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Sermon - January 7th, 2007
The Beloved
Rev. Gwen Drake
Scripture: Luke 3: 15-17 & 21-22
In the beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the dark waters and brought forth light and life. In baptism, the Spirit of God hovers over humanity and brings forth the church. Creation, baptism, life are gifts from God, a God who just loves to bring something out of nothing.
Jesus preached, taught, healed, prayed, loved--all for the purpose of forming a community. He gathered disciples; he brought together the most unlikely people and made them a family. As Paul said to a faction-ridden church at Corinth, the church is Christ’s body, Christ’s visible presence here on earth, for better or worse, the church is the form which Christ chose to take in this world. Paul said to a bickering church, “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.”
The church is a gift--not an achievement. For who could explain how a group of people like us could come together, except that our togetherness is grace. To be in the church is to be together in God’s family, that strange clan begotten by “water and the Word.” We are Church; we are Christ’s body in the world. We are the beloved.
Through Jesus, God came, for us. God is not some abstract principle of love. God doesn’t just sit up there in heaven being lovely, waiting for people to come on up. God comes to us, even to those who don’t love God, even to those who have turned their backs on God. God finds us. That¹s the unique message of the Christian faith. God has found you and me.
Baptism began as a sacrament for adults only. It was for those who had been found, and because of grace in their life had repented and begun a new life committed to Jesus. Baptism was a means of sealing that grace, a formal marking and then a celebration of the new life given by God’s grace. It was not long when the church began to practice the baptism of infants. The reason was this: If baptism is inclusion in the church, then children shouldn’t be excluded. The words of Jesus were: “Let the children come to me, for of such is the Kingdom of God.” So, to include children in the fellowship of the church, children were baptized.
The baptism of babies declares something wonderful about God. If God loves us first (which we believe), if God takes the initiative, then what better way to proclaim it! Baptism of infants says that God loves us before we are able to do anything for ourselves, before we are even aware of it.
When Jesus was baptized by John in the River Jordan, a voice came from heaven saying, “This is my son.” We believe that is what happens in baptism. Every time someone is baptized, the heavens open and a voice says, “This is my daughter. This is my son.”
Baptism is a covenant. A covenant is a promise, and in the Bible covenants are always initiated by God. They are promises that God will love us and will never leave us. So when we reaffirm our baptism today, it reaffirms our covenant with God, a promise that if we should ever get lost on this journey of life God will come and find us. It’s a promise that if we stubbornly journey away from God into some far country not wanting to be found, then God will wait for us as the father waited for the prodigal son. Then when we do come home, before we can ask for forgiveness, God will run down the road and greet us, and love us, and forgive us.
That’s the amazing grace that the gospel is about, that is acted out in the baptismal covenant. Those who have been baptized have acknowledged that within them is the promise of God’s grace. When we realize the power of that, when we remember our baptism, when we wake up to the meaning of God’s grace in our lives, when we “come to our senses” as the prodigal son did, then we will know what it means to say, I was lost and now I am found.
In times of doubt, when struggling through his dark nights of the soul, that great reformist, Martin Luther would sometimes touch his forehead and say to himself, “Martin, be calm, you are baptized.” In times of doubt, inner turmoil, confusion, we too, can touch our foreheads, and remember our baptism, remember that we are a child of God, we are the beloved, no matter what. It is God’s gift to us, unearned, unmerited, undeserved--before we do anything at all. God loves us and there is nothing we can do about it. Each one of us is known by God and loved by God, as if we are an only child. That is who you are. That is who I am. So we are to live like it. We are to walk with dignity in this life as one of God’s beloved. We are to do something significant with our lives.
Now, what I have said about baptism is wonderful for all those who relate to being lost, to being the prodigal, the wayward one, to those who feel as though they don’t deserve to be loved by God. But what about all of you who are the older brothers and sisters? What about you who have worked hard all your lives, been faithful to the end. Seems like the church thrives on its ministry to the broken, the sick, the outcast, and the lost. What about those of you who are burning the candle at both ends, trying to serve God and keep up with your other responsibilities, too? What about those of us who work hard to keep our jobs, stay in our relationships, take care of our health, pay our dues, but never seem to get any credit for it, while the downtrodden seem to get all the attention? What do you have to do to get any recognition around here? Do you have to wander off for awhile before you can come home to be embraced, and kissed, and assured that you belong?
“Listen!” the elder son protested. “For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes; you killed the fatted calf for him!” God help the elder son. God help him and God help all of us who identify with his rage, who have felt so excluded and whose hurt has run so deep that we have cut ourselves off from the very ones whose love and acceptance we so desperately need. How many times do we exclude ourselves from the body of Christ, from the church, from our family because of our own self-righteousness?
So, what does the father do? He invites the elder brother back into relationship as well. It is an invitation to recognize his own lostness and foundness, but we don’t know if the elder brother accepted it or not. The story of the Prodigal Son ends with the elder brother standing outside the house in the yard with his father, listening to the party going on inside. Jesus leaves it that way. I believe because it is up to each one of us to finish the story. It is up to each one of us to decide whether we will stand outside all alone being right, or whether we will give up our need to be right and go inside to take our place at a table full of reckless and righteous saints and sinners, brothers and sisters united only by our relationship to our loving God, symbolized by our baptism. Because, you see, God refuses to give us the love we deserve, but cannot be prevented from giving us the love we need.
Amen.