"I Can Work With That." - God

Brad Sullivan

1 Epiphany, Year A (Baptism of Our Lord)

Sunday, January 12, 2014

St. Mark’s, Bay City, TX

Isaiah 42:1-9

Psalm 29

Acts 10:34-43

Matthew 3:13-17 

Today we’re celebrating the baptism of Jesus, hearing Matthew’s version of Jesus’ baptism by John in the River Jordan.  Years ago, I had a conversation about this very passage with a group of pastors, and while we started talking about why Jesus was baptized and what happens when we are baptized, the conversation quickly digressed into a talk about river baptism vs. font baptism vs. baptistery (the big immersion pool) baptism.  They even went into saying, “it never said Jesus was submerged, it said he emerged from the water.”  Do you sprinkle some water or do you poor?  This was a serious conversation, not about Jesus or what God does for us in baptism, just how do you get the ritual right, and each pastor more or less declaring themselves to be right.

One of the pastors actually said it doesn’t really matter how you baptize, what is important is what God does.  There was the tiniest little pause after his comment, and then the group went back to talking about immersion vs. pouring vs. sprinkling.  I was going nuts, and while on the one hand all I could really thing throughout the conversation was, “oh God, who cares?”, the conversation did speak of our need for ritual.  We need some way of marking our desire and goal of becoming a new person.  When we repent and turn our lives around (which can just about happen daily), we tend to need some way to mark that.  As physical people, we need physical action. 

So we take this ritual bath in baptism.  Now, baptism in the church only happens once.  We don’t get baptized over and over because we believe God is true to his word.  In baptism, we are welcomed into the Body of Christ, and we believe we need never be baptized again because God has already welcomed us and God will keep his promise to us.

Now some folks may want to take another ritual bath.  Maybe they don’t remember their baptism, or maybe they simply want to repent again since their baptism and want again a physical way of cleansing.  Well, while we won’t rebaptize in the church (thereby declaring God’s original promise broken), I say if you want another ritual bath, take one.  After some repentance and some soul searching, take a bath.  Renew your baptismal promises and vows when you take a bath, or when you take a shower, or jump in a pool or a lake or the ocean.  You can renew your baptismal promises and take some kind of ritual bath anytime you want, not because God needs you to, but because sometimes we need some ritual in our lives to remind and to renew.  We’re going to be renewing our baptism covenant once I’m done speaking so that we as a people can be reminded of and renew the promises we made and be reformed again as God’s people. 

So that’s a bit about what we do in baptism, but what does God do?  God sees a heart that is longing for connection with him.  God sees a heart that is longing to live a life of love, faith, and hope, and then God sees a wonderfully messed up person, fully of imperfections emerging from the waters of Baptism, and God says, “I can work with that.”  God says, “you are flawed and scared, and deeply messed up, and I am going to grant you my Holy Spirit, make you one with me and walk with you, and use who you are and what you have to partner with me as a people to live out my love in the world.  I will make you part of the Body of Christ,” God says, “and I will walk with you always.”

So why was Jesus baptized?  Jesus was already one with God, already living out God’s love in the world.  He didn’t become part of the Body of Christ; he was the Body of Christ.  So what was going on?  Partly I believe this was revelation as God’s Holy Spirit came down and lighted on Jesus, and the voice from heaven declared Jesus to be God’s beloved son.  Partly I believe Jesus was baptized in order to be in this with us.  He was calling us to be God’s faithful people, and part of being God’s faithful people in the first century was to take the ritual cleansing bath of Baptism.  This ritual bath was a way that Jews repented in order to be reformed as God’s people.  Without baptism, Jesus would have been declaring himself other than that people.  Jesus did not declare himself other than us.  Jesus was a part of Israel, standing squarely with those who knew they needed repentance, knew they were not perfect, and sought help from God to live as God’s faithful servant.

When we are baptized, Jesus is standing squarely with us to, not because we are perfect, but because we are beloved and because we said yes to God’s call to repent and be reformed as God’s people.  In baptism God forms us as part of the Body of Christ.  We become part of the servant described in Isaiah 42.  In Isaiah 42, God was talking about the people of Israel as his servant.  In the Isaiah passage, we hear God referring to his people Israel:

He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.  He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.

That is who and what we are baptized into when we are baptized into the Body of Christ.  Jesus is Faithful Israel lived out in one man.  When we are baptized into Jesus’ body, we are formed as faithful Israel, called to partner with God to bring peace and justice to the world.  We’re called to do, to be, to live as love incarnate in the world.

We are not called to be perfect.  While we do repent and try to turn our lives around, we don’t rid ourselves of all our imperfections.  Obviously, none of us have been made perfect in baptism.  God doesn’t need us to be.  God just wants us to say yes.  God then takes us, scars and all and says, “I can work with that,” and then God asks us to become love.  We still have our imperfections.  God doesn’t eradicate them.  God redeems them.  God uses the mess of our lives to help heal others and reach out to folks who couldn’t be reached by someone without some imperfections.  We often relate to each other in our messiness and our brokenness.  So God takes what we’ve got and works with it, redeems it, and uses us, partners with us in loving and healing the world he created.

When we baptize, we tell God we want to be a part of his people.  We say, God, I’m a mess, see what you can do with it, and Jesus stands squarely with us, being baptized with us, standing squarely on the side of broken messed up people, and decaring them his.  “Y’all want to be my servant, God says, part of my son’s body.  Y’all are broken and messed up, but I can work with that.”   Amen.