Baptism of Jesus
Hold on… just a little while longer…
Everything’s gonna be alright, everything’s gonna be alright.
What a week. It’s the kind of week where Resmaa Menakem’s book, My Grandmother’s Hands comes especially to mind… that deep book that some of us read this summer and fall… with its concrete practices for addressing racialized trauma and mending our hearts and bodies…
Yes, this is a week when in addition to watching events unfold (again), we did things we didn’t expect– did I ever think I’d be watching the live broadcast of the Joint Session of Congress counting votes in the middle of the night?
No, I did not.
One of my friends wrote – “After the 7 day trial of 2021, I’d like to return it for a full refund.”
In addition to trying to keep up with the trauma-filled news of this week, we needed and need now to practice in Resmaa Menakem’s words, “Settle our bodies, notice our emotions, accept discomfort, stay present, safely discharge negative energy… and add softness to our lives.”
We need to breathe. Practice silent meditation. Do a form of physical exercise that is pleasurable. Listen to music with female vocalists (he says we don’t know yet why this particularly works to soothe human bodies but it does…). Hold a pet if you have one. Be in nature… and the list goes on.
So, we’re going practice one right now together… as we work to mend, heal the trauma that is within us and that is all around us.
We’re going to hum and we’re going to rock. There is no right way or wrong way. Just let your body make noise and move in whatever way you can.
In both the story of creation from Genesis and the glimpse of new creation in Mark, God’s Spirit is present… hovering over the water, tearing open the skies and appearing to land on Jesus like a dove.
Even when we are in chaos, when we are in wilderness, God is present. God is there as light beams and God was there when darkness covered the face of the deep. There is nowhere where God is not, and when humans avoid God because we are sick with oppression and injustice, when we build up walls and fences and cages, out there or in here, that’s when God comes tearing the heavens apart with so much creative power to restore relationships.
In the water stories that we remember as we give thanks for the gift of Baptism, we hear the story of Noah – where God hangs God’s war bow up in the skies, refusing to use it ever again.
We hear story after story of situations where God powerfully delivers, but we also notice that there are times in life where God appears to withdraw and make space for creation to unfold.
God is present but God seems to limit god-self for the sake of creation, for the sake of the one God loves.
That is so different from models of leadership present from Pharoah to Herod to now, where despicable leaders instead grab and will not let go of any kind of power they can grasp… and we are affected and infected by a culture struggling to name those behaviors as sin. We are struggling as a whole country to discern truth in a sea of lies, to know who we are outside of a structure of racism and oppression than goes back in our history for generations.
So, today, we reflect not only on baptism’s gifts but on its tasks.
When Jesus was baptized, according to Mark, this earliest written account, a voice from heaven said, “You are my Son, Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” In that moment, if not before, Jesus knew his deepest identity. His maleness was not most important, his cultural and ethnic heritage was not most important, his class and family affiliations were not most important… relationship with God is the center of Jesus’ identity.
We realize, when we baptize, that there are so many things that draw us away from this central relationship. In baptism, we say “NO” to the things that draw us away from God – and they are powerful things. We say “NO” to them so that we can say “Yes!” to life in God, so that we can remember God loved us before we were even capable of responding… and yet, we turn toward God like a baby turns toward a loving parent – for nourishment, for nurture, for security, for bonding.
Then, as we grow in mind, body & spirit, as we grow holistically, we begin to be able to respond to God with more of ourselves… we begin to have the capacity to live as God’s dreams we would live together. We need guidance, so we promise to be with God’s people and listen to God’s word. We need physical, tangible things to ground us so we promise to receive God’s meal and learn prayers and teachings that we can come back to again and again, including when life is chaos, when we are in a wilderness of doubt. We promise that our life’s work will be to care for others and work for a world filled with justice and peace, not just for me & my allies, but for all.
The kind of week we have had, where now 4,000 people died of Covid in a single day… where an armed mob, encouraged by a deluded leader, took over the Capitol and caused trauma for our nation’s public servants (some reached out to their families by phone to say “goodbye,” they were so terrified)… but for the mob, they thought their destruction was funny, hilarious, worth a selfie…
When our president calls these people in their violent actions, “really special” and tells him he loves them, we just want the heavens to be torn open and for God to set all things right.
But this is when we must remember the identity of the baptized.
No, we are not the most powerful in the land, capable of over-turning democracy… or single-handedly righting what has been going wrong for so long.
No, we are not called to go out and burn it all down.
No, we are not able, knowing what we know now, what has been unfolding for years and years, to say that we have no part to play in the healing and reparations, the relationship-building, the moral action required - refusing to lie, refusing to make others enemies.
We look around and we see wilderness, only its not darkness covering the face of the deep… its whiteness, frozen, cold, not a person in sight. We’re lonely, scared, isolated in this season… and God comes among us and invites us to change our view, “Look, you are surrounded by water.” Yes, it’s cold and frozen… but here is the water of life that you will need, just in a different form.
Amma Theodora (her name means mother, gift of God) wrote, “Just as the trees if they have not stood before the winter’s storms cannot bear fruit, so it is with us; this present age is a storm and it is only through these many trials and temptations that we can obtain an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven.” Or put just a little differently, these storms, this frozen time, is part of the whole creation that leads to spring, to growth, to fruit.
In baptism, the Holy Spirit entered Jesus, and here is an amazing thing – in baptism, in water & word, God’s Holy Spirit enters us. God breathes into us, God’s gift of water flows into & through us.
Listen to this, from the words of confession & forgiveness that we’ll speak & hear again in just a few minutes:
In the wake of God’s forgiveness, we are called to be the beloved community living out Christ’s justice and the Spirit’s reconciling peace.
Baptism is gift and calls us to new living – hear these words we’ll sing together:
Living water, never ending,
quench the thirst and flood the soul.
Wellspring, source of life eternal,
drench our dryness, make us whole.
