Pentecost

Belong

Acts 2:1-21

Today is Pentecost. One of the great feast days of the church calendar and the culmination of the Great Fifty Days of Easter. But Pentecost was, and still is, a Jewish Holy Day, called Pentecost by Greek speaking Jews, but known as Shavuot in Hebrew. Shavuot falls fifty days after Passover and commemorates the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. As I understand it, today it celebrates God’s giving of the Torah to his people. Words of covenant and guidance.

The story we heard from Acts this morning defines Pentecost for Christians. The early disciples were gathered, with other first century Jews, in Jerusalem to celebrate Pentecost. While gathered there, they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. For us, Pentecost is about God’s gift of the Holy Spirit. It is the power of the Spirit that makes God’s living presence real in our lives. And it is the Spirit that guides and sustains us in the way of God’s truth. Through the Spirit we know God’s presence with us and God’s purpose for us.

So it is appropriate that we baptize on Pentecost. This morning we will welcome Nneka and Dakota into the fellowship of the Body of Christ. Through baptism, they will become Christians. As I told their parents and godparents yesterday, this is the most important event in their lives. I can say that with certainty, even this early in their young lives. It would do us all good to be reminded… For all of us, baptism is far and away the most important event in our whole lives.

Thinking about baptism raises the question: How do we really become Christians? Beyond just a label or a name, what is the process by which we truly become Christians.

There is considerable discussion these days among people who think about the church on the three B’s. (Not, I have to say, Biggio, Bagwell, and Bell.) The three B’s of becoming Christian are Believe, Behave and Belong. Ways of becoming Christian: Believe, Behave and Belong. The discussion centers on the appropriate sequence for actions. The evangelical wing of Christianity is very clear that Believe comes first. The first and essential step in becoming Christian is to Believe. Personal belief in Jesus Christ as savior is the beginning of Christian becoming. After acquiring belief, a seeker should try to learn and practice appropriate Christian behavior. And only when that is more or less successful, does real belonging take place. Believe first. Then Behave. Then, finally, belonging is earned.

It’s not just evangelicals who teach this sequence. I expect that consciously or subconsciously, most of us accept this sequence also. We consider the status of our belief to be crucial to any claim of Christian identity. Then, we imagine that we earn belonging based upon how Christian we are able to behave.

Our baptismal service even follows this sequence. Within the context of the service, first we say the creed, a statement of belief. Then we rehearse the baptismal covenant, an outline of Christian behavior. Then, finally we baptize and welcome the newly baptized.

Folks who identify themselves with what is called the “emergent church” movement would like to redo the sequence of the three B’s of Christian belonging. Specifically, they want to place Belong first, not last. Belonging is the beginning. For the emergent church people, their emphasis is on our existing Christian communities or parishes and how those parishes help others become Christian. They stress that our parishes need to be primarily places of welcome and belonging before people new to faith can even begin the Christian journey. That’s certainly a worthwhile point.

But I want to put belong first for a different reason. Not as a reminder to us of who we should be as a Christian community, not as a reminder of what our behavior should be. Belonging is the beginning of the Christian journey because of who God is and what God does. Period.

Belonging is the beginning because God acts in baptism. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are marked as Christ’s own forever. It isn’t conditional on anything, certainly not our belief or our behavior. God gives the gift. Remember that the Pentecost story does NOT say that tongues of flame, as of fire, descended upon some of the disciples, those whose personal faith was sufficient to gain them that privilege.

We need to remember and claim and celebrate the power of God that acts in baptism. We belong. By God’s power, by God’s gift, we belong. No one or no thing can take that belonging away. We, of course, can be indifferent to the joys and responsibilities of active membership in the Body of Christ. But nothing can diminish or revoke our belonging. Thank God!

The early church understood this. Historian Andrew McGowan writing on the early church, “While faith was of course fundamental to being a Christian, it wasn’t faith itself that achieved that for you, because the church wasn’t quite a voluntary organization in the modern sense where membership and desire to belong are more or less the same. Rather, baptism was understood to be a transforming action in which God, rather than the convert, was the key player, and in which one actually became a Christian through the action of the Holy Spirit.” (Quoted by Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook and Fredrica Harris Thompsett, "The Ministry of the Baptized," Alban Weekly.)

It isn’t your faith that enables you to become a Christian, it is the transforming action of God in baptism. That’s good news.

Belonging comes first. By God’s grace, by God’s action. Then there is ongoing discussion about how the other two B’s, behaving and believing, are related. I can speak from my own experience to say that behaving leads to believing. Do not wait upon belief before you try to behave as a Christian. Behave as a Christian and you will find your belief grows. Live according to the baptismal covenant and you will grow closer to God.

I’m not going to, of course, but I’d like to turn the baptismal service upside down. I’d like to start right off with the flourish and splash of baptism. God’s unconditional gift of belonging first. Then the covenant of behavior outlined in our baptismal covenant. And, finally, as our Christian identity matures over a lifetime, the creed, an articulation of belief.

Belong. Behave. Believe.