All Washed Up
\nA Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY
\nby Rev. James Eaton, Pastor
\nBaptism of the Lord Sunday\/C \u2022 January 10, 2016<\/p>\n
\u201cHow have I ever deserved such love?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u00a0A woman asks this question near the end of The Danish Girl<\/em> and I wonder if it is Jesus\u2019 question at the end of his baptism.
\nI imagine it as a hot day; this is desert country after all. The stories about John tell us there were\u00a0crowds\u00a0but what\u2019s a crowd? Twenty people? A couple hundred? Thousands? We don\u2019t know. John is a striking figure, a man\u00a0evidently\u00a0filled with the Spirit of God, who speaks a fierce message, calling people to repentance. He\u2019s on the shore of the Jordan River. This is the river that had to be crossed centuries before by God\u2019s people to enter the promised land. This is the water that had to be waded, this is the stream that stood between them and the fulfillment in history of God\u2019s love and covenant. Is there a line to be baptized? Did Jesus stand behind others as one after another they came to John, talked to John, heard him pray and then felt him forcefully plunge them into the water, let the water cover them like someone drowning, and then lift them up, wet, wondering what comes next, clean, ready for the next chapter. Now Jesus comes; now he looks at John, now their eyes make a private space only they understand. Now John is taking Jesus in his arms, as he has with all the others, now Jesus is plunged into the water, there is perhaps that instant of fear so instinctive when we are underwater, now he is lifted up and heaven opens, Jesus hears what we all want to hear, “You are my child, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.\u201d This is baptism.
\nBaptism is rare here and in church life, we\u2019ve become fussy about the rituals that surround We have considerable evidence for baptism, both of children and adults, in the early church. The Didache, a collection of sayings and teachings probably written about the same time as the New Testament says this about baptism.
\nConcerning baptism, you should baptize this way: <\/p>\nAfter first explaining all things, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in flowing water. But if you have no running water, baptize in other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, then in warm. If you have very little, pour water three times on the head in the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Before the baptism, both the baptizer and the candidate for baptism, plus any others who can, should fast. The candidate should fast for one or two days beforehand.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This is great news if you\u2019re one of those people who think details aren\u2019t important; bad news if you\u2019re a ritual maker. What says is that the form of applying the water, the part that most interests us, doesn\u2019t really matter. Use running water\u2014if you\u2019ve got it. Use a few drops if that\u2019s all you\u2019ve got.\u00a0
\nThe formula, the amount of water, the exact things we do\u2014really don\u2019t matter. And by the way: the last line, about fasting? That clear direction is almost universally ignored. But it\u2019s the details that most interest us. As one writer says,<\/p>\nBaptism has become its customs, once meant to celebrate its meaning, but now\u00a0the only meaning of the celebration: a time for dressing the baby in something outlandish, an occasion of presents and promises and family.\u00a0\u00a0 And none of this has anything to do with profound and dangerous journeys of the spirit.\u00a0\u00a0 The danger of water and demons,\u00a0 the spirit journey, the profundity, have gotten lost in ritual huzzahs, so much so that most Christians, in their own profound journeys, do not think of them as part of their baptism.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I know\u00a0from my own experience how true this is. Once, years ago, in the midst of pronouncing the formula, \u201cin the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit\u201d, my voice caught and the last phrase wasn\u2019t heard. The next day I got a phone call from the church moderator; a person had called him claiming the baptism was invalid and the child\u2019s immortal soul was in danger because I had supposedly left out the full phrase. I didn\u2019t know how to treat seriously the idea that someone\u2019s salvation could be determined by whether I coughed in the midst of claiming it.
\nBut if the details don\u2019t matter, what does?\u00a0The clues are in the scripture we read this morning and they have nothing to do with measuring out water. Isaiah says, <\/p>\nBut now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.
\nWhen 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThis word is addressed to people who feel themselves lost. Every day the news shows us pictures of refugees from Syria and other places. Israel had become refugees and this is God saying, \u201cYou\u2019re not forgotten: you\u2019re still mine.\u201d There\u2019s a reason every baptism begins with a question: \u201cWhat name is given this child?\u201d We name a person at baptism in a way that honors them uniquely but also connects them with a family, a heritage. Whose are you? You are God\u2019s own child, regardless of your age. Baptism is a reminder we\u2019re not on our own; we belong and we belong to someone, to God. In the visible church, here, we are meant to be the emblem of that belonging. Baptism is first, then belonging.
\nBut it\u2019s also a response to fear. Swimming is taught to children these days and we forget that for most of history and still today in many places, people fear water. In fact, that primal fear is deep within us. Water is dangerous. Once my son was teasing me about not playing sports; he talked about having the courage to go out on the soccer field, knowing he might get bruised. I pointed out that I sailed and commented, \u201cEvery year, some sailors die when they drown.\u201d It was a poor joke yet it had a truth: water is dangerous. Baptism began as a way of making sacred what we feared. In John Irving\u2019s novel, The World According to Garp, a family retreats to a home on the ocean shore in New Hampshire. There\u2019s a beach and the children are warned about an undertow that can suck them down. Misunderstanding, the way children do, they call it \u201cthe undertoad\u201d. I know about the undertoad. Once, long ago, I was on a beach in New Jersey, swimming while my parents watched a few yards away. The undertow\u2014the undertoad!\u2014caught me, swirled me around and I\u2019ve never forgotten the fear of that moment. \u201cWhen you pass the waters,\u201d God says, \u201cI will be with you\u201d. When the undertow grabs you, you will still be God\u2019s.
\nBut it\u2019s not all water; baptism is more than being washed up and set down fresh and fancy. Acts tells the story of an early church mission. Someone has gone up to Samaria and baptized some folks there. They didn\u2019t ask the Deacons, they didn\u2019t follow the ritual, they just went ahead and did it. But somehow, the baptism wasn\u2019t effective and the disciples know this because there has been no evidence of the Holy Spirit among these folks. We don\u2019t know what this means; we only have this little testimony. Yet clearly the early church knew that baptism wasn\u2019t simply a human act of applying water; it had a deeper, transforming significance. Today, baptism has become about the water; God meant it to be about the Spirit, the breath, the wind that blows through life. In the beginning, Genesis says, the Spirit of God blew on the face of the waters and it\u2019s from this ordering that creation follows. Baptism is meant to be a sign of a deeper spiritual blowing in us that causes us to live out the gentle, loving, forgiving way of Jesus. No amount of water can do that; it takes the Holy Spirit. Our task as baptized Christians is to nurture the presence and experience of that Spirit in those who come here, those God sends.
\nThe final clue I want to call attention to this morning is simple and direct. At the end of the account of Jesus\u2019 baptism, it says, \u201cheaven opened\u201d. We live in a world caught up in the details of earthly life: what to wear, eat, how to get through the day. What we miss if we forget our baptism is that heaven is open; God is calling. The question with which I began, \u201cHow have I deserved such love?\u201d has a simple answer: you don\u2019t, you can\u2019t. We don\u2019t deserve love: it is pure gift, the gift of the God to whom we belong, whose children we are. If we believe we are indeed, God\u2019s people, if God has given us the Spirit to bind us and energize us in living out love, if we know heaven is open to us, then indeed, we are loved in a way beyond deserving. You are my beloved, God says to Jesus: you are my beloved, God says to you.
\nThe movie I mentioned earlier, The Danish Girl<\/em>, is a fictionalized account of a real person, a man named Einar Wegener, married to Gerda, who discovered within himself a female identity he named Lili. It was a time and place with little understanding about such things and as Lili emerged and his life became living as Lili, as Einar receded and this woman became fully alive, he faced the conflict of being a woman living in a man\u2019s body. At first treating this as a problem to be solved, Lili and Gerda struggled to find a way forward. Ultimately, Lili became the first person known to have undergone a series of operations to remake the body to match the identity as a woman. What\u2019s clear from the real history, not as clear in the movie, is that there were years during which Lili faced the conflict of hiding her real self, living in shame, keeping the secret. Finally, near the end of the movement, Lili sees how loved she is, asks the question with which I began,\u00a0\u201cHow have I deserved such love?\u201d, and answers it in the only way it can be answered.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cLast night I had the most beautiful dream\u2026I dreamed I was a baby in my mother\u2019s arms\u2026and she looked down at me\u2026and called me Lili.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The dream is being called by your true name: known in your true self. And loved. Like the mother in the dream, like our father in heaven, God is calling out to us, loving us, loving us beyond anything we can or ever will deserve. In the moment we see this, in the moment we know this, heaven does indeed open. And that is baptism.\u00a0
\nAmen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All Washed Up A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor Baptism of the Lord Sunday\/C \u2022 January 10, 2016 \u201cHow have I ever deserved such love?\u201d \u00a0A woman asks this question near the end of The Danish Girl and I wonder if it is Jesus\u2019 question at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon","category-worship"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions\/30"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}