John the Baptist

It gives you pause – When taking a service of baptism – that John the baptist, the OG baptiser – In the end gets beheaded for it. But those were hard times. And for Max, he should note that Jesus, whose ministry begins with his baptism by John – meets an even worse end. But, Max, what a ministry.

Baptism is a symbol of resistance. A sign of fierce loyalty to a power that isn’t the state; Even to St Keir, who curates around London worship and adore. And because of that, ever since, baptism attracts danger. Our very own St Margaret of Antioch – is counted among the many baptised martyrs of the fourth century emperor Diocletian. It surprises people, but Christians worldwide remain the most persecuted faith.

I like those little correctives to our understanding of history. Assumptions that people in the past were less happy, more stupid, and more conventional. There was a nice article this week by Cambridge University; apologies Sarah Cooper, once again, they got there first; an article correcting historical myths. The most surprising was that, while we often assume girls got married off as teenagers in the past, apart from a few decades in the early 1800s, (you’d need to ask Andrew Gairdner what was going on then) the only time since 1550 that the average age of first marriage for women fell below 24 was during the baby boom of the 1950s.

Going back a little further, you might be surprised to learn that the Romans weren’t very religious as a culture. They stole most of their gods from the greeks. And any culture that turns its emperors into gods is likely to attract a certain degree of scepticism. It’s bad enough when you elevate them into the house of Lords. That’s if they avoid getting stabbed in the back by backbenchers. (for which there’s an honourable precedent.)

But to the Romans conformity was everything. It didn’t really matter what you believed, but you had to obey. The Christians were unusual because they took religion seriously. It must have been perplexing for Romans to see the lengths Christians would go to for their faith. But eventually it led to the Holy Roman empire. Western Civilization is built on 300 years of the martyred baptized, beginning with John the Baptist and Jesus.

Today, things are a little different. The Church of England is the established religion. Baptisms are a way of celebrating a birth; Like a sequel to a big wedding; Hopefully without replacing the leading man. It may be seen as part of our cultural inheritance – following grandparents and great-grandparents; Baptism is also a step towards a church school, which is cheaper than a pre-prep school; And it may be seen as a sort of eternal life insurance. If you want to get past the pearly gates and avoid the overheated basement, joining the old club is a smart move.

As an outsider, having grown up in sunny Wales, it’s striking the continuity between Public Schools, Oxbridge combination rooms, Officers’ Messes, London Clubs, Livery Halls – I can well imagine the devil has designed the other place to look like a Gentleman’s Club. When a new member joins, someone will say – Oh Adam – how did he end up here? Same as the others. Entitlement.

But for all the established, cultural, niceness of the Church of England, the tea and biscuits; the baptismal liturgy is pretty direct. I always warn families to make sure the godparents have seen the liturgy. It’s not every day you get asked if you ‘reject the devil and rebellion against God’; or ‘the deceit and corruption of evil’. Some of you I’m sure might want to hedge your bets. And it’s just not very British to publicly assert such things. Only for nearly two thousand years it absolutely has been.

So for many now, inverting the martyrdom of the saints, the words trip out with crossed fingers and toes, echoing the pax romana; the pragmatic keeping the peace. But, for some, it is the opening of the soul to God.

It’s not for me, or the Church of England, to make windows into men’s souls (as Elizabeth I said), but godparents should beware they may be letting in a little chink of divinity into their lives; As the old vestry prayer puts it – what we speak with our lips, may we believe in our hearts and show forth in our lives.

Which takes us neatly to John the Baptist himself. He’s a figure who stands for honesty and judgement; Neither currently in Vogue. John removes himself to the desert and lives simply. It’s a bit like having a second home in Norfolk or Cornwall, but with worse food. Hearing of this holy figure the people leave the city to come out, repent and be baptized.

We tend to think of repentance as a reckoning with guilt. Raskolnikov confessing his great crime, or children stealing pears from a neighbour’s garden, We think of our conscience; What keeps us awake at night; What we’d be ashamed for our neighbour to know. And it may be that every time we come to the prayers of penitence, you think of the same thing. This can solidify in our mind into a heaviness we carry with us everywhere. Sin quite easily congeals into guilt or shame.

But repentance need not be so emotional. Repentance is about honesty. Guilt and shame makes us dishonest – with ourselves and others. They make us cover up to others; and lead to obsessing or sublimating. For this reason, I can say with some confidence that guilt and shame have little to do with God. You can tell this, because those feelings are rarely changed by hearing the words of absolution – The voices of guilt and shame will tell us that we are not yet absolved or free, which post te absolvo is not true.

And John the Baptist came for honesty. He’d want to baptise you of your fake news echo chamber, your Instagram filtered profile picture, your friends’ alarmingly cheerful holiday snaps. Your weak excuses. Your self-doubt. A friend once told me you can’t be fully employed, a good father and a good husband. At the point of confession I will normally be thinking about my failings in at least one of these areas, But sometimes we can do no more. Sometimes we might understand instead that we should be kinder to ourselves. The point is not to find something to wring our hands about, but to face the current reality of our life honestly. If we can adopt that, we might be thinking less about guilt or shame and more about acceptance and grace – What Paul speaks about in ‘the riches of his grace that he has lavished upon us.’

Baptism is an allegiance to a different standard. Not of conforming but of standing out: It serves a moral imperative. To honesty, to justice; A reminder that, though we belong to a state and society, we firstly belong to God. God consistently judges people throughout Scripture on their integrity and how they treat the most pressed in their society. Our baptism is a reminder of this. Do you renounce the deceit and corruption of evil? Do you come to Christ, the way, the truth and the life?

To be baptised means not conforming to the standards of the world; Which may, like John the Baptist mean a sticky end, but a glorious afterlife. So like the players at Wimbledon, and of course later tonight: It is to ‘meet with triumph and disaster/ and treat those two impostors just the same’ to not be conformed to the standards of the last 58 years; but ‘keep your head when all about you/Are losing theirs and blaming it on you’; John the Baptist may have met with disaster, he may like Gareth Southgate 28 years ago, have lost his head, but now John the Baptist is venerated throughout the world, while Salome is routinely confused with a cheap cured sausage.

So today, remembering the disaster and triumph of John the Baptist, we are reminded of our shared baptism. Of the call to be honest with ourselves and with God and find the riches of grace in that. To renounce the deceit and corruption of evil, And to turn to Christ. Amen.