With the People

January 9, 2022
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22[1]

Luke doesn’t tell us much about the baptism of Jesus. We have two chapters with great material for Advent and Christmas stories, but just two verses about the moment that marked the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. There is still, in this short description, an important image for us to consider. “Now, when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized…” (Luke 3:21). Where was Jesus? With the people.

When Jesus came to be baptized by John, he didn’t sweep in on a storm and take over. Jesus simply got in line with everyone else, all the people, to be healed and made new. In an act of solidarity with the sinners, the lost and the broken, the sin-sick souls, Jesus joined them. The people who needed God, who had come to the river to renew their relationship with their creator, find Jesus in their midst, already identifying with their experience.

There is a stop-motion film released in 2001 as a sequel to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer about the Island of Misfit Toys. After being told he could not play in any Reindeer Games due to his glowing nose, Rudolph sets out on a fantastic journey where he meets Hermey the elf, Yukon Cornelius the prospector, and a host of Misfit Toys, all while trying to escape from the Abominable Snow Monster. I love this idea of a place for all the broken, dirty, unwanted toys to belong. When I think about the crowd of people gathered to be baptized by John, it reminds me of the misfit toys. The misfit people have come to John seeking repair, renewal, and a place where they belong.

Is that what the church is? We say that all are welcome here. White and Black, rich and poor, gay and straight, female and male, cis and trans, young and old, able and challenged, we declare that we are all family in Christ. Some churches claim to be hospitals for sinners and a refuge for those who have lost their way. I wonder, however, if we don’t spend more time trying to shape people into our own ideal Christians than walking with one another in our brokenness seeking God together. Do we send a subliminal message that it is really the respectable, well-off, normal-seeming folk who are important in our churches?

We all have difficulties to face, challenges to overcome, barriers to becoming our best selves. Some have more difficulties, challenges, and barriers than others. Often what we see is that people who really need help, for whom everything is not alright and things are falling apart, the church is not a comfortable place to be. Too many people drift away from churches, seeking help elsewhere, only returning when they feel like they can put on the appearance of being respectable, upright, or worthy. How many folks would turn away from our doors because they don’t look or feel their “Sunday best”? I think it is important for us to remember that Jesus didn’t tell people to get washed and dressed up and come to the temple to find God. Jesus got in line with the sinners and was baptized with them.

When “the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him” (Luke 3:21-22), where was Jesus? With the people. And he was praying. Jesus won’t begin teaching, preaching, and healing before reaching out to God for what only God can provide. Just as we cannot rely only on our own power and abilities, Jesus receives the Holy Spirit to empower and encourage him in all that he will do. It is in prayer that the disciples will seek the guidance and strength of the Spirit of God. It is through prayer that Christians through the ages will find the presence of the Holy Spirit on which they can depend. It is prayer that brings us into connection with God, giving us the spiritual stamina to go into the world to make a difference in people’s lives.

Do we depend on our connection to the Holy Spirit as we live our lives? Do we come to God in prayer seeking the love and courage to do what must be done? The Holy Spirit came to Jesus as he prayed, surrounded by those who also needed that Holy Spirit in their lives. It was in that intensely spiritual moment, with and among the people, not high on a mountain top alone, that Jesus connected with God and was blessed as the Beloved Son.

That is why, I think, it is important for us to gather. Yes, it is difficult in the midst of a global pandemic which is filling our hospitals with the sick and dying, for us to come together safely. We can take steps to reduce our risk, and technology allows us to be present even if we cannot physically enter the building. But it important for us to seek the connection with God together. And it is important for us to remember that even people who make us uncomfortable, whom we deem unworthy, or who may not fit in, should be included in our community of Holy Spirit seekers.

It was in the midst of the people that Jesus heard the words, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). The text doesn’t say if the people heard it too, but I believe they did. I believe that they heard that God claims us as beloved children, and is proud of the work we do to bring love, peace, and hope to the world. I also believe that we can hear those words as well, that we can receive that affirmation from God, and know that we also are pleasing in the sight of God.

We need to remember these words. We need to hear them from one another and say them to each other. You are loved. You make me happy. Those words, in whatever way they are spoken, can change lives. To know that in all our brokenness, through all our struggles, that God loves us, God is with us, and we are pleasing to God, that can make all the difference in our lives and in all the lives around us.

Luke gives us only a short description of the baptism of Jesus. In those two verses, however, we discover that God identifies with us and with all people, that we can depend on God through prayer for the strength and power to live, and that God loves us, blesses us, and we bring joy to God. May God’s Holy Spirit be with each of you and with everyone you meet.  Amen.

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[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

Baptism and Prayer

January 10, 2021

St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Mark 1:4-11[1]

We are in the midst of a global pandemic, and now an unprecedented assault on democracy. All of this hurts. This is hard and exhausting. I feel it. Be kind to yourself. Ask for help if you need it. Extend a hand to others. Continue to seek a more just world. Know that God hears our prayers.

This is not a sermon about current events.

Did Jesus sin? Most people would shout “Of course not!” But why, then, did Jesus get baptized? John was “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” (1:4). The Nicene Creed, adopted by the Church in 325 CE, states that Jesus “became truly human.”[2] Jesus was born, lived, and died as a human, and we likely agree that all humans sin. Now, I’m not really trying to make a theological argument, or even really focus on whether or not Jesus sinned, whether or not he was perfect. My point is this: Jesus was born in to a world where no one is without sin, and he sought out the baptism of John.

Our world is not dualistic; there is no pure black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. There are only shades of gray. Every decision we make, every action we take exists in a complex web of interaction with every other person, every other being. Perhaps an illustration here would help.

Exodus 20:15 reads “You shall not steal.” It is one of the Ten Commandments. Roseanne (not her real name) was caught stealing from Jewel. At her trial, it became clear that, while she was guilty, she did it in order to feed her child. She is a single mother, the baby’s father long gone. Her parents died in a house fire a few years ago, and she doesn’t have any relatives that she knows. She can’t hold a job because she can’t leave her child alone, and can’t afford daycare. Was it absolutely wrong for her to steal? I’m not so sure. But let’s take a step back.

She lives in an apartment building a few blocks from my house. I have seen her before, but never spoken to her. I am her neighbor, yet I can’t honestly say that I love her as myself. I live as if completely detached from her existence, yet we both shop at Jewel. I vote and pay taxes, so I am an active participant in the legal system that will imprison her. Is it a sin to force a mother to abandon her child? If so, then isn’t the system itself implicated in sin?

Many of my clothes were made in a sweatshop in China or Vietnam. Is it a sin to oppress workers? The natural gas that cooks my food came from a fracking operation that has poisoned the well water of hundreds of people in North Dakota. Is it a sin to poison water? Sin surrounds us; that’s just the way it is. However much we wish to distance ourselves, we are linked with school shooters, drug dealers, and soldiers who tortured prisoners in Afghanistan. I don’t intend to harm others, to exploit the environment, or to sin against God. But sometimes it just can’t be helped. All I can do is to make the best choices that I can in an imperfect world.

This is the world that Jesus was born into. Did he sin? Probably not intentionally, but he was a real human being living in the real world where sin permeates the very air. He is one of us and all of us, every one of us, need forgiveness. So, let’s go down to the river to pray.

The people were filed with expectation, and they hoped John would have some answers for them. One after another they ask him, “What should we do?” The world is full of sin, and so am I, so what am I to do? The economy is struggling, jobs are scarce, people are sick and scared, and we are still at war. What are we to do? So, they came out to be baptized by John. It helped to be baptized, to be washed clean inside and out. But still, something was missing. Something more powerful was needed in order to really change things. The water was nice, but where was the fire? Where was the Holy Spirit?

Jesus was baptized, along with “people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem” (1:5). The baptism of Jesus wasn’t something unusual. There was no special ceremony just for him, or even a bit of dialogue between John and Jesus in Mark’s story. Instead, Jesus just gets in line and is baptized along with everyone else, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sinners. It is only after the baptism, when Jesus comes up out of the water, that the Holy Spirit descends from heaven. For Mark, this is where it all begins, down by the river, with baptism and prayer.

Jesus, in this moment, was more like us than we expect. He didn’t just appear and march right off to save the world. Before he started his ministry, he went with the sinners through the waters of baptism; he was washed clean, made ready for a new beginning. He prayed for strength and received power beyond himself. He faced the temptations in the wilderness, testing his commitment.

Messiah, son of God, member of the Trinity Jesus may be, yet the power of God’s Holy Spirit had to be received. And just as he did, we receive the Holy Spirit through baptism and prayer. We celebrate baptism only once, though we may remember it from time to time. It is through prayer that the disciples learn the power God from Jesus, and prayer will renew and strengthen the disciples and to enable them to endure suffering, face hardship, and find guidance for their ministry, through all the centuries, even to this day.

Baptism is where we find renewal. We acknowledge who we are, and what has come before, and we ask for forgiveness. We repent of sin, turn away from evil, and turn toward God. We ask for a new beginning, and we are given a fresh start. Every time we remember or celebrate a baptism, a confirmation, or welcome a new member, we renew our promise to be Christ’s disciples. And it is in prayer that we receive the power to fulfill that promise. Through prayer we open ourselves to the influence of God’s Holy Spirit.

Like a dove it came, as the heavens were torn apart, descending upon Jesus. It was the Spirit, filling Jesus, which powered his ministry. And the Holy Spirit is not limited to Jesus alone. The message of Pentecost is the promise that the Holy Spirit is available to all of us. In the second chapter of Acts, when they were all together in one place, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:4).

Just as the Holy Spirit gave Jesus the power to teach and to heal and to continue on in the face of opposition and threats, we are also able to tap into that power. The Holy Spirit gave the disciples the encouragement, the patience, and the strength to carry on the ministry of Jesus, and to love an angry, sinful world, and angry, sinful people, again and again. We too can depend upon the Holy Spirit to give us the spiritual stamina to carry on through difficult times, to make a difference in people’s lives, and to bring love and peace to our sinful world.

But if we are to trust in that power, if we are to trust that prayer really does connect us to God, perhaps we need to remember what else happened in that moment by the Jordan River. “A voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’” (4:11). Jesus, born as a human being, one of us, is identified as the child of God. It was in that moment that Jesus knew who he was, and whose he was. When Jesus heard those words from God, they changed his life forever. And they can change our lives as well.

The world is a hard place to live when you don’t know who you are. We wander as though we are lost, searching for ourselves. But we need not be lost. We need only remember our baptism. As the water dripped down from our hair, with family and friends gathered round, we heard these words: “The Holy Spirit be upon you, child of God, disciple of Christ, member of the church.”[3] You are a child of God. You are loved. God is pleased with you. The words that came from heaven that day were not for the ears of Jesus only, but for all of us. As we pray for the strength to live and to love, let us hear what God is saying to each of us: “You are my child. I love you. You make me very happy.”  Amen.

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[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] First Council of Nicaea, 325 CE. Translation used by permission of the United Church of Canada.

[3] Reprinted from Book of Worship © 1986 by permission of the United Church of Christ Office for Church Life and Leadership, p. 143.

Death and New Life

January 12, 2020

St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Matthew 3:13-17

I took some time off after Christmas to travel to Michigan to visit my in-laws. While I was gone, I missed out on a special event here, the baptism of Ayva Lynn Schmitt. I heard from some of you, and from Rev. Shanks, that it was a beautiful ceremony. Baptism is one of those events in the life of the church that is sure to bring tears of joy and fill us with love as we are reminded that God is with us, renewing us, washing us clean, and helping us to love one another.

“In officiating at a service of baptism, the pastor acts as a representative of the church universal.”[1] The whole Church of Jesus Christ, church with a capital “C”, celebrates the baptism, since we represent the Church in this particular place and time. It is “a sign and seal of our common discipleship. Through baptism, Christians are brought into union with Christ, with each other and with the church of every time and place.”[2] This is what we do as members of the family of Christ, blessing the new ones and promising our love and care. Even though the minister sprinkles the water, we merely act as representatives of God who takes the initiative in the sacrament.

It occurs to me that the minister also acts symbolically as the representative of John the Baptizer. After all, it was John baptizing Jesus that got this whole Christian baptism thing going. Now John wore clothing of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist. Imagine, for a moment, as we prepare to baptize a baby in the front of the church, if I came through the door in a camel-hair robe with long hair and a beard, shouting “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” I probably wouldn’t be invited to lead any more baptisms!

Well, back to the symbolism. Part of what we signify in the ceremony of baptism is the death and resurrection of Christ. In some churches this is more apparent as the person is dunked completely under the water and brought back up. We just sprinkle, though it works just as well, since it is only symbolic of the real baptism performed by God.

Paul wrote to the church in Rome about the symbolism of baptism, saying, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”[3] Baptism symbolizes the death and resurrection of Christ, and shows us that the life of resurrection is not only a spiritual life in heaven, but right here and now.

We don’t dwell on the aspect of death in the ceremony. After all, it is usually a baby that is being baptized and we are celebrating a new life. But the symbolism of death is there, reminding us that we are mortal, and reminding us also of the hope we have of new life despite the reality of death.

It is easier to dwell on new life. It is easier to find hope and joy in the new life of a baby than it is to find hope and joy as a person nears the end of their life. We just celebrated Christmas, and the baby Jesus; but Good Friday is not that far off, and it wasn’t that far off for Jesus when he was baptized by John. As a minister, I have celebrated a baptism in the morning, and spent the afternoon at the bedside of a dying person. The cycle of life sometimes swings from high to low and back more quickly than we would like.

How do I reconcile those two experiences? How do I celebrate birth and mourn death in the same day? It helps to not be afraid of death. I found inspiration about facing death in a story told by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying[4].

The story is about an African-American woman who was part of the maintenance crew in a hospital where Kübler-Ross was working. The woman made beds, cleaned rooms, and emptied bedpans. But the staff noticed something special about that woman. In the rooms where she was doing her work, patients seemed to do better. They were more content––more peaceful. Kübler-Ross asked the woman what she was doing that helped the patients. She said:

Well, I’ve been up the mountain and I’ve been down the mountain. I’ve lived in many valleys. The worst was when I went to a public clinic with my three-year-old daughter in my arms, and before we could see a doctor, she died of pneumonia. I could have become cynical and angry, but instead I decided to use my pain to help others. I’m no stranger to death, and that’s why I’m not afraid to talk and touch those that are dying. I try to give them hope.

Remembering that Baptism is new life and a reminder of the hope we have – even when we are swimming in death, moment by moment, can bring hope and peace.

Many of you may be familiar with another idea from the book On Death and Dying. In it, Kübler-Ross introduces what we know as the Five Stages of Grief:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Understanding the journey represented by those five stages of grief has been enormously helpful to dying people, their families, their doctors, and their care givers. It helps us to understand that the emotions we feel are normal, expected. In understanding that there are stages to grief, we can be reassured that even though we feel these emotions strongly, in time they will diminish, and we will be able to move into a newness beyond the grief.

Another way of thinking about dying in Christ and rising with Christ means dying to the ways of the world which lead to death, and rising in The Way of Jesus which leads to life. We can allow the divisions between people brought on by hatred to die away, and we rise to a new vision where we see the image of God in every person. We can eliminate the sinful ways in which we divide ourselves into us and them: racism, sexism, homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, patriarchy, ableism, ageism, tribalism, nationalism, and classism. We can rise to the way of looking at the world where each person matters, each person has value, every death is tragic, every act of violence hurts our family, and every act of kindness and compassion is a gift of the grace of God.

In our time we are seeing changes in which these divisive forces are losing their power. In the history of our own denomination we have healed divisions, uniting Congregational and Christian, Evangelical and Reformed, and becoming a United Church. We were early in the fight to end slavery, and continue to bring to life a world where racism is being overcome. We long ago drowned the idea that women were less worthy of leadership, and we celebrate women ordained into the Christian ministry. We sent away the bitter falsehood that any race, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, nationality, ethnicity, marital status, economic status, or physical or mental condition could ever separate people from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

The ways in which our society is changing, putting an end to the structures, ideologies, and powers that diminish people, are in a way causing those powers to die. And it has been pointed out to me that we are seeing the five stages of grief play out in society as a result of these changes. There are those who are in denial, holding on to old prejudices. There is plenty of anger, and even bargaining, rejecting change or seeking to go back to old ways of thinking when we imagine things were better.

I am confident, however, that there is new life to be found beyond the divisiveness of the world. Though there may be grief at the loss of a world neatly divided into us and them, there is joy and hope in rising to world where we are all siblings, all members of one family. It is wonderful and beautiful to hear the words of Jesus’ baptism knowing that we are included in that blessing. “These are my children, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  Amen.

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[1] Reprinted from Book of Worship © 1986 by permission of the United Church of Christ Office for Church Life and Leadership.

[2] Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, Faith and Order Paper No. 111 (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1982).

[3] Romans 6:3-4. The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[4] Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy and Their Own Families (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1969).