So what really happens when someone is baptized? Today is the feast of Jesus’s own baptism, and sometimes people hear the gospel readings about Jesus himself being baptized and they’re puzzled. Just for example, I’ve been asked this question several times over the years: If baptism is all about protecting us from original sin, and washing us clean from it, which is what many of us came to understand, then why was baptism even necessary for Jesus, since sin was not part of his life? And that’s a good question, but maybe what it shows is that we all underestimate what is really happening with baptism. Because there was more than that going on at Jesus’s baptism, and also there was a lot more going on at our own.
Baptism for Jesus is really the beginning of his public life, this is when it starts to become clear to the people around him, and maybe to him as well, who he is and what his life will mean. It’s also when he in a tangible way receives the power of God to live that life. Right after his baptism he heads to the desert, to the real beginning of trying to live out God’s desire, he faces temptations and makes decisions about how God’s values will be his values, and then he reappears and begins his life’s work dedicated to courage and love and suffering and being present with the poor and the forgotten. But it started here, when he received this moment of recognition in the water of baptism, and the blessing of God came down upon him.
But this isn’t just what baptism does for Jesus. This is also very much what our church believes baptism does for us. If you go look up baptism in our catechism, there is language that when you read it you will probably think is wildly overstated. It says baptism is, quote, the basis of the whole Christian life, it says that through it we become members of Christ, it says baptism incorporates us into the Church and makes us sharers in her mission, it says that through baptism we enter into communion with Christ’s death, we are buried with him, and we rise with him. These are strong words for all of us who have been baptized, to think what power has been given to us. Baptism means a lot is asked of us too, but baptism makes people like all of us capable of living the life that Jesus did.
So clearly the idea that baptism is kind of a starter sacrament that you work your way up from, something suitable mainly for infants, isn’t quite right. The fact is, people who are baptized are part of something overwhelming. Baptism in the church actually is the great equalizer. Everyone baptized is equal in dignity, different in the gifts that we have, but equal in God’s eyes, all of us equal when we come here for the eucharist. We all know there is a lot that divides us in the church – there are Catholics who think they’re superior to other Catholics, there are clerical roles that sometimes make it seem that there are different classes of citizenship, but maybe what really divides us is we don’t really have that sense of worthiness that ought to come from baptism, and that makes some of us feel spiritually or in some way inferior to the others. But baptism cuts across all these divisions, we are all citizens of this people of God, even if we don’t often feel treated that way, or particularly empowered to do anything about it.
I think Pope Francis is trying to get us to see this whenever he talks about the synod that he is trying to create so much energy around during this coming year in our church. He keeps saying that you can’t possibly have a church unless all the baptized are listened to, and unless they feel that their baptism has given them a sense of genuine membership. Baptism means that the work of the church is literally everyone’s, and that we all have the capability of seeing some part of where the church needs to go. And that is what the synod is asking us: Where do we feel the Holy Spirit is calling the church? Where do we need to go? How can we be more available to the people in this world who need us the most? What is standing in the way? These are questions that encompass the church’s work everywhere, and so literally the people from everywhere need to be listened to, even the people who feel they are out on the fringes of being Catholic, maybe especially them in fact, they are all needed for the Spirit to be heard clearly.
Early next week you’re all going to get an email from the parish asking if you want to be part of the work of this synod in our parish, taking part on one of the small group conversations we’ll be holding in February and March. I hope you’ll think about saying yes, and that maybe you’ll also pass the idea along to friends or family members who feel like they are done with the church, or who have lost interest. This means them too. And if you think you’re too much of a marginal or unsuccessful Catholic to do this, that the Holy Spirit isn’t able to work through you, I encourage you to go find your baptismal certificate, wherever it is, and take a look at it. Because that certificate says you’re wrong. The Spirit you received at baptism is alive and well.