Today I have set before you life and death. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.
It can often seem that churches have a preoccupation with death and the dead. Our current graveyard renovation scheme – Life and Death in Hampstead – reminds us that our church and our parish have a very distinguished past. And the interior of our church too, with all its memorial plaques and monuments, can also reinforce that apparent preoccupation with the dead. Most of the objects in a church point to previous generations, things given in memory of the departed and additions to the building conceived and executed by those gone before us.
This is also partially true of the part of the church we are particularly focusing on today in this baptism, that is the font where we will baptise Maximillian and Emma. Because this font also has an unusually distinguished past, and one that is of particular significance to me personally. Two centuries ago, in 1810, a baby called George was baptised in our font. George Augustus Selwyn was born here on Church Row. He left Hampstead to go to Eton and St John’s College, Cambridge, after which he was ordained. After 10 years of parish ministry in this country he was appointed the first ever Bishop of New Zealand, making the long journey out there by sea in 1841 during which time he learned Maori. Victorian missionaries have a bad press these days but Selwyn was very courageous and kind, defending the rights of the Maoris against the appropriation of land by the English land companies. He served far longer than most colonial bishops and established a strong legacy in the church in New Zealand that is very much still in evidence through churches and colleges today.
For the last few years of his life he returned to England where he became Bishop of Lichfield. But it was immediately after his death that Selwyn College Cambridge was founded in his memory through subscriptions by people who had admired and respected him. Selwyn College was where I studied as an undergraduate, where I served as lay chaplain and it was Selwyn College that funded my doctoral study. George Augustus Selwyn was also a key supporter of Brooke Foss Westcott in the setting up of the clergy training college in Cambridge where I, and several previous curates of this church, trained for ordination.
So I owe Bishop Selwyn a great deal. It is not just in science that we stand on the shoulders of giants. It’s true in the church as well. And it’s easy to become interested in the figures of past for their own sake. Indeed this church is associated with many interesting and accomplished historical figures. But we should not forget that those who are commemorated in this church are here because they were baptised, because they chose the way of life in Jesus Christ. And in the case of George Augustus Selwyn, I can see very clearly what this passage from Deuteronomy means when the choosing of life by an individual leads to the flourishing of life in future generations. Who could possibly have known when people gathered in this church like we are this morning, on a Sunday in 1810 for the baptism of baby George, that in two centuries time a curate baptising more babies in this font, would be among the hundreds of Anglican priests whom baby George’s legacy has supported and trained?
We are here because those who are now dead, in their turn, chose the way of life. The past is not a contained object in a museum but it is the dynamic pathway that has led us to here. And the pathway doesn’t end here either. Who knows whether we have here a Bishop Maximillian or indeed a Bishop Emma who, through this act of baptism in this historic font, through this sign of the choosing of life that their families and godparents make today, will go on to bring much flourishing of life in the Church of the future?
So our churches exhibit much that seems associated with death and with the dead. But in fact it is out of that historic legacy that the church is constantly sprouting new life, moving into the future through the constant turning up hearts to God, through the continual choosing of life that is the heartbeat of the church. And this points to a very urgent caution that Christians throughout the historic churches of Western Europe need to take very seriously in the 21st century. As we face the confusions of the modern world and its criticisms of our faith we are in constant danger of retreating into a nostalgia for the past and a love of heritage. The task of evangelism in a society that is both secular and multifaith seems frightening and at times even futile, and hiding in a past that seems much safer and more coherent is very attractive. But there is a real danger that that preoccupation with what is now dead becomes a real way of death, that will not lead to the flourishing of our life or the lives of generations to come. We might remember the words of the angel at Christ’s empty tomb on the first Easter morning, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
So when we feel the temptation to close in on ourselves, to fixate on the past and to resist the growth and renewal of the church because we prefer to be stuck in the past, we should look at the font. Because it is the font that represents to us the presence of the yet unseen worshipper, the future generations of Hampstead Christians. The font reminds us that we choose life today so that our descendants may have life. And so the font, even our familiar historic font, should in some ways unsettle and challenge us. I recently picked up a book about church growth and the introduction began by asking the question:
Do you want your church to grow? Do you really want your church to grow…? Because if you do you are probably in a minority. Because if your church grows then new people will come who will have new ideas and who will want to do things differently. If your church grows then it will have to change and all of us, in our own way, have religious instincts that favour continuity and familiarity and, indeed, our heritage.
The church is on a pilgrimage to the Kingdom of God, just as the people of Israel in the book of Deuteronomy were on a journey through the Red Sea out of slavery and into the Promised Land. We know that on that journey the Israelites faced the constant temptation to lapse back into the old ways, to reject the commandments and to worship former idols. And the Lord warned them again and again that that way leads only to death, that if they stick with God on the way of life they will receive the blessings of God.
We too, in the modern church, need to take courage and hold fast on our journey into the blessings of God. Baptism is the symbol of our passing through the waters of deliverance into the promises of God through the new covenant made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But the baptismal life is also a daily choosing life, taking up the cross of Christ in our time, working to complete the twenty-first century building of God for which the ancient foundation has been laid.
So as we pray for Maximillian and Emma this morning on their symbolic passing from death to life in the waters of our font, let us pray for ourselves and our historic church that we will resist the temptation to retreat into the past and the comfortable attractions of heritage. Let us remember that Bishop Selwyn and the many other great historic figures of our history have given us life because they in turn chose the path of life that led the church into the future. Let us make ourselves open and welcoming to the yet unseen future worshipper. And let us be a cheerful band of pilgrims as we continue that journey into the transformed church that is God’s plan for us. The future is always uncertain. But all we know is all we need to know, which is that there will be life in all its fullness because we have chosen life in Christ.