Rev. Patricia L. Liberty

Scriptures:

Isaiah 42:1-9 Psalm 29

Acts 10:34-43 Matthew 3:13-17

“Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and do you promise to be his faithful disciple all the days of your life?” It was the question asked of me on Palm Sunday in 1979 when I came to the waters of baptism. It is the question I asked for twenty years, each time an individual came to the waters of baptism in the American Baptist Churches I served as pastor.

When I returned to my United Church of Christ roots 8 years ago, these words became part of my liturgical vocabulary. “Baptism is the sacrament through which we are united to Jesus Christ and given part in Christ’s ministry of reconciliation. Baptism is the visible sign of an invisible event: the reconciliation of people to God. It shows the death of self and the rising to a new life of obedience and praise.” (UCC Book of Worship)

Whether by sprinkling or immersion, as an infant or an adult, baptism is a central symbol of the Christian tradition. In the United Church of Christ, baptism is one of the two sacraments we observe; the other being the Lord’s Supper. Each time we witness a baptism we touch the ancient symbol of water as a connection to renewal and grounding in mission.

Jesus submitted to John’s baptism as a sign that he accepted the special ministry to which God called him. His baptism marked the beginning of his public ministry.

In Matthew’s rich Gospel tradition, writing 60 years or so after Jesus’ public ministry, he is careful to connect the historic Jesus to the ancient traditions of his Jewish roots to show that he is the fulfillment of the promise.

He also connects Jesus to the complex figure of John the Baptist to show that Jesus was the One, as opposed to John, who had his own loyal following. That moment when Jesus meets John at the waters of baptism, and John protests, is a familiar story but it also historically significant. Matthew has John say, “I should be baptized by you”, to which Jesus replies, “We must do this to fulfill all righteousness.” The connection to the promise of the messiah in their shared Hebrew faith AND the clarification that Jesus is greater than John is made in that sentence.

Beyond the historic significance, Jesus’ response also inaugurates a new understanding of what it means to pass through the waters of baptism. In addition to the ancient symbol known in the Jewish tradition as the Mikvah, the ritual cleansing bath that is a prelude to full membership in the fellowship of the temple, the waters of baptism now mark the beginning of a new life in God’s covenant of righteousness and grace.

Every time a child comes to the waters of baptism, every time we witness parents make vows on their children’s behalf, every time we pledge our support and presence to a family so that they may grow together in the grace of being a family in God’s sense of the word, we connect not only to the moment in history that is Jesus’ baptism, but to all the moments in history where people have accepted their place as partners in God’s ongoing design and desire for the world.

Baptism is the gift of radical inclusion. To quote a new hymn, “We are not our own. God claims us…” In the act of Baptism, divisions are erased and we are all one community in Christ, making the same promises, accepting the same responsibilities, joining in the everlasting covenant.

Wesley White commented this week, “Baptism is the place where God calls us beloved.” Whatever else may be true in our lives, whatever we have done or failed to do, wherever we are in our own journey of discipleship, that moment of baptism, however long ago, is THE symbol of God’s truth that we are beloved.

Most of the time, we can tumble the words, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so”, or some other hymn like it, right out from memory and not think all that much about it. Today, I want you to think all that much about it … and tomorrow and the day after and the day after that. You are beloved. You are God’s beloved. At the moment of your baptism, God laid claim to your life and called you beloved.

In the words of the old Avery and Marsh song … “like walkers through the God divided sea, we are rescued we are named we are loved and we are claimed, we are baptized…” It doesn’t end there … baptism is also a call to radical righteousness …. when the heavens opened up and the dove descended, the distance between heaven and earth was bridged and Jesus became the one to watch, the one on whose shoulders rested God’s favor and God’s burning desire for all creation.

According to Matthew, Jesus was baptized to announce a strange, new kind of righteousness. It began with Joseph, the husband of Mary. He was a righteous man, says the writer, and planned to quietly dismiss Mary when he learned she was pregnant. Then an angel appeared in a dream, calling him to keep Mary and take the child as his own. If he had stuck to the book, he would have dismissed her. But Joseph trusted the living voice of God rather than live by wooden legalism. He was righteous.

Later in Jesus’ public ministry, he said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for what is righteous," who live with a desire to do the will of God. He also said, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness," who suffer because they do what God wants them to. Living as God intends us to live is more important than life itself. Jesus said, "Seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness," and "the righteous shall enter eternal life," and "the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father's kingdom." There is a life to live, a path to walk. Jesus was baptized to show us the way of God's new righteousness.

Yet, it is a different kind of righteousness, because it means more than merely sticking to the rules and doing the right thing. True righteousness has to do with making ourselves available to God. We are righteous when we give up any vain attempts to win God's approval; in baptism, God has already embraced us in the love of Christ, and said, "You are my beloved daughter. You are my beloved son." We are truly righteous when we present ourselves among a long line of sinners, hungering for God's mercy and welcoming God's help. "Blessed are the poor in spirit," who know they cannot save themselves. We hear the essence of the gospel when we hear Jesus say, "I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."

Let's face it: we are unfinished disciples and imperfect followers of Jesus. Baptism may be the clearest moment when God's claim on human life is announced. But it takes time to see if we're going to live as if we belong to God. We cannot know each challenge or demand in advance. We can only live one day after another as faithfully as we're able, trusting that God is even more faithful than we are. We act as if we are God's beloved sons and daughters. We grow into the promises of God, and keep growing up until we can claim those promises for ourselves. That's what it means to be righteous. That's what it means to be baptized.

Baptism signifies our initiation in the life long and life giving rhythm of radical inclusion and radical righteousness. If we believe that the heavens opened and the dove rested on Jesus’ shoulders and God spoke from the vast reaches of eternity in a specific moment saying, “This is my son, my beloved with whom I am well pleased”, if we believe that, then we are saying Jesus is the one to watch, because Jesus is like God, like father like son, if you will.

That’s where it gets radical. As Dylan’s Lectionary Blog, an online sermon preparation resource, noted, “We are saying that what Jesus did -- his feasting indiscriminately with Pharisees and sinners alike, his free association with ‘loose’ (unattached) women and taking them into his inner circle as disciples, his refusal to defend his own honor or his families by retaliating, even to the point of his death on a cross -- was God's business on earth. Indeed, we're saying that the best framework through which we can interpret what God's business on earth looks like is Jesus' behavior.”

To those who find Jesus' behavior shameful, saying that Jesus is God's son is shaming God. To those of us who gladly receive the grace of his fellowship, his healing, and his call to us, saying that Jesus is God's son is the best news there is.

As they say in TV ads, though: “But wait! There's more!”

God's business on earth is "is the family business. It’s Yahweh and Sons", “Yahweh and Daughters”. As God's children, we are co-heirs with Christ. God's business is our business, and carrying out that business in the style of Jesus is among the chief ways we honor God. As God's children, God's compassion and God's mission are at the core of our truest and deepest identity.

That's why I love an exhortation that landed in my email inbox (after a long chain of forwards, I'm sure) from Rabbi Steven Folberg of Congregation Beth Israel in Texas. Folberg encourages us to pray for the victims of the tsunami disaster in countries around the Indian Ocean—but only after we have acted, donating what we can to help, so that "the reality of your actions lift the word of your prayers." So, please, for our family honor as God's children, for the family welfare which suffers for every member whose life and gifts we lose, for the sake of Jesus' whose self-giving showed us what God's business on earth is really about, help the suffering. Then pray. The prayer Folberg quotes, distributed by the Union for Reform Judaism, is profound:

On this Shabbat, we begin telling the saga of our people's Exodus from Egypt, our journey from slavery to freedom, from servitude to covenant.
We recall that moment of deliverance at the Sea of Reeds when we miraculously passed through the waters, yet witnessed the watery death of others. Rather than rejoice at our own survival, we are taught to hear the cries of the victims; God silenced the angels who would celebrate the survival of the Israelites, proclaiming, "The work of My hands is drowning in the sea."

As we gather this Shabbat, we remember the loss of tens of thousands of God's children killed this week in the Asian tsunamis. We pray that the survivors find strength and comfort. We pray that those who search for missing loved ones be sustained with courage and hope. We pray that those who have lost so much have the fortitude to rebuild their lives. Loving and gracious God, who created the earth in all its fullness, grant them comfort, healing and peace. Be their help, in this, their time of need.

God's children will not grow faint or be crushed until justice is established in the earth. The coastlands wait for God's teaching, for God's children to do God's business (Isaiah 42:4). Amen, and thanks be to God, who gives us power to become God's children, going about the family business living into the grace of baptismal moments that reach far beyond the font into the dailyness of our lives. Amen.