Narrative Lectionary Year Four (John) Baptism Unit
August 8, 2021 – Psalm 46/Acts 2:37-42
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Furthering the Power of God’s Story – Narrative Lectionary Commentary
by Daniel D. Maurer
When you stop and think about it, there hasn’t been that many generations from today to the time of Jesus. Depending whether you assign, say, 25 or 30 years to a generation, only 80 to 100 generations, at most, have passed since the year 30 to 2021 C.E. If you could assemble every grandmother related to you from then until now (alive at age 30, let’s say—no corpses) a small- to medium-sized church sanctuary could easily accommodate them.
Since this has already entered into sci-fi territory, let’s assume that everyone speaks the same language. Imagine yourself chatting with your relatives, having a wonderful time.
Now imagine speaking to your grandmothers, ten- to fifteen generations distant from you. You’ll find that each of them still understand the world from a scientific perspective. Sure, your great-grandmother may seem more pious to you and she may respect the authority of the church, the imams, or another religious or secular authority to a greater extent (depending on what part of the world she hails from)—but generally speaking, she knows the earth is one planet among many and that the sun is but one star in the company of a multitude.
Push even further back into the middle ages, and you will perceive a shift not only in a basic understanding of the universe, but also the connection they have with each other.
A person’s family, and greater community, meant everything to them. I realize it’s not as if those things don’t matter to us—they do—it’s that our connection with each other today seems more peripheral to our being than two people living in Stuttgart in 1197 or Leptis Magna in 223. In fact, those two women would find each other much less foreign than say one growing up in Norman France vs. a businesswoman growing up in post WWII Paris.
The reasons behind this recent process is beyond the scope of this article; but, the short version is that a process of hyper-individualization developed in the past two centuries.
As an exegete of scripture and a teacher and preacher beside, it’s important to remind yourself of this fact.
People living in Graeco-Roman cultures from two thousand years ago identified first with their families, then with their families’ god(s).
It’s such a simple statement. It’s almost too easy to miss. But ask yourself: of people of faith today, how do you see they order their identity. Does family supercede God? I’d wager no in most, if not all, cases do think of their family as more defining to their person than their God.
Well, you might argue, that can’t be completely true as we read in Acts, the Gospels, and no less than three Pauline letters where people left their families in order to follow Christ.
True. But what happened next? They were baptised into a new family.
Please not that I’m not trying to imply that God wasn’t as important for them than their families. I’m simply saying that God wasn’t their first identifying mark to their identity.
This fact is particularly salient when you look at the liturgy of Baptism. It implies that a person leaves their one family to belong to another. If said new family happens to count members from the old family, all the better.
Now, an assignment for you.
Read the from Acts (and the Psalm too if you’d like) with this perspective in mind. How does it change your understanding of baptism knowing that wife, children, slaves, and other blood relatives living under the roof of Pater Familias all participated in the rite regardless of their personal feelings?
In some cases, women served as head of household, as was with Lydia and a few others. Within those household, no doubt slaves numbered among those who were baptized.
I’m not suggesting that a 1st-century understanding of baptism is somehow idealized from ours, twenty centuries later. I will suggest that the ancients have something to teach us about baptism, that it is perhaps more communal an event than we realize.
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“We do need to be born again, since Jesus said that to a guy named Nicodemus. But if you tell me I have to be born again to enter the Kingdom of God, I can tell you that you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor, because Jesus said that to one guy, too. But I guess that’s why God invented highlighters, so we can highlight the parts we like and ignore the rest”
“I breathe in. The water will wash my wounds clean. I breathe out. My mother submerged me in water when I was a baby, to give me to God. It has been a long time since I thought about God, but I think about him now. It is only natural. I am glad, suddenly, that I shot Eric in the foot instead of the head.”
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Free Dramatic Reading For This Text (NRSV)
PSALMS TEXT
Readers: Reader 1, Reader 2
Reader 1: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Reader 2: Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
Reader 1: though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
Reader 2: There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.
Reader 1: God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.
Reader 2: The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.
Reader 1: The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Reader 2: Come, behold the works of the Lord; see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
Reader 1: He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.
Reader 2: “Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.”
Reader 1: The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
ACTS TEXT
Readers: Narrator, Listeners, Peter
Narrator: Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles,
Listeners: “Brothers, what should we do?”
Narrator: Peter said to them,
Peter: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.”
Narrator: And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying,
Peter: “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”
Narrator: So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.