June 13, 2010: Baby Dedication
I Samuel 1:21-28; Luke 2: 22-35
Joanna Harader
Here’s the standard Mennonite understanding of child dedication: it is an act by which parents thank God for the life entrusted to them, offer their child back to God, and ask for God’s blessing on their life together. That’s what the official manual says. And you’ll hear it again later on, so forgive the redundancy.
There are three elements here, and the first and last are pretty much no-brainers. To thank God and receive blessing. Of course we want to thank God for this beautiful, healthy baby girl. Of course we want God to bless Sara and Jeff and Kaylynn–we love them, and we want the very best for them.
These elements of thanksgiving and blessing are implicit in the two biblical baby dedications we are considering this morning. Immediately following the passage we read from 1 Samuel, Hannah sings a hymn of thanksgiving and joy to God–a hymn very similar to Mary’s more famous Magnificat. And we are told that Simeon blessed Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus in the temple that day.
Thanksgiving and blessing. These are natural, these are positive responses to the birth of a child–to anything new and good in our lives.
But then there is that third part of dedicating a child. That middle part. And while the stories of Samuel’s and Jesus’ dedications have suggestions of thanksgiving and blessing, it is this third thing that both stories focus on. And it is this third thing that is the most difficult, the most demanding, the most unsettling part of dedicating a child: to offer the child back to God.
That is the explicit purpose of Hannah’s visit to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. That is why she waits until the boy is weaned–because she intends to leave him there. She is giving him back to God in a very concrete way.
That is why she takes such an elaborate offering: an entire bull, about two gallons of flour, and a skin of wine. This is not merely an offering to say “thank you.” This is payment for her child’s room and board. Hannah goes to the house of the Lord with her young son, and she leaves without him. She has given him back to God.
This dedication story of Samuel seems a far cry from what we are doing this morning as we dedicate Kaylynn. She will not be sleeping in the kids’ room under the puppet stage from now on. Jeff and Sara will take their baby with them when they leave this place today.
Just as Mary and Joseph took Jesus with them back to Nazareth, where “he grew and became strong” in his own home, under the care of his earthly parents.
This story from Luke’s gospel demonstrates a different way of giving a child back to God. Even though Mary and Joseph physically take Jesus with them, they have accepted the fact that their child has a purpose in God’s plan beyond what they can control or even conceive of. Mary also must hold within her Simeon’s haunting final words: “a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
A baby dedication is a joyful occasion–a time for thanksgiving and blessing. And it is also a sobering occasion–at time to consider seriously the promises we are making; a time to loosen the grip we naturally want to have on our children. Our own children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, children of the church . . . all of those people we feel responsible for–protective of.
I imagine that Mary and Joseph had plans for their first-born son. That he would become a carpenter, like his father. That he would stay in Nazareth, marry a nice Jewish girl, and be able to take care of his parents in their old age.
I wonder what their first clue was that Jesus was not going to conform to their expectations. Maybe when he was twelve and decided to stay at the temple even though his family was heading home. Certainly when he was thirty and took off to find his crazy cousin John.
“A sword will pierce your own soul too.” For Mary it was not a sudden thrust. The sword inched its way in slowly . . . slowly . . . all the way to the hilt as she watched her son’s execution on the cross.
Part of the challenge of giving our children to God is the dangers they may face. The priest who ministers to gang members on the streets of L.A.; the Christian Peacemaker Team member serving in Iraq; mission workers marching against water privatization in El Salvador. How do their mothers feel? What desperate prayers do their fathers pray?
And yet, as those who nurture the lives of young people, as those who love deeply, we must relax our grip and let God call those we love to whatever work God has for them to do. However dangerous it may be.
Even beyond this–possibly even more difficult than this–if we are to truly give our children to God, we must realize that our children will form their own relationships with God. They may come to know and serve God in ways that we do not understand; maybe in ways we don’t even agree with.
I read about a man–a conservative pastor–who loved his children very much. He loved his grandchildren very much. He offered them up to the loving care of God and watched with wonder, and then dismay, as his granddaughter was called to ministry and began her pastoral training at the seminary. The woman visited her grandfather towards the end of his life, and the two spent time together in prayer. The grandfather revealed to his granddaughter the extent to which he had truly given her to God when he prayed: “Lord, I didn’t know what to think of this business of letting women be ordained pastors. But I see that you have called my granddaughter into it, so I think it must be a good thing after all.”
Maybe that’s the deepest challenge of giving our children to God. That in offering our children, we must also offer ourselves.
May this morning’s service of dedication for Kaylynn be an opportunity for each of us to place our lives, once again, into the tender care of our Creator, to set our feet more surely on the path forged by Jesus, to loosen our grip and let Spirit guide us ever more deeply into the will of the Holy One. Amen.
very much meaningful message….!