Remember Your Baptism

Until last Thursday I had never given much thought to my Baptism. That is to say, I have never given much critical, analytical thought to it. I remember it clearly; I was seven-years-old in the Southern Baptist Church and it was a night service. In my mind then, and up to now, the act of Baptism served as an external symbol for an internal change. My sins were forgiven; I was washed clean. And the Baptism reminded me, and the entire congregation at my first church, of that change.

Last Thursday, however, I had a conversation with a classmate from a small country in Southeast Africa. Being from a region torn apart by genocide and war, the act of Baptism meant something entirely different for my friend. Coming home one day, my friend asked his mother why he should continue as a Christian. Constantly confronted with individuals who had once murdered or shown violence to his own family and friends, the love of Christ became more of an ideal and less of a reality in his own life. He told me how his mother turned to him and simply said, "*Name*, remember your baptism." And he did. For my friend, his baptism (although occurring when he was an infant) became not only a symbol of internal conversion, but of his adoption into the body/family of Christ. The faces of his enemies became the faces of people who needed the love of Christ. Therefore, by joining with Christ in Baptism (which 'kick-started' Christ's own ministry), all Christians become capable of serving as literal members of the body of Christ. In this light, my friend could do nothing but love his enemies, for that is what Christ would do and did.
In order to understand all the implications of baptism, I had to first recognize that my own Baptism was not a private act of obedience between myself and God. I also did not receive my Baptism so that other Christians could remember their own private moment with God during their Baptism; rather, Baptism incorporates new believers and children of believers into a real relationship with the Church (body of Christ). In this way Baptism becomes an act of community, not only with the Church but with God as well. When Christ was baptized, God said, "You are my beloved Son." This same phrase is offered to us; "you are beloved." This is our worth as Christians. Money, power, knowledge, beauty, material goods, athletic ability, and other markers within society tend to dictate a person's worth in the secular world. But no matter the outward condition of a person, whether poor or rich, fast or slow, beautiful or ugly, intelligent or not, and so on and so forth, the true worth of a person rests in the eyes of God. As a result, baptism marks the moment when we become the "beloved" children of God. In this do we have hope and value. This is what my friend remembered during difficult times in his own country; he was "beloved" by God.

With this in mind, if we are beloved by God through His grace alone, earning nothing by ourselves and understanding even our faith itself comes from God (Eph. 2), who are we to deny love to others, even to our enemies?

Post-Genesis

So...my first day of official divinity school classes came and went. My life didn't magically change and I'm still pretty much the same guy, except now I can sing the Hebrew alphabet better than most 2-year-olds in Israel. Life here can only be called atypical. Actually it could probably be called many things, but this is only a blog and I don't want anyone to take me too seriously:)

My first class was Hebrew, followed by a exhausting lecture on early Church History. Our Hebrew teacher was so nice I almost forgot how deadly the language would eventually prove. Church History ran at a quick pace and I've never typed so fast in my life. We learned some fascinating things:

--> Example: Contrary to popular thought, the Roman Empire actually lacked any type of cohesive action against the Christians. In addition, much of the persecution aimed at Christians seemed to arise out of misunderstanding and rumor-mongering. What we know as the Lord's Supper, where we eat the body and consume the blood of our Savior, understandably began to sound a little too much like cannibalism to the Romans. Also, these private Suppers were also called Love Feasts, so it came as little surprise that the Romans suspected these Christians guilty of mass orgies. We read a couple of primary documents by a Roman historian named Tacitus and a Governor named Pliny the Younger. Both of these writings convey a sense of confusion in dealing with the Christians. As a result, our teacher concluded to us that the Roman government only demonstrated widespread persecution of Christians at certain moments in history, and not spanning the three hundred years from Christ to Constantine (the Emperor who legalize Christianity). All in all...it was a cool class.

I've been having a few difficulties with the readings, however. Some of the authors seem to write with a very humanistic approach, which basically means they leave little room for God in the equation. For example, one book I'm reading treats the Jewish faith and the Old Testament as if their development came about through the actions of radical, crazy prophets. At first glance this sounds OK, but not when you hint that these prophets really weren't acting on God's behalf and were doing all this at their own whim. There is so much arrogance in some modern scholarship. I've read things that needed citations, but never received them. Some scholars just make claims, but then don't back them up. I don't care who you are; that's just lazy.

Sorry to end on a sour note, but everything truly is great here in Durham. My wife is doing well; she takes her CPA on Thursday (the 28th) and starts work on Sept. 10th. You can imagine our angst. I'll start work in the div school library next week.
I've already got a good routine with my carpool buddy. We get up early, come to morning prayer, then go work out, then come back and hit the books. It's nice to get the day going early.

Anyway, sorry to bother you with some of the extraneous details. It helps for me to write them all down. I hope all of you have a fruitful week.

Shalom(little Hebrew to mix things up:),
Brad

A Poem for the Road...

I wrote this poem to close out our Project Bridddge. It emphasizes the strained race relations not only in Durham, but in our society as a whole. I hope you enjoy it, and thanks for reading:)

Color

I hate color, all color. All ideas of perfection and imperfection.
I hate midnight black and sunset gold. I hate them for their differences.
I hate soft whites and blazing reds. I hate modest yellows and tender violets.
I once looked around and saw the variety of our reality, and I realized I hated myself.

I hate my eyes and my skin and my hair and my voice and my height.
I hate my dreams and my hopes, my sorrows and my laughter.
I hate tomorrow and I hate today, because I’m still the same, the same as everyone else.

But it wasn’t always like this. Before I knew the words that made me different she was still my sister and he my brother. She talked different then as well, but “different” wasn’t a word I used. All I knew was that she was beautiful, and I could stare at her linen white smile and laugh into the night because she would be there in the morning.

I was jealous of my brother’s skin, bronzed in the sun and glaring in its own shade through the shimmer of summer haze as he ran into the surf, but they told me that was the very thing I must hate. So I did, and I found pale specters to run alongside me, showing me how to hate and how to reach for sameness.

Then one day I glanced around and all the color was gone. There we were, mirroring ourselves in homogeneity and ringing our bodies into halos, closing out variety.
And in the cold, stark bleakness of our heaven, I wept for my sister and cried for my brother. I called out for them in the night and under the old stars, but they were gone.

My feet bled as I searched through old neighborhoods where their shacks once stood. My hands ached as I carried lumber and tools, rummaging through warehouses where we used to build them houses. My eyes grew dim in the schools, reading age old texts and looking for answers from the wise, whose dust rotted in colorless coffins.

Then, on a day when I thought the shadow would blot out my own portion of creation, I found my brother and my sister. But as I reached toward them I recoiled, my heart lurched, and sweat sprang to my snow-white skin. Because we hated them, they tried to change. Cheap cosmetics, suited for whores, ruined my sister’s face, and my brother’s bronze frame sat broken on the curb, ashen and weak in his attempt to disappear.

I begged them not to go, but they no longer recognized me. I was one of the masses, grasping at uniformity and damning their variance. They disappeared into the crowd, because now they were the same. But now I had changed, and all the weight of heaven broke me, leaving me to wonder if I would ever love color again.

Getting to Know "Durh'm"

So I've spent my first week in Durham, NC participating in Project Bridddge, which is a program focused towards community service and awareness of the social/racial/class issues influencing the city of Durham. In the past 3 days so many assumptions and givens I've held onto for years have come face to face with reality, and the stereotypes are no longer holding their weight.

Before I came to Durham, Duke required all incoming M. Div students to read The Best of Enemies, which recounts the struggles of civil rights in the Durham area, and how the leader of the local KKK came together with a prominent, Black activist to work towards a peaceful integration of the schools. It is a story of hate, prejudice, segregation, self-righteousness, hopelessness, and powerlessness; but it is also a story of faith, hope, and ultimately, love between two people that were supposed to hate each other. This type of love transcends explanation and human understanding; it is a thing of the Gospel of Christ.

The Black activist (a woman who I met today by the name of Ann Atwater) opened up her home to us and spent 2 hours sharing her wisdom and encouragement to all the Bridddge participants. The meeting in her house symbolized a climax in my own understanding of the race and class divides plaguing our country. The answers to these problems are not simple; in fact, they may not exist at all. This has been a tough issue for me, but Christ promised we would always have the poor. In the face of such problems and wealth disparity, what is the necessary Christian response? What about wealthy Christians as they encounter the poor? Do we take Christ literally and give all we have? Do we give our money, our time, etc? Is there a balance?

Since I began this post, Project Bridddge has come to an end. As different groups gave closing presentations, we struggled to identify a proper response to the problems of race relations, class disparities, idolization of academics versus the pragmatic application of our faith, and others. We each had different responses, but there was one comforting truth. We can get involved in numerous areas. We can do community service for hours upon hours. But none of this will "fix" the problem. We must remember that God is Sovereign; we may not understand our place in a certain mission context, but we can go forward in condidence that each person we meet, every class we take, each service project we pursue, constitute intimate, ordained moments where the Spirit of God manifests itself in how we love others. This is the Gospel. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself. Social justice, distribution of wealth, and the other concerns of the Durham area must be addressed under the day-to-day reality of the Gospel. We can't allow ourselves to fall in love with visions and causes while we forget to love the person sitting next to us in class, or our next door neighbor, or even our enemies. This alone is possible through the love of Christ, demonstrated before us as an example to walk in the very (incarnated) footsteps of God on Earth.

This truth comforted me. I pray for God's wisdom and His heart as life continues in my new home.
-Thanks for reading:)