A Baptism
I am traveling this week, and will not be able to do a regular Sunday post. I will be conducting a family baptism -of a niece's 2nd child- so I am posting this homily for the occasion.
The great story of the Exodus, and the subsequent history of the Chosen People, is the tale of a people in search of a homeland. That is our story, too, for with baptism we acknowledge that we too are aliens, pilgrims on this earth. And by the practice of our faith we prepare for the day when God’s promise to us of a kingdom is fulfilled, our pilgrimage comes to an end, and Christ himself comes to lead us home.
In the Gospel, Jesus stands a small child in the midst of a group of his quarrelsome disciples in order to make a point about the Kingdom of God, using the child to remind us of all that we who aspire to be members of that Kingdom are meant to be. Children, especially small children, depend upon us. And they trust us. In this way they show us the way of discipleship: that we must depend upon God and that we should trust God. We have no one else to trust.
In baptizing this child into the Church, we celebrate God’s gift of this child to us –to the parents and to the community of faith. But in so doing we must always remember –parents must especially remember—that children are not merely given to us, they are entrusted to us. And we must never betray that trust. For with baptism we acknowledge that they do not belong to us, they belong to God.
The godparents represent this fact, for they represent the larger community of faith. Indeed we are all godparents to whatever children we meet. For that reason we must always demonstrate fidelity and model Christian discipleship for them, remembering especially that children learn chiefly from our example, rather than from our words, and still less from what we tell them to do. The world teaches children to “do as I say and not as I do” –which is hypocrisy; a lesson in lies. The world teaches children that it is OK to betray your words by your actions. But Jesus teaches his disciples to be simple, as a child is simple, and we achieve that simplicity by being humble before God, and faithful to the Gospel entrusted to us. For the Gospel that we preach, is the Gospel that we live. So let us lead lives worthy of the Gospel of Christ, and worthy of this child who belongs to Christ from this day forward.