Second Sunday in Ordinary Time / Season of Epiphany
Psalm 139 / John 1:43-51
15 January 2012
“What should I do with my life?”
It’s a question that comes to us, all of us, at many different times in our lives. Child, worker, new parent or grandparent, retired, elderly … “what should I do with my life?” is a universal question for us.
And the change of the calendar, the move into a new year, can accentuate that question.
Thankfully, as we move into this season of Epiphany, these weeks of God showing forth what God is all about in the life and ministry of his Son Jesus Christ … we have some texts, psalms and stories, which are all about shedding light … Epiphany light … onto that question.
Our Psalm for today begins in our questioning, wondering and wandering in life … with the answer that we are known by God.
Lord, you have searched me out; O Lord, you have known me.
Many of us might have that terribly Lutheran streak of being meek and quiet, content to sit in the back row, not wanting any attention called to ourselves … but even in that, deep down, it is good to be known. To be known by friends, companions, fellow travelers on the journey. For us, church, especially a smaller church, a cozier worship service, is just right because this is the Cheery time and place where “everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.”
But this word in the Psalm is stronger … better … wiser than even that comforting word.
Lord, you have searched me out; O Lord, you have known me.
The words of the Psalmist bring a rush of Biblical images … God, searching for us in all the circumstances of life … the times when we feel so close to God, God’s words and God’s ways for us … and the times when God feels a million miles away. But there is the Lord, and here is the Lord, searching for us, the Light of his Word of love and care searching us out, like One in the darkness, searching with a torch or flashlight for that which is lost yet beloved to them … that is the image the Psalmist word-paints for us this morning.
O Lord, you have known me.
In these words, we also have a rush of images … “you have known me” here has the sense of action, begun once in the past, still in effect now. “Knowing” in the Old Testament sense of how a lover is to their beloved … that closeness, that proximity, physically, mentally, spiritually, that is also what the Psalmist is referring to here. A God who wishes and wills and works to be near his beloved, always, in all ways.
And as we move further into the Psalm, that language becomes more and more secure and sure, for us.
You trace my journeys and my resting places and are acquainted with all my ways.
Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O Lord, know it altogether.
You encompass me, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
This is guiding and mentoring language … not controlling and manipulating, but a “hand on the shoulder” word … God, here, searching us out in the dark places of life … God, there, lending an ear, a Word, subtly, surely, guiding us, through the little “voice in our ear” we hear in many different places and times of life … in the quiet of worship … through the words of a hymn we sing together … in the presence of faith-friends offering us their care and support, encouragement and love. That mentoring hand of God, leading and guiding us through life.
This talk of guiding and mentoring also reminds us of a part of last week’s story about Jesus’ baptism … his rising up out of the water, and the Word from heaven descending up on him … You are my beloved.
In our baptism into the dying and rising of Jesus … our dying to sin and our rising to forgiveness and new life … in our baptism God calls us, too, by that name … beloved. We are God’s beloved … adopted, named, claimed in our baptism … formed and shaped through water and Word, worship and witness, the bread and wine of communion … through all these, we feel ourselves being guided and mentored, molded and created into the body of the beloved of God.
In our Gospel reading for today, we get an initial glimpse of what that “body of the beloved” looks like for Jesus and those he calls to follow him. In John’s gospel, the story moves rapidly from John the Baptist’s description of Jesus’ baptism to Jesus’ gathering a community of the beloved around him.
Jesus knows them.
Nathanael asked Jesus, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”
Jesus’ seeing Nathanael “under the fig tree” may not sound like it’s that big of a deal, either to Jesus or to us. But elsewhere in the Bible spending time under the shade of a tree often means the one who is there is thinking … contemplating … perhaps feeling troubled, or alone, or just simply needing some time out, time away … to meditate, to find solace. So Nathanael’s cutting, perhaps even negative response to Philip’s invitation to “come and see” Jesus … can anything good come out of Nazareth?… Nathanael may not be aiming that word so much at Jesus, as he is being brutally honest about how he feels about his own life.
Jesus calls Nathanael “an Israelite in whom there is no deceit” … he’s honest … about himself, life, the whole situation … while others are out working, fishing, mending the nets, Nathanael is under the fig tree, thinking, contemplating, perhaps asking that very question we ask ourselves, “what should I do with my life?”
And Jesus knows him. Jesus knows him and calls to him through Philip’s invitation, come and see. Nathanael gets up from under his fig tree and goes, and feels known through Jesus, known in Jesus, and becomes part of the beloved community.
We are part of that beloved community. As our Prayers of Intercession begin and remind us this morning, “As God’s beloved people made radiant by the light of Christ …” We are God’s beloved, made so through our baptism into Jesus, called by Jesus, gathered by Jesus, known intimately by Jesus, not for his manipulation, but for our transformation ... our transformation, through this worship, through water and Word, bread and wine, the comforting and welcoming presence of our brothers and sisters in Christ … and then, and then, as that beloved community, we are sent forth, as our prayers continue, to “pray for the church, the whole human family, and God’s good creation.”
That prayer can and does take many forms … certainly, asking God to watch over those who especially need our prayers … all those we regularly hear of and mention … the sick, the suffering, the poor and oppressed, the unemployed and underemployed, the discouraged and despondent.
But more … our prayer can and must take other forms … whatever actions we can work on our part, where the gifts God has given to us to share meet the world’s great need … we, beloved by God, beloved of God, are called to go and share this Word about Jesus, into the world … so that others, through us, will “come and see” Jesus.
“What should I do with my life?”
It all starts with our being God’s beloved.
You are known intimately by God. You are loved thoroughly by God.
We are washed and made right with God through our baptism into his Son Jesus Christ … fed and filled in this worship … and then … then, we are sent out, to answer that question, “What should I do with my life?” in as many different ways as there are “us” here … but all, so that others will “come and see” Jesus through us, his beloved ones. Amen.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Sunday, January 08, 2012
08 January 2012
“Baptism: The front door of the Church”
Baptism of our Lord
8 January 2012
Even though we began our year-long focus on Baptism back on the first Sunday in Advent, November 27, today, this Baptism of our Lord Sunday, this really feels like the Sunday we begin with this focus, this theme, in earnest. There’s so much baptismal imagery that’s before us today … from the Scripture-story about Jesus’ baptism … to the congregational affirmation of our own baptisms (and our receiving the sign of water as a remembrance of our baptism)… to the font and Paschal candle, being right here, up in front … there is, indeed, a lot going on about baptism, here, today, this Baptism of our Lord Sunday.
And so it seemed appropriate to make the message today a Catechesis, if you will … a learning time together, for some of us, a review; for others, a hearing and taking in something new about baptism.
With our renewed emphasis on baptism, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit some of those catechetical words … liberally sprinkled with the wit and wisdom of Martin Luther … once again. So here it is … “Baptism: The Front Door of the Church.”
In our shared confirmation classes which we call “Faith Thinking,” we have a Friday to Saturday weekend retreat on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism segments on Holy Baptism. I start my part of the retreat by asking, “How do we come into the church?” And, of course, you can guess the usual answer ... “through the front door.” But that’s not the answer I’m looking for. So I ask again, “What other item here in the church might be described as the ‘front door,’ the way people come into the church?" The back door? No. The windows? Uh-uh. Try the FONT. Ohhh.
The baptismal font is really the "front door" of the church, when you think about it. It's how people come into the church, become members ... it's a public marker and milestone for where the life of faith begins in us. It’s how Jesus’ public ministry began, as we hear in this morning’s Gospel reading … with his baptism. That's why the font has such a prominent place in many congregations.
I think that Martin Luther would like how our font is prominent … most of the time, right inside the front doors to the worship space … for the season of Epiphany, right here, up front, so we can see it and be reminded of our baptism. For Martin Luther loved to talk and write about baptism. To Luther, baptism was and is central to what being a Christian is all about. Hear these words of Luther, from the Large Catechism, on Holy Baptism:
You should not doubt...that baptism is of divine origin, not something devised or invented by people. As truly as I can say that the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer are not spun out of anyone's imagination but revealed and given by God himself, so I can also boast that baptism is no human plaything but is instituted by God himself. Moreover, it is solemnly and strictly commanded that we must be baptized … we are not to regard it as an indifferent matter, then, like putting on a new red coat. It is of the greatest importance that we regard baptism as excellent, glorious, and exalted.
Excellent, glorious, and exalted. That’s a very lofty setting for baptism. But that may be something new for many of us ... maybe we’ve never thought of baptism in that way before.
And why is that? Well, let’s return to that front door analogy for a moment.
Front doors have become an ornament on newer homes ... they often open onto a “non-porch,” ... most of the time we go in and out of our houses through the garage or side doors.
At our parsonage in Pennsylvania, the front door hadn't been used in over 30 years. It was in an awkward place from the driveway ... it was very pretty, a beautiful cherry wood which everyone admired, rounded at the top, opening onto a nice little alcove...but nobody ever used it. We and everyone else used to go around to the side porch, or the kitchen door.
The state of baptism among many who follow Jesus is much like that front door on our former parsonage. Baptism is often treated as a nice ornament but not central to what we do or who we are. The sacrament has lost much of the significance Luther believed it should have.
And why is that? Perhaps, because baptism is seen many times as something that we, people, do. Like the treasures of our unused front doors, we may ignore baptism, or try to control it to conform to our needs, our desires....the baby gets "done,"...or, in the case of adult baptisms, we may come to the font after we say we “chose Jesus,” rather than acknowledging that Jesus always chooses us first. In either case, we say "I was baptized," just remembering that one time event, perhaps so long ago, that event which made me a church member, so that a church name may appear after mine in the paper when I die because "I was baptized."
But that's not what baptism is. So what is baptism?
Baptism, in the words of Luther’s Small Catechism …
… is not simply plain water, but it is water used according to God's command and connected with God's word.
I can turn the water in our kitchen off and on quite easily. But according to Luther, I can't do that with baptism. Something else is connected to the water...God's Word...which commands that we go and make disciples of all nations, and BAPTIZE them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Baptism, then, is water with God's word behind it. People did not invent baptism as some sort of a silly ritual, like a club membership initiation or secret handshake that gets you "in" to the church. Uh-uh. Baptism is from God...and God alone. We don't control it.
And why do we need baptism?
Again, as Luther writes, because
… baptism gives forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the power of evil, and grants eternal salvation to all who believe, as the Word and promise of God declare in Mark’s gospel -- "The one who believes and is baptized will be saved."
Baptism can be thought of as a rescue of sorts ... again, in Luther’s words …
God rescues us through baptism from sin, death, and the devil, and promises us salvation.
The problem is, we go through life thinking we are better than those medieval guys like Luther … that hey, we’re 21st century people, we’re in pretty good shape, we don't need rescuing, we have an app for that. And when it does get rough, well, when that time comes, I'll have what it takes to get out alive. I am in control, after all.
Well, since we are talking about rescues, let's think of one that happens a lot ... a rescue from drowning. Let's just say that our life situation is like that of a drowning person. We are in the deep water and floundering. Along comes our rescuer. How wonderful! Just throw me a rope or a life preserver, and I'll grab on and everything will be fine.
OK -- let's move the scenario to the ocean … there’s an undertow … and rip currents … and now, we’re being pulled further and further away from shore, the water’s getting deeper and we’re in danger and sinking fast.
But once again, here comes our rescuer! Just tie a rope to a person on the shore, tie the other end around the rescuer, and out they come after us … I’ll grab onto that one, and I’ll be fine.
But what if there isn't any way to get anything or anyone out for you to grab onto? Then what? One of the scariest pictures I’ve seen this past year is the image from Long Beach, of the 12 year old boy who got knocked down by a rip current and pulled out to sea. He was underwater for 20 minutes until divers found him. They pulled out this limp body, all rubbery ...a boy, just like any kid...as close to death as anyone could ever be. It was awful and tore you to the heart.
But that, brothers and sisters, that boy is us. We can't grab on to anyone because, despite all our good intentions toward living, our valiant attempts and brave starts … we are in bondage to bad choices … downright wrong living … sin … whatever you choose to call it. And at the end of it all, for each and every one of us, death is as certain for us as it was for that kid.
Luther talks of that "Old Adam" in us -- the sinful, selfish part of us that is bent on destruction...
What is the old man or woman? He or she is what is born in us from (the beginning) … irascible, spiteful, envious, unchaste, greedy, lazy, proud, yes, and unbelieving; we are beset with all vices and by nature have nothing good within.
That’s me. That’s you. No matter how hard we try to live a “good life” … eventually, sometime, somewhere, one of those descriptive words on that list will convict us.
There is ONE thing that, according to Luther, we are good at … each and every one of us … and what that is, is death. Each of those words Luther used describe a death of sorts … a end to relationship … between us and others, between us and God. And life ends up having waaaay too many deaths in it … up to and including that final one, that final separation, the last in the long line of separations and endings.
That’s the bad news … that’s the reality of life for us.
But here’s the Good News.
God has given us baptism. The Prayer of the Day on Ash Wednesday puts it so well, "God, you hate nothing you have made." God wants to save what God has made -- us -- you and me. So he sent Jesus to live among us. And even though we didn't want Jesus ... God still wants us, relentlessly wants us, so Jesus is raised from the dead, so that his promises would hold true. AND GOD’S WAY OF MAKING THOSE PROMISES REAL TO US AND FOR US IS HOLY BAPTISM.
Baptism is God's way of claiming us as his own, and uniting us with Jesus, to share in his promises for us, for this life, and for all of life to come. When we are baptized...Luther called it a two-part observance, which
… consists of being dipped into the water, which covers us completely, and being drawn out again. These two parts, being dipped under the water and emerging from it, indicate the power and effect of baptism, which is simply the slaying of the old Adam and the resurrection of the new person.
This is not something we can do on our own. This is not even something we can add any of our own power to "helping out." We are helpless to do anything to aid in our own rescue ... because we are near drowning.
That's why we baptize infants. There is no person so helpless as a little baby. It pleases Christ to see babies baptized, Luther says, because it shows the power of the Holy Spirit to work faith in us, starting on a day when we are totally helpless, and continuing our whole life long.
Our whole life long? I thought baptism just meant ten minutes out of my life? Not as God intended it, Luther says.
Thus a Christian life is nothing else than a daily baptism, once begun and ever continued.
That's what the "slaying of the old Adam and the resurrection of the new person" means -- this is a daily battle. Just because I was baptized one day fifty years ago doesn't mean that I have lived a perfect life since then! Ask anyone who knows me well. And you must say the same, when you look at your own lives! We mess up -- we fall short of what God wants for us -- remember those ten little, simple commandments -- we fail to keep them perfectly, as God calls us, every day of our lives.
So, if after baptism, we are turned loose to "do" the rest of life by ourselves, all depending on us, well, we are as lost as the boy who fell into the ocean. But we can rejoice that all does not depend on us ... because we cannot shake, we cannot lose, our relentlessly loving, promising God.
Through Jesus, we are offered second, third, and many more chances in life. Jesus calls us to repentance – simply, the act of turning around, and confessing our sins to God; then, hearing the words of forgiveness once more. And when this happens, Jesus gives us the same promise that we were given at our baptism -- "your sins are forgiven." To Luther,
… if you live in repentance, therefore, you are walking in baptism, which not only announces this new life but also produces, begins, and promotes it. In baptism we are given the grace, Spirit, and power to suppress the old person so that the new may come forth and grow strong.
Every day of our lives? Every day of our lives. So it's not, "I was baptized," but, "I AM BAPTIZED!" Those words Luther said every day should be our words, too, as we live each day, struggling, falling short of what God wants and expects of us, but all the time holding onto the promise we have been given in baptism, that we have been claimed by God in this dying and rising, not for death, but for forgiveness, salvation, and life … both in the world to come, and the world in which we live NOW, with friends and family, strangers and acquaintances, neighbors who need us to be in relationship with them … serving them … living as Christ to them … you and I, called by Jesus to “walk wet” into their lives.
Holy Baptism really is the “front door of the church.” And what a beautiful front door it is. It’s not there to ignore, or hide, or to be there just for looks. It needs to be used as it was intended ... “excellent, glorious, and exalted” ... every day of our lives ... by the one who puts it there...who gives it to us...who calls us through it to come, and follow him.
Amen.
Baptism of our Lord
8 January 2012
Even though we began our year-long focus on Baptism back on the first Sunday in Advent, November 27, today, this Baptism of our Lord Sunday, this really feels like the Sunday we begin with this focus, this theme, in earnest. There’s so much baptismal imagery that’s before us today … from the Scripture-story about Jesus’ baptism … to the congregational affirmation of our own baptisms (and our receiving the sign of water as a remembrance of our baptism)… to the font and Paschal candle, being right here, up in front … there is, indeed, a lot going on about baptism, here, today, this Baptism of our Lord Sunday.
And so it seemed appropriate to make the message today a Catechesis, if you will … a learning time together, for some of us, a review; for others, a hearing and taking in something new about baptism.
With our renewed emphasis on baptism, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit some of those catechetical words … liberally sprinkled with the wit and wisdom of Martin Luther … once again. So here it is … “Baptism: The Front Door of the Church.”
In our shared confirmation classes which we call “Faith Thinking,” we have a Friday to Saturday weekend retreat on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism segments on Holy Baptism. I start my part of the retreat by asking, “How do we come into the church?” And, of course, you can guess the usual answer ... “through the front door.” But that’s not the answer I’m looking for. So I ask again, “What other item here in the church might be described as the ‘front door,’ the way people come into the church?" The back door? No. The windows? Uh-uh. Try the FONT. Ohhh.
The baptismal font is really the "front door" of the church, when you think about it. It's how people come into the church, become members ... it's a public marker and milestone for where the life of faith begins in us. It’s how Jesus’ public ministry began, as we hear in this morning’s Gospel reading … with his baptism. That's why the font has such a prominent place in many congregations.
I think that Martin Luther would like how our font is prominent … most of the time, right inside the front doors to the worship space … for the season of Epiphany, right here, up front, so we can see it and be reminded of our baptism. For Martin Luther loved to talk and write about baptism. To Luther, baptism was and is central to what being a Christian is all about. Hear these words of Luther, from the Large Catechism, on Holy Baptism:
You should not doubt...that baptism is of divine origin, not something devised or invented by people. As truly as I can say that the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer are not spun out of anyone's imagination but revealed and given by God himself, so I can also boast that baptism is no human plaything but is instituted by God himself. Moreover, it is solemnly and strictly commanded that we must be baptized … we are not to regard it as an indifferent matter, then, like putting on a new red coat. It is of the greatest importance that we regard baptism as excellent, glorious, and exalted.
Excellent, glorious, and exalted. That’s a very lofty setting for baptism. But that may be something new for many of us ... maybe we’ve never thought of baptism in that way before.
And why is that? Well, let’s return to that front door analogy for a moment.
Front doors have become an ornament on newer homes ... they often open onto a “non-porch,” ... most of the time we go in and out of our houses through the garage or side doors.
At our parsonage in Pennsylvania, the front door hadn't been used in over 30 years. It was in an awkward place from the driveway ... it was very pretty, a beautiful cherry wood which everyone admired, rounded at the top, opening onto a nice little alcove...but nobody ever used it. We and everyone else used to go around to the side porch, or the kitchen door.
The state of baptism among many who follow Jesus is much like that front door on our former parsonage. Baptism is often treated as a nice ornament but not central to what we do or who we are. The sacrament has lost much of the significance Luther believed it should have.
And why is that? Perhaps, because baptism is seen many times as something that we, people, do. Like the treasures of our unused front doors, we may ignore baptism, or try to control it to conform to our needs, our desires....the baby gets "done,"...or, in the case of adult baptisms, we may come to the font after we say we “chose Jesus,” rather than acknowledging that Jesus always chooses us first. In either case, we say "I was baptized," just remembering that one time event, perhaps so long ago, that event which made me a church member, so that a church name may appear after mine in the paper when I die because "I was baptized."
But that's not what baptism is. So what is baptism?
Baptism, in the words of Luther’s Small Catechism …
… is not simply plain water, but it is water used according to God's command and connected with God's word.
I can turn the water in our kitchen off and on quite easily. But according to Luther, I can't do that with baptism. Something else is connected to the water...God's Word...which commands that we go and make disciples of all nations, and BAPTIZE them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Baptism, then, is water with God's word behind it. People did not invent baptism as some sort of a silly ritual, like a club membership initiation or secret handshake that gets you "in" to the church. Uh-uh. Baptism is from God...and God alone. We don't control it.
And why do we need baptism?
Again, as Luther writes, because
… baptism gives forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the power of evil, and grants eternal salvation to all who believe, as the Word and promise of God declare in Mark’s gospel -- "The one who believes and is baptized will be saved."
Baptism can be thought of as a rescue of sorts ... again, in Luther’s words …
God rescues us through baptism from sin, death, and the devil, and promises us salvation.
The problem is, we go through life thinking we are better than those medieval guys like Luther … that hey, we’re 21st century people, we’re in pretty good shape, we don't need rescuing, we have an app for that. And when it does get rough, well, when that time comes, I'll have what it takes to get out alive. I am in control, after all.
Well, since we are talking about rescues, let's think of one that happens a lot ... a rescue from drowning. Let's just say that our life situation is like that of a drowning person. We are in the deep water and floundering. Along comes our rescuer. How wonderful! Just throw me a rope or a life preserver, and I'll grab on and everything will be fine.
OK -- let's move the scenario to the ocean … there’s an undertow … and rip currents … and now, we’re being pulled further and further away from shore, the water’s getting deeper and we’re in danger and sinking fast.
But once again, here comes our rescuer! Just tie a rope to a person on the shore, tie the other end around the rescuer, and out they come after us … I’ll grab onto that one, and I’ll be fine.
But what if there isn't any way to get anything or anyone out for you to grab onto? Then what? One of the scariest pictures I’ve seen this past year is the image from Long Beach, of the 12 year old boy who got knocked down by a rip current and pulled out to sea. He was underwater for 20 minutes until divers found him. They pulled out this limp body, all rubbery ...a boy, just like any kid...as close to death as anyone could ever be. It was awful and tore you to the heart.
But that, brothers and sisters, that boy is us. We can't grab on to anyone because, despite all our good intentions toward living, our valiant attempts and brave starts … we are in bondage to bad choices … downright wrong living … sin … whatever you choose to call it. And at the end of it all, for each and every one of us, death is as certain for us as it was for that kid.
Luther talks of that "Old Adam" in us -- the sinful, selfish part of us that is bent on destruction...
What is the old man or woman? He or she is what is born in us from (the beginning) … irascible, spiteful, envious, unchaste, greedy, lazy, proud, yes, and unbelieving; we are beset with all vices and by nature have nothing good within.
That’s me. That’s you. No matter how hard we try to live a “good life” … eventually, sometime, somewhere, one of those descriptive words on that list will convict us.
There is ONE thing that, according to Luther, we are good at … each and every one of us … and what that is, is death. Each of those words Luther used describe a death of sorts … a end to relationship … between us and others, between us and God. And life ends up having waaaay too many deaths in it … up to and including that final one, that final separation, the last in the long line of separations and endings.
That’s the bad news … that’s the reality of life for us.
But here’s the Good News.
God has given us baptism. The Prayer of the Day on Ash Wednesday puts it so well, "God, you hate nothing you have made." God wants to save what God has made -- us -- you and me. So he sent Jesus to live among us. And even though we didn't want Jesus ... God still wants us, relentlessly wants us, so Jesus is raised from the dead, so that his promises would hold true. AND GOD’S WAY OF MAKING THOSE PROMISES REAL TO US AND FOR US IS HOLY BAPTISM.
Baptism is God's way of claiming us as his own, and uniting us with Jesus, to share in his promises for us, for this life, and for all of life to come. When we are baptized...Luther called it a two-part observance, which
… consists of being dipped into the water, which covers us completely, and being drawn out again. These two parts, being dipped under the water and emerging from it, indicate the power and effect of baptism, which is simply the slaying of the old Adam and the resurrection of the new person.
This is not something we can do on our own. This is not even something we can add any of our own power to "helping out." We are helpless to do anything to aid in our own rescue ... because we are near drowning.
That's why we baptize infants. There is no person so helpless as a little baby. It pleases Christ to see babies baptized, Luther says, because it shows the power of the Holy Spirit to work faith in us, starting on a day when we are totally helpless, and continuing our whole life long.
Our whole life long? I thought baptism just meant ten minutes out of my life? Not as God intended it, Luther says.
Thus a Christian life is nothing else than a daily baptism, once begun and ever continued.
That's what the "slaying of the old Adam and the resurrection of the new person" means -- this is a daily battle. Just because I was baptized one day fifty years ago doesn't mean that I have lived a perfect life since then! Ask anyone who knows me well. And you must say the same, when you look at your own lives! We mess up -- we fall short of what God wants for us -- remember those ten little, simple commandments -- we fail to keep them perfectly, as God calls us, every day of our lives.
So, if after baptism, we are turned loose to "do" the rest of life by ourselves, all depending on us, well, we are as lost as the boy who fell into the ocean. But we can rejoice that all does not depend on us ... because we cannot shake, we cannot lose, our relentlessly loving, promising God.
Through Jesus, we are offered second, third, and many more chances in life. Jesus calls us to repentance – simply, the act of turning around, and confessing our sins to God; then, hearing the words of forgiveness once more. And when this happens, Jesus gives us the same promise that we were given at our baptism -- "your sins are forgiven." To Luther,
… if you live in repentance, therefore, you are walking in baptism, which not only announces this new life but also produces, begins, and promotes it. In baptism we are given the grace, Spirit, and power to suppress the old person so that the new may come forth and grow strong.
Every day of our lives? Every day of our lives. So it's not, "I was baptized," but, "I AM BAPTIZED!" Those words Luther said every day should be our words, too, as we live each day, struggling, falling short of what God wants and expects of us, but all the time holding onto the promise we have been given in baptism, that we have been claimed by God in this dying and rising, not for death, but for forgiveness, salvation, and life … both in the world to come, and the world in which we live NOW, with friends and family, strangers and acquaintances, neighbors who need us to be in relationship with them … serving them … living as Christ to them … you and I, called by Jesus to “walk wet” into their lives.
Holy Baptism really is the “front door of the church.” And what a beautiful front door it is. It’s not there to ignore, or hide, or to be there just for looks. It needs to be used as it was intended ... “excellent, glorious, and exalted” ... every day of our lives ... by the one who puts it there...who gives it to us...who calls us through it to come, and follow him.
Amen.
Sunday, January 01, 2012
01 January 2012
New Year’s Day / The Name of Jesus
Luke 2:15-40
1 January 2012
Those of you who were at the 7 pm worship service on Christmas Eve may have heard me offer a short quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer during the Let the Children Come time … though it may have gotten lost in the midst of everything else which was going on in the children’s message, but it bears repeating today, this First Sunday of Christmas …
[The central message of Christmas is that] God turns toward the very places from which humans turn away.
Today’s Gospel story … what we might call “the rest of the Christmas story” because it completes the Bethlehem portion of Jesus’ life narrative … is full of those “God-turning” moments:
• God turning toward the shepherds as they hear the angels’ word first and hurry to see Mary and Joseph and the child Jesus;
• God turning toward the Jews, a point particularly emphasized in the rituals described, as well as the stories of Simeon and Anna;
• And in and through it all, God turning toward Jesus.
Let’s spend some time this New Year’s morning taking note of these.
First, the message about the shepherds. It may be an old saw from so many Christmas Eve sermons, but it bears repeating: shepherds were and are outcasts, living on the fringe of society, out in the wild, away from “decent, God fearing people” … they, ritually unclean by the rules of Hebrew religion; they, the low ones in a social system heavily stacked against them … yet they, they are the ones who first hear the message of good news from God … “this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known” to them.
To these people on the outside, God has turned first with the Good News of Jesus. It is still as earth-shattering a message now as it was then … echoing Mary’s words in the Magnificat; right here, those words are being worked out in human history … God is bringing down the powerful and lifting up the lowly … the Good News of Jesus Christ does not come first to the halls of power or into the lives of the rich and famous … but to backwards country bumpkins … and smelly ones at that.
It is a worldly slap in the face … an insult, an affront … of the first order.
God is not going to play by our human orderings and rules.
God is turning toward the very places from which humans turn away.
The same can certainly be said of that second point … that here in these words God is showing a particular turning toward the Jews. The story moves rapidly to the words of Jesus’ naming, and Mary and Joseph’s obedience to the most ancient of Jewish rituals and laws.
Still, despite these clear words … and this never fails to amaze me … still, many, many Christians forget the fact, Jesus was and is … a Jew. Though our western European and American portraits paint him to appear as someone who would easily fit in on the streets of Oslo or Munich or Minneapolis / St. Paul … they’re just plain wrong. Jesus was a child of the Mideast, born to Hebrews of the area, so he would have looked like … everyone else from that Mediterranean area of the world. Dark complected. Dark haired. Short and swarthy. And eight days after he was born, he was circumcised, so to keep the law of the Hebrew people.
Luke spends a lot of time in these verses emphasizing Jesus’ Jewishness … from his circumcision and naming, to his mother’s purification ritual, to his presentation in the Temple in Jerusalem. We recall that Luke’s gospel, and its companion volume, Acts, were likely written to Gentiles (non Jews) in the Roman world, so that, as Luke states at the beginning of the Gospel, “you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.”
Unfortunately, part of that instruction was likely derogatory words and actions, discrimination, persecution, hatred of the Jews, even then, among Christians, even then, in the Roman world. Perhaps Luke saw this anti-Jewish belief and behavior, and wanted to set early believers straight … reminding them that Jesus was himself born a Jew, and began his life fully within the customs, laws and rituals of the Jewish religion.
And that’s a good reminder for us, as well, when we try to make Jesus over from “God for us” to “God like us.” When we say in the Creed that Jesus was made “truly human” it means just that … that Jesus was fully a person of his place and time in the world … he wasn’t a 12th or 18th or 21st century person; he wasn’t Chinese or Botswanan or American. He was born and lived his earthly life as a 1st century Jew … which serves well to remind us that God chose to become human in a particular place and time … to show us that we, too, are called to live fully engaged in this life which we have been given; not wishing and hoping that we’d be living sometime, somewhere else … dreaming, hoping to be beamed up or blasted out or raptured away … no, we are called to live right here, right now, engaged with life as it is for us, and for our neighbor.
This is also a reminder that ritual can serve us well, as a reminder of the sacred, the holy, in this life, and can enhance our engaging in it, rather than escaping from it. We have become an increasingly de-ritualized society … who prays before meals anymore? Who reads the Scriptures around their meal table anymore? Who eats together as a family anymore, conversing about the events of the day just past? Jesus’ full engagement with his Jewish religion meant his full engagement in the ritual of what it meant to be a first century Jew, honoring God in all of life … from one’s rising up to lying down, going out and coming in, in how one dressed and ate.
In some ways we Lutherans have been much to blame for the de-ritualization of Christianity. Though it was never Martin Luther’s intent to wholesale throw out many of the rites and rituals of the Christian faith … from making the sign of the cross in remembrance of our Baptism … to the differing colors and vestments of our corporate worship together … to individual and family prayer at our waking up and going to sleep … those who followed the Great Reformer “cleaned house” of many of these rituals because they were “too catholic.” So we became a church devoid of many of the rich traditions which taught generations faith, and as the first Protestants, we passed this sterile faith along to other Christians as “what God really wants.”
Thankfully … we Lutherans have been recovering many of these rituals and traditions in our corporate worship together … from making the sign of the cross … to weekly communion … to a renewed appreciation of our Baptismal heritage. But our individual and family faith traditions may still be lacking.
R. Alan Culpeper in his commentary on Luke’s gospel makes a valid point, in bringing out what we have lost as God’s people by removing ritual from our lives:
For many, religious rituals are reduced to church attendance at Christmas and Easter and to socially required ceremonies at births, weddings, and funerals. The marking of both daily and special events with rituals that recognize the sacredness of life and the presence of God in the everyday is practically extinct. The result has been that God has receded from the awareness and experience of everyday life. [People’s] lives … move in a secular realm devoid of the presence of the holy. Little room for mystery remains in the everyday …
Yet the message of Luke’s gospel here, is that God unmistakably turns toward these very places from which humans turn away. God is calling us, you and me, back to life which reflects the giftedness, the holiness, of God For Us … that Jesus came into the world means that this life is different for us, and we are called to honor and recognize this in our lives … individually, corporately, among friends, in families.
Here’s one ready way for you to try that in the New Year.
Every week we offer these little “Taking Faith Home” fliers so you can do just that … take faith home, to engage in some practice of that which we preach and feed on here in this one hour each week, to take it into the 167 remaining hours of your week. There are prayers, there are readings, there are blessings, there are caring conversations and devotions, service opportunities and rituals and traditions in which to engage each week.
I’ll be blunt. We have got a great thing going here corporately as Nativity people and congregation. Our attendance, our giving of ourselves, through service, through financial stewardship, it’s all growing. God has blessed us tremendously in the year just past and we give great thanks for that even as we look ahead with eager anticipation to what 2012 will bring to this community of faith.
But all of that good feeling pales with the joy of the Lord of which we will each be a part, as we grow personally in our faith journey, in our own devotion life, in prayers and caring conversations in our homes and in our families, outside these walls. I know some of you already engage in these rituals and faith practices, and that’s great … we have and will continue to ask you to share with us, and help lead us, into growing in our own discipleship journeys. For those of you who have yet to begin … may I encourage, commend, exhort you to make a New Year start, by trying just one of the ways these little helps list, to engage your faith outside of worship, during the week? Please. Give it a try. I will be praying for you as you give it a try.
One thing you find, as you go on this discipleship journey with Jesus, is that it doesn’t mean everything is going to automatically go well and right in your life from now on. Far from it. Sometimes the walk of faith, the discipleship journey with Jesus, seeing life through the eyes of faith, obedience, submission, confession and repentance, means that it’s just plain harder, the path is rougher, there are more boulders in the way.
It was this way for those there at the outset. Note the strange ominous words of old Simeon:
This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.
Note how Mary pondered in her heart all these things which happened and these words which were said.
There will indeed be falling and rising, there will be opposition and swords piercing souls, that is for sure. We rehear and rehearse that story in Jesus’ life beginning next week, on Baptism of our Lord Sunday, as the story told in worship of the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry … sent forth from his baptism, God turning toward and sending forth Jesus, to bring his Word into the world … here, next Sunday, that story begins once more, among us.
And in our own lives, we rehear and rehearse those words … God’s turning toward Jesus, God’s turning toward us … in our own lives, we rehear and rehearse these words as we remember our own baptism, God’s lavish gift to, on and for us … a lifelong sign and symbol of our dying and rising with Jesus, a remembrance of our “walking wet” through life, our Lord with us, through all the swords and boulders … and blessings and rejoicings … of this life.
Our baptism … and the rites and rituals given us which we are called to follow … are palpable reminders … every time we dip our fingers in the font, and make the sign of the cross on our foreheads or over ourselves … every time we confess our sins and shortcomings and hear the words of forgiveness … every time we eat and drink at this lavish feast of faith and community, spirit-blessing and filling … we are reminded that our Lord is with us ... all ways … and most especially, in the places and through the times from which others might turn away.
In our sorrow and in our thanksgivings … in bad times and in good … whatever this new Year of our Lord 2012 has in store for us … we will rest assured and work assured, go out assured and come in assured, lay down assured and rise up assured … that our Lord is with us … always, in all ways.
Baptized, We Live … fully engaged in Jesus for the life to come, we go forth assured in Jesus … to fully engage in this life we are given to share, to live and serve and give Jesus-life with all, in his name …
… to Rejoice, rejoice, with thanks embrace another year of grace.
Amen.
Luke 2:15-40
1 January 2012
Those of you who were at the 7 pm worship service on Christmas Eve may have heard me offer a short quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer during the Let the Children Come time … though it may have gotten lost in the midst of everything else which was going on in the children’s message, but it bears repeating today, this First Sunday of Christmas …
[The central message of Christmas is that] God turns toward the very places from which humans turn away.
Today’s Gospel story … what we might call “the rest of the Christmas story” because it completes the Bethlehem portion of Jesus’ life narrative … is full of those “God-turning” moments:
• God turning toward the shepherds as they hear the angels’ word first and hurry to see Mary and Joseph and the child Jesus;
• God turning toward the Jews, a point particularly emphasized in the rituals described, as well as the stories of Simeon and Anna;
• And in and through it all, God turning toward Jesus.
Let’s spend some time this New Year’s morning taking note of these.
First, the message about the shepherds. It may be an old saw from so many Christmas Eve sermons, but it bears repeating: shepherds were and are outcasts, living on the fringe of society, out in the wild, away from “decent, God fearing people” … they, ritually unclean by the rules of Hebrew religion; they, the low ones in a social system heavily stacked against them … yet they, they are the ones who first hear the message of good news from God … “this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known” to them.
To these people on the outside, God has turned first with the Good News of Jesus. It is still as earth-shattering a message now as it was then … echoing Mary’s words in the Magnificat; right here, those words are being worked out in human history … God is bringing down the powerful and lifting up the lowly … the Good News of Jesus Christ does not come first to the halls of power or into the lives of the rich and famous … but to backwards country bumpkins … and smelly ones at that.
It is a worldly slap in the face … an insult, an affront … of the first order.
God is not going to play by our human orderings and rules.
God is turning toward the very places from which humans turn away.
The same can certainly be said of that second point … that here in these words God is showing a particular turning toward the Jews. The story moves rapidly to the words of Jesus’ naming, and Mary and Joseph’s obedience to the most ancient of Jewish rituals and laws.
Still, despite these clear words … and this never fails to amaze me … still, many, many Christians forget the fact, Jesus was and is … a Jew. Though our western European and American portraits paint him to appear as someone who would easily fit in on the streets of Oslo or Munich or Minneapolis / St. Paul … they’re just plain wrong. Jesus was a child of the Mideast, born to Hebrews of the area, so he would have looked like … everyone else from that Mediterranean area of the world. Dark complected. Dark haired. Short and swarthy. And eight days after he was born, he was circumcised, so to keep the law of the Hebrew people.
Luke spends a lot of time in these verses emphasizing Jesus’ Jewishness … from his circumcision and naming, to his mother’s purification ritual, to his presentation in the Temple in Jerusalem. We recall that Luke’s gospel, and its companion volume, Acts, were likely written to Gentiles (non Jews) in the Roman world, so that, as Luke states at the beginning of the Gospel, “you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.”
Unfortunately, part of that instruction was likely derogatory words and actions, discrimination, persecution, hatred of the Jews, even then, among Christians, even then, in the Roman world. Perhaps Luke saw this anti-Jewish belief and behavior, and wanted to set early believers straight … reminding them that Jesus was himself born a Jew, and began his life fully within the customs, laws and rituals of the Jewish religion.
And that’s a good reminder for us, as well, when we try to make Jesus over from “God for us” to “God like us.” When we say in the Creed that Jesus was made “truly human” it means just that … that Jesus was fully a person of his place and time in the world … he wasn’t a 12th or 18th or 21st century person; he wasn’t Chinese or Botswanan or American. He was born and lived his earthly life as a 1st century Jew … which serves well to remind us that God chose to become human in a particular place and time … to show us that we, too, are called to live fully engaged in this life which we have been given; not wishing and hoping that we’d be living sometime, somewhere else … dreaming, hoping to be beamed up or blasted out or raptured away … no, we are called to live right here, right now, engaged with life as it is for us, and for our neighbor.
This is also a reminder that ritual can serve us well, as a reminder of the sacred, the holy, in this life, and can enhance our engaging in it, rather than escaping from it. We have become an increasingly de-ritualized society … who prays before meals anymore? Who reads the Scriptures around their meal table anymore? Who eats together as a family anymore, conversing about the events of the day just past? Jesus’ full engagement with his Jewish religion meant his full engagement in the ritual of what it meant to be a first century Jew, honoring God in all of life … from one’s rising up to lying down, going out and coming in, in how one dressed and ate.
In some ways we Lutherans have been much to blame for the de-ritualization of Christianity. Though it was never Martin Luther’s intent to wholesale throw out many of the rites and rituals of the Christian faith … from making the sign of the cross in remembrance of our Baptism … to the differing colors and vestments of our corporate worship together … to individual and family prayer at our waking up and going to sleep … those who followed the Great Reformer “cleaned house” of many of these rituals because they were “too catholic.” So we became a church devoid of many of the rich traditions which taught generations faith, and as the first Protestants, we passed this sterile faith along to other Christians as “what God really wants.”
Thankfully … we Lutherans have been recovering many of these rituals and traditions in our corporate worship together … from making the sign of the cross … to weekly communion … to a renewed appreciation of our Baptismal heritage. But our individual and family faith traditions may still be lacking.
R. Alan Culpeper in his commentary on Luke’s gospel makes a valid point, in bringing out what we have lost as God’s people by removing ritual from our lives:
For many, religious rituals are reduced to church attendance at Christmas and Easter and to socially required ceremonies at births, weddings, and funerals. The marking of both daily and special events with rituals that recognize the sacredness of life and the presence of God in the everyday is practically extinct. The result has been that God has receded from the awareness and experience of everyday life. [People’s] lives … move in a secular realm devoid of the presence of the holy. Little room for mystery remains in the everyday …
Yet the message of Luke’s gospel here, is that God unmistakably turns toward these very places from which humans turn away. God is calling us, you and me, back to life which reflects the giftedness, the holiness, of God For Us … that Jesus came into the world means that this life is different for us, and we are called to honor and recognize this in our lives … individually, corporately, among friends, in families.
Here’s one ready way for you to try that in the New Year.
Every week we offer these little “Taking Faith Home” fliers so you can do just that … take faith home, to engage in some practice of that which we preach and feed on here in this one hour each week, to take it into the 167 remaining hours of your week. There are prayers, there are readings, there are blessings, there are caring conversations and devotions, service opportunities and rituals and traditions in which to engage each week.
I’ll be blunt. We have got a great thing going here corporately as Nativity people and congregation. Our attendance, our giving of ourselves, through service, through financial stewardship, it’s all growing. God has blessed us tremendously in the year just past and we give great thanks for that even as we look ahead with eager anticipation to what 2012 will bring to this community of faith.
But all of that good feeling pales with the joy of the Lord of which we will each be a part, as we grow personally in our faith journey, in our own devotion life, in prayers and caring conversations in our homes and in our families, outside these walls. I know some of you already engage in these rituals and faith practices, and that’s great … we have and will continue to ask you to share with us, and help lead us, into growing in our own discipleship journeys. For those of you who have yet to begin … may I encourage, commend, exhort you to make a New Year start, by trying just one of the ways these little helps list, to engage your faith outside of worship, during the week? Please. Give it a try. I will be praying for you as you give it a try.
One thing you find, as you go on this discipleship journey with Jesus, is that it doesn’t mean everything is going to automatically go well and right in your life from now on. Far from it. Sometimes the walk of faith, the discipleship journey with Jesus, seeing life through the eyes of faith, obedience, submission, confession and repentance, means that it’s just plain harder, the path is rougher, there are more boulders in the way.
It was this way for those there at the outset. Note the strange ominous words of old Simeon:
This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.
Note how Mary pondered in her heart all these things which happened and these words which were said.
There will indeed be falling and rising, there will be opposition and swords piercing souls, that is for sure. We rehear and rehearse that story in Jesus’ life beginning next week, on Baptism of our Lord Sunday, as the story told in worship of the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry … sent forth from his baptism, God turning toward and sending forth Jesus, to bring his Word into the world … here, next Sunday, that story begins once more, among us.
And in our own lives, we rehear and rehearse those words … God’s turning toward Jesus, God’s turning toward us … in our own lives, we rehear and rehearse these words as we remember our own baptism, God’s lavish gift to, on and for us … a lifelong sign and symbol of our dying and rising with Jesus, a remembrance of our “walking wet” through life, our Lord with us, through all the swords and boulders … and blessings and rejoicings … of this life.
Our baptism … and the rites and rituals given us which we are called to follow … are palpable reminders … every time we dip our fingers in the font, and make the sign of the cross on our foreheads or over ourselves … every time we confess our sins and shortcomings and hear the words of forgiveness … every time we eat and drink at this lavish feast of faith and community, spirit-blessing and filling … we are reminded that our Lord is with us ... all ways … and most especially, in the places and through the times from which others might turn away.
In our sorrow and in our thanksgivings … in bad times and in good … whatever this new Year of our Lord 2012 has in store for us … we will rest assured and work assured, go out assured and come in assured, lay down assured and rise up assured … that our Lord is with us … always, in all ways.
Baptized, We Live … fully engaged in Jesus for the life to come, we go forth assured in Jesus … to fully engage in this life we are given to share, to live and serve and give Jesus-life with all, in his name …
… to Rejoice, rejoice, with thanks embrace another year of grace.
Amen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)