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How
quickly we have run through the events of Jesus’ young life!
A couple of weeks ago, he was a newborn in a manger in Now
we have the account of his baptism when he was thirty.
Have you heard about the nervous preacher who got a bit mixed up?
Instead of saying that John baptized Jesus in the In
all seriousness, the baptism of Jesus is an incredible story, for Jesus and for
us. It illuminates on many levels,
depending upon who we identify with. Let
us start with Jesus’ mother, Mary. Madeleine
L’Engle, who if we have a poet laureate in the Episcopal Church, she must
surely be it, wrote the following poem about Jesus’ baptism:
It is entitled, “Mary: after the Baptism.” Yes,
of course. On many days I doubted. Who
was this child that Mary gave birth to and watched grow from day to day?
Any
of us who have been or are parents know so well this wonder and watching of
being a parent, watching for signs of gifts, of insights.
We wonder what will this child grow to be?
Even when they are of adult age, it is still not always clear who they
are called to be. I had several
conversations this past week with mothers who talked about how much harder it
seems these days for young people, especially young men, to find their place in
the world. How long it takes
for them to have the moment of recognition that Jesus knew in his baptism.
As the mother of one of these young men, I encourage us all to take
comfort in the realization that Jesus was thirty before he knew what he was
supposed to do. And he
was not only thirty but he was Jesus!
It
is all in God’s good time, we might say. Jesus’
baptism marked the beginning of three years of active ministry before his death.
But
the baptism was as much about
Jesus’ being as about his doing, about God’s doing and Jesus’ listening.
Jesus was praying, and the heaven opened.
The Holy Spirit descended upon him in physical form, like a dove.
The last time the hard-shell of heaven opened the floods of rain came and
the earth was washed away. The dove
was sent by Noah, after the flood, in search of a sign of land when the waters
had begun to recede. This reference
to the heaven opening and the dove descending was a cosmic sign of great
proportion for those who knew their cosmology and theology in the first century.
This experience would have been an incredible epiphany for Jesus, even if
nothing else happened after that. But
that was not all. The words came, instead
of rain. Instead of destruction
coming from the heaven, blessing came. God
spoke, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. “
It must have been an incredible experience for Jesus to see the dove and
then hear these words. What was he
to make of them? It
certainly wasn’t clear that he understood himself as the Messiah.
Whatever clarity Madeleine L’Engle attributes to this moment, it was
perhaps more knowledge that something extraordinary was afoot in his life, but
perhaps it was just the introduction to the
story that was to follow. We are
told that immediately the Spirit drove him into the wilderness where he spent 40
days struggling with what it all meant. At
this point, we could continue to focus on Jesus and what his baptism meant to
him. That would be too easy.
Because it would not involve our struggle.
We are happy to let Jesus’ struggle and wonder about his life.
It keeps us from having to do the hard work of wondering and struggling
about our own lives. It
isn’t just to Jesus, my friends, that God speaks the words—You are my son,
my daughter, the beloved. These
words finally only have significance if we understand that they are also
addressed to us. To each of us.
To you, to me. To men, to
women, to gays to straights, to children, to the elderly,
to the disabled and mentally ill and to the so-called healthy and normal,
to all races and cultures. All
of us, at our baptism become the beloved daughters and sons of God.
Jesus is our elder brother, the first-born of the Christian family.
Some of us would go even further to say that Christ made of us one
humanity whether people are baptized or believers or not.
But that’s another sermon, because again it takes the focus off us. We
sometimes become uncomfortable by Christians who run around asking if people are
saved or born again. I always tell people to say, “Yes. I have been
baptized.” We seldom hear of
anyone running around asking, “Do you know that you are God’s beloved?
God’s daughter? God’s
son?” Well,
today consider yourself asked personally by me, “Do you know that you are
precious to God? That you are
God’s beloved daughter, God’s beloved son?”
There is no protesting this truth. It
simply is. Do
you remember Tom Hanks in the movie about women’s baseball entitled “A
League of Their Own, telling one of the women, “There is no crying in
baseball?” Well, there is no
protesting who you are in the community of faith.
You are God’s beloved. That
is where we start. We don’t have
to earn it; we can’t. We don’t
have to worry about losing it; we can’t. It’s
not that it answers all the questions about what we do with our life.
But it gives us an incredible place to start from and an incredible model
to follow. I
wonder how many of you young people think that once you are grown up you will
once and for all understand what you are supposed to do and what life is all
about anyway? I know I thought that.
I hate to break anyone’s bubble, but it isn’t that easy.
We
may wonder and worry about young adults not finding their way; but it doesn’t
just stop with youth. There are many of us who at various times know that we are
to be on a different path and we aren’t sure what it is or where to find it.
This call that came to Jesus at his baptism didn’t answer all the
questions for him, and it doesn’t answer all the questions for us.
It only assures us that God loves us and is with us; that Holy Spirit of
God is within each of us, to guide us. If Jesus had lived longer, we would have perhaps seen more change of direction in his ministry and life. We can see some turning points, however, even in three years. The time he was confronted by the Syrophoenician woman who reminded him that even the dogs get to lick up the crumbs under the table seemed to have helped him realize his mission was to more than the house of Israel. To
live out our lives as God’s beloved is to enter into the great mystery of our
existence, to listen, to look, to live with an awakened heart to where the call
to be God’s beloved is taking us next. We
can look around and think that we see people who have figured it out once and
for all who they are and what they are supposed to do.
But look again. Anyone
who has moved recently or is contemplating moving, anyone who is retiring soon
or has recently retired, anyone who feels a restless pull and longing in their
heart, anyone reaching mid-life, anyone searching for a new job, anyone dealing
with a serious illness, anyone getting ready to graduate from high school or
college, anyone contemplating marriage or divorce, and so on and so forth, is
ready to hear again the song of the beloved and be moved in new understandings
of what that means for our lives and ministries. I
would like to tell one final story—some of my story, which involves a family
in this parish. Seventeen
years ago my husband and I had the difficult task of telling our senior warden
in Staatsburg Two
years ago when we were in the middle of search processes in several different
dioceses, including Iowa, we received their Christmas card. Ken had recently
retired from the military and they had moved to Cedar Rapids.
As soon as I read that I yelled with realization and reluctance, “My
God, we are going to Iowa!” Shortly
after that Mel accepted a call to become Rector of Trinity, Iowa City.
I came later, kicking and screaming.
I went off to Texas to be an Angel in the Diocese of Fort Worth, and soon
after I returned I received a call from the office manager at a parish in Cedar
Rapids saying that Ken Young had told them that there was a new priest in the
area who was not really doing anything. Could
I come do some supply work? I could; I did.
I fell in love with the people of this parish.
Yet, I knew I was not called to be Rector.
But how delighted I am to be here as Associate Rector.
That feels so right. And what
makes it very special to tell this story today, is that Ken Young’s mother and
step-father, Jayne and Bob Brooks are here worshipping with us today.
The woman I had to tell I was leaving St. Margaret’s Staatsburg is here
this morning with her son Ken, who is responsible for getting me connected here
in the first place. This is a full circle story.
We never know how God is going to take us to places we never dreamed of,
in ways we could never conceive. It
all starts with our baptism and becoming open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit
in our lives. At the 5:30 service on
Saturday we baptized a darling little girl named Whitney, a grand-daughter of a
long-standing member of this parish. She
has been given the Holy Spirit to guide, protect, prod and encourage her all her
days. She is God’s beloved
daughter, now, our sister, free and called to live among us to find her work,
her place, in this world. God bless her and God bless each one of us as we continue our journeys and our discernment of the path God has planned for us. Amen. |
