Matthew 3:13-17
When I was serving my first parish, in Vermont, about twenty
years ago, I got up one Saturday morning and began to read the newspaper. When I got to the Op-Ed page, a letter caught
my eye. The letter writer said that a
local church had refused to baptize her child.
What kind of church, she wondered, would say no to a baptism? The kicker was—the local church she was
talking about was the one I served.
She was right: she had asked to have a
child baptized, and it hadn’t happened.
She had never been to the church, and had called me on the phone to
request a baptism. When I tried to tell
her about what the church asks in return, she balked.
Needless to say, I was mortified at this
public tongue-lashing. This being a
Saturday, I knew I had to ditch the sermon I was preparing to preach and
address the matter the next day in worship.
What I knew instantly, though, was that she was asking an excellent and
pertinent question: what’s the meaning of baptism, and what should be a church’s
policy on celebrating that sacrament?
Today, as we celebrate the baptism of
Jesus, we see the whole dynamic of baptism’s significance played out. In a couple of ways it’s an odd thing we see
happening here. What, after all, does
baptism mean to Jews—which is what Jesus and John were? Christians baptize in the name of Jesus. So what sense does it make to say that,
before there were Christians, Jesus was baptized in this Christian rite?
It turns out, much to my surprise, that Jews
of Jesus’ time had their own rites of purification, in which water was used to
symbolically wash away sin. So Jesus was
doing what others of his time did. But
isn’t it still an odd rite for Jesus to undergo, because why would Jesus need to
be purified? Wasn’t Jesus untainted by
sin?
I suspect what happens here is that Jesus
reshapes what such a rite means. It’s
not so much that Jesus is purified in this scene. That’s not the center of what happens
here. The core of this scene is that he
encounters God. This episode is what
theologians call a “theophany,” an appearance of God. As such, it’s formative for Jesus. And as we hear it and take it in, it’s
formative for us, too.
What’s said first and foremost here is
that, in baptism, we are all precious in the sight of God. It’s always somewhat startling to take in the
amazing declaration that the God who made the entire universe also cares for
each of us—that the creator of the vast expanses knows our inward thoughts (Ps.
139:23), knows how many hairs are on our heads (Mt. 10:30), watches over us and
tends to us in life and in death (Rom. 8:38-9).
God isn’t just a brilliant technician or engineer. God loves you and me.
Take in those words—said to Jesus there,
but said to us, as well, on the occasion of our own baptisms and echoing even
to today: “This is my Child, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt. 3:17). Or, as Eugene Peterson so felicitously puts
it: “This is my [Child], chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life” (The Message). Absorb that.
Baptism declares that you are not just a faceless cipher among six
billion people; you are the delight of God’s life.
Sometimes that’s really hard to
believe. Someone here today is
struggling mightily with substance abuse.
You can’t wait for the next drink, perhaps, or someone you love is held
in the tenacious grip of some other drug.
So take those words in: you are the delight of God’s life. Someone else here has been shocked by a
disconcerting diagnosis. Maybe it will
hasten your death. Maybe it will limit
you in some discouraging way. Drink in
the voice from the heavens: you, too, are the delight of God’s life. An extended unemployment, a child in the
battlefield, a bout with a serious depression—remember, you are the delight of
God’s life.
Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche, a group
of communities for people with disabilities, says that, in one of their
residences, there is a man called Pierre
who has a mental handicap. One day
someone asked him, “Do you like praying?”
He answered, “Yes.” He was asked
what he did when he prayed. He answered,
“I listen.” “And what does God say to you?” “[God] says, ‘You are my beloved son.’” (Resources for Preaching and Worship, Year A,
p. 48). The first job of faith is to
listen for that voice.
And that’s the first thing I would tell
the woman who wrote the letter to the paper about being turned down for
baptism. God feels that way about
everyone. Your child included. There are no exceptions. God doesn’t say “No” to baptisms, and neither
do we. There’s no Christian faith if we
don’t begin there, with God’s over-arching grace.
At the same time, though, that’s only the
first chapter. There is also a second
chapter, and it’s one that she didn’t get.
Life at its fullest is always about both grace and response. There’s an ebb and flow, a rhythm, a giving
and receiving that make life rich and full.
Life can never be about either giving or receiving alone, or it’s
distorted and out of balance.
One of the major tasks of parents is to
develop that balance in their children.
When a child is born, everything is done for the child. We feed them, clean them, dress them, house
them, hold them, coo at them. Parents
give; babies receive. In all the
practical dimensions, it’s completely one-sided. As time goes on, though, we gradually instill
in our children the ability to be givers, as well. This process may begin very early, when we,
for example, teach the child to sleep through the night. I have vivid memories of realizing that Mary
and I were not going to survive if we kept having to go in to our first child’s
room to hold him when he cried at night.
Exhausted, short-tempered, unpleasant—that was Mary! Alexander may have thought he needed that
nightly interaction, but he didn’t. And
we were frankly going to be much worse parents if that level of exhaustion
continued much longer. So one night we
just let him cry. I—the non-nurser—went
in to his room after five minutes and told him we loved him and he was going to
be fine. He wailed. I went in again after ten minutes and told
him we loved him. He wailed some
more. I did that for three hours. He screamed the whole time. I remember putting the pillow over my face at
one point and screaming, “I can’t take this any more.” Finally he fell asleep. And from then on he slept through the
night. I know there are some parents who
don’t believe in that method, that for them it seems cruel. For us, though, it seemed crucial. Essentially we were teaching him that he
didn’t have to have every desire met, that he would get plenty of loving in the
day time, that there are always various family needs that have to be balanced,
and that one thing he could do for us was give us the gift of a full night’s
sleep.
Throughout a child’s life, we try to
gradually increase their sense of the importance of giving as well as
receiving. When our children were young,
we gave them each a dollar a week as an allowance. After several years of this, it seemed time
to up their allowance. But we also
thought it was important that they begin to think about giving some of that
away. So one day we said to them, “We
can either raise your allowance from $1 a week to $2 a week. Or we can raise the allowance to $5 a week,
and you’ll get to keep $3, save one, and give one away. Which would you like?” It was a no-brainer, of course. They got an extra dollar for themselves, and
they had a beginning lesson in both saving and giving.
That’s something we all have to learn
along the way, how to give as well as receive.
I have vague memories of giving my first Christmas presents, and of
buying for my father a “standard Royal typewriter ribbon, black and red”—not
quite the iPad we gave my mother this Christmas, but something of a beginning,
nonetheless.
And when I was in my confused post-college
years, I went every week to talk to a nun I knew. She didn’t ask to be paid, and I had almost
no money. But she realized that I would
be better off if I could manage to give her even $5 a week. She knew that it was important for me not
just to receive, but to give, as well.
Until and unless we can give and share and
carry our part of the load, we are always going to be something less that fully
human. Part of the role of the church is
to develop in everyone that sense of shared responsibility, that sense that
we’re all in this together, and that it only works when we all contribute.
This, I think, is what the woman who wrote
the letter to the paper missed. She
wanted her child “done.” What she didn’t
understand was that baptism is a two-way street. Yes, it is a free gift, and it is offered,
without restriction, to everyone. It is
at the same time, though, a gift that seeks a response. It is, indeed, a gift whose full flowering
happens only once there is a
response. Sister Mary, the nun I talked
to those many years ago, knew that I would be fully invested in the process,
and that I could mature as a person, only as I responded to the care she was
giving me. And God knows that baptism
bears its full fruit only as we share the gift we have received.
When Jesus is baptized, that voice that
comes from the heavens quotes two different passages from the Bible that Jesus
knew. One part is from the Psalms, and
it reminds us that Jesus is enthroned as the Ruler of the Jews (Ps. 2:7). The other part is from Isaiah, and it’s the
words we heard earlier this morning.
When Jesus is said to be the one in whom God delights, it’s a quotation
from one of what are called “Servant Songs” in Isaiah, songs that lift up the
Messiah, not so much as a dominant ruler, but rather as a servant of all.
So by quoting from one of the Servant
Songs in the moment of Jesus’ baptism, what Matthew’s gospel conveys is that
baptism implies servanthood. It implies
that with that gift come certain responsibilities. A baptism without a response is a dormant
gift.
So when the church asks something of
families planning a baptism, it’s because the church knows that the family’s
response is crucial to the whole process.
Baptism is really a beginning in faith, not an ending. And what’s asked of every family in that
beginning is essentially two things. The
first is that they commit to worship on a regular basis. How else are any of us going to remember the
unparalleled grace of God without being reminded of it often? The messages of conditional love are all
around us: we’ll love you if you’re
successful or good-looking or wealthy or thin enough. None of us has to go far to hear that
message. Which is why it’s absolutely
crucial that we come to worship to be reminded that that is not what’s at the
heart of the universe. Love without
restriction is what’s central. That’s
what worship tells us.
So at baptism we promise to worship
regularly. We also promise to love and
serve the world in Christ’s name. We
spend much of our lives self-absorbed—focused on ourselves and our needs. A full life, though, requires us to step
outside of ourselves and to offer ourselves to someone else. Receiving, by itself, is not enough.
In New
York Times writer Nicholas Kristof’s column earlier this week, he talked
about a visit he just made to Haiti. He, too, makes this point about the need not
just to receive, but to contribute and to be part of recovery. “Private and public
donations saved lives in Haiti,
no question. But it’s also true that well-meaning bleeding-hearts tend to
exaggerate the impact aid typically has on a country. Those nations that have
managed to lift themselves out of poverty have done so mostly with trade, not
aid—with giving people jobs and a ladder, not handouts and an elevator” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/opinion/06kristof.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss). Simply receiving is not enough.
So many of us have been captivated this
week by the story of Ted Williams, the homeless man with the golden voice, who
suddenly became a national sensation.
Part of what touches us is the incredible gift that has come to
him. It’s as if to say, “Even into the
worst circumstances, grace can come.” It
gives us hope.
But part
of what touches us, I think, is that we sense there a man who wants to give. Yes, he’s broken the law and had legal
issues. But he also seems eager to offer
something. He knows he has a gift—that
astounding voice of his—and he wants to share it. Plain
Dealer columnist Phillip Morris made precisely this point on Friday: “He
didn’t merely ask for a handout when he panhandled; he offered the benefactor
something in return” (Jan. 7, 2011, p. B5).
We’re entranced by Mr. Williams, at least in part, because he has an
intrinsic sense for the needed balance between receiving and giving.
If only that long-ago Vermont letter writer had known that—that,
at baptism, not only is the gift of God paramount, but so also is our response. If only she had known that that’s how the
Holy Spirit comes. Maybe then she would
have said: Here and now I start my child’s journey in the Spirit, the journey
of a received love gratefully shared.