What Difference Does Baptism Make?

   Sunday I taught the first of a two-part series for children who have either recently been baptized or are considering it.

 

   We began by talking about decisions. Each of the kids talked about a decision they had made that morning - the decision to get up and come to Sunday School, the decision to wear the clothes they were wearing, etc. We then turned in our Bibles to the third chapter of the book of Luke where we read about all the people of Judea and Jerusalem who came down to be baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. We read how John was "preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins," and I told them how I believe repentance means turning away from selfish ways and deciding to go where God wants us to go and become who God created us to be. We talked about what that would look like in our lives. There was lots of talk about being nice to siblings and obeying parents. An especially precocious boy talked about being productive and "contributing to the economy". His dad has an MBA. Then there was the funny moment when the three boys in class who have been baptized were asked if they still sin. They're gaping eyes and mouths gave them away.

 

    Then yesterday at our Tuesday morning men's breakfast the lesson was again on baptism. This time Penny Vann was leading and he was using theologian Jim McClendon's idea of baptism as a "performative sign". By that McClendon meant that like a stop sign tells us to stop, the sign of baptism tells the world that we intend for our lives to belong to God. At baptism we declare ourselves - in the words of the Apostle Paul - "dead to sin and alive in Christ."

 

    Well, the two conversations - one by 10-year-olds and another by 50, 60, 70 and 80-year-olds - were certainly on different levels. But the questions were substantively the same. What is baptism? What does it mean to repent of our sins? Can we be so alive in Christ that the sin in us truly dies?

 

    These questions make me think of a scene in one of the great Texas films of all-time Tender Mercies. Robert Duvall plays a broken down, honky tonk cowboy named Max Sledge (can you think of a better name for a broken down, honky tonk cowboy?). Duvall meets a woman whose love and gentle spirit set him in the right direction. Soon we see him in church being baptized along with his new stepson. On the way back the two ride side by side in Max's pickup. Max looks over and asks his stepson, "Do you feel any different?" "Nope," the boy says. "Do you?" "Not yet," Max answers back.

 

    The key word I think is "yet". Max and his stepson and the boys in my class have all just recently declared who they are going to be. They've just decided. Now all the decisions that follow are to be based upon that first, big decision. They don't feel any different yet - but they have made it known that their intention is to be different.

 

    As I looked around at those men on Tuesday morning, I know they still sin. But I also know they are indeed "different" from what they once were. They're gentler now. They're more loving now. They're sober now. They're no longer consumed with success now. In other words, they've been baptized - dead to sin and alive in Christ.

 

    I remember what some saint somewhere once said, "I ain't what I ought to be. I ain't what I'm gonna be. But thank God I ain't what I was." It's true for the men on Tuesday morning. May it be true for the kids on Sunday also.

A Sprig of Life for Muslim/Christian Relations

On Monday I was a guest alongside Imam Samer Altaaba on Fox Talk 950, a local morning radio talk show. We were invited on to discuss the need for increased Muslim-Christian relations in the wake of the violent Middle East uprisings which ended in the murders of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Libya.  (A link to an audio recording of the interview is available at http://www.centralmediaserver.com/kjtv/radio/monftim2.mp3 until next Monday.)

 

The imam has condemned the embassy attacks and similar acts of violence. Like most Muslims, he is a person of peace and goodwill.  Unfortunately, religious extremists and political opportunists overshadow the vast majority of Muslims. I hoped the interview would help Lubbock hear another voice.

 

In our conversation I spoke about a man named Krister Stendahl, a Lutheran priest who served as Dean of Harvard Divinity School and did much to promote inter-religious dialogue last century. Stendahl said that when we enter into conversations with people of other faiths we should follow three principles.

 

1.  We should listen to them directly — not to their enemies.

 

2.  We should not compare our own religion's best to the others' worst. This would help us come to terms with the fact that all religions have their good and their bad, their exemplars and their extremists.

 

3.  We should seek what Stendahl called "Holy Envy."  By this he meant we should look to others' religious devotion and practices and seek to find in them what might inspire our own.

 

The conversation with the imam went well.  We told stories of our own friendship and spoke of ways our two communities have remained open to each other in these turbulent times.  At the conclusion of the interview I talked about losing Ambassador Stevens and our need to honor his sacrifice by seeking to be ambassadors of goodwill ourselves. For with half of humanity being either Christian or Muslim, the fate of the world depends upon it.

 

But perhaps most gratifying about the experience was the Facebook message I received afterward. It was from Justin Gornto, one of the kids in the youth group I once pastored in North Carolina. Justin grew up and joined the Army. He served a tour in Afghanistan, where he was wounded and almost lost his life in an IED attack. Justin learned about the interview on Facebook and streamed it from North Carolina. He wrote me to tell me he appreciated the conversation and hopes for more like it.

 

As I read that note from Justin a wave of hope washed over me. Justin knows first hand how dangerous these days are; yet he remains open to the possibility — indeed necessity — of peacemaking.
 

In the midst of so much violence, terror, and death, it was a real sprig of life.

-Ryon Price

Turning South

   Yesterday was bookended by two events that have me thinking of making the most of our time together.

First, during staff meeting I opened our website (www.secondb.org)to see Amy and son Landon Gantt right there on our homepage.  Knowing that the Gantt family moved to Portland, OR, two months ago, I asked the rest of the staff how long we could leave former members' pictures on our homepage? The consensus was not long.
 

Then, last night I read in Texas Monthly online that famed Texas novelist Larry McMurtry is closing down his iconic bookstores in his hometown Archer City. I thought again of the Gantts and a road trip Amy's husband Joe and I took to visit McMurtry's bookstore.

 

Last June, Joe and I hopped into my Subaru wagon and headed east to the campus of Austin College in Sherman to join our youth at camp. Joe was serving as a youth sponsor and agreed to keep me company as I couldn't leave until after church on Sunday. We drove down Hwy 82 towards Wichita Falls and our talk turned to McMurtry's store and how it was the perfect store for both booklovers and Texans. We didn't see how we could profess to be either one if we didn't stop by in Archer City on the way back.

 

Five days later, with a map of Texas in one hand and the steering wheel in the other, I turned off at Wichita Falls and headed south for 25 miles past the burned grass and frozen pumpjacks that constitute what is left of Archer County, the one exception being the town square of Archer City itself, which still has some life because of McMurtry's bookstore and lore. We pulled in and looked off to the left of us where we saw the burned out hull of the Royal Theatre, which was made famous by McMurtry's book The Last Picture Show and the movie it inspired.  We parked across from McMurtry's Bookstore Number One and went in.
 

What we found when we stepped inside was part bookstore, part museum with enough Texana history and movie memorabilia to make us both salivate. We knew our wives would not appreciate our lollygagging, so we limited ourselves to thirty minutes in the bookstore. I perused the miles of racks and found an Oxford sociology of American religion and an old Barclay's New Testament commentary. I can't remember what Joe bought, but I bet it had something to do with his favorite subject — politics — preferably of the leftward-leaning variety. When our thirty minutes were up, we met back at the register, and there behind the counter was McMurtry himself.  He was stacking books and never turned to look at us — a perfect statue of himself, just the way we wanted to remember him. We walked back out into the hot sun, crossed the street to a local cafe, sat down and ate potato salad, then loaded up for the trip home. We talked all the way home about camp and the church and where we had been and where we might be going.

 

What we didn't know at the time was that Joe and his family would definitely be moving to Portland. We knew about the offer there, and he had accepted it. But we were still holding out hope he might get a counter-offer here in Lubbock. We didn't know for sure. And we certainly didn't know that McMurtry would soon be closing down the bookstores. We didn't know that a road trip like the one we were on just wasn't going to be possible for much longer. Today I'm really grateful we shared that experience together.

 

I guess the point of all this to say turn south — take the long way, the road less traveled. Go ahead and hop in the car and make the memory. And talk and get to know each other along the way. You'll be glad you did, and our church will be stronger for it.
 

 

For as McMurtry once said, "If you wait, all that happens is that you get older."