Baptist Values – Community
1 Corinthians 11: 17-26

I said last week Baptists are not famous for our architecture. We’re also not famous, in some ways, for being radicals. I came across a survey this week by a Southern Baptist church leader who had asked, “What comes to mind when you hear the word “Baptist”? The top responses were, “legalism, potlucks, immersion, traditional, Bible, outdated, boring, conservative, theologically sound, fundamentalism, hymns, suits and ties, inerrancy, men only…” You get the gist.

But Baptists have been – and should be – famous for our radicalism. Our movement began as part of the wider Protestant Reformation, and the Anabaptists and Baptists were considered the lunatic fringe of the reformation movement. They were, in a term coined by Paul Beasley-Murray, ‘radical believers’. Radical comes from the Latin word, radix, which means root. A radical then is one who gets back to the roots, to the fundamentals.

Baptists did that and began to do -and still do – three radical things

Firstly, we began to practice believers’ baptism – usually by full immersion. It is something people still struggle to get their heads around. I gave a talk pre-Covid on Baptist distinctives – our three central symbols, baptistry, communion table, pulpit – to a visiting Catholic school – how these symbols speak about what is significant in our expression of faith – a talk that obviously included believer’s baptism –and immediately afterwards one of the teachers took a look in the baptistry and said, “Oh my goodness, you must lose babies in that!”

Despite our name, however, believer’s baptism and full immersion is not – as I said last week – the key distinctive of our movement. It was, rather, a serious, radical, approach to the Bible that led early Baptists to decide Christian faith was not dependant on being baptised, but on a personal faith decision. It was this belief that led to our distinctive form of baptism.

As minnows amongst the great state churches of Europe, Baptists developed a radical model; churches composed only of those who had been converted, with that conversion marked by water baptism. They felt that believer’s baptism by immersion was so full of meaning (identifying with Christ’s death and resurrection, being cleansed from sin, confessing our faith, being born into the family of God) that it should be a conscious experience in every Christian’s life. So, they baptised themselves again! The church authorities labelled them ‘Ana-Baptists’ – re-baptisers – and persecuted them for their radical beliefs. They paid a terrible price for this commitment to a new way of being church. Many were tied up and thrown into lakes to drown.

But they won something back for us. They won back the privilege of being baptised as believers, of experiencing that moment when the saving power of God is publicly declared in your life…. It was a wonderful moment for me 38 years ago, and it is a wonderful moment in this church – each time someone is baptised. It is a joyous and radical celebration

Not only do we, as Baptists, have a radical view of baptism; we also have a radical meal that we share. Radical, in the sense that we try to do it exactly as the Bible says to do it and seek to understand it in terms of what the Bible says.

By the 16th century a great deal of ceremony and superstition surrounded the Eucharist. The church taught, that in the eucharistic offering, the bread and wine were changed into the body and blood of Christ, and every Christian had to consume the bread (lay people were not holy enough to drink from the cup) to maintain their salvation. Anabaptists and other reformers, however, discovered in their reading of Scripture, a different significance to the Lord’s table. It was not vital for salvation, but it had other powerful and life-giving roles to play in the life of a radical Christian.

Firstly, this table is a memorial meal where we remember Jesus and what he has done. As Paul says, “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus…took bread…broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup…saying, “Do this… in remembrance of me.”” When you read what Jesus did and said at this meal, as the reformers did, you see he is not bringing salvation, but giving the disciples a way to remember he brings salvation.

But the Lord’s Table is not just a memorial, it is also something we participate in, where we meet our risen saviour. Of course, Christ is already present with us. He is not present in the bread or wine as such. It is not him who draws near to us at this table – but here we draw near to him. As we reach for the bread and the cup, we reach for our saviour, who is always waiting, with arms outstretched, to meet us.

Thirdly, for Baptists this table is an expression of community. 1 Corinthians 10:17: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” Jesus broke the one loaf, and shared the one cup among his disciples, showing them in picture form that in him they shared a new life of unity. They were one body.

The early Baptists recognised the Lord’s table as an expression of their communal life and as a place to renew – reset – communal life. Hence Paul’s emphasis on right relationships before participating in the Lord’s table. 1 Corinthians 11:28- 29: “Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.” If there is something between you and someone else, you are not really ready to enjoy the communal aspect of this meal. You are not accepting the unity of the body and you are doing yourself harm in the process.

Finally, this table is an opportunity for rededication. An Old Testament passage beautifully expresses this. Psalm 116:12-14: “What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord, I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people.” Although Baptists don’t traditionally use the word ‘sacrament’ of the Lord’s supper, it is useful to recognise that the word ‘sacramentum’ described a legal oath of loyalty to the emperor. In this sense the Lord’s table can be sacramental as we remember our saviour and renew the baptismal vows we have made to the Lord who loves us and died for us.

The third and final radical part of Baptist life is that we have a radical structure

As the early Baptists cut themselves off from the state church, they began to ask, “So how then should we structure our new churches?” Again, they turned to the Bible. What they read meant they rejected firstly how the state church made decisions, and secondly how it did ministry. The church of the day was a complex hierarchy, a pyramid of authority reaching upwards from local priests to bishops to Archbishops to Canons and Cardinals and finally to the Pope, and the ministry in this structure was done by the priest. He was the holy and ordained one, he mediated between God and the people, did the work of the church, and the people had to sit and listen. However, when the early Baptists read their Bibles, they discovered four concepts which led to a radically new church structure.

Firstly, they discovered the Lordship of Christ. They read in Colossians 1:18: “[Christ] is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.” And as they read this passage and others, they realised that Jesus didn’t start the Church and walk away. He didn’t say to the disciples, “Ok guys, it is all your show now…” No, Christ is the head of the Church – is! – so all church structure and decision-making processes must be built around that reality.

Secondly, the early Baptists discovered a concept called the ‘priesthood of all believers.’ As it says in 1 Peter 2:9, ” But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” The message of the gospel is the equality of all believers in the sight of God. All of us are equally sinners, and all of us are equally saved. We are all redeemed. We all have equal access to God. No one need mediate with God for us. Each of us has God’s Word and the Holy Spirit. We are all gifted to do God’s work. We are all priests.

The third concept they discovered is built on the previous two. It was the church meeting. As the early Baptists looked at the New Testament church, they saw that the church would gather on occasions (you can read Acts 15) to discuss issues and make decisions; that these meetings had the authority to manage the affairs of the church. And so, for Baptists, the decision-making body became the church meeting, a meeting of the priesthood of believers seeking together the mind of Christ.

Some people are attracted to Baptist churches because they look democratic. But church meetings should not be decision making by popular vote. Church is not a democracy. It is a theocracy, government by God for God, through the instrument of the church meeting. When a vote is taken and some vote ‘yes’ and some vote ‘no’, that is an indication of failure. It indicates that either the minority or the majority have not done the work, the community has not done the work, of understanding the will of God together.

The fourth concept the early Baptists re-discovered in the New Testament was the appointment of leaders by the local church. Again, in Acts 15 we see church appointed leaders stepping aside to consider difficult questions and bringing their recommendations back to the church. Baptist church government is neither the church meeting making all the decisions, or the leaders making all the decisions. There is a built-in tension, where both leaders and members try to understand what to do in any given situation.

Becoming a member of a Baptist church can seem like a hurdle for many post-modern Christians. It seems unnecessary. But it is based on this radical understanding of Christ as the head of the church, of the role of every believer in the life of the church, and of the authority of the church, following God ,to call leaders and to make decisions.

In the early days of the Baptist movement, those who became members of these churches were thought to be dangerous, radical extremists. People asked them, “Why can’t you just go along with the flow? Why are making such a big deal about these issues?” And the answer was they had rediscovered their Bibles, and nothing could be the same again!

And it hasn’t been the same again. In so many issues over so many years Baptists have returned to the Bible and have continued to be shaped by our commitment to believer’s baptism, to churches of believers, to communion as a place of meeting – truly meeting- God and each other, and to our radical practice of church meetings! (You never thought you would hear that!)

This commitment to radicalism continues. Here are just a few examples from our church!

In 1992 Bill Hughes, a deacon at this church, expressed his disappointment that we did not have more women leaders, proper representation of our congregation. He proposed that over three years the diaconate work towards the equal representation of men and women. The church agreed, and since 1995 gender equity on the diaconate has generally been maintained.

In 1997 this church again expressed a commitment to the gifting of all believers when it called Jeanette Mathews as minister, alongside Thorwald Lorenzen. And our church has maintained this commitment in a denomination that has been much less supportive. There are obviously many roles for women, but the scarcity of accredited women ministers in our denomination is telling. Katie Watson, a former Association employee, did some digging for me and reported that the Association database lists 42 female accredited pastors. Of these 2 are deceased, 10 are previously accredited or retired, 4 are actually men, 3 are in chaplaincy, 3 are in non-church roles. Of the remaining 20, a further 11 or 12 are currently not in church roles, so I am in very select group – 8 or 9 accredited women in an association of over 340 churches. Either the majority or the minority are not listening to God’s Spirit.

Also, in 1997 this church after listening to the Spirit, after hearing God’s word, after being led by members of the congregation and the leadership agreed to make a formal apology to the Aboriginal community for the injustices they had experienced. This church held a Sorry Day eleven years before the National Apology to Indigenous People. You can read those words just inside the door of our hall.

Finally in 2021 we stood alongside Hamilton Baptist, a church that had agreed, after a very Baptist church meeting process, that they would fully welcome and affirm LGBTIQ people (LGBTIQ believers!) in the life of their church. This is an ongoing issue for our denomination.

We stand in this amazing, wonderful, sometimes scary, radical Baptist tradition of reading the Bible and trying to put it into practice in the best way we can; of believing that Jesus calls each one of us to follow him, that our church is a company of those who Are following Jesus, that we meet our Lord, reaffirm our unity, at this communion table, and that, as each of us is called by God, gathering together we can seek the mind of Christ, we can choose and dedicate leaders and make decisions. It is radical. It made the early Baptists radical believers, and it makes us radical believers today as well. Let’s celebrate it and embrace it.

(Thanks to Rev Ian Hussey – Queensland Baptists – for his text from the Baptist Values series that formed the basis of this sermon.)

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