The baptized life

Address at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago graduation exercises, May 20, 2007

Ours is a thrilling, dangerous moment for ministry and the baptized life. We stand, a bit off-balance, at two "tipping points." The "great transformation" (1) of Earth-human relations set in motion with the fossil-fuel avalanche of the Industrial Revolution creates the first tipping point. It pits the big human economy against the great economy of creation. That transformation transported generation upon generation from "an organic, ever-renewing, land-based economy to an extractive, non-renewing, industrial economy," the one now reigning as "a controlling presence throughout the entire planet." (2) While much of the human world grew rich beyond imagining, the biosphere and atmosphere were fatefully altered. Stored energy in the form of fossil fuels meant that humans no longer needed to live in sync with the rhythms and requirements of the renewables--with solar and hydrological cycles, or the imperatives of fickle seasons, lazy flora, and unimproved fauna. Stored energy let us conjure up a built environment to replace our more immediate dependence upon the unbuilt environment, or so we thought. "City" replaced "country" and "organization" displaced "nature" as our environment, our habitat, our home.

The churches' ministries tagged along, as though on a leash. How many of your ministries, present or prospective, are not carbon-based? How many are automobile-free, air conditioner-free, styrofoam- and fast-food-free? How many of your churches have not moved all sacred space indoors? Your ordination vows will not include "I pledge myself to fossil-fuel ministry." but that's the pledge you will soon be asked to make.

But now we are at that "transitional moment when small changes make huge differences" and "predictable processes" give way to unpredictable, nonlinear outcomes. (3) A couple degrees warmer and liquid turns to steam, a couple degrees cooler and it turns to ice, though all the while we thought our ministries would never leave the liquid state of our baptisms.

Thomas Edison once chatted up Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, and this is what Edison said: "I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that." (4) Ford and Firestone (that is, cars and tires, smokestacks and tailpipes) were admittedly a poor choice of audience. Edison badly underestimated what oil, coal, and natural gas made possible and the sun did not. None, including Edison, could resist the fossil-fuel interlude.

The downside is way up, and we are now of necessity at another tipping point, poised for an ecological reformation, poised for "a root change in human outlook" and practice, poised for a "spiritual phase transition" (5) that effects a counter tipping point, a tip toward Earth-honoring faith rather than Earth-abusing faith.

But who are we, the baptized, in this thrilling and dangerous moment? 'Fess up: we are Joseph the dreamer, and we are rebuked by the brothers who say "Here comes [the] dreamer" again (Gen 37:19). Moreover, we find ourselves dreaming in Egypt where we, too, may well be prospering in Pharaoh's court, or trying to do so, happily seduced by the glitter and glamour of evil and fortune. Yet "way down in Egypt Land" is not our true habitat, and these good neighbors are not the pilgrim people to whom we belong. So we sure sinners dream on, dreaming of the divine domain come on Earth as it is in heaven. It's a brave and startling, and inconvenient truth.

This we know. We have been here often before with the ancestors, through other reformations and transformations. We dreamed different dreams then, but they, too, were dreams of faith.

This time we dream of Ecumenical and Ecological Earth. And we dream of the baptized life as Earth-honoring Christian faith.

"The baptized life" ... so of course we must talk of water, the waters of life of baptism and the waters of life of the planet.

Did you hear echoes in the texts read at today's service? (6) Paul and Silas land in jail because they crossed the slave-girl's owners by casting out her demon. (You shouldn't do that when the devil puts money in your pocket.) But Paul and Silas saved their jailor, too, together with his house. Paul and Silas had in fact been tortured in their own little Abu Ghraib. But here is what happened when the good news broke: "[The jailor] took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God" (Acts 16:33-34). Washed, baptized, fed, and rejoicing. Bath and table, water and the breaking of bread. "Jesus lives again, earth can breathe again, pass the word around, loaves abound!" (With One Voice #754) Or, in John's Revelation: "Blessed are they who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates" (Rev 22:14). More in a moment about the waters of the New Jerusalem and the trees of life along the river.