It seems odd that just last week we were kneeling at the manger and now we are wading in the waters of the river Jordan with John and Jesus. The author of Matthew’s Gospel has their own reasons for that, which we’ll get into in a minute, but first I want to touch back on Kris Newman’s message from last week.
If you were not here, she spoke of the experience of the Magi who were redirected by their divine purpose and how attending to God’s activity in the world will do the same for us. As a prompt for how God might do this, we handed out “Star Words” last week, and there are more in the back in case you need one for yourself or a friend. Some of them may seem a little obscure, but our hope is that they will make you think and challenge you to open your heart to God’s activity.
My word is “Freedom.” That may sound like a good one – and it is – but I’ll also say that we’ve been doing this for a few years now and I think this is the most challenging word I’ve gotten yet. What does it mean to be free? Does everyone share the same freedoms? Can we? How can I be truly free if others are not? What must I let go of; what must I limit to be free?
I imagine these questions will come up again and again through the year, especially in the season of Lent that follows Mardi Gras, but today we are presented with the freedom offered through Christian baptism. Today is a day set aside in our calendar to reaffirm our own baptismal covenant, which most of us do not remember in the slightest.
Several years ago a colleague of mine was leading worship at a Montreat Youth Conference, and she led a reaffirmation of baptism. She spoke about how memorable her baptism was as a teenager and how she wanted these youth to have an experience of being claimed by God that they would remember. I think that was a good thing to do, but it also struck me how glad I am that I don’t remember my baptism. Instead, I remember being raised by a faith community that loved me and reaffirmed God’s love for me over and over again and again in ways that were simple and complex, and altogether lovely.
That’s why I pour the water in the font every chance I get. That’s why I try to remember and encourage you to remember the claim of God in the rain. In fact, I encourage you to come up after worship on any given Sunday and dip your fingers in the water and make the cross on your forehead to remember God’s covenant to love you which God made before you even knew of your need for God’s love.
Just for clarity, I do want to remind you, or inform you, that baptism in the reformed tradition is one of our two sacraments – the other being communion – and it cannot be undone or redone. Once completed it is a status that cannot be revoked. It is both a sign and sealing of a person into the house and family of God.
I realize that for some that may sound very Hogwartsian, “The sorting font has chosen to put you in… the Presbyterian Church (USA)!” but the idea is not to claim you for our team. It is to say that we believe that God has chosen to love you before you knew of your need for God’s love. In that love we find forgiveness and reconciliation and Christian fellowship, and all kinds of things we grow into in a life of faith!
Now, this may sound very different from the baptism of Jesus, and in some ways it is. Physically, socially, and narratively, Matthew’s description of the baptism of Jesus is very different from our experiences of baptism – apart from the sacramental nature of baptism. By that, I mean the sacred-making actions of God.
Here’s what I am getting at. In Matthew’s Gospel, Joseph was also warned in a dream (like the magi), and he took Mary and Jesus to Egypt. Narratively, Jesus coming out of Egypt and receiving God’s blessing in the Jordan sets him up to be a kind of “new Moses.” Socially, baptism was used for ritual cleansing to gain God's favor or prepare for certain rituals, or to demonstrate allegiance to a certain teacher and his expectations.
John was calling for repentance, not just for individuals but for the Jewish people of his day, and Jesus began his ministry with that same message. That would have been fine and dandy except that John knew that Jesus was supposed to be the one that everyone followed. Jesus knew this too, which is why he countered John’s resistance of, “This is not right.” with, “Actually, it is exactly right.”
It was exactly right because their faithfulness created the opportunity for God to name and claim Jesus as God’s own. God is the one that makes things sacred, and because of God’s sacred-making action, we understand that Jesus was not just following John. Instead, John submitted to Jesus so that God’s authority might be clearly seen to rest on Jesus.
As the story continues, and as our reading from Acts describes, the message of repentance expands through Jesus to become a message of hope and redemption that includes Jews and Gentiles, and all those that revere God. Acts 10:35 refers to God’s impartiality for all who fear God and practice righteousness.
Wait. What? Fear God? I’ve heard it said that a religion that uses fear to motivate devotion is not a religion of love, and I agree with that. So, what do we do with this verse? Well, I would say that the idea of fearing God is something we have to hold in tension with the rest of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Personally, I make peace with this word by understanding it as reverence, and I ask myself, “Do my actions and my relationships demonstrate an expectation that there is a God who governs in love?”
The resolution to this tension over fear and love is actually found in the second part of the phrase “fear God and practice righteousness.” Do we put God’s love for us into practice in our love for others; for those who are not received impartially the way God receives us; for the creation itself that we were created to be stewards of? Practicing righteousness, being in a right relationship with the Creator and all of God’s creation, requires us to love “because we love” not “because we fear punishment.”
The rest of the Acts passage is a summary of the life and testimony of Jesus and Peter uses it to say this, “Forgiveness is not only possible but it has also been accomplished by God.” The response of the House of Cornelius, a Centurion of the Italian Cohort, was to become filled with the Holy Spirit of God, much as the church was in the Pentecost event – and they were baptized!
Now, what about you and me? As Presbyterians, we are a little skeptical of those that claim that they speak for God or are filled with the Holy Spirit or jumping up and down in ways that are not decent and orderly during worship (although most of us in this congregation are ok with a little jazz from time to time). What is our response to the invitation of God’s sacred-making action of baptism?
Karoline M. Lewis of Luther Seminary suggests that we look no further than Isaiah and consider what it might mean for God to have looked up to us at our baptism and to have said:
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness;
I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
a light to the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
Of course, none of us can do this by ourselves. That is why God has given us one another. That is why we create sacred spaces together, that is why we elect officers to guide the church in our work together. That is why we do just about everything we do in our community and in the world through partnerships. We are not called to be the saviors of the world, but we are called to participate in the salvation that God has brought and is bringing through Jesus Christ!
How do we do that? We do it by being a community of faith that loves impartially and reaffirms God’s love for others over and over again and again in ways that were simple and complex and altogether lovely.
I’ll leave you with these words that I think describe the ways we love as a community of faith from an anonymous prayer poem titled, “Blessing.”
The world is too dangerous
and too beautiful for anything but love.
May your eyes be so blessed that you see God in everyone;
your ears, so you hear the cry of the poor.
May your hands be so blessed that everything you touch is sacrament;
your lips, so you speak nothing but the truth with love.
May your feet be so blessed that you run to those that need you;
and may your heart be so opened,
so set on fire, that love,
your love, [rather I would say the love of God flowing through you and me together] changes everything.
This poem reminds me that although the church only has two rites that we refer to as “sacraments” the point of each is that we may live sacramental lives – lives in which everything becomes a reflection of the activity of God. May it be so with me. May it be so with you, as God moves us toward a greater end than andy we might have in mind. Amen.
If you were not here, she spoke of the experience of the Magi who were redirected by their divine purpose and how attending to God’s activity in the world will do the same for us. As a prompt for how God might do this, we handed out “Star Words” last week, and there are more in the back in case you need one for yourself or a friend. Some of them may seem a little obscure, but our hope is that they will make you think and challenge you to open your heart to God’s activity.
My word is “Freedom.” That may sound like a good one – and it is – but I’ll also say that we’ve been doing this for a few years now and I think this is the most challenging word I’ve gotten yet. What does it mean to be free? Does everyone share the same freedoms? Can we? How can I be truly free if others are not? What must I let go of; what must I limit to be free?
I imagine these questions will come up again and again through the year, especially in the season of Lent that follows Mardi Gras, but today we are presented with the freedom offered through Christian baptism. Today is a day set aside in our calendar to reaffirm our own baptismal covenant, which most of us do not remember in the slightest.
Several years ago a colleague of mine was leading worship at a Montreat Youth Conference, and she led a reaffirmation of baptism. She spoke about how memorable her baptism was as a teenager and how she wanted these youth to have an experience of being claimed by God that they would remember. I think that was a good thing to do, but it also struck me how glad I am that I don’t remember my baptism. Instead, I remember being raised by a faith community that loved me and reaffirmed God’s love for me over and over again and again in ways that were simple and complex, and altogether lovely.
That’s why I pour the water in the font every chance I get. That’s why I try to remember and encourage you to remember the claim of God in the rain. In fact, I encourage you to come up after worship on any given Sunday and dip your fingers in the water and make the cross on your forehead to remember God’s covenant to love you which God made before you even knew of your need for God’s love.
Just for clarity, I do want to remind you, or inform you, that baptism in the reformed tradition is one of our two sacraments – the other being communion – and it cannot be undone or redone. Once completed it is a status that cannot be revoked. It is both a sign and sealing of a person into the house and family of God.
I realize that for some that may sound very Hogwartsian, “The sorting font has chosen to put you in… the Presbyterian Church (USA)!” but the idea is not to claim you for our team. It is to say that we believe that God has chosen to love you before you knew of your need for God’s love. In that love we find forgiveness and reconciliation and Christian fellowship, and all kinds of things we grow into in a life of faith!
Now, this may sound very different from the baptism of Jesus, and in some ways it is. Physically, socially, and narratively, Matthew’s description of the baptism of Jesus is very different from our experiences of baptism – apart from the sacramental nature of baptism. By that, I mean the sacred-making actions of God.
Here’s what I am getting at. In Matthew’s Gospel, Joseph was also warned in a dream (like the magi), and he took Mary and Jesus to Egypt. Narratively, Jesus coming out of Egypt and receiving God’s blessing in the Jordan sets him up to be a kind of “new Moses.” Socially, baptism was used for ritual cleansing to gain God's favor or prepare for certain rituals, or to demonstrate allegiance to a certain teacher and his expectations.
John was calling for repentance, not just for individuals but for the Jewish people of his day, and Jesus began his ministry with that same message. That would have been fine and dandy except that John knew that Jesus was supposed to be the one that everyone followed. Jesus knew this too, which is why he countered John’s resistance of, “This is not right.” with, “Actually, it is exactly right.”
It was exactly right because their faithfulness created the opportunity for God to name and claim Jesus as God’s own. God is the one that makes things sacred, and because of God’s sacred-making action, we understand that Jesus was not just following John. Instead, John submitted to Jesus so that God’s authority might be clearly seen to rest on Jesus.
As the story continues, and as our reading from Acts describes, the message of repentance expands through Jesus to become a message of hope and redemption that includes Jews and Gentiles, and all those that revere God. Acts 10:35 refers to God’s impartiality for all who fear God and practice righteousness.
Wait. What? Fear God? I’ve heard it said that a religion that uses fear to motivate devotion is not a religion of love, and I agree with that. So, what do we do with this verse? Well, I would say that the idea of fearing God is something we have to hold in tension with the rest of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Personally, I make peace with this word by understanding it as reverence, and I ask myself, “Do my actions and my relationships demonstrate an expectation that there is a God who governs in love?”
The resolution to this tension over fear and love is actually found in the second part of the phrase “fear God and practice righteousness.” Do we put God’s love for us into practice in our love for others; for those who are not received impartially the way God receives us; for the creation itself that we were created to be stewards of? Practicing righteousness, being in a right relationship with the Creator and all of God’s creation, requires us to love “because we love” not “because we fear punishment.”
The rest of the Acts passage is a summary of the life and testimony of Jesus and Peter uses it to say this, “Forgiveness is not only possible but it has also been accomplished by God.” The response of the House of Cornelius, a Centurion of the Italian Cohort, was to become filled with the Holy Spirit of God, much as the church was in the Pentecost event – and they were baptized!
Now, what about you and me? As Presbyterians, we are a little skeptical of those that claim that they speak for God or are filled with the Holy Spirit or jumping up and down in ways that are not decent and orderly during worship (although most of us in this congregation are ok with a little jazz from time to time). What is our response to the invitation of God’s sacred-making action of baptism?
Karoline M. Lewis of Luther Seminary suggests that we look no further than Isaiah and consider what it might mean for God to have looked up to us at our baptism and to have said:
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness;
I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,
a light to the nations,
to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.
Of course, none of us can do this by ourselves. That is why God has given us one another. That is why we create sacred spaces together, that is why we elect officers to guide the church in our work together. That is why we do just about everything we do in our community and in the world through partnerships. We are not called to be the saviors of the world, but we are called to participate in the salvation that God has brought and is bringing through Jesus Christ!
How do we do that? We do it by being a community of faith that loves impartially and reaffirms God’s love for others over and over again and again in ways that were simple and complex and altogether lovely.
I’ll leave you with these words that I think describe the ways we love as a community of faith from an anonymous prayer poem titled, “Blessing.”
The world is too dangerous
and too beautiful for anything but love.
May your eyes be so blessed that you see God in everyone;
your ears, so you hear the cry of the poor.
May your hands be so blessed that everything you touch is sacrament;
your lips, so you speak nothing but the truth with love.
May your feet be so blessed that you run to those that need you;
and may your heart be so opened,
so set on fire, that love,
your love, [rather I would say the love of God flowing through you and me together] changes everything.
This poem reminds me that although the church only has two rites that we refer to as “sacraments” the point of each is that we may live sacramental lives – lives in which everything becomes a reflection of the activity of God. May it be so with me. May it be so with you, as God moves us toward a greater end than andy we might have in mind. Amen.
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