Sermon: The Gift of Baptism, January 11, 2015
Text: Mark 1:4-11
As we come together this weekend to remember and celebrate the baptism of Jesus, we are extended an opportunity to spend some time in reflection on our own baptism. We are invited to consider just what baptism is to us, and how it has transformed our lives.
Baptism is…
Affirmation, only deeper, more like unconditional acceptance. We need to be accepted just as we are. Affirmation is that release of endorphins that we feel when we posted something on Facebook 30 seconds ago and somebody likes it. And then as we sit and watch the number grow. It’s that feeling that our young people know when they see how many followers they have on Instagram. Our need for affirmation in some cases is so heightened in our world of social media, that a lack of instant affirmation throws us into the realm of anxiety, depression, self-loathing, wondering what is wrong with us and/or the picture we just posted, that nobody has liked it. And to make matters worse, now we can see who saw it, but didn’t choose to click like. I personally have a theory that the founder of Facebook, that Zuckerberg guy, is in cahoots with the national association of therapists or something. Maybe not though, come to think of it, because when we go into a deep self-doubt hole, we rarely seek professional help to speak rationality to us, rather we often act out in passive aggression, refusing to like other people’s things, or just flat out berating them on how they could have the nerve to look at our thing, but not like our thing. I could go on about this, but I won’t.
Because I say all of this to say that we are created for relationship, and we crave the acceptance that comes when someone loves us as we are, where we are, for who we are. God does that with us. Sometimes one or two humans get it right too, but we should first seek it from the one who never fails. Remember at the moment that Jesus came up from the waters of his own baptism, he and those around him heard God’s voice of affirmation, acceptance, and blessing. “You are my son, in whom I am well pleased” Wrapped up in those words are identity, worth, and unwavering acceptance. Our baptism gives us the opportunity to re-enact the baptism of our Lord, and hear for ourselves those same words of love.
It is an initiation, into something much larger than ourselves. When we are baptized, we are actually initiated into many communities. One of those is the group of candidates that we are baptized with. In many protestant denominations, baptismal candidates spend several months meeting together in a pastor’s class. Imagine being an impressionable youth and spending time each week with a group of your peers who are held together by common faith, thinking of how you will live out faith in each of your lives, and what it will mean to take this next step on your spiritual journey. The bonds that are formed in those groups are strong and long lasting.
The next community that you are initiated into is the local church. While it may seem that baptism is an individual act between the pastor, the candidate, and God. It really is much more than that, and I would argue that it was always meant to be more than that. Look at the baptism of Jesus…Jesus was intentional about aligning himself with Jewish community, but not just any Jewish community. He could have, and probably did on many occasions, go and dip himself in the cleansing pools outside the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. But he chose instead to find John the Baptist and his followers out in the wilderness, and wade into the Jordan River for his baptism.
Think about that for a minute…sterile pools in town, at the door of the temple, or a river, an ever flowing stream, that as far as they can see, never begins and never ends. There, readily available for anyone to wade into, the elements of nature integrated into the experience. It was everything that organized religion and civilized society would frown upon. And yet it was chosen, by our Lord, to be the place where he received his blessing and accepted his calling.
And we become connected to Jesus and every other baptized person through our shared experience. We often sing a song at Table of Grace, by Christopher Grundy called Stepping In. Part of it says “There is a prayer, like a wide river, it never ends, does not begin, around the world, it’s always flowing, and I am stepping in, we are stepping in. That’s what happens when we are baptized. We step into a stream touched by all who have gone before us and all who will come after us.
It is surrender. It’s a giving up of the old and grabbing hold of the new. Admitting that we can’t and don’t want to live this life on our own, and that we want to walk with God and our faith community through all of the milestones in our lives, good and bad. Imagine with me, if you will, your dust covered body, about to wade into the flowing stream. Each particle of dust represents a sin, a regret, or some burden that you have carried for way too long. As you are dipped into the water, your toxins, the dust particles, remain at the top. They aren’t strong enough to penetrate the flow of the water, and so they float away, downstream. And as you come up out of the water, you can feel the newness of God’s love and redemption, clinging to your body like a glove. So it is with our baptism, we enter those waters with sin and death clinging to us with all their might, but the purity of strength of God’s love are too much, and they wash us clean. The old life has been surrendered, and we come out ready to experience the new. Thanks be to God!
It is tradition, with meaning. It’s not a tradition like Uncle Joe getting drunk on Thanksgiving and knocking over the dessert table every year. But a tradition more like your grandmother handing down her wedding ring because there was so much love in her relationship with your grandfather that she wants to share that with her children and their children and so on. It should bless us to know that we get to experience the same sacrament as Jesus, the disciples, and so many heroes of our faith over the last 2000 years. And it blesses us equally to know that this rich and beautiful tradition will be shared by our grandchildren, and great-great-great grandchildren, along so many others who will live beautiful, God centered lives, connected to our own through Baptism.
Baptism isn’t incidental, it’s foundational. David Lose, one of my heroes in the profession of preaching and teaching about Jesus writes “Jesus’ baptism isn’t preamble to all that comes later in his life, it’s the highpoint and climax of the story in a nutshell. Again and again, as Jesus casts out unclean spirits, heals the sick, feeds the hungry, and welcomes the outcast, he will only do to others what has already been done to him, telling them via word and deed that they, too, are beloved children of God with whom God is well pleased. And the darkest moment of the story when Jesus feels absolutely abandoned is followed immediately by the story of resurrection, where the messenger testifies that God has kept God’s baptismal promise and continues to accept and honor Jesus as God’s own beloved Son. So also, at our low moments, we might remember that the God who raised Jesus from the dead is the same one who promised in baptism to never abandon us and to love and accept us always and still as beloved children, even and especially when we have a hard time loving and accepting ourselves.”*
It isn’t an end, but a beginning. Being initiated into such a community of believers, filled with the affirmation and unconditional acceptance of our creator, in the tradition of those who have informed our lives, having surrendered that which separates us from God, symbolically once, but knowing that we will continue a lifetime of surrender, empowered to give to others what has been given to us, we go forth from the waters of our baptism having been made new. Ready to be an agent of God’s love, grace and mercy in a world that needs it so badly. Thanks be to God for the gift of new life, given anytime we ask, and for the sacrament of Baptism to stand as the ever present reminder that our lives are not our own.
Remember now your own baptism. Dip your toes or your fingers into some of water, eyes closed, feeling God as close to you as the water to your pores, and know that you are loved, and that God is calling you to walk in God’s light, giving to others the gifts of love and healing that have been given to you. And if, by chance, you haven’t been baptized, that’s okay! Know that the gift of baptism is for you too, if you desire to step into the stream and surrender. I or any other pastor will be happy to talk with you about your decision.
Blessings my friends, may you all be renewed in your spirits as you consider the gift of baptism, and all that it means for your life. Amen.
*http://www.davidlose.net/2015/01/baptism-of-our-lord-b/
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Sunday, January 4, 2015
2015: The Year of Embodiment
Today I had the honor of filling the pulpit at Community Christian Church in Jefferson City. It's a beautiful worship space, and also the place where I baptized my oldest child. It was a blessing to be there! Below is the sermon that I preached.
Sermon: New Year, New Us!
Community Christian Church, Jefferson City, MO, 1/4/15
Text: Jeremiah 31:10-14 and John 1:16-18
There is just something extra special about worship services that mark the beginning or the end of something. And here today, the air is still full of the wonder of Christmas, God born anew into our world, and the opportunity and possibilities of a blank canvass heading into this new year.
Some of you are likely happy that 2014 is gone. Perhaps you muttered the tired line “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” as the year came to a close. Some of you may be sad to see it go, clinging to some victory, joy, or celebration brought to you by 2014.
However we look at it though, 2014 is gone, and 2015 has snuck right in. There are two ways that I know for sure that we’ve moved into a new year. One is that I write the date incorrectly on a check, and the second is that I almost print the church bulletins with last year’s date. I’ve done both of those this week, so it’s official. So given the fact that it’s here and there’s nothing we can do about it, it seems like a good idea to think a bit about how we’ll handle it. Hence, today’s sermon, New Year, New Us!
By now I’m sure that you’ve already been inundated with offers to create a new you in this new year. Scrolling through my email inbox on January 2 after a couple of days of being unplugged allowed me to get the full effect of the end of year/beginning of year mash-up. January 31 brings all the last minute offers I can handle, suggesting that there are many places that I could get rid of any pesky money that might still be lying around after Christmas. And then comes the onslaught of New You emails on January 1. They suggest that I need an overhaul in every aspect of my life. My weight, my health, my career, my finances, my spiritual journey; and I wonder, have these people all been spying on me? How do they know that I’m in such bad shape, and such well-rounded bad shape at that? Do you wonder these things?
Well, yes, they have been watching our every move; our purchases, our google searches, our Facebook likes and our tweets will provide most any marketing expert all the information they need to make us their next target. More importantly though, they know we’re human, and that more often than not, we fall short of where we had hoped to be at this point, sometimes due to our own bad decisions, and sometimes due to unfortunate circumstances beyond our control.
The writers of today’s texts knew a few things about bad decisions and unfortunate circumstances…
Jeremiah prophecies to the remnants of a decimated Northern Kingdom, the 30 chapters leading up to this one relentlessly suggest that the destruction they have experienced is largely due to their unfaithfulness to the God who has sustained them up to this point. Chaos reigns, but one thing is clear: they will never again experience God’s presence in the places and the ways that they were accustomed to. Jeremiah’s words are hanging somewhere between exile and restoration, between judgment and mercy.
This is a people profoundly changed by their experiences of loss and of exile. It is a lost and vulnerable people being gathered by their God, much like a people, hopeless in so many ways, gathered at the manger of the newborn King, shepherds and kings alike, looking for new life and a fresh start. John writes to a community some 700 years after Jeremiah, who also struggle with their circumstances AND their belief! Their struggle is different, but no less real, and the need for God to intervene and correct our course had not then, and still has not gone away!
The Jeremiah passage shows us that out of death and destruction, God creates new life. The gospel passage shows us that out of nothing, God creates new life. Most of us fall somewhere on that spectrum right now, between death and destruction, and just a blank canvass. I wonder how there can be any question for us, whether God can create new life for us too? And yet, we’re just not sure.
As we ponder what a new us might look like in 2015, we have to look back at the old us of 2014. It seems clear that 2014 revealed to us a disheartening level of brokenness in our world. Some of which we may have thought was long gone, and some of it new, thanks to the barrage of polarizing and sensationalized information that is served up to us 24/7 via the media, social and otherwise.
Slate magazine dubbed 2014 “the Year of Outrage”, noting that “following the news in 2014 is a bit like flying a kite in flat country during tornado season. Every so often, a whirlwind of outrage touches down, sowing destruction and chaos before disappearing into the sky.”1
Outrage seems to have become a way of life for us. “It rises from our disappointment.”2 Out of the ashes of broken dreams, failed ventures, tainted relationships, and shattered hopes; outrage is like the smoke that wafts through the air, lingering, waiting to hitch a ride on some unsuspecting host. It is a natural, and even honorable response to the things that happen to us and to others in a broken world. The problem comes when outrage becomes our destination, rather than a stop on our journey to something better.
Perhaps that something better is something akin to incarnation, that which we celebrate when we honor the baby Jesus at Christmas. Jesus was God incarnate, putting on human flesh to be present among us and show us the way. The life and teachings of Jesus give us the opportunity to bridge the human/divine gap too. When we, who are human flesh, put on ourselves the attributes of God, wisdom, faithfulness, steadfast love, grace and mercy, we might call that embodiment. What if 360 days from now, we were able to look back and point to the ways that 2015 was the year of embodiment? Where the people of God spoke words that honored God and God’s people, where they (we actually) acted like we believe the truths that we proclaim, and where followers of Jesus emulated his selfless actions?
Jesus himself expressed outrage, most notably remembered in the episode that we call “Jesus cleansing the temple”. He is angered by the exploitation that he sees taking place by people in power at the temple, taking advantage of those who had little to spare, and turning sacred space into a marketplace. He was so angry that he made a whip out of cords and ran them all out, overturning their tables as he went. There are, for sure, some institutions today that need a good cleansing and would benefit from the removal of some money-changers, but that’s a topic for another day. The point today is that even after expressing deep outrage at what was going on, Jesus didn’t stay there. He went on to heal, and teach, and grant new life. The text says “many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name”.
Outrage makes way for incarnation. Rev. John Allen writes about our embodiment of the divine will in terms of “incarnational intention”. I think he’s onto something. He writes:
“God’s incarnational intention is that God’s story gets lived out in recognizable ways in the world. Not only over some grand cosmic saga, but also in the way we engage the specific broken places in our communities and even in the forgettable interactions we have with our neighbors.
God’s incarnational intention is that God’s presence becomes unmistakable in our midst because the faithful have put their bodies, and not just their language, into effect for what they believe to be true.
God’s incarnational intention is that the faithful enact our hope in liturgy AND life. That we embody God’s justice and love in the world, not just by speaking it, but by living it out. Not through testing philosophical edicts against the long arc of history, but by showing up in the world we have, as the people we are, to make God into flesh once again.”3
Thanks be to God for the gift of Christmas, pure love, wisdom, grace, and mercy, wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger; sent to us in hopes that we might apply the gifts to our own lives. May we who call ourselves God’s children, receive and embody the gift in 2015. New year, new us! Amen.
1&2. Slate Magazine, The Year of Outrage http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2014/12/the_year_of_outrage_2014_everything_you_were_angry_about_on_social_media.html
3. Rev John Allen, The Politics of Incarnation. http://www.politicaltheology.com/blog/the-politics-of-incarnation-john-11-18/
Sermon: New Year, New Us!
Community Christian Church, Jefferson City, MO, 1/4/15
Text: Jeremiah 31:10-14 and John 1:16-18
There is just something extra special about worship services that mark the beginning or the end of something. And here today, the air is still full of the wonder of Christmas, God born anew into our world, and the opportunity and possibilities of a blank canvass heading into this new year.
Some of you are likely happy that 2014 is gone. Perhaps you muttered the tired line “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” as the year came to a close. Some of you may be sad to see it go, clinging to some victory, joy, or celebration brought to you by 2014.
However we look at it though, 2014 is gone, and 2015 has snuck right in. There are two ways that I know for sure that we’ve moved into a new year. One is that I write the date incorrectly on a check, and the second is that I almost print the church bulletins with last year’s date. I’ve done both of those this week, so it’s official. So given the fact that it’s here and there’s nothing we can do about it, it seems like a good idea to think a bit about how we’ll handle it. Hence, today’s sermon, New Year, New Us!
By now I’m sure that you’ve already been inundated with offers to create a new you in this new year. Scrolling through my email inbox on January 2 after a couple of days of being unplugged allowed me to get the full effect of the end of year/beginning of year mash-up. January 31 brings all the last minute offers I can handle, suggesting that there are many places that I could get rid of any pesky money that might still be lying around after Christmas. And then comes the onslaught of New You emails on January 1. They suggest that I need an overhaul in every aspect of my life. My weight, my health, my career, my finances, my spiritual journey; and I wonder, have these people all been spying on me? How do they know that I’m in such bad shape, and such well-rounded bad shape at that? Do you wonder these things?
Well, yes, they have been watching our every move; our purchases, our google searches, our Facebook likes and our tweets will provide most any marketing expert all the information they need to make us their next target. More importantly though, they know we’re human, and that more often than not, we fall short of where we had hoped to be at this point, sometimes due to our own bad decisions, and sometimes due to unfortunate circumstances beyond our control.
The writers of today’s texts knew a few things about bad decisions and unfortunate circumstances…
Jeremiah prophecies to the remnants of a decimated Northern Kingdom, the 30 chapters leading up to this one relentlessly suggest that the destruction they have experienced is largely due to their unfaithfulness to the God who has sustained them up to this point. Chaos reigns, but one thing is clear: they will never again experience God’s presence in the places and the ways that they were accustomed to. Jeremiah’s words are hanging somewhere between exile and restoration, between judgment and mercy.
This is a people profoundly changed by their experiences of loss and of exile. It is a lost and vulnerable people being gathered by their God, much like a people, hopeless in so many ways, gathered at the manger of the newborn King, shepherds and kings alike, looking for new life and a fresh start. John writes to a community some 700 years after Jeremiah, who also struggle with their circumstances AND their belief! Their struggle is different, but no less real, and the need for God to intervene and correct our course had not then, and still has not gone away!
The Jeremiah passage shows us that out of death and destruction, God creates new life. The gospel passage shows us that out of nothing, God creates new life. Most of us fall somewhere on that spectrum right now, between death and destruction, and just a blank canvass. I wonder how there can be any question for us, whether God can create new life for us too? And yet, we’re just not sure.
As we ponder what a new us might look like in 2015, we have to look back at the old us of 2014. It seems clear that 2014 revealed to us a disheartening level of brokenness in our world. Some of which we may have thought was long gone, and some of it new, thanks to the barrage of polarizing and sensationalized information that is served up to us 24/7 via the media, social and otherwise.
Slate magazine dubbed 2014 “the Year of Outrage”, noting that “following the news in 2014 is a bit like flying a kite in flat country during tornado season. Every so often, a whirlwind of outrage touches down, sowing destruction and chaos before disappearing into the sky.”1
Outrage seems to have become a way of life for us. “It rises from our disappointment.”2 Out of the ashes of broken dreams, failed ventures, tainted relationships, and shattered hopes; outrage is like the smoke that wafts through the air, lingering, waiting to hitch a ride on some unsuspecting host. It is a natural, and even honorable response to the things that happen to us and to others in a broken world. The problem comes when outrage becomes our destination, rather than a stop on our journey to something better.
Perhaps that something better is something akin to incarnation, that which we celebrate when we honor the baby Jesus at Christmas. Jesus was God incarnate, putting on human flesh to be present among us and show us the way. The life and teachings of Jesus give us the opportunity to bridge the human/divine gap too. When we, who are human flesh, put on ourselves the attributes of God, wisdom, faithfulness, steadfast love, grace and mercy, we might call that embodiment. What if 360 days from now, we were able to look back and point to the ways that 2015 was the year of embodiment? Where the people of God spoke words that honored God and God’s people, where they (we actually) acted like we believe the truths that we proclaim, and where followers of Jesus emulated his selfless actions?
Jesus himself expressed outrage, most notably remembered in the episode that we call “Jesus cleansing the temple”. He is angered by the exploitation that he sees taking place by people in power at the temple, taking advantage of those who had little to spare, and turning sacred space into a marketplace. He was so angry that he made a whip out of cords and ran them all out, overturning their tables as he went. There are, for sure, some institutions today that need a good cleansing and would benefit from the removal of some money-changers, but that’s a topic for another day. The point today is that even after expressing deep outrage at what was going on, Jesus didn’t stay there. He went on to heal, and teach, and grant new life. The text says “many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name”.
Outrage makes way for incarnation. Rev. John Allen writes about our embodiment of the divine will in terms of “incarnational intention”. I think he’s onto something. He writes:
“God’s incarnational intention is that God’s story gets lived out in recognizable ways in the world. Not only over some grand cosmic saga, but also in the way we engage the specific broken places in our communities and even in the forgettable interactions we have with our neighbors.
God’s incarnational intention is that God’s presence becomes unmistakable in our midst because the faithful have put their bodies, and not just their language, into effect for what they believe to be true.
God’s incarnational intention is that the faithful enact our hope in liturgy AND life. That we embody God’s justice and love in the world, not just by speaking it, but by living it out. Not through testing philosophical edicts against the long arc of history, but by showing up in the world we have, as the people we are, to make God into flesh once again.”3
Thanks be to God for the gift of Christmas, pure love, wisdom, grace, and mercy, wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in a manger; sent to us in hopes that we might apply the gifts to our own lives. May we who call ourselves God’s children, receive and embody the gift in 2015. New year, new us! Amen.
1&2. Slate Magazine, The Year of Outrage http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2014/12/the_year_of_outrage_2014_everything_you_were_angry_about_on_social_media.html
3. Rev John Allen, The Politics of Incarnation. http://www.politicaltheology.com/blog/the-politics-of-incarnation-john-11-18/
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