Toll Roads

I received a phone call yesterday from a distressed mother. She lives out in the country, some 50 kilometres away. A number of years ago I had officiated at her wedding. It was one of those weddings that are hard to forget. Sixteen adults in the bridal party, not one having been to a wedding let alone in a church before. It was the wild West coming to town, and the dress sense of their guests verified it.

Time has moved on and she’s had a cluster of kids. She rang up the local Anglican Church and asked about baptism. The minister allegedly inquired about her church attendance and intentions in the future. Then he told her ‘No’.

So she rings Lucky Bear.

Now if there is one thing that can piss a bear off it’s judging a kid by their parents. In fact it’s judging period. Lucky doesn’t see baptism as a judgemental call about whether a person is fit, or their parents are fit, to join the church club.

Occasionally at St Matthew-in-the-City there is a baptism in the midst of the main service. Apart from an opportunity to expose and welcome the child and his/her family to the congregation, a baptism celebrates the central truth of the Christian faith – namely that we are loved unconditionally by God.

No matter what we’ve done, are doing, or will do, no matter what we look like, think like, and behave like, we are loved and accepted by God. There are no conditions to this, no fine print to the contract. You can be the worst manipulative abusive scumbag in the world and God will still love you unconditionally.

Once we start making rules about who can be baptised – like only those whose parents are part of the congregation, live in the area, profess creedal beliefs, will bring their kids to Sunday School, etcetera – we start to make the church a club and confine the love of God.

Other clergy, indeed most others it seems, argue that baptism is indeed an entrance rite and we denigrate its importance by not applying at least some criteria. The sacredness of the Church takes precedence over the unfettered love of God.

Sometimes Lucky Bear feels very lonely in the Church. Many other clergy and parishes don’t see the world, faith and God as he does. While Lucky has always seen himself as a mildly conservative, middle-of-the-road Christian some time in the last couple of decades the road has moved. More often than not these days he’s on the edge, amidst the gravel and in the rough, viewing the Church from the gutter.

One thing Lucky Bear cares passionately about is living out, in word and deed, the unconditional love of God. Baptism is the one sacrament that particularly proclaims that truth.

The public road called baptism that once virtually anyone in society could travel along because it belonged to no one and therefore to us all has now in many places been cleaned up and designated a toll road. Is it any wonder that the traffic is less? Is it any wonder that the wild ones stay away?