We expect the experience of baptism to be a part of the person’s consciousness
always, and an understanding of its implications to deepen over a lifetime.
Because ours is a tradition which emphasizes choice in the matter of baptism, we
expect a world in which there will be nonbelievers. We also anticipate a world of persons
coming to faith, and seeking baptism at the time which makes the most sense to them–not
necessarily where it’s slotted in a church’s annual schedule, but when the person who has
come to faith desires to be baptized.
That, in turn, brings back the possibility of deathbed baptisms. While a person has
breath, and the power to communicate assent, there are always Christians who will press
that party, if there is any doubt about his or her spiritual decision, to make a decision before
dying. The logic is the same as it was the in the fourth century. The premise is that baptism
at least serves to seal a person for heaven, conferring a spiritual invulnerability on the
person baptized similar to the way the mother of Achilles rendered all but the ankle of her
son physically invulnerable.
This possibility of accepting Christ as one lies dying means that the most shameless
reprobate, whose selfishness, malice, cruelty and evildoing marred the lives of persons
near and far, can be transformed by coming to his senses on his deathbed into a saint equal
to the rest of us, with the same claim on heaven.
This chance that a real rat, whose worldly conduct has been selfish and careless, can
come at last to heaven through an eleventh-hour embrace of Christ strikes some people as
the best possible news in the world. Some people are delighted and wonderfully grateful
that God is so generous, and that the admittedly difficult business of being a decent human
being can be handled by God’s intervention at any stage of existence.
Other people really hate the premise and the promise of deathbed conversion. In
our time nobody–nobody we know, at least–calculates like Constantine, putting off being
expected to be Christian until there is no chance of Christianity’s ever being anything but
talk, and being baptized with one foot in the grave. However, it will happen that persons
who have led self-centered and self-indulgent lives convert at the end. That strikes a good
many people as a variety of cheating.
Jesus tells the parable of the Prodigal Son in order to introduce the reaction of the
older brother and the reassurance of the father. The word “prodigal” means wastefully
extravagant–it has to do with the son’s reckless squandering of his share of the family
wealth–and I mention that because it’s a word we don’t see often enough in other contexts
to be reminded of what is so offensive about this younger brother from the perspective of
the older. He, who had in his own way been contributing to the household’s resources, got
tired of dutiful living and wanted to kick up his heels, so he asked to get his inheritance early
and he blew it on self-indulgent living. He wasn’t a good steward of what was provided,
and he behaved in an immoral fashion as well.
It’s hard to say whether Jesus had a real story in mind that he based this on, but I bet
if you look at the willingness to spend and the desire for what may seem both less
responsible and more exciting living, that may often be what distinguishes a younger
sibling from the eldest of the children. Whether it’s true in the families we know or not, it’s
true in this one.
Generally, people like the story of the Prodigal Son, because it’s reassuring to have
a God who loves so much that he doesn’t calculate costs and budget out forgiveness and
make those who want to come back pay for their mistakes. That part of the grace of God
strikes most of us as good news, because most of us can imagine being the person who’s
been given so much by God and has decided not to keep investing it in God’s purposes
but instead exchanging it for those things which promise to satisfy our appetites.
When we get to the older brother, however, most of us sympathize with him. He
has been dutiful. He has put in his time. It is fair to think that he should have gotten more out
of his posture of loyalty and propriety than that spoiled little sibling who comes back.
There’s an old joke–and not an especially funny one, I’ll tell you right now, I’m just
using it as an illustration–about the farmer being sold life insurance. The agent explains the
cost and how it works and then asks the man, “You do want straight life, don’t you?’ and the
customer hesitates and says, “Well, I would like a little fun on Saturday nights.” Most
people have that category of deserved self-indulgence in their minds. Most people know
that “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” and they are lured by what looks to them
like excitement.
The prodigal son’s experience is exciting at first, but it’s an old story. While he has
money he has friends, and when his money is gone so also are the banquets and the
laughs and the women, and he’s reduced to a humiliating expedient just to survive. He
regrets, he suffers, he despairs, and it finally occurs to him to offer himself to his father as a
slave. He’s already accepted that he no longer deserves his father’s love.
Well, how good was that? The prodigal himself came to realize it was no good.
The father knew it was no good, and from one angle the older son knew it was no good.
From another angle, however, the older son was jealous. Fast women and fast living
appealed to him, though he might not want to say so. He didn’t focus on his brother’s
being victimized by his own folly. He focused on on what he saw as his brother’s having
gotten away with something.
The father saw the whole thing differently. He tells the older son that just because he
has stayed on the farm, he’s always benefited from abundance and the order and the
security of it. He’s been on a good path, on a safe path, he’s never begun to have reason
to despise himself. The little brother, however, was lost, and is found–was dead, and is
alive. The party being thrown is not a reward for folly but a celebration of rescue.
If we can get over envying the persons who are greedy, shallow, self-indulgent and
cynical– if we can appreciate the merit in faithfulness and patient confidence, then we have
a chance to see the world more like the father does and less like the older brother. Then we
can forget about keeping score in worldly ways and figuring out what people deserve, and
instead accept that redemption changes everything. If anyone is in Christ, that person is a
new creation, as Paul writes: “The old has passed away, behold! the new is come.” If we
permit God to make that difference– if we let the father whose world it is and whose child it
is see everything in terms of loving restoration, then we can be happy with what God has
accomplished in Christ. Then we can watch the world for the return of prodigals, not jealous
of their adventures but hopeful for their turning from their way to share the good path that
we’re already on,by the grace of God.
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