Wet

Scripture:  Isaiah 42:1-9, Psalm 29 (insert), Acts 10:34-43, Matthew 3:13-17

In our readings from Matthew’s gospel, we’ve fast-forwarded the video a bit.  Last week we were with Joseph as he, Mary, and the babe were on the run from Herod’s enforcers.  In today’s reading, Jesus has grown up, and goes out to see a man named John who is leading a religious renewal movement, baptizing people in the Jordan River as a sign of their turning from their old lives and living according to John’s teachings.

John recognizes Jesus as the one about whom he had been preaching, the Messiah who had been promised, and he has a problem.  John is very aware of the sinfulness of the people who have been coming to be baptized, and of his own shortcomings.  He baptized people, had then go down into the waters of the Jordan River and come back up again, full immersion, as a sign that they wanted to be cleansed, wanted to leave their sins behind at the bottom of the Jordan.  But Jesus, the one who was now in front of him, had no sin to leave behind, no brokenness to leave behind.  And so he told Jesus, “I need to be baptized by you, and you’re coming to me?”  Jesus told him, “let it be so for now, for it’s proper in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”  So we’re told that John relented and baptized Jesus.  And as Jesus came up out of the water, we’re told the heavens were opened to him, and the Spirit of God descending on him like a dove, and a voice came from heaven, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  Even though Jesus had no sin of which to repent, he identified himself so completely with humankind that he was baptized – not for his sins, but for ours.

I have a confession to make:  I don’t remember my own baptism.  That’s because I was baptized as an infant, far too early for my brain to form any memories.  I’m told that my parents made promises on my behalf, to raise me up in the Christian faith, to renounce the power of evil, to live as a disciple of Christ, to resist oppression and evil, to show love and justice, and to be a faithful member of the church of Jesus Christ.  Most of us likely don’t remember our baptism either, though some of our members may remember their baptism – for Jay’s children, it wasn’t that long ago, and I’ve baptized one or two persons as adults, and they made their own promises to follow Jesus.  For those who are baptized as infants, we hope they’ll later go through confirmation class and be confirmed, and make their own promises – the same promises their parents made on their behalf – and I hope we may start a confirmation class next fall, the first this church has had for many a long year. I think it’s safe to say that when we were baptized, there were no doves, no voices from heaven – and that’s ok.  That happened for Jesus, and only Jesus gets to be Jesus.  But though our baptism didn’t come with the sound effects of Jesus’ baptism, the message is still the same, that through the work of Jesus Christ, we are children of God, disciples of Christ, members of Christ’s church.  We are all created in God’s image and, through the work of Jesus, we, too, are beloved of God. 

In the Revised Common Lectionary, the three-year cycle of readings, the text about the baptism of Jesus comes up every year, on the Sunday after Epiphany.  On this Sunday, we have a remembrance of our own baptisms.  We need to be reminded – whether we actually remember our own baptisms or not, we need to be reminded that we are baptized – because in being reminded that we are baptized, we’re reminded who we are – children of God, disciples of Christ, members of Christ’s church.  We are reminded that we are beloved of God.  And we’re reminded that we, or our parents on our behalf, made promises to follow in the way of Jesus.  We need to be reminded, because we forget.

What would it mean, what difference would it make, if as we went through our daily lives, we remembered that we are God’s beloved, that God loves us, and nothing we do, nothing we don’t do, nothing anyone else does or doesn’t do, can change that.  And what difference would it make if we remembered that the same applies to our sisters and brothers in Christ, those others who have been baptized – that they, too, are God’s beloved, and nothing can change that either.  How would it change the way we go through our day, how we treat others, how we treat ourselves.  Because this is a very different message than we get from our society.   In our society, we are valued largely by the work we do – often times, when we meet someone for the first time, after we learn their names, we ask, “well, what do you do?” – and they may tell you they’re a cashier or a mechanic or a hairdresser or such.  Or if we’re talking to an older person, they may tell us, “I’m retired now, but I used to be…” – a cashier, a mechanic, a hairdresser or such.  And we treat this information as the most important thing about that person, as if being or having been a cashier or mechanic or hairdresser defines a person, that their job is all they are, that they’re like robots or droids programmed for nothing but being a cashier or mechanic or hairdresser or such.  And, of course, if our society values us mostly by our jobs, it puts less value on those who for any number of reasons can’t or don’t work.   Whether or not we can work, and the kind of work we do, and how that work is compensated, determines our quality of life, determines whether we have enough food and clothing for our families or not, determines whether we live in a gated mansion or a rat-infested slum, determines whether we have access to good healthcare or lousy healthcare or no healthcare at all.   And so some people with Cadillac healthcare coverage can have elective plastic surgery, can go to gyms and spas and pamper themselves in any number of ways, while others can’t get any kind of medical treatment unless their condition becomes dire enough to go to the emergency room. Taken to its extreme, we wind up in the mindset of Hitler, who labeled disabled persons as “useless eaters” and targeted them for extermination – many of the measures that were later employed against Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and other disfavored groups were tried out first on the disabled. 

But, at least in our better moments, we know better than this.  We’re human beings, with lives outside our workplace.  Our job may define what we do for a portion of our time, but it doesn’t define who we are.  As Christians, we believe that all people, baptized or not, Christian or not, are created in God’s image, have something of God inside them.  And as Christians, we believe that we who are baptized are called in a special way, reminded that we are beloved, and also called to live and act in a certain way, following in the way of Jesus, living at least somewhat as Christ lived, choosing good and rejecting evil, loving God with all we have and all that we are, and our neighbor as ourselves.  Now, let me tell you, these words are dangerous, dangerous in a good way! Imagine how our society would change if we actually believed that each person, regardless of their job or lack thereof, is of infinite value, deserving of having their basic human needs met just by virtue of being human, and that we are called by God to care for one another as we’d care for ourselves.  This would have huge implications for our society, our culture, would turn the system upside down and inside out.  To live in a way that’s mindful of our baptism has been called to “live wet” – to live as if we’ve just been baptized, with the words of baptism and the promises of God’s love still ringing in our ears.

The water defenders at Standing Rock, who fought and are still fighting against the Dakota Access Pipeline, use a phrase in their protests:  the Indian words “Mni Wiconi” and the English equivalent “Water is life”.   These words remind us that we cannot live without water, and that indeed our own bodies are largely made of water.  For us as Christians, the water of baptism is life…our journey as Christians begins with baptism.  The rest of our lives are marked by the promises we make or that our parents made for us – and are marked by God’s promise that we are God’s beloved. May we “live wet” – live in a way that’s mindful of the promises of our baptism, and God’s promise of love, for us, and for all the baptized.  Amen.