I have a perpetual problem with today, the Second Sunday of Easter, popularly named Low Sunday. The Gospel is always John 20, speaking of Doubting Thomas. I have been asked to preach on this text many times in the past 20 years. It was getting difficult to say new things about it, and one hesitates to say old things about it. However, a discussion in one of the online groups to which I belong gave me a pointer to the Unbaptismal Certificate, and the rest just flowed.
April 19, 2009 Low Sunday
Sermon delivered at St. John the Evangelist, 10 am.
Readings: Acts 4:32-35; I John 5:1-6; John 20:19-31
In the name of God, the one, the Undivided Trinity. AMEN.
One of the items we believe as Christians is that baptism leaves an indelible mark on the soul. We used to hear in Sunday School that, on death, that indelible mark was the way that St. Peter could tell whether we were Christians or not when we filed up to the Pearly Gates. What that indelible mark consisted of was left to our imaginations: was it a little red cross on our foreheads, or just a little box labelled “Baptised” with a tick in it.
After we are baptised, a record is made in the Baptismal Register giving our name, our parents’ names and occupations, our Godparents’ names, and the dates of birth and baptism. A Church of England baptismal record is a government record, filed with the Registrar and persisting forever. Geneologists yet unborn will consult the registers to discover their ancestors’ birth and baptism details.
And yet, there is now a bit of disquiet in the Vestry. A man in this diocese has successfully challenged his baptismal record. Little did that Vicar know, decades ago, that this baby he was baptising would later ask for that baptismal record to be expunged from the register.
This gentleman no longer believes; he’s lost his faith. But, not satisfied with that, he asked that the Church “unbaptise” him. The Bishop of Southwark refused to allow this, on the reasonable grounds that, regardless of his current state of unbelief, the baptismal record was a legal document, the evidence that he was at one time as an infant baptised a Christian.
As one would expect nowadays, the gentleman sued the Diocese and the Bishop. The objective was to compel them to remove his baptismal record from the registers.
So what finally happened? The Bishop told him that the best way to ensure that everyone know that he did not consider himself baptised was to place an advertisement to that effect in the London Gazette, a periodical of which I was unaware, but which seems to be the newspaper of record for government and other announcements.
He also downloaded for himself a Certificate of Unbaptism, which proclaimed that he no longer regarded himself as baptised and required the Church not to count him in statistics it used for purposes such as lobbying for legislation. It’s suitable for framing, by the way.
As we are Christians, I will go with the assumption that no one here requires such a certificate. But I think that the fact that such a certificate seems to meet a need bears examination.
What is it about the act of being baptised that makes people later on so irritated? I’ll tell you what it is: it’s the power of faith.
It’s not their faith. It’s a fact of life that sometimes people who had faith lose it for some reason, like misplacing their Oystercards or their housekeys. Suddenly, something that they have taken for granted is no longer available. Some, such as Mother Teresa, continue searching for it and continue to act as though they still have it. This is an occupational disease of a very few clergy and religious: an aridity of faith clutches at their hearts and minds mid-career and leaves them preaching about things in which they no longer believe. Some leave the ministry entirely, thus preserving integrity in their lives. Others battle through and regain some of that faith into which they were baptised many years earlier. This is normally a silent and secret struggle the outcome of which is by no means assured.
Thomas is only mentioned in John’s Gospel; other than in that document we know nothing of him in the canonical scriptures. There is a Gospel of Thomas that is a collection of sayings of Jesus: it doesn’t actually tell a narrative like the four canonical gospels.
I assume (for the purposes of this sermon) that Thomas was baptised at some point in his life. John the Baptist did get around and other Jewish leaders also performed a baptism-like rite to symbolically wash away sin.
So Thomas found himself in a situation where his faith wasn’t particularly strong. In fact, from his sentiments, we might even think that he was searching for a rite of unbaptism to indicate that Jesus did not rise from the dead and that he didn’t believe it anyway.
You see, there was no proof. For Thomas, faith required proof. He absented himself from the upper room the week before and missed out on the proof.
Today, without proof, Thomas would have been first in line for the Unbaptismal Certificate. His spiritual-um, perhaps non-spiritual descendants queue up for these certificates today. Looking online, the demand is brisk and people just cannot understand why the Church of England will not certify to them that they are no longer Christians. Our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters can get such a certification, and the hierarchy are happy to accommodate those who wish one. And, bureaucracy being what it is, the Roman Catholics put a note to the effect that a person has abandoned the faith next to their baptismal and confirmation records. Very efficient.
Thomas, however, didn’t have recourse to this procedure. He signified his faith by the simple words “My Lord and my God!” He no longer needed an unbaptismal certificate, and no longer stood against Jesus and belief in the Resurrection.
Those of us who do not require such a certificate remember that faith is a gift, something that we can accept or give back, and something that we must constantly tend to avoid losing it altogether.
Let’s together think today of those whose unbelief requires official certification. Even though they don’t now believe in God or the sacraments which they and we have received, the power of faith that resides in those who, together, make up the Church tells them, dimly, that God and faith are too important and big to ignore. They feel that they need a piece of paper to certify that God and faith no longer have any hold on them. We, like Thomas, reaffirm our faith every week and, in the light of that faith let’s pray that despite any Unbaptismal Certificate they might hold they will eventually receive the grace of faith and tear them up with the words, “My Lord and my God!”
AMEN.