Remembering Our Baptism: “Who Wouldn’t Want to be With God?”

A sermon by Lanny Peters

Pastor, Oakhurst Baptist Church

July 11, 2004

My good friend Bob Ayscue in Henderson, North Carolina does not have long to live. This makes me incredibly sad. It also has caused me to spend some time “remembering my baptism.” Bob is only 48 years old. About four years ago, he discovered a discolored place on his toe, which turned out to be melanoma cancer. Because this type of cancer spreads quickly, Bob’s whole toe was removed. What no one knew then was that cancer cells had already migrated. Some time later, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Bob underwent an experimental procedure at Duke University, being told that there was only a 15% chance of success. He became what his nurses called their miracle boy and was eventually cancer free. He was able to return to his calling of teaching and coaching middle school youth, which he has done all his adult life. Then the cancer returned, this time in his brain. He underwent brain surgery, and again went into remission and once again, went back to work. But in the last month, the cancer has returned in his spine and the doctors and Bob agree that the fight is over. He is at home under hospice care and the care of loving family, especially his wife Cherry.

I introduced Bob to Cherry. Cherry and I double dated once with Bob’s brother David and his date. We ended up parking in the moonlight down by Paddy’s Pond. To enjoy the view, of course. Not long after that, Cherry visited the Ayscues house where I was living for the summer. We were all going to play putt-putt but Bob had a broken leg. Cherry hated to see him home all alone so she stayed and they talked and well, the romance blossomed from there. Later, I officiated at their wedding and they came to our wedding and Karen’s senior recital and my ordination and we stayed close friends over the years.

When I first met Bob, he was seventeen years old. I was a junior in college and had come to his hometown to be the Baptist summer missionary under the tutelage of a Will Campbell like figure named Ed Laffman. The overall purpose of summer missions was to bring people to Christ, but Ed had a broad view of what that could encompass. He put me in charge of a ministry to campers at a popular state park on Kerr Lake, and left it pretty much up to me what that meant.

The problem was that I was not all that sure I was even a Christian myself, which I had been up front about in my interview. I found out later that Ed Laffman had sat through a number of interviews with Baptist college students talking about how much they loved Jesus. Then I came in, admitting that I was there only because my Baptist campus minister, Joe David Fore, whom I greatly respected, asked me to. I told the committee right off that I had never been baptized and doubted I ever would. But most days I thought there was a God, and that God wanted us to love one another. When I finished, Ed looked at the rest of the committee and said, “Well, I’ve got my summer missionary.”

Also sitting on the committee was another Ed, Ed Middleton, who would later preside at my marriage and preach my ordination, which neither of us could have imagined that day. Ed Middleton was then a seminary student and a youth minister in town and along with some other youth ministers and the kids in their churches, we began having crafts and recreation for children staying in the campground. On Saturday night, we went around and invited campers to a campfire program, which mostly consisted of creating funny skits and singing songs like “One Tin Soldier,” and Harry Chapin stuff. We always ended with telling a story about warm fuzzies, which were these beautiful and mysterious things that could not be hoarded but only given away. If you put them in a shoebox under a bed, they would be gone the next day. It was a symbol of God’s love, of course, and then we gave everyone a colorful little ball of yarn as we sang that classic campfire song, “Pass it on.” All of you who were in Southern Baptist Youth groups in those days know it. Let’s sing it: “It only takes a spark to get a fire going….”

Bob Ayscue was one of the high school youth who was real dubious of church and Christianity but he loved being part of all this. He was involved in several skits that were ongoing each week, one called Super-cops about a group of bumbling police officers. We also did Cinder-fella where the guys and girls took the other gender roles and cross-dressed. Ed Laffman was also a photographer and that was the summer that I had supervision with him in his darkroom. It was like a confessional, in that Ed mostly listened as I processed all that was happening to me over the summer. It was stirring something deep in me, the beginning of a different kind of spiritual quest. It was the summer I told the two Eds that my father was in a mental hospital some thirty miles away. In my shame; I had pretended for some years that he was dead. It was the beginning of my journey back to him. Bob and the other youth had their own questions for me, hundreds of them and looked to me for some answers. What I offered them instead was my companionship along their journey. A journey, I was coming to see, which was a journey back to God. And the two Eds helped me along my way to see that Jesus was not the answer, but our companion who helped light the way, and share the burden.

At the end of the summer, there was a baptism at Kerr Lake where I had been the summer missionary. It was a bit unusual in that the only person baptized was the summer missionary, Lanny Peters. First there was a lightning storm, and wind and rain that we had to wait out, which was a fitting symbol. Then Ed Middleton and I waded out and I was dunked under the muddy water and baptized.

Along with all the youth that stood on the bank, Bob Ayscue took it all in. This week, Cherry told me Bob wanted me to be part of his funeral. He wants his pastor to talk about love of church, his sister-in-law who is a Presbyterian minister to talk about love of family, and me to talk about love of God. Cherry said Bob told her that I was the first person that ever showed him you could love God, be a Christian, and still have fun and enjoy life.

Bob Ayscue also had a deep impact on my life. Indeed, I might not be standing here today it was not for Bob. After that summer, I went back to the other end of the state at Western Carolina University for my senior year. The next spring the rural church where Bob’s family had been active for generations was looking to hire a Minster of Youth. They had always hired students from Southeastern Seminary. Bob went to the Deacons and submitted my name for consideration. They told him that they preferred to hire a theological student from Southeastern Seminary, which was thirty minutes away. Bob then organized a petition drive to get the youth to sign saying they would not participate in the youth program unless I was interviewed. Not only was I interviewed but when I graduated from college, I became the Minster of Youth at New Sandy Creek Baptist Church.

That summer I lived with the Ayscues, sharing the basement with Bob and his two brothers Skeet and David. Their mother, Madge, helped me secure my first teaching job, next door to her classroom. She had been one of the first white teachers to volunteer to go to an all-black elementary school. She was my mentor and confidant through that extraordinary year of challenge, growth, and learning. 

Mom Ayscue, as I began to call her, was the best combination of the biblical Mary and Martha I had ever seen. Like Martha, she could fill every iced tea glass on the table before you realized you were even getting low. But she also was as loving and accepting a person as I had ever met. Inevitably, with a bunch of teenagers, we would take to criticizing someone in the church or community and Mom would gently point out why they might have acted that way and some trouble they had gone through on the way. She did this in a way that did not shame us. She refused to pass judgment on them or us either. She made me want to be more accepting and loving. Like Mary, she must have sat at Jesus’ feet listening a lot because she sure lived out what he taught.

When I was visiting her a few years ago, I was taking some photos at her house with a disposable camera and complaining about a nice camera I had left in a taxi in the Philippines. Mom said, “Well, I hope whoever found it really needed a camera and is really enjoying it.” I had been mad about losing that camera all summer but it never bothered me again.

In a small tobacco farming community in Eastern North Carolina, she rose above any narrow mindedness and bigotry while also understanding those who expressed it. A few years ago, her granddaughter fell in love with a young African-American man at college and she became pregnant. His parents really wanted him to finish college before they got married. Bonnie moved in with Madge, had the baby, and with her grandmother’s support, finished college. So did the baby’s father, who stayed in close contact, and when they both graduated, they were married last spring. Last summer, there was a big party for them at Bob and Cherry’s. It was likely the largest inter-racial party in that rural community and right out in the yard in the open. It was just the kind of party where Jesus would have shown up, and still does.

Bob has nominated his mother to be a deacon year after year to no avail, as the church still does not allow women to be deacons. Many other things have frustrated Cherry and Bob but they have stayed in that church. When he could not get the church to do any kind of social ministry, Bob began going to the local prison by himself to do a Bible Study. Bobby and Cherry live beside his brother David and across the street from Mom. Since Bob has been sick, I can call Mom to see if their lights are still on to know if it’s too late to call. When my time comes to die, I hope I will be surrounded by the kind of love that Bob has experienced from that rural community, and that church where I once served as youth minister, which still does not have women deacons, and his family that is like a family to me. I feel like I am losing a brother. And now Bob is the one teaching me about the love of God. Bob has always been honest with me, and I can detect no bitterness about dying so young. He has every right to be. After dedicating his life to teaching for 25 years, (and teaching Middle School at that!) he was looking forward to retiring and enjoying life with his wife and family and friends.

But his main concern now is Cherry and his family having to deal with losing him. He sees his as the easy part, saying to me, “Who wouldn’t want to go be with God?”

When I was raised out of those waters of baptism that day, I still had no idea what it all meant. I am still far from certain. Bob Ayscue may have known more than I did. I had so much anger towards the church that I would have laughed in the face of anyone who would have said that someday I would be a pastor. But Bob saw in me just the kind of person the church needed, and he called it out in me. Thirty years ago this summer, I began my ministry at New Sandy Creek Baptist Church, trying to love God and have some fun. 

This year the Baptism and Communion Task force presented the results of two years of work in a worship service in April and a couple of Wednesday nights following. They really did an incredible job. In their report, they said: “Our job was to “study the church's rules, policies, procedures, traditions and practices concerning baptism and communion -- specifically as related to our children. Twelve people were asked to serve on the task force, each of whom represented a certain segment of the congregation.

We tried to include a cross section according to age group, length of membership and diversity of background. Those selected included persons whose education and/or experiences would be particularly useful, as well as those whose knowledge of the history and practice of Oakhurst would be needed. Over the 18 months, the task force spent at least 50 hours together discussing, debating, arguing, listening, remembering, reflecting and even dreaming. We have cried, laughed, and thrown up our hands. The subjects are perplexing and tended to stir our tender, vulnerable feelings regarding our own baptisms, which in turn stirred issues of belonging, “salvation” and even what it means to be a Christian. These subjects also stirred strong feelings about our children’s baptisms (or lack thereof) and how the community has been a part of those stories. Since our community has Baptist roots and ecumenical branches, we found there were no simple questions and no simple answers.”

If you have not read the rest of this document and their suggestions, I hope you will soon. Of course, it did not totally satisfy everyone, but then they knew that to be impossible. After all, this is church. We may not agree on every point, but this study will help shape our church’s life for years to come. It was also another great example of the best parts of being Baptist, the autonomy of the local church. The committee looked very carefully at the Biblical and historical precedents, and yet understood that ultimately we have to interpret and shape these for our church, as we see God guiding us.

The Committee accomplished a lot, but in their collective wisdom they did not do too much. They did not try to explain it all or address every nuance. In doing so, they recognized that baptism and communion are after all, a mystery. In the end they are as incompressible as God and experienced by each of us in a unique way. We need some sense as a church of what is normative and objective, but we also have to leave room for what is individual and subjective. Along with autonomy of the Baptist Church, Baptists hold high the individual’s freedom of conscience. Our baptisms will have something in common, but they will also mean something different for each of us. It is just like our own faith pilgrimages. There is NO ONE WAY to God. God has created billions of paths to walk from our watery wombs to the flowing fountains of paradise.

The Bible recognizes this in offering all kinds of images for baptism. Paul told the Corinthians it was like being washed clean. (1 Cor. 6:11) He told the Galatians it was like putting on Jesus’ new clothes that made you realize that there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, for all of you are one in Jesus Christ. (Gal. 3: 27) At Oakhurst when you put on these clothes you can see that “we reject any status in this fellowship in terms of church office, possessions, education, race, age, gender, sexual orientation, mental ability, physical ability, or other distinctions.” (From our church Covenant) 1 Peter says baptism is a sign that you have escaped a flood (3:20ff.). Other places in the Epistles say its like having water poured over the dry parched ground of your life. It is like being immersed, sunk into Christ. (Titus 3:5; 1 Corinthians 12:13) Ephesians say it’s more like having the light switched on when you are asleep or more dramatically, coming back to life when you are dead. (5:14) Baptism can be a sign of partaking somehow in the death and resurrection of Jesus. John the Baptist said is was a sign of repentance. Jesus once told Nicodemus it was like being born a baby all over again and being given a new chance to grow up no matter how old you are. (John 3:5)

Baptism is all of this and more. When we shared our stories with one another in the last new members class, Wanda Burel told us about how she had always had this longing for a spiritual life. She had attended church occasionally with an uncle asa  child but as an adult had found no place to connect her spiritual longing. As her partner Trish said, “Wanda had God in her heart but didn’t know what to call it.” Her friends Angie and Alyssa invited her to go with them to Oakhurst and she said, “Every time I come is a surprise and something I need.”

The other person who was baptized today, Yana Pogue said, “I want to be baptized because I believe in the importance of rituals and traditions such as baptism in achieving the sense of belonging and community that comes with making a commitment to following a Christian way of life. I have had the sense throughout my life that efforts to belong have been thwarted whether due to my own choices or the decisions of those who held more power than me. Today I am celebrating my own free choice and commitment to acknowledge God's grace in my life. I also celebrate my decision to allow the congregation of Oakhurst Baptist Church to participate in my spiritual growth and nurturing.”

Baptism is not magic. When I came up out of the waters that day, I was still as neurotic and wounded as when I went under. My brokenness would take years of education and therapy and confession to friends and growing up and I am still a long way from whole. (Don’t everyone say Amen!)

Yet, when I came out of those waters, I was not the same as before, though I can still not say exactly why that is. I was clear even then that it was not that I was somehow saved and everybody else that had not been baptized was going to hell. When we all say, “You are my beloved” to the people being baptized, it is also a way of remembering that each of us is also God’s beloved. We are God’s “beloved” regardless of our status and that includes whether or not you have been baptized. To those of you who have not been baptized, I want to say, “You are God’s beloved.”

The Baptism and Communion Task Force said, “We believe that our rituals and traditions matter greatly, and should not be entered into lightly. We believe that our rituals and traditions are the canvas upon which we paint our corporate life.”

And yet they opened the door for our children and un-baptized youth to come to the Communion table when they believe they are ready. They also suggested that the longings of children for baptism be respected at whatever age that occurs. I have been one of those who encouraged children to wait, perhaps because my own baptism was not until I was 21.

There is always the temptation to make our experience of God normative and expect everybody to come down the path we did. That is idolatry because it assumes we, not God, hold the keys to the kingdom.

The person who helped me understand that more than anyone is another Bob sitting here today. It was while doing campus ministry with Bob Clyde that I realized that I was being called to the ministry. No one in my life has helped me more in coming to accept that I am God’s beloved.

Bob Ayscue recognized it in me the summer I was baptized, maybe before I did. And soon, I will make the long journey to say farewell to him on this earthly journey, along with his loving wife and his mother who once held him in her watery womb. We will all miss him sorely, and some will feel they cannot go on without him. But somehow we will, knowing that he is God’s beloved and that he is ready for that final baptism into death and resurrection into God though Christ. As Bob has taught me, knowing deep in our souls that we ARE God’s beloved; “Who wouldn’t want to be with God?”