Acts 8:14-17

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Eleven years ago, The Roman Catholic church in the United States along with four denominations of the Reformed tradition (including our own) made news by signing something called the “Common Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Baptism.” Basically, it is a document that affirms that we recognize the sacrament of baptism as celebrated in each other’s churches as valid. What’s interesting is the criteria used to reach this agreement. First, that baptism happens only once, by an authorized minister, with flowing water and uses the trinitarian formula invoked by Jesus in the 28th chapter of Matthew’s gospel, “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” That last bit was part of what kicked the whole project off as there were reports of people being baptized using alternate words for the Trinity. 

On the one hand, I don’t want to take anything away from the fact that some 500 years after the reformers split from the Roman church we were able to enact some measure of reconciliation. There have been other such acts of reconciliation since the second Vatican council in the 1960’s, but the fact that this one had to do with our sacrament of initiation and identification as Christians is significant. But then I remember the time I spent in parts of the bible belt where a believer’s baptism by immersion is far more common. It reminds me of a joke I may have told you about the Baptist and the Presbyterian who were talking about their respective traditions. “We believe in baptizing the whole person,” the Baptist boasted to his friend. “So you can’t just dip your toe in,” the Presbyterian asked playfully. “No.” “Can someone just wade into their knees,” she asked. “No,” came the reply. “How about just up to the waist?” “No.” “The shoulders?” “No.” “So it doesn’t count unless it’s all the way to the top of the head,” the Presbyterian clarified. “That’s right,” declared the Baptist emphatically. “Oh,” observed the Presbyterian. “Well, that’s where we start.”  

You may have taken note that the first requirement of this shared agreement is that baptism only takes place once. Which begs the question, “why would someone get baptized more than once?” Over the years I have heard all kinds of reasons people seek to be baptized again. If they were baptized as an infant and want to join a church that doesn’t practice infant baptism, they’ll be re-baptized the “right” way by that church. Other people ask to do so when coming back to faith and church after a long absence, particularly if that absence had to do with a way of life they’re trying to put behind them. They see baptism as a way of making a tangible break. As we say, the old life is gone, a new life is begun. They may even be thinking that there must have been something faulty in their first baptism because their life went off the rails. This time, they want to do it right. 

Which brings us to this morning’s reading. For seven trips through the three-year lectionary cycle I have avoided this text on Baptism of the Lord Sunday. After all, shouldn’t we hear the story of Jesus’ baptism. We did. Beyond that, this is only three verses. And those verses are part of a digression to another story. It’s just been easier to leave it alone. But the truth is that there is a whole lot to unpack in these three short verses that have everything to do with how we understand and identify as Christian through the sacrament of baptism, and whether there is a right way and a wrong way of doing that. 

The digression begins with the news getting back to the apostles in Jerusalem that Samaria has accepted the word of God. In the immediate verses preceding this news, we hear all about how Phillip traveled to Samaria to share with the people there everything having to do with the Messiah, a.k.a. Jesus. And according to the book of Acts, things go well. The crowds listen eagerly to what Phillip has to say. He impresses them by casting out unclean spirits and curing people who are lame and paralyzed. In fact, it’s so impressive that a man named Simon who we’re told practiced magic and was something of a big deal in Samaria, even he gets baptized and starts following Phillip wherever he goes. Now, as you may remember from any number of sermons and Sunday School classes on the story Jesus tells in Luke’s gospel about the so-called “good” Samaritan, or the encounter John relates between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, Samaria and its residents were not well-regarded by people in Jerusalem. The scholarship on how heated this difference was is mixed, but there were some significant differences. Unsurprisingly, they were religious differences, so the level of hatred may have been dictated by how invested one was in their own religious narrative. The expert in God’s law who presses Jesus about who his neighbor is has come seeking the rabbi’s understanding of eternal life. He’s pretty invested. So, he isn’t thrilled to hear Jesus extol a Samaritan’s mercy as the paragon of neighborly love. The Samaritan woman names the long-standing dispute between Jews and Samaritans regarding the role of the Jerusalem temple versus their own Mount Gerizim as the place where people worship God. Then there was the whole historic dispute regarding the Samaritans inter-marrying with foreigners. So you can be sure that news of Samaria accepting God’s word received a tepid response. My guess is that Peter and John were sent with a measure of skepticism about what was really going on. And sure enough, no, they weren’t doing it right. Peter and John had to pray for the Samaritans to receive the Holy Spirit because they’d only been baptized in the name of Jesus. Don’t tell the folks who signed the Common Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Baptism that they weren’t baptized into the three-fold name of God. But not to worry because Peter and John saved the day by laying their hands on them. They received the Holy Spirit. And all was made right. Whew. 

And people wonder why Christians are so caught up policing each other’s traditions and telling each other how they’re wrong, or not “real” Christians because they aren’t doing it the right way. That sure seems to be how this story has been internalized. It has given license to those who think they know better to “fix” how others come to faith. Like the interventions Essie experienced in college from church people who thought she needed to be saved the right way. Or the phone calls I get from time to time asking about the book of Revelation as a pretext to argue about why we don’t worship on the traditional sabbath day. Yes, that happens. And it’s been going on for a long time. The salvation of whole groups of people were called into question by the Donatus controversy of the fourth century because someone decided that the sacraments performed by church leaders who had buckled under Roman persecution weren’t valid. And with a little digging into church history, I’m sure I could name a dozen more examples. That is just the tip of the iceberg. 

The way the book of Acts tells the story, it’s easy to see how people might come to the conclusion that this is their role. But let me suggest a different way of reading this story, because while the title of the book is the Acts of the Apostles, a close reading of the text suggests that the real protagonist isn’t the apostles themselves, or even the early church. The real protagonist is the Holy Spirit. Now remember, there is no lack of distrust between Jerusalem and Samaria, Samaritans might as well be gentiles as far as Jerusalem is concerned. But Phillip went there and sent back word that things were going well. So, Peter and John went to see for themselves and ended up  praying for them to receive the Holy Spirit. Oo, that Holy Spirit, she’s a sneaky one. Everywhere you turn in the book of Acts she is breaking down barriers, bringing people together, reconciling long-standing enmities and  overcoming old prejudices. Maybe the reason the Samaritans had not yet received the Holy Spirit wasn’t because they had done anything wrong, but because the apostles in Jerusalem needed to be praying for them instead of judging them. 

Isn’t that what Jesus tells the religious man Nicodemus, that the Spirit blows where it will. Peter and John don’t command the Spirit, the Spirit commands them. The Spirit sends them.  

Friends the beauty of baptism as a sacrament is not that it is some magic that we perform to make something happen. Contrary to popular belief, baptism isn’t what saves babies, or anyone else for that matter. It isn’t fire insurance. It is a sacrament because of what it points to, not because of how it is or isn’t done, who does or doesn’t do it, or even how much water is used. It is a visible sign, a visible act that points to God’s invisible grace. No one needs to be baptized more than once because that grace is always and forever sufficient in doing what we can not and never will be able to do, which is to save ourselves. And so, every year on the Sunday in the church calendar when we commemorate Jesus’ baptism by John, we reaffirm the promise made to us in those waters and remember that we are baptized, that just like those waters, the Spirit has been poured out on us to cover us with God’s grace. If you prefer, we are immersed in it, such that we are no longer what this world would make of us, or even what we would make of ourselves. We become who God is calling and shaping us to be by that wiley and unpredictable Spirit who blows where she will. Who sends us in our skepticism and gets us to pray for some of the most unlikely people. Who seals us as God’s own beloved, now and always.