Water and the Word—A Sermon on the Baptism of Jesus

Grace and peace from God our Creator, hope in our Redeemer Jesus the Christ, and the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit are with you, always.

What’s your favorite type of water? I know, a weird question. And I don’t mean like, La Croix flavor, I mean like, the ocean; a favorite beach? A lake your family visits every summer? The algae-tastic Putah Creek here in the arboretum? The turquoise of the Caribbean? Come on, tell me.

Were you baptized in that water, by any chance? Me either. I was likely baptized in good old tap water, since my home congregation’s baptismal font is attached to the rest of the plumbing. Throughout history, people have been baptized in all sorts of water, made holy in that moment.

In this week’s Gospel, Jesus is baptized. This version of the story does not say where he is, but this story appears in the other Gospel books, and in those versions, they’re at the Jordan River. It starts in the mountains of Jordan and flows through the Sea of Galilee and into the Dead Sea. It’s a very important water source in that region, to this day.

Folks who were gathered there that day were there to be baptized by John, known as John the Baptist or John the Baptizer. It’s a fairly straightforward title. He says, in the story, that the difference between himself and Jesus has to do with baptism. “I baptize you with water;” he says, “but one who is more powerful than I is coming...He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

John does not mean this literally—there is no fire danger—but to highlight the differences between their ministries. John has been preparing his followers for the reality that Jesus comes with a world-altering change. The life of Jesus provided this community with a new model for their lives, and that continues for us.

Before we go much further, here’s another pop quiz this week: what is a sacrament?

A sacrament is a visible sign of God’s invisible grace. In the Lutheran Church we have 2, in the Episcopal church there are 2 but also 7, like the Catholic Church’s 7. The two sacraments that we recognize in common are baptism and the Eucharist. What are the visible signs in these events? The elements that are used? Water! Wine! Bread! (Good job.)

These are not unusual items. These are very, very basic. Wine may not seem like a super common thing to you, especially if you are underage, but at the time of Jesus’ life and in our time, it’s widely available. It was (and is) an important part of Jewish ritual life. In the words of institution, after blessing the wine and bread, Jesus says, “when you do this, remember me”—knowing that his friends would gather to eat and drink together every week for shabbat.

Similarly, for the sacrament of baptism, the only necessary component is water. We all know that humans depend on water to live, so it is very likely that we are going to live near some—and, in our modern life, have several taps right in our own homes. The water in our font back there came out of the sink in the kitchen. We prayed over it earlier, though, and asked God to breathe new life into it. If you were baptized, the water used to baptized you was just like the water there.

We’re a Lutheran-Episcopal campus ministry here, but I know that you all come from a variety of upbringings. We may have varying understandings of the purpose or effect of baptism, and may wonder why Jesus needed to be baptized. If baptism is simply a cleansing of sin, why would the Son of God need that? If it’s an “initiation rite” into the family of God, why would the Son of God need that?

But, since we see baptism as an outward sign of the grace of God—as a fresh start, a new beginning, a clean slate, a change of perspective, a starting place—Jesus’s baptism sets the stage for our own. Jesus was baptized and lived in order to show us the way to live.

What does it mean, then, to be baptized? Looking to the text from Isaiah, we get a big hint about what it means to be in the family of God. “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you” (Isaiah 43:1b-2).

As God’s beloved, we are called by name. You, just as you are. God rejoiced when you were born, rejoiced when you were baptized, and rejoices as you live out your life. As you go through hard times, as you encounter challenges along the way, you are carried through those rapids by the God who loves you.

I think it’s really important to notice that the prophet Isaiah doesn’t tell us that we will not pass through deep waters or walk through fire, right? Being baptized does not mean being insulated from struggle. Being Christians does not keep us completely free from harm. But rather when we struggle, God will be alongside us. God will accompany us through everything. As Christians in community, we accompany each other through joys and challenges, too. We are each part of how God cares for the people we love. We’re all in this together, dear ones.

At a baptism, in the Lutheran and Episcopal traditions, there are at least four people involved. Do you know who? The person being baptized; their sponsor; the clergyperson; a member of the congregation. Normally there are way more people present, but that’s pretty much the minimum. Why? Because there are a bunch of promises to be made. God promises to love the person being baptized, that is a given. The sponsor and the congregation make promises to raise the person in faith, assuring that they are learning the good news, and accompanying them as they grow and ask questions and wonder about God. The clergyperson is there for the water splashing, to tie it all together.

If you’ve witnessed a baptism in your church, you have made promises to pray for that person, and to accompany them as part of the family of God. Everyone who was present at your baptism made that same promise. Isn’t that wonderful? I witnessed two baptisms while I was home for Christmas and it was such a delight. At the beginning of our service tonight, we affirmed our baptisms and revisited those promises.

We have promised and will again promise “To live among God’s faithful people; to hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s supper; to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed; to serve all people, following the example of Jesus; to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.”

In our baptism, we are connected to all those who have been baptized, even those first few with John in the Jordan River. The Holy Spirit has been moving and is still moving.

Thanks be to God! Amen.

Twenty-Shine-Teen—A Sermon for Epiphany

Grace and peace from God our Creator, hope in our Redeemer Jesus the Christ, and the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit are with you always.

Today is a day for celebration! Pop quiz: who knows what we are celebrating? (Hint: it’s in your bulletin and we probably already said it many times.) Epiphany! Yes! And who knows what Epiphany marks? Traditionally, it’s the commemoration of when the three wise men came from the East, following the star, to meet the newborn king. (Excellent work. 10 points to Gryffindor.) Okay, so, where in the story does it say there were three? (Right!) It doesn’t. There are three gifts, so we assume three givers. Fair enough. And these wise men, what else do we hear them called, either in scripture or in our wider culture, songs, stories…? (Kings, Magi, etc.).

A very wise woman, Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, annotated the New Testament from a Jewish perspective. In it, she explains that these men were Persian—do we know where Persia is? Modern-day Iran—and that they were astrologers. The word Magi denotes specific Zoroastrian astrologer-priests from Persia, even. These astrologer-priests studied the skies for clarity and wisdom. Astrology in our modern era is viewed by some as a very serious discipline, by others as kind of fun and a little hokey, and by many as dangerous or even evil. Dr. Levine says that early Jewish readers would have shared these latter opinions, that astrologers were foolish if not harmful. So why are these astrologers considered wise? Presumably because of where their starry discovery leads them. Let’s get back to the story.

Jesus is born! Merry Christmas! Hallelujah! Our Persian astrologer-priests are perplexed by what they have seen in the night sky. They saw an unusually bright star and had an epiphany—this star signaled the birth of a child in Judea who was God, come to life on earth.

Being wise men, as the story tells us, they knew they had to make the trek to see him for themselves. To see if what they had read in the stars could really be the truth. Their route to Jesus takes them through Jerusalem, where they meet Herod, King of Judea. Remember, these Persian astrologer-priests are not Jews, and are not under Herod’s rule or the rule of this child they are calling King. But they tell this other king what they know, and that they are going to witness it firsthand.

King Herod does not want to make the journey with them, but he wants them to report back about the exact location of this newborn king on their way home. King Herod is not a good dude. These Persians don’t know that, but remember that they are wise. At the end of our Gospel text, what does it say about their return trip? “After being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went home to their country by another road.”  Herod, will, unfortunately, not take this very well. He is very nervous that this child will grow up to assume his throne, and so he wants him killed. But because he does not know where the child is, he instead orders the murder of every child in the region that is the same approximate age as Jesus—2 years old. We call this the Slaughter of the Holy Innocents. We have a day set aside on the church calendar for it, the fourth day of Christmas, December 28th. Jesus’ family flees to Egypt. This is why we often say that Jesus was a refugee; his family sought refuge in a foreign nation to save his life from this massacre.

The Gospel is complicated, right from the start. Jesus lives! But these children die. It’s only the second chapter of Matthew’s version of the story and we already have murder and confusion. Our modern world, full of terror, is, to be frank, par for the course. I do not mean to minimize the sin and death that plague us. On the contrary! Jesus was born into a world with a despot so brutal, he ordered the massacre of untold numbers of children. In 2019, in our world of immigrant detention and family separation, of famine, and war, and greed—Jesus lives!

The Isaiah text for this week is among my absolute favorites. “Arise! Shine! For your light has come!” I can imagine the prophet crying. “Darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples, but the Lord will arise upon you” (Isaiah 60:1-2).

Have you ever wondered about why we celebrate Christmas during December? We of the Northern Hemisphere so desperately need this light. Our days are short and cold. It is harder to resist our thoughts of everything that is wrong in the world. In the Southern Hemisphere, I can only imagine what it is like to hear these words while the sun blazes overhead. There is no ignoring that shine.

So, what does all of this mean for us?

Arise! Shine!

Personally, I have set the intention to make 2019 into Twenty-Shine-Teen. If you’ve been hanging out at The Belfry for long, you’ve seen me in glittery shoes (which of course I wore tonight) or perhaps my signature neon. You may have heard me refer to #ShineTheory—a phrase coined by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman that is, briefly, about collaboration instead of competition—I don’t shine if you don’t shine.

It is a little bit wonky to have this celebration of the light of Christ shining on our present darkness at the same time as we are all being pressured to improve ourselves in the new year. We talk every once in a while about Christianity being countercultural, and this is just one more way.

You may have resolved any number of things for your new year, and I hope that you stick to the ones that show off just how much you already shine. I hope you stick to those—and only those—that make you feel good about who you’re becoming. I hope you’re not feeling pressured to change yourself too much—especially in a season and a culture obsessed with thinness, beauty, wealth, success, and conforming to very specific notions of femininity and masculinity.  I am here to tell you that you are already exactly who you need to be. God already loves you as you are, God already calls you by name, God already shines on you and through you.

On Epiphany, it’s already Twenty-Shine-Teen. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Twenty-Shine-Teen

After church on the Sunday before Christmas, I chatted with two women I’ve known since childhood about holiday plans and intentions for 2019. Mostly, we gaped at Dory’s plan to read 100 books (up from this year’s goal of 75, which she knocked out of the park, obviously). We laughed uproariously at all of the possibilities for 2019. You see, I have been trying to decide whether I will refer to this year as twenty-wine-teen or twenty-shine-teen (both excellent options) and it turns out that there are many, many words that rhyme with nine.

Perhaps this year’s Thanksgiving turkey will celebrate twenty-brine-teen.

With every food photo on instagram, we will use the hashtag #twentydineteen.

On every thirst trap, we will comment #twentyfineteen.

We will wait in twenty-line-teen at every grocery checkout.

You understand.

Whether you had a twenty-great-teen or a twenty-hate-teen (woof) I hope that things are looking up for 2019 and beyond. And though I will continue to crack myself up for the next 12 months with all of these jokes (new year, same me) I have, since, decided to shine.

You’re familiar (or are about to be) with Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman’s Shine Theory—I don’t shine if you don’t shine. It’s about collaboration instead of competition. It begins with women (in large part because Ann and Amina are women), but it extends to all of us in all of our relationships. I intend, in 2019, to focus on myself as part of a collective. I don’t shine if y’all don’t shine.

I didn’t engage in a dedicated process of discerning this intention, per se. A few days before Christmas, I was driving down the 5 (an eight-hour straight shot) and listening to all the year-end episodes of my favorite podcasts and the Hamilton soundtrack (it lasts like 150+ miles) and just...thinking.

As I mentioned in the last edition of my newsletter, a little hymn has been stuck in my head for...months. “Arise, shine, for your light has come and glory of the Lord has dawned upon you” (Isaiah 60:1). On my drive, this merged with the “rise up” refrain that peppers the Hamilton soundtrack, though it always grates on me a little bit because the “up” is implied in the directionality of “rise”...I digress.

I’ve been mulling over a fourth tattoo for a couple of years now, but hadn’t settled on anything in particular. And you probably know me well enough that you would not use “spontaneous” to describe me. But somewhere between Kettleman City and the Grape Vine, it came to me. I sent a quick series of texts to my high school friend Lauren who tattoos professionally in our hometown, and ten days later, my left forearm was forever changed.

It’s a reminder of the day-in and day-out simplicity of the sun rising and setting. It’s an instruction to myself, whenever I see it. It’ll show whenever I hold up my arms for the Great Thanksgiving and preside over the Eucharist, another connection to God-with-us.

Will you rise and shine in 2019? Have you had enough of that, in fact, and will be hanging back this year? What are your intentions, goals, hopes, dreams? Is a year too daunting, so you’re just looking at Q1? Taking it one day at a time? Tell me more.