Date: January 12, 2020
Scriptures: Matthew 3:13-17

Some of you have heard me share of my experience as a federal prison inmate. I share a piece of that experience again today: a powerful lesson I learned in my first few days in prison of the personal and impersonal meaning of baptism.

A word of context is in order: Based on life-altering experiences working with Central American refugees a quarter century ago, I took a leap of faith in 2001 I had never dreamed of taking. That year, at an annual funeral procession that trespassed onto a U.S. military base – a base that taught Latin American military officers how to “neutralize” their insurgents – I became one of thousands of witnesses to-date who have committed an act of nonviolent civil disobedience.

For the misdemeanor crime of that act of nonviolent resistance – of trespassing onto that base – I joined a company of over 200 sisters and brothers in this faith-based witness who have served time in a federal prison camp.

My own sentence was three months – plus a $500 fine, paid immediately by the church I pastored. Thirty-six others were tried with me in the year I trespassed – and all but of six of us received prison time, up to the six months maximum. I have among my most prized of possessions ten .pdf files containing the 1400 pages of court transcript of our testimony.

This courtroom and then prison witness became one of the most spiritually-inspiring and biblically-enlightening experiences of my life to-date. Including the following lesson I learned about baptism.

But first – before re-learning about being marked by God through baptism – I learned about being marked by our federal government for dehumanization. Entering federal custody, the dehumanization process commences immediately. You are photographed and marked with a number; meet Mr. 90961-020. Barring dementia, I will never forget that number. Everything on your person when you enter – everything – you place into a box. You are then ordered by the guard strip-searching you to expose every bodily cavity – every cavity – for contraband.

After adorning standard prison garb, you are then grilled by law enforcement officers and medical personnel. Finally, you are escorted – at least in the case of my prison – to a place called “the bubble”. A kind of quarantine for new inmates, a highly public pen where they may observe you for a few days among several other inmates who may have been placed there because of some security infraction they have committed.

Marked by the government – to be reshaped at a disciple – you are made to feel isolated. Unsafe. Alone.

While still in the bubble, I began to receive a trickle of the correspondence that came to average six pieces of mail a day – most of them encouragements from former strangers supporting our witness. Correspondence I have since cataloged.

Friends in Christ, what I am about to share with you I fabricate not.

The first piece of mail I received – the very first – was from my confirmation teacher. I had not seen or heard from this wonderful woman since my confirmation nearly three decades past – the time when she also witnessed my baptism. Following our confirmation process, she had left the church for seminary training.

My confirmation teacher from 1974 somehow had discovered where I was and had mailed me a postcard. Again: it was my first piece of prison mail. The card contained five simple words:

Dear Chuck,
Remember your baptism.

And because the Rev. Judy Sutherland heard the song God had given me one day nearly 30 years before, and sang it back to me while my memory of it was fading fast, I was able to carry on in a markedly different way in the most dehumanizing quotidian environment I have ever known or wish to know. I was able to carry on as the only misdemeanor inmate among 300 felons for the next three months 400 miles from home.

“Remember your baptism.” Not literally, of course. But seriously.

Rev. Judy Sutherland’s reminder to me of my baptism – that I am a child of God, marked not by the government but by God, beloved of God, with whom God is unconditionally well-pleased – that I am a recipient of a sacred lifetime sacrament tracing its origin to John the Baptist and Jesus: how much more personal could my connection with the Spirit of the Universe get?

Remember your baptism. For when we are reminded or remind ourselves: how personal the meaning of baptism can be.

And yet when, after reading Rev. Judy’s postcard, I looked around at the men in that prison bubble with me, I could also see how impersonal the meaning of baptism is. For suddenly I realized: they were baptized, too! And if any was not: God had claimed him whether him knew it or not.

And that while I was and I am special in God’s eyes, I was in no way any more special. Being marked as beloved? So were they.

O, how that realization robbed me of my precious privilege to take any of their asocial actions personally! For God had named those brothers Beloved, too. Nothing one of them could do – or I in response – could add or subtract to that name.

God’s stamp of love unconditional in baptism. So personal. And, so impersonal, because – to put the matter precisely – it so depersonalizing.

The meaning of baptism: intimately personal … and consummately impersonal. I know a professor who especially enjoyed teaching freshman English. “Now there’s a place where you can really empower people,” she says. “Because they often come to you beaten down. All anybody has ever done is tell them how bad they are in English. And you try to encourage them to talk about who they are, and to write about who they are, and (you) show some interest in who they are.”

And my professor friend describes how she addresses each freshman English class when she is returning their first graded work. “This grade is not for you,” she tells them. “This grade is for a piece of work you turned in.

“You really want to know what I think of you? I think you’re made of the image of God. I think you’re of inestimable worth; there’s no way that anything I can put in my grade book can ever begin to estimate you.”

Empowering people beaten down by life: encouraging them to talk about who they are. How very personal this endeavor.

“I think you’re of inestimable worth – made in the image of God.” Moving them from empowering who they are … to recognizing whose they are. How impersonal.

I conclude with this. I was discussing this past week with one of our number the dynamics of our post-Worship gatherings in the Fellowship Hall.

As many of you know, we gather for food and fellowship downstairs after Worship: meeting and greeting one another. It’s the only time in the week many of us have the opportunity to do so.

And, as many of you know, our Christian education dialogue occurs around the Fellowship Hall sofas after Worship. It begins roughly ten minutes after the Postlude. When – for many of us – our fellowship time continues to occur.

I have seen how those fellowship and education dialogue endeavors can rub up against one another in challenging ways. I, for one, want to participate in both!

I want to participate in both. And – in reflecting on today’s theme – I think I now know why.

Our fellowship exercise is a most personal endeavor. Sharing directly with one another what is going on in our lives. Catching up with the old, and establishing connection with the new.

Our education dialogue group is a more impersonal endeavor. Where the focus of our conversation, when we are doing it well, is not about individual-to-individual – though it can and will be that. The focus instead of our education hour is discovering together the impersonal majesty of something we call the Holy Spirit.

Of being in the conscious company of being beloved. Depersonalizing our anxieties – and muting our worries – all by a simple practice.

The simple practice of reaching out – beyond our personal selves – for a singular awareness.

The awareness … of Being Church.

Individual fellowship. And community dialogue.
The personal and impersonal meaning of baptism.
Let us go – and practice both.