“I am the vine, you are
the branches. Whoever remains in me and
I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”
Today we have the
privilege as a community to celebrate the sacrament of baptism. Now, it is true, that baptisms are wonderful
moments in the life of our community, in the life of the family who is
involved, and especially for the person receiving baptism. But it’s also a bit strange, if we think
about it. In a few minutes, we will
embrace this child, Benedict, as a community.
A child that is quite cute and precious like all children are. And we will admit something quite strange and
countercultural: that actually, excuse
me Andrew and Julia, despite how precious your child is, there is something
about him that is a bit flawed. What I
mean, is that somewhere underneath all the cuteness of who Benedict is, there
exists that presence of original sin that will one day make him do the things
he does not want to do: question his faith, turn his back on you, choose the
wrong door, and wrestle with questions of life inside of him, and perhaps even
struggle with the reality of God.
But he will not be any
different from any of us sitting here. For
it is the same condition that sadly faces us all. If we are in the least bit reflective, we
know, that something inside of us just isn’t quite right. There is a pull inside of us to do the things
we don’t want to do. However, recognizing original sin and
its consequences should not be a moment of panic or despair for any of us. In fact, I would propose, in good company,
that it can be a moment for us to rejoice.
Because it is, paradoxically in many ways, the reality of this sin that
warrants and invites us to long for something so much more: for a deeper relationship with the Vine, with
Jesus, in whom we can all bear much fruit.
It was reflecting on the
reality of the fallenness of the world and of his own fallen humanity that G.K.
Chesterton, a 20th century theologian, actually, quite surprisingly,
found tremendous joy. In his own
experience of conversion, documented in his book entitled Orthodoxy, Chesterton, commented on his own feelings of being out
of place in this world. He wrote:
“The modern philosopher
had told me again and again that I was in the right place [in this world], and
I had still felt depressed even in acquiescence [to the philosopher’s advice]. But I heard [from Christianity] that I was in
the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. I now knew
why I could feel homesick at home.”
In Benedict’s baptism,
there is something admitted by all of us who are here today that has roots in
the one to which he is named after, St. Benedict: there is always going to be a tension for us who
live in this world. This is a tension
between, on the one hand, belonging to the world and enjoying and transforming
what it offers to us. And, on the other hand, the knowledge that what can be
offered to us in this world is not the entire story. That we are called into a relationship with a
loving God that transforms every moment of every day of every action that we
experience: it is a relationship that
brings eternity into our existence of time.
I think this is what Jesus
is trying to explain to us all today in the Gospel. It is true that we can accomplish a lot of
things apart from explicit recognition of God, and still experience some kind
of joy in life. There still remains
enough goodness in nature that allows even the most avid atheist to love in
some manner. The beauty of the flowers
will still be beautiful. The taste of an
ice-cold Trippel will still satisfy our thirst.
The smell of grass can still awaken our senses. We can still hope to find love among the
people around us. But all of this can be
placed in the scales and found wanting:
for it cannot compare to our experience of life when we are in a
relationship with Jesus.
In him, the flowers become
even more beautiful. In him, beer is
filled with even more flavor. In him, the
smell of grass goes from being something earthly to heavenly. And in him, our love is transformed from merely
human efforts to being something almost divine.
Today, Benedict will
receive the forgiveness of original sin, he will enter the door to the sacred,
he will become ontologically changed, he will be joined to people both living
and dead in the one Body of Christ, he will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit
that will remain with him in both the brightest and darkest moments of his
life, he will be given charisms that only time will begin to show how
magnificent they are.
But above all, I think, he
will be brought into a relationship with a community that will sustain him for
the rest of his life, and a savoir whose love has no competitors, whose
sacrifice ended all sacrifice, whose intimacy transcends all intimacy, and
whose life was given so that all of us, including Benedict, can now be called
children of God.
In the earnest desire of
his parents, with the basic elements of water and oil, with the utterance of
human words, another life is united with the Vine that it may bear much fruit,
both now, and for eternity.
