by Rev. Dr. Mary Susan Gast, Conference Minister, June, 2003
Monthly Reflections from The Pacific ~ News and Events of the NCNC United Church of Christ

WITH THE EYES OF THE BAPTIZED
[Rev. Gast's sermon at the Conference Annual Meeting expanded on the theme of baptism]

Words of encouragement and support for those ministering "in the fields."

On my 40th birthday I was subjected to a surprise party. I was serving as the pastor of a church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A family who were members of the congregation invited my husband, daughter, and me over for dinner with the understanding that the children would play afterwards while the grownups discussed serious matters.

Shortly after dinner the doorbell rang. Chuck, our host, answered the door and then summoned me saying that there was someone asking for me. Puzzled, I went to the door and there before me on the neat green lawn I beheld a most unlikely collection of people. There were very old people and very young people. Some were black, some white, some brown. Many were well-dressed in North American style; some were clothed in shabby garb; several wore cloth from Ethiopia; a few wore Potawatomie headbands. One carried a baby; one leaned on a cane. My first reaction was, "What is this mob doing here on Chuck and Mary Jo's front yard?!" Then I blinked and it all came into focus. This was no mob! This was my congregation. "Surprise!" they all shouted.

When I first looked at that gathering of people and saw a mob, I was seeing with worldly eyes, constricted by context, limited by notions of congruity. When I blinked and looked again, I saw with the eyes of new life. I saw my brothers and sisters.

Some of us were baptized as babies-with that baptism confirmed when we entered adolescence. Some of us were baptized in our youth, or when we were adults. some of us were sprinkled, some immersed. Some of us are not yet baptized. The form and the timing of our baptism is really not all that important. What is important about baptism is that after you are baptized the way you look at the world is changed. Our vision shifts to a more cosmic view. Contact with Living Water totally alters our outlook.

Living Water. The word of God. God's own self.

Just as those "who live in arid parts of the world think about water with a reverence others might find excessive" [Joan Didion, "Holy Water," The White Album] so there is a deep reverence for Living Water among those of us who wander the deserts of the spirit. No matter where or what our desert, we are all at risk of dehydration. Whether we skirt the stagnation of dismissive and demeaning attitudes toward us; whether we travel the fierce landscapes of hopelessness, or the tough roads of addictions; whether we wait in the arid streambeds of evaporated dreams or clank our empty buckets down the sides of the wells of friendship only to find that drought has dried up the streams of human kindness; whether we scan the skies daily for signs of that impending shower of righteousness, of justice-we are all seeking more than meager sips that allow us to survive.

We yearn for the River of Life running free and undammed, offering us the exuberant wildness of the Holy One's love, gracing the flood plains with the riotous greenery of new life.

When we emerge from the waters of baptism, we rise with new life. We are indeed born again, delivered from the narrow confines of self-centeredness and from death's terrible isolation. Through baptism we become part of Christ's body, where all members are cherished in their uniqueness, where there are no inferiors, no rejects, where no one is appreciated at the expense of another, where the feast is spread for all.

Someone who sees with the eyes of the baptized glimpses what it might mean for all to be one in Christ Jesus. Surprise!

Your comments are welcome
Send to msgast@ncncucc.org