Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, 2009

Series: Duties of the Laity in the ACNA, Part 3

The Rev. Jerry Kistler

St. Stephen’s Reformed Episcopal Church

Montrose, Colorado

“To observe their baptismal vows, to lead an upright and sober life”

So the last two Sundays we began working though the ten duties the Anglican Church in North America expects all its members to strive to keep as sort of the minimum standard of what it means to be biblically faithful Anglican Christians. We started out by looking at the biblical basis for the first of these duties which, again, is: “To worship God, the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, every Lord’s Day in a Church unless reasonably prevented” And then last week we thought through the importance of the second duty for our continual growth in Christ; that second duty being “To engage regularly in the reading and study of Holy Scripture and the Doctrine of the Church as found in Article I of the Constitution of this Church.” And I think we saw in both cases that “doing our duty” is really another way we have the privilege of participating in the gospel. These are not duties that are design to lay new burdens on us, but in a very real sense to lift our burdens by strengthening our faith-union with Christ. Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Well, sometimes the yoke of our Christian duties don’t seem easy or light, but in truth, Jesus is saying, this is the only way we can find rest for our souls. We try to find rest for our weary souls in so many other ways, but in reality it’s only when we pick up our cross and follow Him by keeping the commandments He’s given us, that we’ll really ever arrive at that place of rest.

And I think this is true even of the third of these ten duties, although it might sound at first that its laying on us a much heavier burden than the others we’ve covered so far. Let’s be reminded again of what that duty is. “It shall be the duty of every member of this church….3. To observe their baptismal vows, to lead an upright and sober life, and not give scandal to the Church.”

There’s a lot of Law in that statement, and not too much Gospel, it might seem at first. Yes, this duty lays upon us a great responsibility. Or better, it recognizes that a great responsibility has been laid upon in our baptism: to lead an upright and sober life, and not to scandalize the Church by our behavior. How many of us don’t feel the weight of that?

You see the truth is that our baptism should be something that brings us great comfort and can assure our hearts before God that we are indeed His children. Martin Luther used to get up every morning, make the sign of the cross, and say, “I am a baptized Christian.” That’s how he could enter his day with confidence, knowing and trusting that he belonged to God, and that God was for Him, and would be with Him. You see, in baptism we had our sins washed clean by the blood of the Lamb, because we were baptized into Jesus, baptized into His death and resurrection. Baptism is something God does, not something we do. It’s His appointed means of bringing us into covenant with Himself, of bringing us into the sphere of his grace and mercy. And so our baptisms should minister to us sweet comfort as we embrace them in the faith of what God has done for us there.

But baptism also places upon us the responsibility of living as baptized people. It’s not just about having once been baptized; it’s about living out our baptisms each day of our lives, for the rest of our lives.

In one of the most important passages about baptism in the New Testament, St. Paul writes in Romans chapter 6: “Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:3-4). Did you catch that last part? Just as Christ was raised from the dead, even so, because we’ve been baptized into Him, we too should walk in newness of life.

Now first and foremostly this is talking about the grace we receive from God in our baptisms – the grace of die to sin and to live again to righteousness. It’s what we call the grace of regeneration – being born anew. You see, by being united to Christ in His death through baptism, His death works a death in us. We die to our old sinful selves, what Paul calls the Old Man – who we are as born in Adam. The Old Man was crucified with Christ by being buried with Him through baptism into death. That’s what Paul is saying here. That’s the first part of God’s grace to us in baptism: the death of the Old Man. The second part is that, by being united to Christ in His resurrection, His new resurrected life works a new life in us. “As many of [us] as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ,” Paul says in Galatians. We share in His new life, so that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Now that sounds like a great place to stop, but we can’t stop there, because although Paul is talking in Romans 6 first and foremostly about God’s grace to us in baptism for the new birth, when he starts using the language of “walking” in newness of life, he’s talking about living out our baptisms; he’s talking about how the new birth must, by necessity, issue forth into the new life, if we are to claim our baptisms as giving us any assurance before God at all.

Remember the Parable of the Sower. In three out of the four cases the seed actually penetrated the soil, germinated and sprouted, and began to grow. There was the new birth. But in only one case did that new birth truly issue forth into a new life, one that continued to grow and to produce fruit. And Jesus is basically saying this is the way it must be with all of us if we are to be assured that we truly are children of the kingdom.

So when we were baptized, the responsibility was laid upon us to continue in our baptisms, to continue in the new life that we receive there by God’s grace. And, of course, to rely on God’s grace to be able to continue in the new life.

But this is why, from the very earliest times, a person who comes to be baptized has been required to take a series of vows. We still have those vows represented in the baptismal office in our prayer book. Thankfully we just recently had a baptism, so you might actually remember what they are. The baptismal vows are three-fold. The first is that we should renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of this wicked world, with all covetous desires of the same, and all the sinful desires of the flesh, so that we will not follow, nor be led by them. The second is that we should believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith as summarized by the Apostles’ Creed. And the Third is that we should keep God’s holy will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of our life.”

Now you say, “I don’t remember taking those vows.” Well, of course you don’t; you were probably about this big when you took them, or when you Sponsors took them in your name and stead. You might remember taking them for yourself at your Confirmation. But even if you were raised in another tradition, the vows you took, or were taken in your name, were basically the same, even if the wording was a little different. Or even if you never said any vows at all, these are the vows that were latent in your baptism. They’re what it means to be baptized and to enter into the new life: to renounce the devil, to believe the Faith, and to keep the commandments.

So what happens if you don’t keep your vows? Well, every one of us breaks our baptismal vows every day of our lives. That’s why must continue to return to the Lord and confess our sins and cast ourselves upon His mercy. And God says when we do that, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

But real the question is this: Can we be assured that we are experiencing the new life baptism was designed to bring us into, if we are not at least striving to keep our vows and returning to God in repentance when we don’t? The biblical answer is: No, we can’t. We can’t have that assurance.

Let’s just remember the question Paul asked at the beginning of Romans 6 that got him talking about baptism in the first place. Do you remember the question? It was basically this: If God’s grace came to us while we were sinners, while we were completely undeserving of His grace, and because of that God’s grace was magnified as truly the amazing grace that it is, shouldn’t we keep on sinning so grace may abound? Shouldn’t we keep on sinning so God can continue to be glorified in His grace? And what’s his answer? His answer is, “May it never be!” May it never be, because, he says, “How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” How is it possible? If we truly did die to sin in our baptism, how is it possible for us to keep on living in such a way that there is no evidence of the new life in us? How is it possible? The only two possible answers are: 1) Your baptism just didn’t take, and maybe you should get yourself re-baptized, possibly more than once – which is not what our church teaches, by the way; or 2) You haven’t continued in your baptism; you haven’t continued from the new birth into the new life.

Now that’s not to say that if we’ve experience the new birth we won’t continue to sin. That’s certainly not what the Apostle Paul is saying. As a matter of fact Paul goes on to say in the next chapter how horrible a sinner he feels himself to be, because the good he wishes to do, he doesn’t do, but the evil he wishes not to do, that he keeps on doing. And praise be to God, if an apostle can feel that way, certainly you and I can feel that way.

But the implication of what the Apostle Paul is saying in these passages is that if there is not at least the sincere desire and the sincere attempt to live out one’s baptism and the vows that go along with it, then a person really can’t claim his baptism as something that really should give him assurance before God. It steals away our assurance.

That isn’t again to say that many of us haven’t strayed from our baptismal vows and the new life they epitomize, and have been brought back and restored, or still can be brought back. We can. And our wonderful hope is that God has placed His name upon us in our baptisms – has put his mark of ownership on us and claimed us for His own. And we know that God desires to lose nothing that’s His. And so we can trust that if we’ve strayed, or one of our loved ones have strayed – He will seek us, and call us back to Himself. That’s what the Parable of the Lost Sheep is all about, isn’t it?

But you see, in the end again, doing our duty, keeping our baptismal vows to lead an upright and sober life, is just another way of participating in the gospel. It’s the way we can be assured that we are continuing in the new life the gospel brings us into through baptism. It assurance that we’re talking about this morning.

So let us strive to keep our baptismal vows, to live as baptized people, for then we will know that that good work which God began to do in us is being confirmed in us, and will be confirmed in us to the end. +