Sunday, January 9, 2022

A Water Birth

 

Rev. Debbie Cato
Genesis 17:1-16 and Matthew 3:13 – 4:1
Fairfield Community Church
January 9, 2022


Let us Pray:  Help us, Holy God, to connect to your word in a new way. Open the Scriptures to us in a way that is life-giving. Encourage us to listen to the message your Spirit makes known in word and worship. Amen.

A Water Birth

 

It’s always so strange after Christmas and Epiphany.  We go from Jesus in a manger to Jesus as an adult. 

Today, we are standing in a long line of people by the banks of the Jordan River.  Ahead of us, waist-deep in the water, John the Baptist bellows a no-nonsense call to repentance.  Behind us, at the very end of the long line, stands that once-upon-a-time baby — all grown up.  Thirty years have gone by, and the promised child is about to come into his promise.[1]

I’m grateful that the first glimpse we get of Jesus’s adult life is during his baptism.  We are still in the church season of epiphany.  The word “epiphany” comes from the Greek, "epiphaneia," meaning "appearing" or "revealing."  During this brief liturgical season between Christmas and Lent, we’re invited to leave miraculous births and angel choirs behind, and seek the love, majesty, and power of God in seemingly mundane things.  Rivers.  Voices.  Doves.  Clouds.  Holy hands covering ours, lowering us into the water of repentance and new life.  In the Gospel stories we read during this season, God parts the curtain for brief, shimmering moments, allowing us to look beneath and beyond the ordinary surfaces of our lives, and catch glimpses of the extraordinary.  Which is perhaps another way of describing the sacrament of baptism, in which the "extraordinary" of God's grace blesses the ordinary water we stand in.[2]

Whatever else Jesus’s baptism story is, it is first and foremost a story of profound humility.  The holy child conceived of the Holy Spirit, celebrated by angels, worshiped by shepherds, and feared by Herod, stands in the same muddy water we stand in.  The Messiah’s first public act is a declaration of solidarity.  God is one of us.[3]

 

Jesus’s first public act is an act of alignment.  Of radical and humble 

joining.  His first step is a step towards us.  Let it be so at the hands of another, he decides, indicating that his power lies in his capacity to surrender, to share, and to submit.  Let it be so here, he further decides, in the Jordan River with its rich and sacred history. 


In this one act, Jesus steps into the common and inescapable experience of living in a broken, sin-soaked world, hungering for righteousness, redemption, and restoration within that world.  The question at stake is not about Jesus’s personal “sinfulness.”  The question is about what it means to declare genuine and costly solidarity with our neighbors in a world that is structurally, wholly, and jointly “living in sin.” We can’t belong well to each other if we’re busy erecting walls between “our” piety, our religion, and “their” sinfulness.  We are in this together.  We are in all of this together.

 

To embrace Christ’s baptism story is to embrace the core truth that we are

all united, interdependent, connected.  We are all one.  Our personal “goodness” notwithstanding, our baptisms bind us to all of humanity — not in theory, but in the flesh — such that you and I are kin, responsible for each other in ways we fail so often to honor.  We are called into radical solidarity, not radical separateness.  In baptism, we are freed up to touch, embrace, and love all that is broken within and around us, precisely because we are always and already God's Beloved.  We’re beloved not because we've done anything to earn it, but because God’s very nature, inclination, and desire is to love — and to birth that same kind of love in us.


There’s something very special about baptisms.   They always make me smile and often, they make me cry.   I cry with a mixture of joy and awe.   The sacrament of baptism is just so beautiful.  The most memorable baptism service that I’ve ever participated in was on January 11, 2009. 

 One of the requirements for both seminary and our denomination is a pastoral internship at a church.    The requirement is that you spend 10-15 hours a week for nine-months learning under a pastor. 

Sensing that God was preparing me for small church ministry, I wanted to do my internship at a small church so that I could learn how to be a solo pastor.   With some divine intervention – another story, another time! – I ended up at a small church in a South Tacoma neighborhood.  Manitou Park Presbyterian Church is planted next to an elementary school, a beautiful neighborhood park, and a middle school in a fairly poor, struggling part of Tacoma.  The pastor, Ken Sikes agreed to mentor me and the internship was so beneficial for me – and apparently the congregation, that I served as the pastoral intern at Manitou Park for 17 months!  But then, that’s another story too!

 Well, I want to tell you about Perley.   I met Perley soon after I came to Manitou Park.  Perley was 16 years old.  He looked pretty sloppy, pretty unkept; he used a lot of slang when he spoke; swore too much, and was a little goofy. He was a “gang member wanna be”.  He hung out with the wrong crowd.  But there was something about Perley – his eyes sparkled when he spoke and he had a beautiful heart and a gentle spirit;  although he tried to hide it.  It was hard not to like Perley. He showed up at the church – during the week – he just dropped in and chatted with Pastor Ken or anyone else who was there.  He tutored an elementary student in the church’s after-school tutoring program.   But, Perley didn’t come on Sunday mornings – at least not when I first met him.

I learned a little about his family – an alcoholic, abusive father and a mother who just hung on day by day.  Perley had several older sisters, all of whom got pregnant in high school, dropped out, and had babies.  His older brother also dropped out of school and was a gang member.  Perley was lost – without much support and he was in and out of trouble – making bad choices.  The odds were against Perley.

I learned that Perley had been hanging around the church for a long time; since he was a very young boy.  I learned that the church had sort of “adopted him” many years before.   He would be around for a while and then he would disappear for months at a time and then suddenly show up again. 

And when he showed up, the church just welcomed him back and loved on him. He had lots of “moms’ at Manitou.  Perley was a hugger and he got lots of hugs, lots of love at the church.  Maybe you can tell… I became attached to Perley.  He was really hard not to like.

Well, Perley volunteered to be a youth leader for the summer drama camp the church held for the children in the neighborhood – sort of like Vacation Bible school but the end result is a Sunday worship service of kids singing, dancing, and acting that the whole neighborhood is invited to, followed by a neighborhood picnic. 

 Perley was helping us rearrange the sanctuary for camp and Pastor Ken asked him to help him move the baptismal font.  “What is this anyway?” Perley asked.  “What do you think it is?” asked Pastor Ken. Well, that started quite the conversation and the conversation continued through the week of drama camp and beyond.  Perley hung around the church more than usual after that, asking Ken questions, asking me questions.  We could feel the fire burning in his soul.  So we answered his questions and had rich conversations.

 We told him about Jesus.  We told him that God loved us so much that he sent his Son to live among us.  We told him that while Jesus was fully God, he was also fully human.  He got hungry and thirsty just like us.  He got angry and hurt; he laughed and he cried.   We told him that Jesus felt pain… he knew what it was like to be hated and he knew what it was like to be misunderstood and mocked.

We told him how God made a covenant with Abram that he and his descendants would be God’s people.  Because the people were unable to perfectly keep God’s law, Jesus became the new covenant.  And the sign of the new covenant, our adoption as God’s people is baptism.  Through baptism, our sins are washed away – a water birth if you will.  Baptism marks us as a child of God.

We told him how Jesus suffered a horrible death, crucifixion on a cross so that we would all be forgiven.  We told him how Christ redeemed each one of us from the darkness of sin and gave us life eternal.  We told him that when we feel hopeless, we hope in Christ.  We told him when we feel lost, when we feel all alone, we remember that Christ is with us.

 We shared our own stories with him – Ken shared his.  I shared mine. We told him why we were Christians – why we were followers of Christ.  We shared the high points and the low points. 

One day, Perley asked if he could have a Bible and he started reading it. 

This 16 year old kid started coming to church at 9:30 on Sunday mornings so he could attend Sunday School with a group of senior citizens.  He asked questions… raw, honest questions.  Questions that folks were too embarrassed, or just plain afraid to ask.  Perley didn’t care.  There was a fire burning in him.  He was hungry for God’s truth. 

 Pretty soon, he started staying for church.  Sat by himself and listened to the songs, the prayers, the sermons.  He continued to ask questions – hard ones!  One weekday afternoon, I found him in the sanctuary, just sitting by himself.   I asked Perley if he was O.K. and he said, “Just thinkin.” So I left him alone.

Before he went home that day, Perley asked Pastor Ken if he could be baptized.  Plans were made.

The day Perley was baptized was a glorious day - January 11, 2009.  Ken told Perley – and reminded the congregation that in baptism, we receive three gifts.  First, is the gift of the forgiveness of our sins.  Ken explained that in our baptism, we are given the full assurance of salvation, carrying with it all the effects of renewed and confident Christian living. In baptism, we have union with Christ in His resurrection as well as with His death.  In baptism, we are washed and purged of our sin for our whole life. Through baptism, we are assured that our condemnation has been removed and that we are indeed saved.  He explained that the water symbolizes a washing away of our sins; a new birth.  A fresh beginning. 

He explained to Perley  - and reminded the congregation that baptism symbolizes the gift of the Holy Spirit – the very presence of God that lives in us as believers.  The same Holy Spirit that ascended on Christ at his baptism is given to us.  Like Jesus, the Holy Spirit fills us with the strength and the power and the glory for our walk as disciples of Christ.  

 And he told Perley that just as God’s voice came down at Jesus’  baptism and announced Jesus’ anointing as the Messiah; just as he publically announced Jesus’ ministry and mission to the world; just as God said to Jesus for all the world to hear, “This is my beloved;” the kind, loving voice of God the Father was saying to him publically in his own baptism; “This is my beloved child, Perley.  He is adopted into my family now.  I love him.”

 In his dirty t-shirt and baggy jeans, kneeling next to the baptismal font;Perley was baptized.  As Pastor Ken spoke each baptismal vow, they took on new meaning to each of us as we experienced them through Perley. 

“Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce evil and its power in the world?”  (pause)  Perley began to weep as he loudly proclaimed, “yes!”

 “Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior, trusting in his grace and love?”  (pause)  His weeping turned into sobs, his body shook.  “Yes,: he said. 

 “Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his Word and showing his love?”  (pause)  Perley wiped his nose on his sleeve, looked around and saw that every single person in that church was smiling at him through tears streaming down our faces.  He took a big breath and smiled and said, “yes.”

 Dripping wet (Ken is a generous baptizer!), Perley stood up and grinned.  Ken invited us to come forward and lay hands on Perley while he prayed for him.  There wasn’t a dry eye or a face without a smile that Sunday.

 Baptism took on new meaning for me that day; me the seminary student.  Because of Perley, I truly understood the depth of the gift of the sacrament of baptism.  I understood the enormity of the moment; the enormity of the meaning of being a beloved child of God.  I understood the freedom of forgiveness.

 This lost kid; this kid who was in and out of trouble; was a beloved child of God. I saw it on Perley’s face.  I heard it in his voice.  Perley understood.  He was birthed anew in those healing waters of baptism that Sunday morning.  

Today, the day we celebrate the baptism of our Lord  is the time to recall our own baptismal vows.  Today is the day to remember our baptism promises and reaffirm the decision to live a baptized life as a follower of Christ; whether you made those promises yourself or like me, they were made for you as an infant.  

“Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from the ways of sin and renounce evil and its power in the world?”  (pause) 

 Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior, trusting in his grace and love?”  (pause) 

 “Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his Word and showing his love?”  (pause)

The baptismal font is filled with water.  After the service, maybe you would like to reach in and feel the water and remind yourself that your sins have been washed away.  Maybe you would like touch the baptismal water and remind yourself that you are a beloved child of God. I invite you to come up here and put your hands in the water.

 Perhaps you have not yet been baptized but like Perley, you have questions and are feeling a fire burn inside of you.  Maybe you hear God calling you.

Maybe you want to be baptized but you haven’t known how to go about it.  Please, talk with me.  Get in touch.

 Jesus begins his ministry in a river among sinners and ends his ministry on a cross between thieves.  And he does it all for us – for you and for me.   He changes us in ways that seem impossible.  His love is incomprehensible. 

We are his beloved children.    Let’s live remembering whose we are. Amen.

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