Copyright: © 2000 Paul F. Bosch.
This document may be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes with credit to the author and mention of the Lift Up Your Hearts web site http://www.worship.ca/ as the source.

We return, this month, to my on-going series on the various arts of worship, but I want to skip ahead, with your indulgence again, gentle reader, to the sign of oil and its use in anointing. I promise: We'll get back in sequence next time, and pick up where I left off three installments back: with the sedilia as one of the four chief architectural signs in Christian worship.

The occasion that prompts this reflection is the baptism of my twin grandsons in my daughter's parish church, which I served for three months on an interim in the Summer of 1995. She invited me, with the gracious concurrence of the pastor loci, to officiate at their baptism; he, in turn, invited me to preach.

When I sat down to write my sermon, I must have been inspired by my own use of rubric-as-metaphor in last month's installment in these pages: I found myself using the "sign" of oil as still another metaphor for Christian discipleship.

So I reproduce my own sermon here, with deep gratitude to theologian Carl Volz, who started me thinking in these terms. For whatever it is worth to you, my method of preparing and preaching a sermon looks like this: I write (and sometimes re- write!) a full manuscript, jot and tittle. Then I read it over to myself eight times. After that, I'm sure enough of what I want to say that I usually prefer to deliver the sermon without manuscript and without notes, standing -- and pacing! -- in the middle aisle.

So here it is, just as I wrote it: A sermon on the occasion of the baptisms of my grandsons, Victor and Philip Allison.

SERMON: Baptism of Allison twins / 5 Nov. 2000
Faith Lutheran Church / Lexington KY
by Paul F. Bosch / Guest Preacher

When the Lutheran Book of Worship was introduced to North American Lutherans, now more than twenty years ago, its rite for Baptism included some new elements that were unfamiliar to most of us. None of these elements were new; they had been part of the wider Christian Tradition for centuries. But they were new to us.

Among those unfamiliar elements in the 1978 LBW rite of Baptism was the possibility of signing the newly-baptised with oil: anointing them with oil. That seemed a little bizarre, to some of our Lutheran pieties, and looked like magic or superstition to some others. Anointing is another of those sensory witnesses to the incarnation in our worship that many sensibilities -- chiefly First-World, chiefly middle-class -- find embarrassing at best, or simply downright offensive. But it needn't be so.

There is ample justification for including the gesture of oiling or anointing with oil in several of the rites of the church: the rite of healing and the rite of ordination also come to mind, along with baptism.

Let me lay on you, this morning, eight reasons why oil might be utilized in Christian worship.

Anointing with oil, first of all, may be interpreted as a symbol of ownership. Oiling recalls to me a cattle branding, with the associations of ownership that go along with a branding. So this oiling is meant to remind you whom you belong to: You belong to Jesus. In this anointing, these children henceforth will belong to Jesus. Even if they decide, later in life, to turn in their ticket, and become Muslims, or Hindus, or Buddhists, or atheists, or whatever, they will still belong to Christ by reason of this oiling. Anointing is the Christian "brand of ownership": We "belong to the Lord".

These children are not "joining" a church; rather, they are received by and into the church of Jesus; they are adopted today into God's family. Henceforth, from now on, no matter what, they belong to our Lord.

Now of course that's true even of you and me: those of us who didn't get oiled when we were baptised. But I like that special reminder that this anointing provides: All who are baptised belong to the Lord and I'll bet a good many who have never been baptised belong to Jesus too, but that's another sermon. For now, this oiling reminds me that these kids do not belong to Anna and Jonathan, or even to themselves; They belong to God. That's first.

Further, and this is second, Roman soldiers, in Jesus' day, had a tattoo, on the arm, of the legion they served. So also with slaves, in antiquity. The tattoo was a mark of ownership, like the cattle branding. But it also implies service. Slaves and soldiers are supposed to serve the cause of their masters, or their commanding officers.

So this oiling is a reminder to me and to you that we are to serve; that we are to "fight the good fight of faith." I'm generally uncomfortable with military images, whether they're in the Bible, or in sports, or in politics. But here, it does make a certain amount of sense that, for these kids, and for you and for me, human life means waging a kind of war, against the "principalities and powers." There's evil out there, and honouring faith means fighting it. This oiling reminds me of that.

This is third: The Hebrew scriptures picture Samuel anointing Saul and David as kings; therefore, we too are made "royalty" in this oiling. Martin Luther is supposed to have said this, somewhere: "We are the Lords, with and without the possessive; with and without that apostrophe." I like that. "We are the Lord's" with the apostrophe, with the possessive that is, we belong to Jesus, we're Jesus' possession. That was my first point a minute ago, and we can't hear it often enough.

But also, "We are the Lords" without the apostrophe, without the possessive -- a simple plural: "We are, all of us, lords, we are all royalty, with a royal authority, with an imperial inheritance." There's a thought for you to consider throughout the days of next week!

Fourth, the Bible pictures prophets anointing priests, in antiquity; we are made priests in this oiling. And that's neat too. One of the really terrific insights from the Reformation is the Biblical idea of the "Priesthood of All Believers." Even Roman Catholics, these days, speak of the "Priesthood of the Laity."

Now that's often been interpreted, by followers of the Reformers, as meaning we don't need clergy any more; I can serve as my own priest; I have my own direct access to God. Now that's true enough, with some qualifications, and I wouldn't want to deny it. But what that interpretation does not have, in my view, is this: the corporate, social aspect of this priesthood. Sure, I can serve as my own priest; I can preach the Gospel to myself, I can remind myself of God's love. But let's face it: Sometimes I can't. Sometimes I'm just too down, or too blue, or too depressed to be my own priest. And it's then that I need you to be my priest for me.

So when we oil these babies, we're making them priests, not just to themselves, selfishly, but even more important, to each other, and to other people out there. The priesthood of all believers means nothing if it doesn't also mean I serve as your priest, and you serve as my priest. And when I can't do it for myself -- it's too schizophrenic, or something -- then I have you to be my priest, to remind me of the Good News. The priesthood of all believers means that you are now a priest for the world. And those of us who are ordained, who wear our collars backwards, why, we're simply priests who happen to be public ministers; who happen to wear our collars backwards.

This is fifth: athletes' bodies were oiled, in the Olympic games and other sports, to prepare them for their (nude!) contest. So we also are to be prepared for our contest. I said a minute ago we're soldiers, fighting the faith-fight. Here's another reminder that life is not easy, it's a contest. It means hard work. It means disciplining your body, your mind, your soul, your emotions, your relationships.

To keep a good marriage going, or to keep a good friendship going, or to keep the fires of faith burning in your heart, and in your household -- that doesn't come naturally. It means hard work, it means discipline, it means a willingness, a heart-felt intention to keep at it, to do whatever it takes to win the Olympic Gold.

Here's the sixth reason for oiling: sacrifices were oiled in antiquity to prepare them for their sacrifice and to make them shine and look splendid. In a similar way, here's a reminder that you are to "adorn the gospel" in your life, and in your very person. I like that. It's from St. Paul: These kids, you, me, we are all to "adorn the gospel" in our very bodies, in our various temperaments, in our varied relationships. We are each to be a splendid, shining advertisement for Christian faith.

This is seven: Corpses were oiled at death, in antiquity, in a primitive form of embalming. You'll remember: the three Maries were coming to the tomb on Easter morning for what purpose? To oil the body of Jesus for burial, a job they couldn't complete when he died on Friday, because the Sabbath had already begun. Jesus himself describes his anointing at Bethany by the "woman who was a sinner" as a pre-figuration of his burial oiling.

So we too, in our baptism, are preparing ourselves for the ultimate sacrifice, as Jesus did, confident that God will not forget us. Theologian Walter Bouman says we should remind parents that, when we baptize their children, we are sentencing them to death. That's heavy, but I think it's true. Christian discipleship is an obedience even to death, if it comes to that, in the confidence that God will not forget.

Here's the eighth reason, the last, and this is my personal favourite. Are you ready for this? What do you suppose is the Greek word for "oiled"? It's "Christos": "Christ"! And the Hebrew word for oiled, anointed? The same: "Messiah."

In this oiling, that is, you are made Christ. You are made Messiah. Theologian Carl Volz quotes one of the early Teachers of the Church, Cyril of Jerusalem: "How can we call these candidates Christians, that is, 'anointed,' if we do not oil them?" "Christ" means "anointed" in Greek; "Messiah" means the same in Hebrew. We are now, after our anointing, to serve as "Christ" to our neighbor, as Luther reminds us. Note, incidentally, in Luther it's literally "Christ", not (as often mis-quoted) "little Christ"; there's no diminutive in Luther.

The very important point: In your oiling you now share in Christ's redemptive work. Our oiling or anointing serves the purpose of "messiahing" each of us, to coin a phrase. And that means anticipating God's future, as Christ did. Not waiting for heaven to happen, but claiming now, today, all those good gifts and graces that God has in store for us when the Kingdom comes in its fulness: peace with justice for all people, the healing of ancient hurts and harms, the reconciliation of every ancient enemy.

I think that's dynamite!

Now... if we only believed it! And lived it.