Baptisms are usually an occasion for cake. The cakes can be a marvel of decorative icing with wonderfully coloured animals and flowers and a name written in big letters. Such cakes look so good it almost seems a pity to eat them but of course that’s what they’re for. And so if he were into cake Andrew David would have to learn today that you can’t have your cake and eat it. That is an oddly depressing proverb meaning I guess that you can’t have things both ways you can’t keep your money and spend it it’s always has to be either or. I would say, however, that it’s also a profoundly unchristian proverb. It’s unchristian because it seems to deny the possibility of paradox and Christianity is a profoundly paradoxical religion.
Take this morning’s readings for example; today we celebrate what’s called the feast of Christ the King. So we hear about the human Jesus who died on a cross but also exists far above all rule and authority and power and dominion. We hear that the King sitting on the throne to judge all the nations is also there in the least member of his family, the one who is hungry or thirsty, naked or sick, a stranger, or a prisoner. Both these examples point to the greatest of all Christian paradoxes which from next week we shall start preparing to celebrate; the paradox that Christianity identifies as one the timeless maker of the universe and a baby born at the end of the rule of Herod the Great, some 2000 years ago; the paradox of powerless power, the helpless helper, the creator as creature; which reminds us that we have another paradox on our hands here and now in the person of Andrew David.
For we are about to admit into the family of the church someone who is too young and helpless to know what is going on or to do anything for himself; which is why we have god-parents who themselves are very important symbols in this service – almost as important as the symbols of oil and water. The ceremony of infant baptism in which these god-parents make promises for Andrew which he can’t make for himself, symbolises the fact that we can do none of the most important things in our lives for ourselves. We are born dependent and dependent we remain until the end dependent on God for life, for hope, for healing, for forgiveness, for the grace to achieve all that he wills for us to be and to do. We are dependent on grace and the most joyful thing in the Christian life is that we are always in debt to this grace which has no end.
So today through this baptism into grace Andrew becomes another instrument of the world’s salvation; which may be a surprise to him and possibly also to his parents. But listen again to the gospel reading. ‘just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ That doesn’t mean that by helping any one in need we are serving Christ, though this passage is often taken that way. It does mean that anyone outside the church who helps a member of the church who is in trouble, is helping Christ and therefore becomes part of the family of the redeemed. Whenever Andrew or any one of us needs help and finds it at the hands of a member of another faith or of no faith that person is brought into relationship with Christ whether they know it or not. Christ welcomes them into that kingdom which is larger than any of us can imagine the kingdom where all nations and all faiths will find healing, reconciliation and the fulfilment of their journey in faith. It is a somewhat paradoxical agenda for interfaith dialogue; beginning with a Christian plea for help rather than a discussion of the finer points of doctrinal difference. It also means that Andrew David may meet some interesting babysitters, who will sit down and eat cake with him. For being able to be a faithful Christian and yet also able receive help and support and guidance from people of other faiths is perhaps the best example of having your cake and eating it.
Amen
Stephen Tucker