The Essence of Baptism

Think of a time when you perched a pencil behind your ear so as it have it handy as you went about your work at your desk. After a while you need the pencil, and you start to look for it all over the desk but can’t find it. When you do find the pencil, it is not because you were searching for it, but because you remembered where you put it.

Baptism is for the purpose of awakening within the one being baptized the localization of a prior, unbounded and eternal awareness or wakefulness of the truth, the reality that the whole field of one’s life is divine, is in God. This awareness was always there. This is the way it always was, but we had forgotten. This wakeful perception therefore goes beyond the limits of ego identification, beyond the known self.

In baptism Yeshua as the spiritual master works with his disciples to achieve in them their recognition that the self of the master and the self of the disciple are the same. That is, the very life of the master is the very life of the disciple. So if the disciple is received and fully recognized, the master will also be received and fully recognized. These are the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:40, Luke 10:16 and John 13:20. The goal of the discipleship process is to maturate individuals to be as he is as a witness and light to the world. This process is described in 1 John 3:1-2. The baptismal process is for our seeing him, recognizing and knowing experientially, so that we shall be like him, and thus also see like him, and see the wholeness of life in the Divine. It is not that wholeness of life is thus created or now comes into being. It is that this wholeness of life, this union pre-existed and is the foundation of all interpersonal dynamics. It is their relationship we awaken to.

The spiritual practice of meditation can serve release from attachment to specific forms of self-identification and self-validation. This is a process of loosing and expanding awareness. Yeshua as the master carries the responsibility to awaken the disciples from their state of spiritual unconsciousness of their prior union with the master. There is a strong inclination in us to create our own meaning associations with Yeshua, to hold onto precious experiences of him, to add drama to the process, and to desire or even claim an exclusive perception of the master in relationship to the ego self. This makes the ego bigger and moves in the opposite direction intended by the master in this process of awakening. That is why meditation is a central work in this process of expansion and release of ego identification. Only when we become willing and practice indifference to ego identification in meditation may the master’s responsibility to awaken be effective. This is the essence of baptism.

The baptism we are talking about here is not the liturgical rite for the sake of incorporating someone into the household of faith, but the process of realizing union with the One who baptizes us in Holy Spirit. And this union is not a merging of beings, but a singular wholeness in the unbounded self-being of God. Awakening then, we can say, is only the dissolution of the disciple in the master, the washing away of the self as separate and self-contained – gone, dissolved in the limitless ocean of unbounded Life.

Keep meditating!
Blessings in the Lamb,
Beverly

Sermon Pentecost 20 Emmanuel Mercer Island

I broke out in a rash last week.

I don’t know if it was in reaction to something in my environment
or as a sympathetic association with these 10 lepers!

I went to the doctor.
She looked me over and declared that I had a rash,
confirming my self-diagnosis.
The doctor prescribed hydrocortisone cream and sent me on my way.

No quarantine,
no being sent off to a leper colony,
no isolation from others.

I haven’t had to cry out, “Unclean, unclean,” wherever I go,
or carry bells around on a stick to ward other people off.
No going to wash in the Jordon River 7 times.
And no elaborate rites and ceremonies to perform, sacrifices to make
in order to be reinstated back into the community.

Ah, the benefits of modern medicine.

The story about the healing of the 10 lepers:
This is a pretty straight forward story.
The lepers come to Jesus but not too close; they know the rules.
Jesus doesn’t even have to touch them.
He just tells them to go show themselves to the priest,
which is what they were to do when their leprosy cleared up.
And while they were on their way,
not immediately, but after they there on their way,
they found that they were indeed healed.

Only one, the Samaritan came back.
Have you ever wondered why? Why him, and not any of the other 9?
I think it was that the rest were Jews following Jesus’ directions
about presenting themselves to the priest,
going to the Temple in Jerusalem.
They were all heavily invested in their religion,
and if you had leprosy and got better,
then in order to be readmitted to the community
and be reunited with your family,
there were special rituals and rites that had to be performed.
If you’re interested in what they were, read Leviticus, chapter 14.
- good bedtime reading –

But the Samaritan –
he is outside of that religious system,
and therefore he is not as connected to the elaborate liturgy
involving sacrifices and washing
and what we might think of as esoteric rituals.
Instead he connects his healing from God with Jesus,
and he comes to offer his thanks to God
NOT in the Temple in Jerusalem
but there at the feet of Jesus – the Living Temple of God,
holy as God is holy,
sacred ground and sacred being.

This just may be the point of the whole story.

This man healed of his leprosy saw the connection with God through Jesus.

This is, after all, the whole point about Christianity, about our faith,
our purpose for being here in this place on a Sunday morning.

In the encounter with Jesus in whatever way that comes
- and it can be in multitudes of ways –
in that encounter with Jesus we meet God.

Jesus is God-with-us, Emmanuel.
That’s my gospel, my good news that I preach.

Like what Paul wrote to Timothy from the Epistle for today:
“Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, … that’s my gospel.”

And Paul goes on in the passage to declare our baptismal faith:
“If we have died with him, we will also live with him.”
That’s my Gospel, what I have experienced of the Good News of Jesus,
not theoretical or theological but for me a lived reality.

The word gospel means literally “good news,” in case we have forgotten that.

The question could then be asked:
What do each of you identify as your gospel?
What is your truth about Jesus?
What have you experienced of Jesus?
How is Jesus good news to you?

There is no one right answer.
You will not be graded on this pop quiz.
But it is very important that we each answer these questions.
This is a crucial matter for everyone of us.

Now the encouragement is that, as the Epistle reading states,
“the word of God is not chained.”
There is not just one way to express the Gospel,
so we are exhorted “to avoid wrangling over words,”
literally in Greek, not to fight with words,
not to use words as weapons.

And on the other hand this is not permission to be wishy-washy.

We have this directive from 1 Peter 3:15,
“Always be prepared to answer to everyone asking you
(literally in Greek) for a word, a reason concerning the hope in you.”

So if you haven’t been thinking about this question, “What is your gospel?”,
or the first thing out of your mouth in response is:
Uhhh … and a long pause,
then you have some work to do,
some personal reflection,
some meditation!
some seeking.

So the Epistle, 2 Timothy, tells us how:
“present yourself to God.”
After all,
Life ultimately does not depend on how we present ourselves to others -
mostly that is costuming,
masks over what we would rather not have seen.

Rather than how we present ourselves to others,
instead present yourself to God.
And that’s easy,
because you already are in God’s Presence,
with nothing hidden,
no chance to check how we look in the mirror,
fully known, fully loved, fully accepted.

And in that glorious space
of being present to and aware of the Divine,
ask for the Word, the reason concerning the hope that lies within you,

so that the Gospel good news for you may come crystal clear,
your faith may be enlivened,
and your hearts overflowing with unspeakable joy.