The rabbi and I were at Cindy and Greg’s home to celebrate the Naming Ceremony and Baptism of their infant daughter, Ashley Grace, just as we had concelebrated their interfaith wedding a couple of years ago.

The rabbi mentioned how important it is that we come together to celebrate “major life events” … like the birth of this child … reminding us of the holiness and sanctity of life.

 “I am here because I have been touched by the call of Jeshua Ben Joseph, an itinerant preacher, a learned yet unschooled rabbi, an observant Jew from what we now call the first century of the Common Era, who stretched the meaning and understanding of religious practice,” I mentioned.

“I am here because this Jesus and his earliest of followers were people who celebrated God breaking into their Jewish consciousness. The message was incredibly simple … God is Love … As you love, God abides in you and you in God … There is no male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free … We are ALL children of God, brothers and sisters of each other.”

And so we began, the rabbi and I, the mother and father, grandparents and godparents, family and friends of Ashley Grace ….

I smiled and connected deeply as the rabbi said the blessing over the loaf of challa and pronounced the blessing … Baruch Atah Adonai, Elohaynu melech ha'olam ha-motzi lechem min ha-aretz…loosely … Blessed are you Lord of all Creation, through your goodness we have this bread to offer …  and then  the blessing of the wine … Baruch Atah Adonai Elohaynu Melech Ha'olam borei p-ri ha-gafen…  loosely again … Blessed are you Lord of all Creation, through your goodness we have this wine to offer … the bread and wine our CommonUnion was shared.

The rabbi spoke of the importance of a person’s name and how our names signify our uniqueness. One of the grandparents read a passage from the Book of Isaiah … where God speaks of tenderly calling each of us by name and bonding with us.

We asked the parents and godparents, the extended family present if they believed that God is Love and that they had a solemn responsibility to help Ashley Grace grow in love and become a loving human being. Another of Ashley’s grandparents read from the Gospel of Luke … where Jesus reminds “set your hearts on living God’s love … you have been given a share in God’s own life.”

We praised the God who loves us and brings us to life as creator, redeemer and sanctifier … calls us to life in God and each other, continuously calls us to new life, and by our existence makes us holy… We poured life-giving water on Ashley Grace’s forehead and blessed her with oil celebrating her call into a spiritual journey.

At weddings and baptisms I always present an angel ornament to the couple, or the newly baptized and their family. The ornament comes from a story I heard first at a CORPUS conference years ago. In this setting, an interfaith baptism, the story has additional power because it is the priest who is telling the simple story from the Talmud…  God sends an angel over every blade of grass. That angel’s sole responsibility is to call that blade of grass to grow. And then I continued … Whether angels are part of our reality or mythology they fit into most all of the world’s cultures … This angel ornament is given to you Ashley Grace and your family as a reminder, should you ever need it, that you have been given, continue to be given, everything you need to be truly loving.

Together the rabbi and I concluded with the Blessing of Aaron interspersing the English phrases with the Hebrew … May the Lord bless and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace.

And everyone chimed in together … Congratulations … and Mazel Tov … and I smiled to myself as I thought how fortunate I have been to be a part of those special moments in people’ lives in a way I never dreamed possible.

Namaste

Russ Ditzel