The Baptism of the Lord (2007): "The Christianity Behind the Counter"

The Baptism of the Lord (2007): "The Christianity Behind the Counter"
Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Preached on January 7th, 2007.

I haven’t had much culture shock since moving here from California. The big parts of my adjustment have been ok. The big move is behind us, and I'm getting used to, even enjoying the snow and the cold.

The hardest part of the change has been the little things. One of the hardest things about moving and adjusting to life in Winnipeg is about my coffee: the way I like my coffee, and where I like my coffee.

I miss my cappuccino at my old neighbourhood café.

I am beginning to make the adjustment. I'm turning the corner on this one. And I'm finding myself more and more often in the Tim Horton’s drive-through. Saying “single-single” or “double-double” to the voice behind the box at the drive-through is putting a smile on my face. It makes me feel Canadian again.

But in a bad moment I long for a sunny day, and a moment to sit at a table on the sidewalk with a book, enjoying my cappuccino the way I used to.

***

When I look back I realize that I soaked up a lot about cappuccino while I was away. I learned how to talk about cappuccino, and I learned how cappuccino is made. I guess you could say that I was fully welcomed into a particular culture, the culture of the café.

It’s a bit like going to Tim Horton's. At Tim Horton’s you don't usually say "two sugars two creams", you say "double-double." Café culture works that way. At my old neighborhood café coffee-makers didn’t make little strong coffee's. Instead, baristas pulled espresso.

And pulling espresso – making those strong little coffees – is not easy. The best baristas adjust the fineness of the grind; press, or tamp, the grounds just so; have the water at just the right temperature and pressure; and know the machine they are using well enough to have 7 ounces of espresso come through the machine in seven seconds.

On top of that, to make cappuccino, to make the right size tiny bubbles in the milk you need to have milk steamed at just the right temperature, and you need to have the right frothing technique; and then this frothed milk needs to be poured over the espresso in just the right way.

I would never have known any of this, either the language or the practice of making beautiful cappuccino, without being part of a small café culture.

***

I’d like for us to think about A’s baptism in similar terms as I've described coffee culture to you.

Baptism is not just about putting water on children. It's also like inviting them behind the counter at the café. New baristas need experience baristas to teach them the language of coffee, and how to pull espresso well. In the same way, for A to grow into the full stature of Christ, he needs some experienced Christians, a church that knows how to do a few things already: he needs a church that knows the language of our faith, and a church that knows the scriptures and the creeds like we know the bones of our own bodies. A needs a church that knows her own common language of God in Trinity. A needs a church that is practicing the faith, in the sacramental practice that happens at the font and the altar, because it is in a community of faith that A will become a reconciling presence himself.

It is a particular community, animated by the prior action of God in our lives, where our common creedal and scriptural language, along with our common community practice of reconciliation, will make a Christian out of A.

Christians don't need the church. It's more accurate to say that there are no Christians without the church: a people learning the language and the beauty of Christian doctrine, through humility; a people learning the practice of reconciliation that is known in baptism and the eucharist. Salvation doesn't happen in isolation. It happens in a place where we know God is already at work.

***

This is but a sliver of the life that we, as A's parent's, as his sponsors, and as his parish community, are about to commit ourselves to.

Let's give A the opportunity to love the church, but not so that A can love the church, but so that he can know the God that we are about to confess, so that he can love the God made known to us: the God that has already begun good work in us, and in A, the good work of God's salvation wrought in Christ and present to us in the Holy Spirit, the saving God that is known in Christ, and through us, the church.