Tumbled Wet

by Sue Gamelin

It’s Sunday morning at Emmanuel Lutheran Church, and Sean is crawling up the aisle again. He’s too old to crawl. Six–year–olds aren’t supposed to, as least six–year–olds whose legs are perfectly fine. But there he goes, past Bob and Bill, two 80-year-olds with a decades–long friendship that includes memories of their wives, whose ashes rest in the columbarium outside. By now Sean has passed Lona and Mary, Jane and Mike, Fuzzy and Lois, new and long-time members of Emmanuel, who watch him on his journey and pray for him as he passes. He doesn’t look up, though.

Sean creeps past Veronica, who pulls her crutches out of his way. She worries about them being a stumbling block to others, even though she recognizes them as lifegiving assistance for her polio-ravaged legs. Her little children, Emmanuel and Emma, know how to avoid them as they play and how to honor their beautiful, dignified mama in her Sudanese dress as she makes her way through the world.

Joni is Sean’s goal as he crawls. Sean loves and trusts Joni. She’s on his short list of trusted people. He’ll crawl up and down the aisle between her and his guardian mother, Tracy, as the worshipers belt out joyfully that this, indeed, is the feast of victory for our God. Later, he’ll crawl over to the children’s worship bags and back, past the row of Sudanese fifth-graders who love the front pew, while the rest of the congregation listens to words of new life read and preached. He’ll walk with Tracy or Joni to the communion rail and hold his hands out shyly but eagerly for bread, for wine, for Jesus. And after worship, Sean will crawl over behind Pastor Tim, and wait for him to bend down and rub his head for a little while.

Borning cry
It was tough when Sean was baptized at Emmanuel. His birth family gave permission. Tracy and Dan, who serve as guardians for the six-year-old, were ecstatic. But everyone knew that the baptism would be difficult. Sean’s life story as an abused infant and toddler had included something horrific done to him with water. Pastor Tim was to be the baptizer, on behalf of the God who loves Sean so. Pastor Tim and Sean had spent time at the font the week before his baptism, circling around it on their hands and knees, playing with the water, and talking about Jesus and the water. A promise was made that only a little bit of water would be used. But on the day of his baptism when Sean walked — not crawled — up to the font, it was scary for him. He made it through, though there was a brief moment of fear that was overcome with hugs and the promised little bit of water. Having Ronnie there helped. Ronnie is a gentle, smiling grandpa who sits near Joni at church. Sean had surprised him by asking if he would be his grandpa while he was baptized. When Sean’s hair was wiped dry of its little bit of water, the congregation breathed a collective sigh of relief and sang smilingly about God’s love of Sean’s borning cry.

Yes, we said as Sean listened from his place by the font. Yes, Sean will live among us, a community of God’s faithful people. Yes, God’s word will accompany his journeys up and down aisles, around the narthex, between people’s legs, and off to Sunday school. Yes, Sean will be welcomed at the holy supper. Yes, we will teach him the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments. Yes, we will give him a Bible and we will encourage his growth in faith and prayer as we tell him stories about our faith and as we pray with and for him. We do want Sean to know that God is at the head of the list of those he can love and trust. We do want Sean to grow up telling other crawling children that Jesus loves them. We do want Sean to spend the rest of his life working to ensure that violence and injustice aren’t the last words in the lives of children and adults. Do we join Tracy and Dan in promising that we will help Sean grow in the Christian faith and life? "Yes, we do," we said loudly, while Sean listened.

The ones who show up
Not everyone at Emmanuel appreciates having a six–year–old crawling around the aisles during worship. But when they hear just a bit of his story, their mouths open in an O of understanding, and — with a few exceptions — they wish him well as he crawls. Visitors wonder, but seem intrigued by a congregation that has a crawling six–year–old, not to mention three dozen people from Sudan scattered around the nave, sharing pews with 80–and 90–yearolds, kids of all sorts of colors who swarm the pastor during their time before the lessons are read, and teens who love to act out the Gospel as part of a thespians troupe, even if a few of them are worried about speaking their limited English in front of others. All of this in High Point, North Carolina, a town of 90,000. All of this at Emmanuel Lutheran, a 100–year–old congregation of 150 on a Sunday morning.

That’s the way it is supposed to be. When God’s baptized people share pews and folding chairs, who knows who will show up! It could be the very one who drove you nuts at the grocery store yesterday by parking her cart in the middle of the aisle, aisle after aisle. It might be the guy with the Jesus t-shirt that doesn’t quite reach over his more-than-ample belly. It just could be the soccer mom who makes you feel uncomfortable because you’re never coiffed and dressed quite as well as she is. It will be the one who doesn’t speak much English and the one who doesn’t have the right clothes. The one who shows up is undoubtedly the recovering addict, the one who describes himself as an atheist but who receives communion tearfully every Sunday, and the kids who giggle and pass notes through every service. It will be the one who needs to crawl up the aisle. Yes, they’ll all show up when the Gospel is taught purely and the sacraments are administered rightly. After all, you showed up, didn’t you?

God’s grace does crazy things to us. It leads us across the threshold of a church building into a congregation. It ushers us into a pew where we find a place for ourselves next to people who are far from perfect, and who usually — but not always — know that. It tunes our ears and hearts to hear Jesus when a humble pastor and a nervous lay leader speak on his behalf. God’s grace draws us irresistibly to the baptismal font where we are tumbled wet. It beckons us to assuage all of our hungers with a tiny bit of bread and the merest sip of wine. And it sends us out to love and serve the Lord.

Tossed into the water
What was that about "tumbling wet"? Was that what happened to Sean with a little bit of water? What happened to Josh, immersed in Pat’s swimming pool, while God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit celebrated? To Andy, surprised by his baptism as his wife and daughter watched? To Joy and Nelson, dancing with excitement as water was poured on them and their mom and dad and sisters watched?

As amazing as it is, as crazy as it seems, when we’re baptized we’re tossed into waters that surprise us as they roar and foam around us. They tumble us wet! Around us we see others tumbling, too, all kinds of people that we didn’t expect to see. Arms and legs somersault past us, some belonging to people we wave at excitedly and some attached to bodies that aren’t remotely like the ones with which we prefer to hang out. Who are all these people? And who invited them? Then we spot Jesus tumbling with us, and we not only see but feel his smile, a smile beaming not only at us, but at all of the others, too.

Just when our faces are turning as blue as Billy Ruth’s when he made our third-grade teacher hysterical by holding his breath, we feel Jesus grab hold of the backs of our necks and, like a mother cat, pulls us up out of harm’s way. We are spilled out dripping wet into the world that’s waiting for us. We are baptized into Christ’s death so that we can walk with squishing shoes into newness of life.

From that time on, we never dry off or dry out. When it seems that we do or are, we discover that we are like a package of dried soup mix. Remind us of our tumbled-wet baptisms, sprinkle us again with water as we affirm what happened to us at the font, and give us a tiny bit of bread and the merest sip of wine, and we come back to ourselves, plump and full of life and delicious in our discipleship.

The crazy thing is that we wet ones see the world differently than the promoters of our fame–and wealth–are–everything culture. What we see is a tumbled–wet reality. In this reality, the ones who want to be numero uno are last, the ones who want to be big shots are lost.

Those who spend their time with a life saver around their waists lest peril strike are the ones who will drown in their own self–centeredness. But the ones paddling around picking folks up into their leaky rubber raft are strangely safe, and so are their raft buddies. The ones who wash arthritic feet and AIDS–ravaged bodies are the ones who’ve got it right. The ones with faith like a crawling six–year old enter God’s realm.

The hand that reaches down from God’s realm to draw us crawlers in is the kind of hand most likely to upset us in the world we’re leaving: It’s the wrong color, it’s as callused as the hands of the men building the house down the street, and it has a sickening scar. But it is tumbled wet, like our own imperfect hands, and it is the hand that picks us up and carries us to God.

Sunday will come again at Emmanuel Lutheran Church and Sean will be there. We’ll smile at him and pray for him as he crawls past us on his way to Joni. And then we’ll kneel, side by side, saints all, sinners all, tumbled wet. We’ll pray that other crawlers will come here, too. But God, gracious God, don’t let us be satisfied with kneeling by our pews and praying for the crawlers. Give us courage to go out and bring them home. May the sound of our squishing shoes rise sweetly to you as we go out in search of them. Amen.

The Rev. Sue Gamelin, and her husband Tim, are the pastors of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in High Point, N.C. She wrote Lutheran Woman Today’s 2005-2006 Bible study, "Act Boldly in the Fruit of the Spirit."