Mother's day

 As is always the case, Mother's day falls on a Sunday.

And as is always the case, the readings aren't about mothers.  Or at least not directly.

That's too bad, of course, because the thing about the Bible is that it actually has quite a bit to say about mothers, the role they occupy and the work that they do.  It's not silent on the topic in the slightest.  But what does happen, though, is that the lectionary predates things like mothers' day, so we end up with readings that aren't about Mary, or the other Mary, or Lois and Eunice, or about Hannah or Sarah, or anything like that.  On Sunday, our reading from Acts was about Peter justifying his decision to baptize Cornelius.

Happy mothers' day!

But baptism is an evergreen topic, and one that should be discussed all the more, and not just by those who want to be baptized.  Baptism should be discussed by those who are already baptized.  Martin Luther was keen to let people know that they should always be in mind of their baptism, not only in a historical sense, but in a practical one as well.  You're not supposed to just remember your baptism as a thing that happened to you, you're supposed to remember your baptism as regards what it still means.  And it means a great many things.

To be in mind of your baptism means that you have to think about what baptism is, and why it's there. And for us as Lutheran Christians, we practice infant baptism.  That is, if you're a tiny tiny baby, you can be brought to a Lutheran church and baptized there.  And you don't have to go through any instruction classes, profess your faith, or anything like that.  We do tend to talk to your parents about what our expectations are for them, but babies, adults, here is water, what prevents you from being baptized?

Why do we baptize babies?  We do so because of what baptism is. And you know about babies what I know about babies - they don't do too terribly much on their own.  They don't think, they don't move, they don't operate machinery.  Depending on how tiny the baby is, she can't even eat by herself.  Wee tiny babies require you to pop food into their mouths.  You have to feed them, bathe them, change them, snuggle them to sleep, gosh, all that, and they bring nothing whatsoever to the table.  In fact, they bring less than nothing.

For someone to bring nothing to the table would imply that there are no direct benefits to keeping them around. When it comes to babies, though, there are real costs.  All that a baby brings to you is need.  That's it.  They need food, clothing, cuddles, attention, affection, they need to be rocked to sleep and tucked in, and they can't do anything to help themselves.  And we take babies and baptize them for that reason - because they have needs that they can't meet themselves.

When Jesus says 'if anyone will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child, he will never enter it,' this is part of what he means.  You don't come to God as a full partner, or as an equal. You don't approach his throne of grace with some pretty interesting propositions for him.  Rather, you come to him with nothing but need.  You need your daily bread, you need the sun to come up in the morning, you need house and home, clothing and shoes, eyes ears and all your members.  And you need forgiveness of sins.  You don't go to God with some sort of business plan for all this, you know. This isn't dragon's den, where you make a proposition to God.  This is you approaching God with nothing but need.

And this is why we can talk about mothers' day through this lens.  That is, think about what you brought to the table so your mother would love you when you were born.  The first several mothers' days that you lived through you gave nothing to your mother except needs.  And, very likely, she met them.  Not because you chose her out of all the mothers, not because you had worked so hard and done so much, the reality is that you come to your mother with needs only, and she meets them.  She meets them because they are needs.

The precursor to your mother meeting your needs, the necessary condition, is that the needs exist. You are hungry, she feeds you. You are tired, she rocks you to sleep.  You are cold, she tucks you in. You are dirty, she bathes you.  And that, right there, is as close as possible to our understanding of baptism. Namely, small babies are baptized because they have a need for it. They have a sinful nature, they need forgiveness, and they are washed clean in the waters of baptism.  They come to God with nothing, they leave with salvation.  If we understand our relationship with our earthly parents like this, then we can also understand our relationship with our heavenly father, who meets our needs because we have them.

Sometimes, it really is just that simple. The precondition of meeting our needs is that the needs exist. That's why, when Peter cracks the case about God showing no partiality between the nations, and that everyone who does what is right and fears God is acceptable to him. Everyone who has need for baptism can be baptized.  Because what is important is that you have the need for God.  And that he meets it.

Cut off

 Last night, the wife and I watched part of a documentary on John and Lorena Bobbitt.

Sure, you all know that story.  If you don't, go ahead and google it.  It's quite a ride.  But this story all about John and Lorena Bobbitt was all about spousal abuse, revenge, and dismemberment.  This story was sensationalized to the point that the Bobbitts became household names, and contrasting that with the reading from Acts that we had from Sunday was a bit of a trip, given that our reading from Acts features a Eunuch very prominently.

You see, the trip is that eunuchs were once sort of standard operating practice.  It wasn't that strange for eunuchs to be around, for them to have relatively high office, to be in charge of much, and so on.  And looking back through the scriptures, it's like looking at another world, where having people be eunuchs was de rigeur, instead of basically unheard of.  

Eunuchs were so well known, and so much a part of life, that their conduct is described in the scriptures.  There are several classes of people who are not allowed to be in the assembly in Jerusalem, and eunuchs are within those classes.  Deuteronomy 23:1 clearly states that if you're a eunuch, you're not going to enter the assembly of God.  And the thing is, that being a eunuch isn't something you can change.  There are rules in the scriptures about uncleanness, about how to become ritually clean again, but being a eunuch, that's a one way trip.  Bobbitt had microsurgery to repair him, but if you're a first century eunuch, well, that's just who you are now.  You're defined by that, you'll live like that, and you'll die like that.

Well and good.  But the Ethiopian eunuch was a worshipper of the Lord God.  He had gone to Jerusalem to worship, but would have assuredly been barred from the gates.  He doesn't get to go in.  He can stand outside, reading his scroll all he wants, but he can't go in.  

There are concentric rings of holiness in the Temple, and at each stage you have to be holier to get in.  There are layers and layers keeping the unclean, the impure, the maimed out.  Only the high priest can go into the holiest of holy places, nobody else. If you're going to stand in the highest holy place, you're going to have to be very holy, very pure, very clean indeed.  And very few people were. Pretty much nobody actually.  Only one person, and everyone else was going to be stopped at one of those concentric rings.

But then Christ.  Christ and his mission on earth, to be the hands and feet of God in the world. Christ comes to people not as a prophet, but as God himself, and everywhere he goes becomes the presence of God.  For the Ethiopian eunuch, that would have been quite the good news to hear - that God wasn't confined to a building built with human hands, but instead was out in creation, calling for his people.  

Up until that moment, the eunuch's life was a desert place.  Isolated and cut off from the assembly, there was no healing water there, and he was forever doomed to be on the outside looking in.  His fortunes weren't going to improve, and his circumstances weren't going to change.  This is his life now, and forever.  But traveling along with Philip, and hearing about the presence of Christ on earth, about his suffering and death as mentioned in the scroll of Isaiah, and about how Christ comes to his people in baptism, the Eunuch pointed to water and asked 'Here is water, what is preventing me from being baptized?'

Nothing.

There is nothing stopping you from being baptized.  Nothing at all.  We baptize babies, you know, as well as grown adults.  We baptize whole households.  And if someone were to come to me to ask 'what is there to prevent me from being baptized,' I would respond 'nothing.'  For his whole life, the Ethiopian Eunuch had been cut off from the assembly of God, and he would never get to enter into it.  The holiest site in the world was always going to be outside his reach, and beyond his capability.  But as Philip explained to him, the holiest site in the world isn't the Temple, it's wherever God is. 

So where is God?

Not in a building made with human hands, not in the Temple or on the mountain.  God is where he has promised to be - in bread and wine, in the water and the word, where two or three are gathered in His name.  So when the Eunuch sees water and asks to be baptized, for the first time in his life he gets to be where God is.  Instead of being cut off from the assembly, he is embraced into the family of God.  This is the Good News of Jesus Christ, you know.  The Good News that says that you are a child of God born of his will, not of your own. He has washed you clean so you can be in his presence.

If God kept a record of sins, none of us would be able to be in his presence.  But instead of that, he calls us, enlightens us, and forgives us.  And because of that, we are redeemed.  For someone who was cut off from the worship of God, that was good news indeed.  And for those of us who, due to our sinful nature rightly should be cut off, that continues to be good news.  The holiest place on earth now is no longer the Temple built with human hands, but the temples of God's people, where God's spirit dwells.  In paradise, there will be no temple, because God will be with people.  

And you know what?  In baptism, in the Lord's Supper, in the gathering of his people, God is with us now.  You can't be barred from entering God's presence now, because God comes to find you, instead of waiting for you to be good enough, or pure enough, or holy enough to find him.