Our Baptismal Vocation
Easter 5, 20th April, 2008
Fr Matthew Healy
Assistant Priest, St Peter's, Eastern Hill
I speak to you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
As a result of the Tractarian or Oxford movement of the 1840's Anglicanism began to recover the rich tapestry of liturgical expressions found within the Book of Common Prayer and supplement that which was perceived as lacking from the Western Rite of the Church Catholic. This resulted in a revival of many liturgical practices. The revival also had parallels with the neo-Medieval or neo-Gothic revival in art and architecture of the late 19th century. Some, or really much of it, was little on the romantic side resulting in, at times, an uncritical adoption of all things medieval, because that was seen as been good in itself. Thankfully with the 'Liturgical Movement' of the 1920's onwards, stemming from Benedictine Abbeys in Belgium and France, a more critical and scholarly approach was adopted. This movement was embraced by Anglicans with much enthusiasm, and eventually, though cautiously, by a good portion of Evangelicals.
Consequential to the liturgical revival arose larger questions about the phenomenon of ritual and liturgy — its origins, its development or evolution, and the systematization of liturgical principals underpinning ritual expressions of faith and belief, and more importantly, a recovery and renewal in understanding sacramental theology.
In the 1950's and early 1960's eminent theologians such as Karl Rahner, Edward Schillebeeckx and Eric Mascall rescued Sacrament Theology from the surgical precision of liturgists and began to explore the nature of the Sacraments in broader terms of revelation, human existence and creation. They developed ideas around the question of "what is the primary or primordial sacrament of the Sacraments" or putting it simply, "what is the source or origin of the Sacraments?" and to "who is the energy or power of the Sacraments?" As a result four main areas emerged which broadly speaking has become the basis for our contemporary approach to Sacramental Theology. Firstly, Jesus Christ is the Primordial Sacrament, that is Jesus is the ultimate sign and communication of God to his people; secondly, humanity is a primary Sacrament, in that women and men are signs, made in the image of our Creating God, in which our very nature are a sacramental expression of God's presence; all created matter itself, Creation as a whole, is likewise understood to be a sacramental expression of God's energy and power for love, which is partly why the environmental questions of today are simply not secular issues, but they are indeed profound theological questions about our relationship with God and his creation; and lastly, but not least of all, the Church is understood to be a sacramental sign, an outward and visible sign, that is you and me together with the institutional structures of the church, which point to the inner reality or grace, which is Jesus Christ.
As Sacramental Theology worked through the questioning and re-thinking during upheavals of the 1960's and 70's what emerged from it all has been the recovery of mission and ministry as belonging to the entire baptised, not just those ordered within the Sacred Ministry of the Church. It is a shift in emphasis from understanding the baptised as passive recipients of mission and ministry to been active participants in mission and ministry — the church has recovered and restored the more biblical and primitive understanding. It is pleasing to note that in our Anglican Tradition the rules governing the Order of Baptism from the Book of Common Prayer states that baptism ought to be administered publicly on Sundays or on a Holy Day so that "every man present may be put in remembrance of his own profession made to God in his baptism."[1]
The recent shift in theological emphasis is about our understanding of the 'profession made to God in baptism' as spoken by the BCP order of service. What this 'profession is' is spelt out for us by Fr Alexander Schmemann in his book Of Water and The Spirit; here he recalls the primitive meaning of our baptism "In the early Church, she firmly held and affirmed both the institutional priesthood in the Church and the "royal priesthood" of the Church as the two essential and complementary dimensions of her very life: essential as stemming from her experience both of Christ and of His unique priesthood, complementary as revealing in their mutual correlation each other's place and significance in the life and work of the Church."[2]
This is very much a ministry of priest and people together looking beyond the confines of our communities toward the horizon of all peoples, nations and cultures.
This movement does come with a warning to watch for pitfalls, especially those which Claire Watkins expresses in her book Living Baptism: Called out of the Ordinary "there is a danger.....that all that has been drawn out of the long Christian tradition about the vocational nature of baptism will simply be translated into — 'Jesus is coming! So we had better look busy!' [for while it is good] we have established that baptism is not so much as an event, but rather something to be lived, got on with; the danger is that this will push us into that place of busyness which we so often understand our lives to be."[3]
She continues in her warning that the getting on with 'the doing' is not a form of frantic parochial activism — i.e. been overloaded by roster duty, committees, church roles, etc., but rather it is a call to be a people, a community, transformed into grace-filled lives of holiness, a holiness which is both deeply tangible and outwardly obvious.
Today's first reading describes the outward looking nature of the early church for mission and ministry through Word and Sacrament: preaching, commissioning and table service. The second reading describes the characteristics of the baptised — they are living stones built into a spiritual house: a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices to God the Father in Christ and for the proclamation of God's mighty deeds wrought in Christ. This priestly vocation is indeed a sacramental way of being; it is a sacramental way of living life.
The mission and ministry of Christ, is entrusted to every baptised person, no matter how recent or how long ago that baptism took place, leaving an indelible mark or character, namely of Christ himself, who works in us and through us.
We must become convinced within ourselves, and we must become convinced as a community, that the gift of the mystery of Christ given to us in baptism is a vocation for mission and to ministry. It is both our right and our duty. It requires no certification from the hierarchy of the church. It is our vocation to be the herald of the Good News of Christ in the world: at work, in the home, with friends; to the stranger, the widow, the orphan, the disadvantaged; and amidst our sisters and brothers as we strive to live in openness to the Spirit sharing together the sacramental and spiritual life of the church.
Indeed this parish has taken seriously its baptismal vocation as exemplified in the Parish Vision and Mission adopted by Vestry in September last year. If I may highlight some things:
- Worship of God is at the centre of our life together
- an active engagement with Scripture
- Encounter God in the sacraments
- Service through social action
- Serving the wider Church as a place of ministry training and Christian formation
- Ministering to people across all age groups
- Embracing the gifts of all within our parish community
- Involving ourselves more fully in the life of our City
- Speaking out on significant issues, including social justice and the environment
Clearly this place, this parish, our people, no longer understand themselves as mere passive recipients of mission and ministry, but rather as active participants in the mission and ministry of Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Let me conclude by reminding us of some of the physical liturgical actions we do. These outwards signs are designed to help shape our thinking, form our character and reinforce our right and duty as the baptised.
When we enter this church building, we make the sign of the cross with holy water from the stoup at the entrance. This water is from the baptism font. We enter the church, we claim our right to be here, to pray, to worship, to be nourished and sustained at the Sacrament of the Altar, and to enjoy one another's fellowship. When we depart from the church building we likewise sign ourselves with baptism water, this time to be reminded of our obligation: to proclaim Christ in word, thought and deed; to be ministers of grace and missioners of God's kingdom; to point other people to Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life — so they can find a way; so that they can come to the truth; and so that they may have life in all its fullness.
May God give us the grace to fulfil the same, to live this high vocation as Sacramental beings, to be outward signs to the world and its people, of the inner reality of the ongoing ministry and mission of Christ.
All glory, honour, power, worship and might be given to the Triune God who is the + Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Notes:
[1] Rubric governing the Order for Baptism in The Book of Common Prayer, 1662.
[2] Alexander Schmemann, Of Water and Spirit, St Vladimirs: New York, 1974, p94-95.
[3] Clare Watkins, Living Baptism: Called out of the Ordinary, DLT: London, 2006, p36.
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