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April 30, 2014

What is to Prevent Me from Being Baptized?

Nota: Este artículo está disponible en inglés y español. Haga clic aquí para ver la versión en español de este artículo.

The question posed by the Ethiopian Eunuch is phrased perfectly. What is to prevent him from being baptized? He has just come from Jerusalem, where he was given reason after reason preventing him from entry into that community. He is all kinds of “other” – ethnic, financial, educational, sexual, religious, dress – and these expressions of otherness prevent him from fully being a part of that community. Disheartened, he stops at the gift shop and buys the scroll of Isaiah, reading it on the long chariot-ride home. Philip offers to exegete the scroll for him – telling him all about Jesus, the movement, and baptism as entry. The Ethiopian Eunuch sees water and asks: “What is to prevent me from being baptized?”

Nothing. Guided by the Holy Spirit, that is Philip's answer. Nothing.

I am indebted to my friend, [now the Rt. Rev.] Rob Wright, who encouraged me with a liturgical interpretation of this Acts 8 passage. Every time he does a baptism, he offers the waters of baptism to anyone who has not yet received them – regardless of whether or not their name appears in a bulletin. He suggests that we cannot know who has just been waiting for an invitation, who needs to see that any barriers have been removed.

At Southside Abbey this Easter weekend, we did as +Rob encouraged and had the equivalent of an Episcopal Altar Call. We had seven takers. The five children of a family from South Sudan, who were there for the occasion. We baptized Joshua, Joel, Josephina, Jonah, and Jacob. Next in line was a teenager. Her father would tell me later that she had been considering baptism for a long time, but finally said “yes” when the occasion, opportunity, and water was offered. Then Angela came forward, with her not-quite-two-year-old-son who she often wears on her back. Angela is from Guatemala. She speaks little English (or Spanish for that matter), but she knew what was happening. Her husband had returned to Guatemala to send money home to support Angela and their eight children. He died last winter. I thought about all of the ways that she is “other” too and yet, here she is presenting her son. And what was to prevent him from being baptized? Nothing.

Sometimes we can forget. We can get caught up in the busyness of bulletins, what to wear, who's in my pew, and what's being sung. What is to prevent those who desire it from baptism? Nothing.

As we baptized Angela's son, tears started to stream down my face. In baptism, we are marked as Christ's own forever and we wear that seal on our foreheads. In that moment, in the water welling from my eyes – and the eyes of many in attendance – I had the thought that maybe sometimes we wear the water of baptism on our faces too.