The Baptism of Jesus Year C January 13, 2019
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie Hutson
Isaiah 43: 1-7 + Psalm 29 + Acts 8: 14-17 + Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22
Grace, mercy, and peace are yours through the One who calls you by name, the One to whom we all belong. Amen.
A pastor shared this story. Dott was ninety years old when she heard a sermon on the Sunday that the Church remembers the baptism of Jesus. The sermon was about baptism, of course. Dott’s pastor told the people that in baptism, God claims us as God’s children. We don’t have to say Yes. We don’t have to take a class or even understand it, because baptism is this beautiful mystery wherin God, in the midst of a gathered faith community, claims us as God’s own children. Right there in front of everyone. Love and grace pour over us like water. It doesn’t matter what we do or what we’ve done. Baptism is God’s action. It’s why we believe in one baptism. Because God gets it right the first time.
Dott’s pastor said what every confirmation student is taught about sacraments: that they are an outward sign of something that God has already done.
But what Dott’s pastor didn’t know was that three years before Dott was born, another daughter had been born to Dott’s parents, who had not lived and had not been baptized. Dott’s parent’s pastor would not hold that little one’s funeral in the church because, he said, she’d not been baptized into the faith.
But after hearing her own pastor preach and teach about baptism as an act of God, and as a sacrament that a pastor and a community enact together, Dott began to wonder about her sister. And so she told her pastor her sister’s story, her family’s story, the story that had always made them sad in multiple ways, and she asked her pastor: “Did my sister go to heaven?” And of course, her pastor responded that she did. That God loved that child, as God loves every person, and that God claimed that child, even though there was not time for the sacrament to be celebrated in community.
This story breaks my heart. For a lot of reasons. The church has afflicted so much pain in the ways we have fallen short. Dott’s family pastor is just one example of how we have failed to welcome others with grace and inclusion.
The people of God have been falling short of sharing God’s love since the beginning of history. Certainly the Older Testament is filled with stories of how they wandered away from God, how they failed to live up to who God had called them to be. How they just missed the mark. So God sent prophets to tell them that God was not happy with them, that they needed to straighten up and start living and loving as God taught.
The church still needs prophets to remind us when we’ve wandered off on our own again. When we’ve stopped following God’s ways.
And we also need prophets to speak words of grace and compassion to us. So did the Israelites. Even at their worst they needed to hear grace and so do we. Even when times are hard, especially when times are hard, people need to hear words of encouragement. They need to know that God is with them.
Which brings us to the first reading today, from Isaiah 43. This is a poem from the prophet Isaiah to the people of Israel. The people have been held captive in Babylon for many years. Having been set free, they are reluctant to return home. Because this life in exile is all they know. They might be slaves, but for most of them, they’ve always been slaves. Returning is a risk. Going home might not be safe. Freedom feels uncertain. Their former home, or the home of their parents, is in ruins. Why would they leave? Why would they do something that hard? Why would God call them to that?
Of course the irony here is that going home, returning, no longer being held in captivity, was the good thing for them…the best thing for them. But it was so risky, it felt so new because they’d been slaves for so long, that they didn’t know whether they could trust God.
Enter the prophet Isaiah. And this beautiful, poignant reading: Hear the word of YHWH, the One who created you, the One who fashioned you….Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the seas, I will be with you; when you pass over the rivers, you will not drown. Walk through fire, and you will not be singed; walk through flames and you will not be burned.
It reminds me, this part of the poem, of a parent standing in the pool saying to the child on the edge: Jump! I’m right here. I’ll catch you! I’m not going to let you drown. You can do it.
Beloved community, we have all been called to do some hard things in life. Maybe we’ve been called to move, or to leave a relationship, or to embark on a new profession. Maybe we’ve been called to seminary and asked to trust our future to a bunch of bishops for whom we are a name on some paperwork.
And into THAT reality….and you know what yours is….the words of the prophet are as true for us as they were for Israel, because they are words about the very nature of God. So, into THAT reality….God says Do not be afraid…for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. No matter what you go through….I am with you and you will not be harmed in a way that separates you from me.
God stands in the waters of baptism and calls us to jump. Because God is there. God is already there….God is there now…and God will always be there.
It’s important to remember that these words from God through the prophet were spoken to a community. And God still speaks to communities. God still calls communities to do the work of compassion and justice in the world. God still calls us to move out of our comfortable places, away from whatever we’ve become used to and those things that hold us captive, and move forward, following God’s call.
There might be danger and chaos.
Scratch that.
There WILL be danger and chaos.
But God is with us. We belong to God.
This community of faith, in particular, has experienced almost 70 years of walking with God. Of listening and following. And it’s not always been easy. Especially lately. So, let me paraphrase the prophet Isaiah for you:
But now, beloved children of God at Luther Memorial, hear the word of the Lord, the One who created you, the One who fashioned you: Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you: I have called you by name; you are mine. When you tear down your fellowship hall to make space for my children without homes, I will be with you. When you exist in construction dust and debris, I am there, too. When you can’t find a close spot to park, I walk beside you, through the cross walk. When you have to fill up the coffee pots in the sacristy, remember that I am the water of life. Have no fear, for I am with you. I will rejoice with you when the day comes that you welcome my children into their homes and when you return to a fellowship hall and kitchen of your own. So bring my children in from the cold – everyone who is called by my name. Everyone whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.
I don’t know that this is exactly how the prophet Isaiah might have said it, but I do know this. I know that it’s not been an easy time. I know that it’s unsettling to have been asked to walk this road. But you, the baptized people of God, you were made for this. You were formed for this. You were called to this. And for that, we give thanks to God, and let the Church say…Amen.