Baptism of our Lord A
January 12, 2019
Matthew 3:13-17
INTRODUCTION
On this first
Sunday after Epiphany, we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord. We jump from the
babe in the manger being visited by kings from afar, to a 30-year-old Jesus at
the river Jordan, with his eccentric cousin John, asking to be baptized by him.
Christians have long had questions about this event – why would Jesus have to
be baptized if he is without sin? One reason is that by being baptized himself,
Jesus ties himself closer to us and our own experience. And so, as we observe
Jesus’ baptism, we can learn something about our own. So as you listen to this
story, consider what it has to say about what happens for us when we are
baptized.
The other
appointed readings for this day set up this story nicely. In Isaiah, we will
hear one of what are called the Servant Songs – poems about God’s “servant” who
looks an awful lot like Jesus, but whom we could also interpret and understand
as “servant people.” As you listen to Isaiah, I encourage you to think about it
that way – as referring not to Jesus, or not only to Jesus, but to
servant people, those who claim faith in God.
The Psalm will proclaim the power of
the Lord’s voice – the same voice that we will hear in the baptism story when the
heavens open and a dove descends.
And in Acts, we will hear another
baptism story, though we don’t actually hear the part about the baptism. We
will hear Peter’s speech before the baptism, in which he declares that “God
shows no partiality” – he says this because Cornelius and his family are
Gentiles (non-Jews), and in fact are the first Gentiles to believe in Christ
and be baptized. In this story, we will see how the love of God is not limited
only to those who are like us, but is for everyone. An important message in
these divided times!
As you listen
to these, just watch for as many baptismal connections as you can find. Water,
voice, call, washing – any images at all that help you to reflect on the continuing
meaning of your baptism in your life of faith. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
There was a first-grade teacher who was frustrated in
her job, and seriously thinking about quitting. She changed her mind one night
while attending a night class at the local university. This is her story in her
own words:
A friendly woman who sat
next to me leaned over and said, "Say, I met an admirer of yours the other
day. I was at the bus station waiting for my son, and was noticing a Hispanic
woman and her little daughter waiting for a bus. The mother didn't speak much
English, but I began chatting with the little girl. She told me they were on
their way to Colorado to join her father. She was now in the second grade, and
she mentioned the name of her teacher. Then she opened her little purse and
took a worn picture from it and said, 'But this is my very favorite teacher. I
really love her!'"
My friend went on,
"I looked at that picture and was astonished that I knew the person she
showed me. It was you!" "Do you remember her name?" I asked.
"Yes, it was Adelina." Suddenly Adelina's little brown face began to
emerge in my mind. Adelina. Just another little first grader. But she said,
"This is the teacher I really love." She had shown my picture to a
stranger and said, "This is the teacher I really love." All the way
home that night that phrase boomed and throbbed in my mind: This is the teacher
I really love. With that kind of approval, I resolved to change, not my profession,
but my attitude.
How
powerful such simple words can be: “This is the one whom I really love!” They
are words that really can change our attitude – so much of our attitude, after
all, is shaped by how people treat us, and that sort of affirmation is really powerful.
Unfortunately, critical
words have the same power, maybe even more. How often our whole day might take
a turn for the worse if just one person criticizes us or says something mean. Do
you do this too? Like, you could all file out of church today and say, “Great
sermon today, pastor, really dynamite!” but if just one person walks out
saying, “Don’t worry, not all of your sermons can be good. Better luck next
time!” Guess which comment will nag at me the rest of the day? The one negative
voice! We can do our best to let problems and criticisms slide down our backs
like rain off a duck, but somehow, they can still find a way to bother us.
Why
is that? Brené Brown is a researcher at the University of Houston, and the
focus of her research is vulnerability and shame. Her TED Talk on vulnerability
is one of the most watched TED talks of all time. She argues that we are a
culture deeply affected by shame, at every age. She defines shame as something
different from guilt. Guilt, she says, is, “I did something bad.” It’s about
your action. Shame, however, is, “I am bad.” It is a belief
that there is something about us that is unlovable, wrong, and worthless. So
any time someone says something to us that affirms this deep-seated and
destructive fear, we readily believe it. “You see?” we think. “I am bad. I was
right. I’m worthless. I don’t deserve love.”
So
how do we combat these feelings of inadequacy, this sense that who and what we
are is somehow lacking? How do we move from scarcity – the belief that we are
not enough, not smart enough, skinny enough, organized enough, tough enough,
you fill in the blank – to the knowledge that we are enough,
that we are worthy of love?
Today’s Gospel lesson
about Jesus’ baptism gives us a start. I have always been particularly drawn to
that last part of Jesus’ baptism, the part where the voice comes from heaven
and says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Here God,
in heavenly fashion, announces to the world, “Hey everyone that’s my son! I
love him! I am pleased with him!” Don’t we all long to hear words like that
from those we care about? To know that we so loved?
Well of course God says
that about Jesus, we think. But Jesus was worthy, and sinless, and
perfect. But me? Well let’s just say I’m a far cry from Jesus!
Ah, but you see, in this
case we are not. Because these are the same words we hear not only in Jesus’
baptism, but in our own baptism as well. “This is my beloved child,” God says
with each Spirit-infused splash of water. “This one here. This one is mine, and
I am well pleased with them.” These words speak to hearts that often ache with
the pain of inadequacy, with the fear of not being enough. “This is my child,
my beloved.”
Sometimes it is all too
easy to forget we are God’s children, isn’t it? When we’re in despair, when we
are having doubts, when we mess up big time and hurt ourselves or people we
love, it is hard to feel like God’s children, much less like God’s beloved children!
Yet even so, God says in baptism, to us and to everyone who can hear, “This is
my beloved child, with whom I am well pleased.”
You see, in God’s eyes,
we are enough. We are loved. Yes, we mess up; yes, we fall short. Yes,
sometimes we are downright unlovable. But God’s love for us never falters.
That’s good news for us,
even as it is also a challenge to us. Because it is very wonderful that God
loves me, and you, so much. But that love also extends to other people – people
we don’t know, people we don’t like, people who scare us. It extends to people
of other colors and races, to people of different social or economic classes. God’s
love extends to people who are Trump 2020 and people who would love to see a
Warren/Sanders ticket in November. It extends to people waiting in detention
centers on the border, and ICE agents, and people chomping at the bit for a war
with Iran, and people proudly waving a rainbow flag. It extends to Mitch
McConnell and to Nancy Pelosi, to the unborn child and to the Black Lives
Matter activist. They are all God’s children, God’s beloved, too. As Peter
proclaims before he baptizes Cornelius and his family (people who should not,
by the way, have been considered a part of Christ’s community): God shows no
partiality.
And so, this non-partial
love that God shows to all God’s children is a challenge to us. Because as
baptized people whom God dearly loves, we also are called to see one another as
people who are beloved by God. In these divided times, when the gray area
between right and wrong gets smaller by the day, when people seem to be just
looking for a way to be combative, to prove they are right and the other side
is wrong, when people seem to have lost the capacity to sit with someone who
disagrees and really listen to that person’s pain without judgment… what if
instead, we looked at one another and first remembered, “He is, first and
foremost, a beloved child of God. She is beloved by God.” How would that change
how we view one another? How far might that go toward healing our brokenness as
a country? How might seeing each other as God sees us – beloved, and pleasing –
change the way we talk to one another, and bring about peace in the world?
I think this is pretty
important. And God must think it is pretty important, too, because God came to
earth Himself to show us so – to be born of a human mother, to be baptized, to
hang out with, heal, and bring hope to misfits and sinners and the lowest of
society, to suffer and to die and to rise again so that we would no longer fear
death…. All to show us just how much God loves us. Loves you! Just think if
there was more of that love to go around!
I started this sermon
with a story about a 1st grade teacher who heard loving words from a
6-year-old, and it changed her life. In baptism, God offers us such loving and
life-changing words every day of our lives. You are God’s beloved children.
God is pleased with you. You are enough. And God shows no partiality. Let us go
into the world, as God’s beloved, to love one another so indiscriminately as
God loves us.
Let us pray… God of love, thank you for loving us, even when we are, frankly, pretty unlovable. Help us, as your beloved children, to show no partiality in the way we love one another. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Image credit: Le Breton, Jacques ; Gaudin, Jean. Baptism of Christ, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=51568 [retrieved January 13, 2020]. Original source: Collection of Anne Richardson Womack.
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