The church is darkened and the congregation hushed, as if holding a collective breath. A lone voice begins to sing. “Were you there when they crucifi ed my Lord?” Other voices join in, gathering and building voice upon voice: “Were you there when they crucifi ed my Lord? Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble. Were you there…” The song hangs in the air as the voices let it go and the hush returns. At the back of the church a lit match is tossed into a waiting fi re bed and fl ames shoot forth, a quick pillar of fi re, bright enough to spotlight the priest and the liturgical assistants readying themselves to light the Paschal Candle. This is the night of the Great Vigil of Easter at the Episcopal Church of St. Paul and St. James, New Haven, CT. This night we will baptize. Our baptismal candidate is a young man in his early twenties, Vietnamese by birth, and adopted as a teen by a black Caribbean woman. His multicultural family also includes siblings of Hispanic heritage. He enrolled for baptism fi ve weeks before this night and attended instructional classes along with his sponsor, an African-American man. Coincidentally, he also joined the congregation’s liturgical dance group. The fi rst offering by the group after his enrollment, an intricately choreographed piece in which the dancers moved a s community, apart, together, and yet as one, led a member of the congregation to exclaim, “How wonderful to have our baptismal candidate in the dance!”
Tonight he is dressed in white pants and shirt. He listens intently to the stories of God’s great deeds in history, read by members of the community who will soon give voice to the baptismal promises with him. A father and daughter read the story of creation together. They are Caucasian. A young Asian woman, another Caucasian woman and an African- American man are also readers this night. When it is time for his baptism, the candidate stands at the baptismal font in the church crossing, the community surrounding him. The Paschal candle, bright with colorful wax decorations molded by the children at a special Palm Saturday event, towers beside the font, its fi rst fi res of Easter held high. He looks at the water, blessed with story and prayer, and bends himself to it. As I splash him liberally with baptismal waters I hear him whisper, “It is good. It is o.k.” When I seal him with the oil, marking him as Christ’s own, the excitement in his eyes gives me a leap of the heart. Our baptismal candidate is indeed in the dance.
In June 2000 I received the Doctor of Ministry degree from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary. For my thesis work I chose to study the congregation I serve as Rector, looking for the relationship of the public celebration of Holy Baptism to upholding and transforming diversity and thus reconstituting community. I chose the word “reconstituting” because of my understanding that the sin and brokenness of daily life breaks apart or fragments the beloved community, the household of God, that is made visible through the rite of Holy Baptism. Each shared baptismal experience allows a community, separated from such communal understanding as its members contend with the challenges of daily life, to renew its faith and reconstitute, seeing and knowing itself again as God’s beloved community, the Body of Christ. Beginning with the 1993 All Saints’ Sunday baptism of a one-year-old African-American infant girl, through the beginning work of my thesis, statistics showed that I presided at fi ftysix baptisms as Rector at St. Paul and St. James. Thirty-three of the baptismal candidates were Black, four Asian, four Hispanic, and fi fteen white Europeans. Of those fi fty-six, thirty-one were under the age of fi ve, eight were between six and ten, and seventeen over ten. Such diversity continues to be a hallmark of our parish life to this day.
The St. Paul and St. James congregation, born of a merger of two historic urban parishes selfidentifi es as a diverse community. While our congregation tries to maintain an interracial mix of people, there are two majority Black Episcopal congregations in our city, two smaller Episcopal congregations involved with Hispanic ministry, and four majority White Episcopal congregations. Our Food Closet and Children’s Mission are strong outreach ministries that draw people to us. Some of those so attracted join our congregation as baptized members. Since its inception, over a dozen children and family members touched by the Children’s Mission have chosen to be baptized. By the very nature of the outreach to people in special need of food or to children at risk, the population served by these ministries is generally of a different economic and cultural stratum than the majority of the members in our sister Episcopal congregations. In addition, at St. Paul and St. James we are open and welcoming to both heterosexual and homosexual people. When the ancestral history of a diverse membership includes the oppression of one people by another there are decided hurdles to building relationship. Struggles of slavery, civil rights, and the role and place of women in society call for understanding across race and gender boundaries. Sexuality issues raise questions of theology, spirituality, and church law, as well as our societal values. Distinctions of economics and class bring awareness of the cost of power and privilege. To hold church community together under such circumstances let alone to build it, requires a particular vision and will of the people. The economic and educational differences in our congregation along with the mix of race, culture, and sexual orientation necessitate our looking to the vision, symbol or act that might hold us more intentionally together, helping to us to recognize the unity we hold in Christ. Holy Baptism, a sacrament of rich mystery and power, offers itself as all three – vision, symbol, and event - for the making of sacred community. I made a connection between the baptismal life of the congregation and its selfidentity as a diverse community. The Episcopal Church of St. Paul and St. James was fertile ground for studying the sacrament of baptism and the implications of its power to shape and develop a church community.
In undertaking such a study I expected to fi nd that the baptismal covenant, with its challenge your neighbor as yourself” and to “strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being,” is the means by which a congregation understands itself sent forth in mission. I entered this research thinking that the repetition of these promises by the entire congregation during the renewal of baptismal vows may have a way of subliminally getting inside each person’s heart and soul, thus providing holy ground for holding diverse constituencies together. To my surprise and further excitement, I discovered that the sacrament of Holy Baptism, when given a pre-eminent and visible place in the life of the congregation, plays an even greater and more powerful role in renewing, revitalizing and reconstituting community. The baptismal rite is a signifi cant dynamic in the spiritual formation of a congregation that seeks to be the new community, the Body of Christ. My fi eld notes from that Easter Vigil night baptism, April 16, 1998, tell the story of a sacred community, bonded by a holy rite and a holy calling. That night, doing liturgy together, they were a living, visible sign of the unity with God and one another offered in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
At the completion of the baptism, the people lift their voices in singing “Glorious things of thee are spoken” as the priests dip evergreen branches into the baptismal water and sprinkle them, in sign and symbol of their own baptism renewal. Light-hearted chuckles, as water splashes faces and hymnals, add playful rhythm to the majestic hymn. The Eucharist is celebrated in the round, with everyone serving one another the bread and wine as they are passed through the congregation. Later, our baptismal candidate’s sponsor tells me he was the one who gave our newly baptized member his fi rst taste of the bread and wine, Christ’s body and blood.
Easter morning the font still stands front and center in the crossing, the baptismal waters remaining, shimmering in the bright light of day. As preacher that day I am still caught in the baptismal moment of the Vigil and I speak of who we are as the new living baptized community in Christ. I invite people to wet themselves with the waters as they come forward either for our traditional fl owering of the cross or for communion. When the liturgy is fi nished, the font is almost completely empty.
For Christians, the sacrament of baptism is heralded as a sacrament of initiation into the community of the church, a community called to healing and reconciliation in the name of Christ. The emphasis has always been on belonging; belonging to God, claiming the One who has already claimed us, and belonging to Christ’s Body, the Church, the community of believers. The sacrament of Holy Baptism, centered as it is in the life of the church today, brings enormous power to shape the life of a congregation. There is implicit in the shared common initiatory act of baptism and explicit in the words of the baptismal promises and covenant a call to responsible community. In marking us as Christ’s own, baptism transcends the differences between us and commissions the baptized for ministry. The faithful are bonded by a holy rite and a holy calling. In that sense they are sacred community.
I chose, as a portion of my research, to do guided interviews with fi fteen parishioners in order to shed further light on the role of baptism forming the communal life of the congregation. I deliberately chose responders that refl ect the diversity in our congregation. It is clear to me from both my observations of the congregation at large and from the narrative interviews that when baptism is placed front and center in a congregation, and celebrated as a community event, the increased energy for renewal is palpable. For the candidates and their families, the experience of baptism has the power to link them to sacred community. Those respondents who were either family members of recent baptismal candidates or were recently baptized themselves in the St. Paul and St. James congregation were unswerving in their acknowledgement of the sense of renewed and sacred community.
A young Irish Caucasian teenager, baptized when she was ten and a half, remembers the water on her face and the oil on her forehead. She remembers watching the others who were baptized with her and making “all those pledges.” She remembers the St. Paul and St. James tradition of presenting a baptismal candle, made by the Sunday School children and modeled after the Paschal candle with brightly colored wax designs and the name of the candidate molded onto them. In her interview she says that what is most meaningful to her about baptism is that “you’re really part of the church, by being baptized into the church family.” (Interview with L, 8/98)
An African-American teenager, who was baptized with her siblings and mom all on the same day in a public ceremony that also included the teen mentioned above, said:
The ceremony should be public, because it makes it a special occasion. People know who was baptized. The person is joining the church. (Interview with SR, 8/98.)
The mother of a child baptized when St. Paul’s Church community was in the middle of the restoration project that reclaimed the congregation’s future, gave vivid witness to the gift of baptismal spirituality to the congregation. She recalled the birth of her daughter as well as the birth of a child to an interracial couple in the congregation:
We had had babies just two weeks apart and this was a real sign of hope for the parish at a time when things were so much in transition, and everything was shifting and in disarray and we weren’t even sure we were going to continue as a parish. Yet here were these two very involved families both having babies, and it seemed like life was going to go on. It was this wonderful climactic conclusion to the Easter season and gave us all the sense that there was a future for us. (Interview with G, 8/98)
In the interviews as a whole, I found there was a strong claiming of the baptismal rite for the community. The understanding of the corporate renewal of the community in the act of baptizing came through with clarity. With each baptism not only was the candidate initiated and marked as Christ’s own forever, but the community was made new through that act.
Yet, there is another dimension of baptism in the life of a congregation, one that brings forth and holds together the rich diversity of community, in membership and in program, when a congregation presents that opportunity and offers itself to such baptismal shaping. Ruth Meyers, in her exploration of the meaning of a baptismal ecclesiology, speaks of how the rite of baptism, like all liturgy, shapes those who celebrate. In speaking of a baptismal ecclesiology developing out of the liturgical revisions of 1979, she gives voice to the image of baptism forming the Body of Christ, “a community which is distinct from the surrounding culture and yet is called to participate in Christ’s reconciling ministry to the world.” This is a different image in addition to the pre-eminent one of baptism initiating into the Body of Christ. In my mind I have pictures of the potter working, forming an entity out of clay.
I have become increasingly aware of the hard work involved in holding diverse groups together. It has become common to refer to Sunday morning as America’s most segregated hour. Charles Foster, quoted in the journal Congregations, says:
Differences, usually associated with race, social class, ethnic heritage, language, and sexual orientation, are perceived to cohere like oil and water; people exhibiting them are perceived to relate to each other about as sensitively as wolves and lambs. This notion of incompatibility, deeply rooted in our collective subconsciousness and reinforced by structures of oppression, domination, and resistance, usually means that we are surprised if we happen to discover a congregation that does, in fact, embrace any of these differences as gifts and resources to its life and ministry rather than as problems to be avoided or overcome.
It is not surprising, therefore, in the literature welling up from the margins of the church to fi nd themes of ostracism and even violence, both inside and outside the church community. A Book of Revelations; Lesbian and Gay Episcopalians Tell Their Own Stories, edited by Louie Crew, speaks to the violence to the psyche when someone is asked, whether overtly or implicitly, to be hidden, without a full rightful place in the worshiping community. Similarly, members of the Episcopal Urban Caucus speak to the divisions among us in the collection, To Heal the Sin-Sick Soul: Toward a Spirituality of Anti-Racist Ministry. The sickness of America is apparent to all that have eyes to see, and to deny that this sickness is rooted in racism, class division, exclusion, and the pitting of the classes and races against one another, while at the same time exploiting sexism and homophobia, is to deny the reality of what is going on in America today.
The question of how to support diversity as the congregation’s self-identity, as its own vision of a new community is of critical import. In the interviews for my research I asked the respondents to refl ect on what, if anything, they thought baptism had to say to us about diversity. One Caucasian woman in her forties spoke of seeing diversity in the baptism of a Chinese baby adopted by a lesbian couple, the baptism of the child of an African-American single working-class mother, and the baptism of the young adult Vietnamese man whose baptismal story began this article:
It’s quite an amazing range of people that have come through!…an extraordinary mix! Baptism is the point that connects me up to the church as a whole, and the church across time and space. It really is what holds everything together. (Interview with A)
An African-American man said:
I’ve seen virtually every combination available. I’ve seen the baptism of a child of a lesbian couple, I’ve seen the baptism of a child of mixed racial marriages, I’ve seen the baptism of children who have come from other denominations. I’ve even seen traditional Episcopal families baptized! Every time you see another baptism, see who is standing up there, not only the child or the person being baptized, but also their godparents who are standing there as witnesses, I see that. When you see kids come up to gather around the font and get a better look you are seeing part of who is here. It’s a visual symbol…It says to me we have a common bond and a common responsibility. (Interview with D, 8/98)
A middle-aged woman pointed out that the unchanging form of baptism, the same words being used for each candidate, whether a baby or adult, says that baptism “embraces that person, saying you or we may be different, but this is God’s promise for all of us.” (Interview with S). Another responder spoke of:
…a diversity that fi nds its unity in the affi rmations and renunciations…that fi nds its unity in ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all’…and in the creed and in the capacious openness of the Body of Christ and can then carry that through to the weekly unity in Eucharist, then there’s a reason for living this, a oneness that doesn’t involve erasing anybody. (Interview with G)
The power of the visible presentation of the baptismal party itself is lifted up in the words of an African-American man who said:
One of the things about public baptism is that it has an in your face quality, you just can’t avert your gaze. You can’t miss it. It’s also not invisible that people are being invited into the community the same way you are. I do wonder if people feel displaced or de-centered by the inclusion on equal terms of others. It’s counter-cultural. For me it has the potential for helping me create my life for the better, of integrating my life better. It’s all for the good. (Interview with H)
Baptism is not only an initiatory act marking belonging, but also an act that makes visible the new community we are in Christ. Baptism is a de-centering force as the last respondent said. It is a power equalizer. In baptism, those who are often separated and segregated by today’s norms are made one. They are shown to have the status of full members of God’s household and Christ’s body. The respondents clearly say they have seen that and it is so.
It was All Saints’ Sunday. The morning sun streamed through the stained glass windows, splintering into a mosaic of light in the sanctuary. At the head of the aisle stood the baptismal font, its empty basin waiting for the waters to be poured. The baptismal party had gathered for their fi nal instructions prior to the service. A free-spirited four year-old baptismal candidate stared into the font and then whispered to the father of an eight month old to be baptized “Can your baby fi t in that bowl?” The dad smiled, plopped his child into the basin, and she suddenly straightened out her legs, pushing herself up straight and tall. She was a remarkable sight, there in the font, standing on her own baptismal ground. (Field Notes, 1998)
As full initiation into Christ’s Body the Church, the rite of baptism has always been holy ground for those who would become members. My research, using interviews, fi eld notes, journaling, and the gathering of stories, has led me to the conclusion that baptism also offers itself as a tool in congregational development, with power for renewing, revitalizing, and reconstituting sacred community.
A congregation in which the sacrament of baptism is lifted up throughout the church year, in sermons and in celebrations, is one that is being formed and developed through baptism. When structure is put in place for baptismal preparation and thought is given to what it means to be a new community in Christ, then the people are doing the work of reconstituting sacred community.
A central theme in my research fi ndings is the signifi cance of baptism as an event that happens in full view of the people and in the center of the church community’s life. It is front and center. On the one hand, that visible centrality imbues baptism with the signifi cance of the sacrament as a rite of union between God and God’s people, and the people with one another. In baptism we all meet. On the other hand, that visible centrality also proclaims who the people of God are in Christ. The diversity of the community is given new and profound meaning, as people stand with one another as sponsors and candidates, and celebrate becoming members of one Body, brothers and sisters in Christ. Through baptism the congregation becomes the “new community,” the ones that show that “God has no partiality” (Acts: 34), who baptize, welcome, and share life with one another.
At St. Paul and St. James we have found several ways to lift up baptism within the church community, We enroll candidates for baptism within the Sunday liturgy fi ve weeks before a baptismal Sunday, and include the congregation’s promise to support the candidates by word and example. Those enrolled enter a time of preparation and their names are included in the weekly prayers of the people. Baptismal candles are made and given to the newly baptized. Parish sponsors are found for the baptismal candidates, to accompany the baptismal candidate and family members in the preparation for baptism and to continue as a spiritual companion within the congregation after the ceremony is over. The Minister of Music gives a tape recording of religious music to those who are baptized, songs to accompany their spiritual journey. At our Easter Vigil service the newly baptized ones are invited to take the priest’s place in sprinkling the congregation with the baptismal waters, sharing in the priesthood of all believers. Our baptismal font remains in the church crossing, holding holy water with which people may bless themselves, a sign and symbol of the centrality of baptism and our baptismal spirituality.
Imagine what might be with the deliberate lifting up of baptism within the larger life of the church, not only as the rite that commissions the people of God for ministry, but also as the rite that initiates us into and establishes us as the new community, the Body of Christ. It is that establishment of what is, by the visible front and center baptismal action on the great mix of people within God’s household, that presents an icon for the church and the world of what might be. In the baptismal glimpse of the new community, I believe we take a radical step in defi ance of the evil that would separate and break apart the household of God. It is, therefore, my contention that in continuing to lift up such a baptismal spirituality, the fruit it bears will show forth in the larger world as well. There, too, we may fi nd in the life outside the church which is also rich in the diversity and oneness we’ve come to know within Christ’s Body, a people bonded by a holy rite and a holy calling.