Like a lot of people, I was thinking about the shooting in Arizona yesterday as I thought about what to pray. We had just remembered how God claims us as beloved children in the waters, how God's grace washes over us, splashing and dripping all around. And yesterday had brought us face to face with the brokenness into which God's grace arrives.
I realize that it is far too early to draw any sweeping conclusions about yesterday's events. This may simply be the act of a deranged individual. But people on the left and the right are wondering today about what role the current level of vitriol in politics may have played. Politics has long been a contact sport, but lately it seems to have gotten worse, and it is all too easy for us to demonize those with whom we disagree. Political opponents cease to be friends and fellow citizens who have differing opinions about and become enemies. And the language of war and battle and violence is envoked far too often.
I find this climate of hatred all the more troubling because of the fact that many Americans have been baptized as Christians yet feel free to join in the hatred. I recall how theologian Karl Barth, in the aftermath of World War II, wondered about the fact that most all the Nazis who engaged in genocide had been baptized in the Christian Church. He wondered about our practices regarding baptism, and he counseled the Presbyterian Church either to do a much better job of teaching and helping people live into their baptisms, or stop doing infant baptisms all together. Sadly, we Presbyterians did not take either of his suggestions.
In his sermon, Landon spoke of how John did not want to baptize Jesus, saying that it needed to be the other way around. But Jesus insisted, saying it was necessary. In his baptism, Jesus began his journey to the cross. He entered into a life lived, given, and sacrificed for the world. And, preached Landon, in our baptisms, we enter into that same life, as a people called to give ourselves, sacrifice ourselves for the healing of the world.
If my baptism has joined me to Christ and his work, if it has called me and the Church to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of the world, then I cannot be a party to hatred. I cannot encourage hatred. I cannot consider those who disagree with me my enemies. Even if they truly were my enemies, I am called to give myself for them as well.
Today I went to the font, touched the water, and put it on my forehead. I remembered that I have been claimed and marked for a radically different sort of life that doesn't look out for number one, but that is willing to give itself for the hope of God's new day. Lord, help me remember that every single day.
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