Many of us grew up with parents or grandparents who were always trying to instill wisdom. “A penny saved is a penny earned.” Or, “The early bird gets the worm.” Or one that overlaps with faith, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” I think the hope has been to create mantras that will remind us to be good human beings. In a lot of ways, that is what we do in baptism. Certainly, the main purpose of baptism is to welcome people into the community of faith. But every baptism is also an educational moment – an identity-making moment. The liturgy of baptism (and especially the renewal of our baptismal covenant which we will do later today) is chock full of wisdom about how to live faithfully as a Christian: continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers; resist evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord; proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ; seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself; and strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being. The baptismal covenant may not be as catchy or memorable as those phrases your grandparent used, but they do the same thing: teach us something about being people of faith.
That is what our lesson from Proverbs is doing today too. Truthfully, many of those proverbial sayings we learned from our elders come from scripture or even the book of Proverbs directly.[i] Today’s lesson from Proverbs is all about wealth. Now I know what you are thinking, we just baptized a little baby – why in the world do we need to talk to them about money? Besides, isn’t that a little uncouth? Much as we polite southerners might not like to admit it, Holy Scripture always has a lot to say about money. For Jesus, money was the topic he talked about the most in Scripture. But Jesus comes from a long line of people and scriptures that talk about wealth. He was probably shaped just like we were by elders trying to give us wisdom. But before you get too squeamish, just remember that talking about wealth is not just a concern about personal behavior or morality. In the instance of our lesson from Proverbs, talking about wealth helps us understand how to live in community – how to be a people of faith together.[ii]
Let’s take a deeper dive with these verses today (feel free to go back to your bulletin as we read along). The first verse talks about how a good name is much more valuable than great riches. Now that does not mean we need to literally pick good names for our children – although Nathan, who was baptized earlier, is a beautiful name (quite biblical, actually!). But what the original Hebrew means by “good name” is “good reputation.”[iii] In other words, people need to know that you are a decent human being more than they need to know you have high levels of wealth. In the second verse, the proverb goes even deeper, suggesting that whether we are rich or poor (or somewhere in between) we are all equally loved by God. We are all beloved children of God. Now if our equally beloved status is true, and how we treat others matters most, then our main job in life is to care for one another. If we happen to be wealthy, we are encouraged to share our wealth. As a community, we share our resources to support the work of ministry – verses eight and nine as well as 22 and 23 tell us how important our care for one another is. That right prioritizing with wealth and community puts us in right relationship with God. And Lord knows, Nathan, or any newly baptized, is going to need to navigate that reality in their lifetimes.
That is what baptism does. Baptism helps us remember first and foremost what we want to teach the newly baptized. Whether the baptized is an adult or an infant we will communally raise, we want people like Nathan to know what being a person of faith is, and how that identity impacts the whole of our lives – from our weekly gathering in worship, to our caring for the poor, to the ways we steward our own resources.
Secondly, baptism reminds us as a community what we need to remember. Just because we were baptized once, or have reaffirmed our baptisms multiple times, that does not mean we have mastered faithful discipleship. Even in our baptismal covenant, we do not say, “if we fall into sin,” we say, “whenever we fall into sin.” Being a person of faith means working at being faithful over and over again – always with the help of fellow people on the journey, but certainly the work is ongoing.
That is why today, in addition to celebrating our baptism, we are also turning our hearts again to the topic of stewardship. As we kickoff another program year, we are reminded that generosity is at the heart of faithful living. Verse nine that we read today says, “Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor.” Generosity, as one scholar explains, is “here imagined as sharing bread with the poor; that is, sharing those things that are necessary for a safe life. In the ancient context, ‘sharing bread’ is not just dropping money in a cup, but is an expression of solidarity. Those who share what they need for life (bread) find that they will have what they need for life.”[iv] Our invitation today, as water is sprinkled on all our heads, is to consider how we might embrace a generous life – how we might, recognizing our blessedness, share our bread with others. For when we live generously, we find we have all that we need for life. Amen.
[i] Susan T. Henry-Crowe, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 26.
[ii] Stephen C. Johnson, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 27.
[iii] Megan Fullerton Strollo, “Commentary on Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23,” September 8, 2024, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-23-2/commentary-on-proverbs-221-2-8-9-22-23-6 on September 4, 2024.
[iv] Ronald J. Allen, “Considering the Text: Week 4, Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, 8 September 2024” Center for Faith and Giving, as found at centerforfaithandgiving.org, 27.
Seeking and Serving 