Message for The Harbor, April 11, 2010

“Taking the Plunge”

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

            We used to have a children’s book about a girl who lived in a lonely place up high in the mountains.  The wind was a friend to her, but she wanted human company, so she asked the wind to bring her a friend.  And the wind gusted up and carried a youngster up from the village to play with her.  The boy carried on the wind seemed curiously unperturbed by taking such an invigorating journey into the mountains, blown by the wind.  He happily spent time with the little girl until the wind blew him home again.

            I remembered the kid in that story while contemplating Philip the evangelist.  Philip was one of the church members in Jerusalem who was in charge of making sure the poor in their community of faith got enough food.  When persecution of Christians began in earnest in that city, he left town, as did many of his fellow Christians.  He started telling the good news of Jesus Christ in Samaria and was responsible for the conversion of many people there to Christianity.  Then one day the Spirit blew him like the wind to a wilderness road between Jerusalem and Gaza.  An angel told him to go, so he got up and went, just like that.  As he lurked by the side of the road, wondering what was next, the Spirit directed him to run alongside the swanky chariot of an exotic Ethiopian official and engage the man within.  So off he went, like a feather carried merrily on the wind.  He sees that the Ethiopian is reading a biblical scroll, and he’s so cheerfully brash that he, jogging alongside, shouts out, “Hey, do you understand what you are reading?”

            I like this fellow Philip.  He seems perfectly willing to make a fool of himself, for Christ’s sake.  He may well have been a little taken aback by the person the Spirit was sending him to.  They Ethiopian guy was about as foreign a foreigner as he could be.  He was from a distant land, black, rich, a government official, and a eunuch to boot.  In case you don’t know (cover your ears if you don’t want to hear a preacher talk about man parts), a eunuch is a man without testicles.  Why, you may wonder, is this an important detail in this short story?  Why do we care what was or was not under this fellow’s britches?  Probably because it was part of Jewish tradition that a eunuch, whether born that way or castrated maliciously or ceremonially, could not worship in the Temple because they were not considered whole people.  Eunuchs were also often rejected by their families.  They were looked upon as freaks by lots of people, though they were often trusted in government positions such as the manager of the harem in a royal household.  This fellow’s status as a eunuch adds to his foreign-ness, his oddity, his different-ness.  

            The subtext of the whole book of Acts is that the Holy Spirit is just going nuts stirring up the people to new life in Christ.  The Spirit blithely blows by any societal boundaries put in place by the human community, reaching into every nook and cranny of humanity, inviting everyone to new life.  It’s wild and crazy, and no one, I mean no one is beyond its reach.  It’s this characteristic of the Spirit that the UCC tries to carry on with our “No matter who you are and where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here” emphasis.

            The Ethiopian eunuch seems as willing as Philip to be swept up by the creative power of the Spirit.  Did you catch his answer to Philip’s brusque query about whether he understands what he is reading: “How can I, unless someone guides me?”  And he invites this perfect stranger, this sweaty whiskery nervy whosit jogging alongside, into his chariot.  They meet over the Bible, which means they are in deep water theologically right away, and in the space between them the Spirit does its thing.  Time passes, a new horizon opens in the heart of the stranger, and when they get to some water the Ethiopian declares that he is ready already to take the plunge into baptism, which is really a plunge into the Christ-life. 

            Philip Larkin has written a poem called “Water”—listen.

If I were called in

To construct a religion

I should make use of water.

Going to church

Would entail a fording

To dry, different clothes;

My liturgy would employ

Images of sousing,

A furious devout drench,

And I should raise in the east

A glass of water

Where any-angled light

Would congregate endlessly.

            Well, whaddya know, Christ and the disciples were called in to construct a religion, and what did they use as a symbol of the new life but water?  We Christians have been baptizing with water for a couple thousand years now.  But we’ve tamed it a bit; it’s not always the sousing, the “furious devout drench” that the poet called for.  Usually at our church it’s a few polite dribbles symbolic of the plunge into new life.  It’s neater that way; we don’t have a baptismal pool, and we frown on dumping great coolers of water over the heads of the baptized like the NFL players do to the coaches after winning a big game.

            I hope we haven’t, in our timid sprinklings of water, given the wrong impression of the Christian life.  I hope we haven’t implied that entering into the Christ-life doesn’t change you much, hardly even flattening out your hairstyle.  I hope we haven’t hinted that a more appropriate symbol would be bringing out a crystal bowl of water into which a person could just daintily dip a toe.

            I go to camp at N-Sid-Sen every summer.  Usually at Lake Couer d’Alene it’s hot in July and the cold lake warms up a bit.  Every decade or so we get a cool week there when jumping into a cold lake doesn’t sound too appealing.  One week I went down to the swim dock every day and dipped my toe in the water without ever getting in.  It was just too cold, both the air and the water.  I would look around, and none of the other moms were swimming, either.  The only people in the lake would be one or two wild-eyed kids, whooping and hollering.  Crazy kids.  Nothing was going to keep them out of the lake.  But I stuck with the more rational crowd.

            I notice that by and large, the teen population on Bainbridge is a rational crowd.  That is, they tend to be highly suspicious of invisible, non-quantifiable forces in the world, like God, for instance.  It seems to be much more socially acceptable to be silent or standoffish about religion, church, faith, matters of the spirit.  It might be acceptable to dip your toe in the water of religion by studying it in school, if you really have to, but you don’t see a lot of kids who are publically taking the plunge into religious faith.  Why not?  I suspect it’s because the atmosphere is chilly; science and cool logic have prevailed in most social discourse.  The few that are enthusiastically and publicly paddling about in their faith traditions are looked upon with suspicion if not contempt (crazy kids).  So there is a little bit of toe-dipping but not a lot of taking the plunge going on.  At least, not out in the open.

            The cool weather at camp that particular year put a damper on a lot of the swimming.  But it didn’t stop the annual late-night skinny-dip of women of a certain age.  The lake was just as cold and the air was even colder, but a good-sized group of ladies leapt in anyway, under the kind cover of darkness.  For the boldness and the joy and fun of doing it together.  There’s always a lot of encouragement among the women to get each other to join that party. 

            The encouragement of others is so valuable when one is taking the plunge into the Christ life.  Almost indispensable.  You could see encouragement at work as Philip and the Ethiopian met up.  The Ethiopian was wise enough to know he needed a guide, and Philip was bold enough to offer to guide him in understanding what he needed to know about the Christ-life.  Both of them were amazingly sensitive and open to the movement of the Holy Spirit who brought them together.  When the opportunity for baptism opened up on the road, they went into the water together, baptizer and baptizee.  They celebrated  new discipleship  by taking the plunge together.

            Baptism and confirmation of baptism are no solo acts in the Christian church.  The spotlight may be on an individual, but it’s an action of the community who guides and encourages the one on the verge of taking the plunge.  The person coming into the community immediately becomes a guide to others and one who encourages others to consider the plunge into the Christ-life—that is, if she or he has really taken the plunge and not just dipped a toe into the water.

            I won’t say that taking the plunge into the Christ-life is entirely a pleasant thing.  Like a shock of cold water, there are aspects of Christian faith that shock and stretch you and make you gasp.  You have to wrestle with sacrifice.  You are obliged to try to forgive those who hurt and offend you.  Apathy about those who suffer is no longer an option.  You have to live with a restless Spirit who is always urging you to growth in love and justice, always entreating you to greater compassion and generosity.  Theologian Soren Kierkegaard says we should never talk of Christianity as if it were a bouquet of flowers when really what you’re handing over is more like a sharp, two-edged sword. 

            Even though there are aspects of the faith that are supremely challenging, the life of faith is at the same time extremely invigorating.  There is truth and beauty here, joy, laughter, companionship, meaning, purpose, mystery, transcendence, durable community, and love so deep and broad as to be unfathomable.  I had the delight of snorkeling once in one of the world’s few national parks that is entirely underwater, in Western Samoa.  Above the water it was pretty, but dull—a great expanse of blue-green waves.  Under the water was such color and activity, such wonder and amazement in the great variety of coral and fish and plant life; it’s almost indescribable. (It looked like the reef in “Finding Nemo” only it was real.)  I almost didn’t go because I was afraid of deep water—what I would have missed out on!  The life of faith is like that; there’s no way to see the incredible splendor of it until you’re all the way in, immersed.  The life of the toe-dipping agnostic may be pleasant, but is dull, dull, dull in comparison.

            Confirmands, I am so delighted and excited that you are thoughtfully taking the plunge into Christian faith.  I know because you’ve told me that spiritual conversations aren’t much of a feature in the life of a typical Bainbridge Island teen.  I understand the pressure you’re under not to look like some kind of freakish fanatic by going public with your faith.  Maybe your participation in this church and youth program is like your skinny dipping under cover of darkness, with the encouragement of friends.  That’s fine for now. This is a place, I hope, where you can let it all hang out, be yourself, be joyful, paddle around and get to know the territory.   I hope there will come a day when you can let any fuddy-duddy standing on shore see that you have taken the plunge into the Christ-life, and you’re in deep, and you’re so blown away by the Spirit who led you here that you’re inviting any-ol-body to come on in with you.

                Another poem for you, by Rainer Maria Rilke: