Who Are We?

When William Sloan Coffin was chaplain at Yale, he was often asked to write recommendations for ambitious seniors who wanted to get into highfalutin graduate institutions such as Harvard Law School or the Columbia Medical School. Knowing that in order to get into such institutions a candidate would need to rank in the ninety-seventh percentile on entrance exams and graduate in the ninety-eighth percentile of the class, he frequently wrote:

Bill Coffin would then show the letter to the student, who was invariably hurt. "How do you know I’m going to be in the bottom quarter of the class?"

"Well," Coffin would say, "All the evidence is in, isn’t it?"

"Yes, but you don’t have to tell them."

Do you see what was going on? Never mind that Coffin had enumerated several sterling qualities in these young people. Never mind that the admission standards were, for these students at least, unattainable. Because he had said that they would not be in the ninety-ninth percentile, they felt that they had somehow failed. Such is the power of so-called "higher education" to tell us who we are. (Letters to a Young Doubter, pp. 7-9).

One could list any number of other powers and principalities that attempt to define -- and thereby demote – the children of God. The FCAT comes to mind. Because a child cannot fill in the appropriate bubble with a number two pencil or conform adequately to the "writes upon request" standards, he or she is judged a failed learner, however active his imagination might be, or broad her knowledge of subjects that do not fit into bubbles on the printed page.

This list goes on. Business people are defined by the bottom line, academics by the letters after their names and the number of their publications, pastors by the growth or decline of the congregation’s budget and the headcount on the church roll. And, to our national shame, patriots are defined these days by their support for the war in Iraq, rather than by their love for their country.

A working definition of "god," whether it be an idol or the real McCoy, might run something like this: A god is the power or person who defines who you are, who gives you your identity. There are many such "gods" in our lives, but only one true God. All the rest are idols.

Down there at the east end of this meeting house, just by the door we came in by, and will leave out of, is our liquid i.d. card. Baptism is the sign of who we are. By these waters we are defined, and through them are we led to God in Jesus Christ.

How does baptism tell us who we are?

First of all, it tells us that we are not our own. We belong to someone. We belong to the Triune God.

True, our culture tells us otherwise. It tells us we belong to ourselves, that the individual is the be-all and end-all of life. That message bombards us incessantly. Frank Sinatra, though long in his grave, continues to croon "My Way," and Bobby Knight takes up the chorus. Commercials urge us to find happiness in self-fulfillment, whether it be in a cushy retirement, freedom from body odor, or unabated sexual performance by means of a little blue pill. The worst fate that can befall any individual in our society is to "do it" somebody else’s way -- to fail to "be yourself."

The problem is, the very same powers and principalities that tell us to be ourselves are the same ones who seek to define us. They want to own us while whispering in our ears that we belong to no one but ourselves.

Baptism reminds us that we belong to God and to no other, lesser, deity. Long ago, God reached out to us and said, "I will be your God, and you will be my people" (Lev. 26:12). Long before we could respond, long before we knew how to say God’s name, God said, "I love you." Once you have been claimed by the gracious, undeserved love of God, you don’t want to belong to anybody or anything else. "The proof of God’s love is this," wrote Paul to the Romans, "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8).

"What is your only comfort, in life and in death?" asks the Heidelberg Catechism. The response: "That I belong – body and soul, in life and in death – not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ . . ."

Baptism tells us who we are, first by reminding us whose we are.

Second, baptism tells us who we are by calling us to follow Jesus. Jesus is our mirror to the human and our window to the divine. He shows us how to struggle with the people and institutions that would make us less than human, and how to resist the kind of religion that makes God less than God. Jesus shows us what rules should be broken in order to honor the God who transcends the rules, and what rules should be followed in order to love God and neighbor.

Jesus invites us to stand with him as he says to Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world,"(John 18:36) and to stand with Peter and the disciples as they say to the high priest, "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).

Jesus brings us eyeball to eyeball with foreigners who have no claim of kinship by blood as he welcomes them into the family, saying, "Great is your faith." (Matt. 15:28). He leads across the boundaries that would separate us from our neighbors, and shatters the dividing walls of hostility (Eph. 2:14). He bids us pray with him to the Father "that they may all be one" (John 17:29). He calls us to be agents of unity in a world divided by race and sect. He leads us to be peacemakers in world gone mad for war.

To be baptized is to be called to follow Jesus, to be in the world but not of it, to engage the world, but not to be squeezed into its mold (Rom. 12:2).

Third, baptism points us to a future we cannot see from here – beyond the walls of this church, beyond the horizons of our vision, even beyond the boundaries of time and space. Martin Luther pointed out that baptism itself takes only few minutes to enact, but a lifetime to complete. Our baptism will not be finished until we sit with all the saints at the table of God’s welcome, until we embrace, and are embraced by our enemies as well as those we love just now, until God’s work in us is done. In baptism, God says to us and to the world, "I’m not finished with you yet."

As Protestants, we have inherited a healthy suspicion of ritual. We get nervous when we walk into the meeting house and find the baptismal font not up by the pulpit, close to the Bible, but at the door of entrance and exit. Seeing the font down there makes us wonder if the preacher wants us to do something spooky – genuflect, kneel, douse ourselves with holy water – something Catholic.

Well, you’re right. This morning I do want you to do something Catholic. I want you to remember that you are baptized, that you belong to God, that you are called to follow Jesus, and that you are a work in progress.

Instead of an altar call, I’m issuing a water call. On your way out the door today, I invite you to touch that water – and if you’re so inclined (and nobody else is looking) I invite you to trace the sign of the cross on your forehead with that water. Feel the water in which you have already died and been raised to new life in Christ. Let it drip down your face, fog up your eyeglasses, wet your lips.

Or if that is too much to ask of a Presbyterian, at least touch the water and say to yourself, "I have been baptized. God has placed God’s mark on me and I belong to God."

Nothing could be more Catholic or more Protestant – more expressive of the Church universal – than to remember whose we are and the direction in which God is leading us. Not inward, toward ourselves, but outward toward the world, where we are called to meet Jesus, doing justice, loving mercy, walking humbly with God.

We cannot allow the lesser powers and principalities to define who we are. We are the baptized, called not to privilege, but to service. That is who we are. Thanks be to God!