Rev. Eugene Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church, Sebastopol, California
January 13, 2002
Mathew 3:13-17
I am thinking about my childhood this morning, specifically a memory from the third grade. I remember this moment like it was yesterday – the first day of third grade, Lincoln School, Bisbee Arizona. I’m not sure I remember anything else about third grade, but I remember that first day. We had moved from Phoenix over the summer to Bisbee, a small town near the Mexican border. I did not know anyone. The first day of school, we got our books and we were all told to put our name in our book. So, I was carefully printing my name in my book. I looked over to the girl next to me – she was writing her name in cursive. In Bisbee, the kids learned to write cursive in the second grade -- in my school district in Phoenix, we learned to write cursive in the third grade. It was devastating. I still remember the feeling of instantly being hopelessly behind everyone else, of failure, convinced I would be rejected because I couldn’t write!
Now I am sure third grade had many wonderful moments for me… I remember my teacher, Mrs. Sullivan, who was very patient with this fretting child. And I know I made wonderful friends in third grade that I kept throughout grade school in Bisbee. But what I remember is that one painful moment.
I suspect I am not the only one. It is tough out there. In a fast-paced world where what really counts is the bottom line, it is easy to feel shoved aside, unimportant, an interchangeable and an easily replaceable part in a vast economic machine that doesn’t really care much if we feel accepted or valued. And the hurts, the put downs and rejections along the way are so hard to let go of. Henry Nouwen, the late great Saint of the Church, said it like this: “Somewhere in us an enormous temptation is lurking, maybe the greatest temptation in life, that of self-rejection – ‘I’m no good’, ‘I’m not wanted’, ‘I’m not unique or precious in anyone’s eyes’. It’s there, lurking somewhere. I wonder if anyone lives his or her life without that feeling coming up. A lot of anger and violence come out of that place where we do not believe we are seen in our uniqueness, in our preciousness… And the world persists in its efforts to pull us into the darkness of self-doubt, low self-esteem, self rejection and depression.”
It is an extreme example, I know, but I think of the suicide note of that 14-year-old girl from Santa Rosa who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge before Christmas. It was just in the paper. She wrote: Everyone is better off without this fat, disgusting, boring girl.” Of course, she was none of these things. But so what if she was! For whatever reason, the messages she had received from the world convinced her that she was fat, disgusting and boring and that it was all bad. And so, in a final tragic act of self-rejection, she took her own life.
“And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened up to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
John the Baptist made it clear that his baptism was a baptism for the repentance of sins. And so, over the years, volumes have been written on why Jesus, one without sin, would even need baptism. My short answer is this: Jesus joined with the others who yearned for the coming of God’s kingdom. He identified with the sins and shortcomings of his people, just as if they were his. But most of all, baptism was for him a moment of definition, indeed of identity: “This is my Son, the Beloved…” He goes into the waters of the Jordan a carpenter, and comes out a Messiah. His life has a new direction, a new meaning… He now knows who He is and what He must do. And a life-changing, indeed a world-changing, ministry begins. Jesus knows who He is… do we?
It has been a while since Alex Haley’s, Roots, swept over our nation, but do you recall that scene, the night Kunta Kinte drives his master to a ball at a big plantation house? He parks the buggy and settles down to wait out the long night of his master’s revelry, listening to the music coming from within the house. But then he hears other music, distinct music. It is coming from the slaves’ quarters, the little cabins behind the big house. It is music with a very different rhythm. His legs seem to have a mind of their own as they carry him down the path toward those cabins, toward that music. He finds a man playing African music. The music of Kunta Kinte’s childhood. Music he had almost forgotten. He finds that the man is from his home area of Africa, so they talk excitedly in their native language; they talk of home and the things of home.
That night, back in his cabin, Kunta Kinte is a changed man. He lies down on the cabin floor and weeps; he weeps in sadness that he had almost forgotten; he weeps in joy that he has at last remembered. The terrifying, degrading experience of slavery had almost obliterated his memory, which is precisely what it was designed to do. Ahh, but the music… the music had helped him remember… remember who he truly was. “I once was lost, but now am found.”
I see that story as a parable of baptism. For baptism above all tells us who we really are. The words spoken to Jesus are spoken to each of us – “You are my son, you are my daughter – my beloved – and with you I am well pleased.” We have been chosen; we have been claimed by God – a claim God will not relinquish. Nouwen says it like this: “Long before anyone heard us cry or laugh, we are heard by our God who is all ears for us. Long before any person spoke to us in this world, we are spoken to by the voice of eternal love. Our preciousness, uniqueness and individuality are not given to us by those who meet us in clock-time, our brief chronological existence, but by the One who has chosen us with an everlasting love, a love that existed from all eternity and will last through all eternity.”
I wish I could have shared those words with that young girl before she took her own life. It may not have made any difference, but, I wish I could have given it a try. And so I share them with you today with the hope that you really hear them, really believe them. The manipulative, controlling, soul-killing forces of the world do not speak the truth about us. The world would like us to believe lies about ourselves. For then we are so much easier to control – so much easier to fit into the proper slot and then dispose of when we have outlived our usefulness. I would say what the top executives at Enron did to their employees could be exhibit “A” here. If they get away with that, despite all their powerful friends in both political parties, then there truly is no justice. But it digress… For the fact is neither Enron nor anyone else speaks the ultimate truth about you and me. That truth is spoken by the One who called us into being, who blew into our nostrils the very breath of life. The truth about you and me, even though we may not always feel it, it that we are the chosen children of God, claimed by God, beloved by God, precious in God’s eyes and held safe in God’s everlasting embrace and nothing is going to change that. As one colleague has said, “You are the song in God’s heart, and God will never forget that song.”
And then one final point. A pastor shares his true story: “A few summers ago, a boy in our church returned home from his first year at college. He appeared at my office to tell me that I would not be seeing him at church while he was home over the summer. When I asked why, he told me, ‘Well, you see, I have been doing a lot of thinking about religion while I was at college, and I have come to the conclusion that there is not much to this religion thing. I found out I don’t need the church to get by.’ I responded by saying that I found all this very interesting. ‘Aren’t you worried?’ he asked. ‘I thought you would go through the roof when I told you that!’
I had known this boy for about five years, had baptized him a couple of years ago, and watched him grow during his high school years. He came from a difficult family situation. The church had been very interested in him and had a hand in helping him to go to college.
‘No,’ I responded. ‘I am interested in what you said, but not overly concerned. I’ll be watching to see if you can pull it off.’
‘What do you mean, ‘pull it off’? I’m nineteen, I can decide to do anything I want to do!’
‘Yes, I thought the same thing when I was nineteen. What I’m saying is, I’m not so sure you will be able to get away with this.’
‘Why not?’ he asked.
‘Well, for one thing, you are baptized.’
‘So, what’s that have to do with anything?’
‘It means that there are people here who care about you. They made promises to God when you were baptized. You try not showing up around here this summer, and they will be nosing around: asking you what you are doing with your life; what kind of grades you made last semester; what you’re doing with yourself. And then, there is also God. You see, no telling what God might try to do with you. From what I’ve seen of God, once He has claimed you, you don’t get off the hook so easily. God is relentless in claiming what is God’s. And, in baptism, God says you belong to Him.’
The minister concludes: “The boy shook his head in wonder at this strange unreasonable brand of reasoning and more or less stumbled out the door of my study. In a week or so, he was back at his usual place in the second pew. The baptizers had done their work.”
That is the other side of this ‘baptism thing’. The words spoken to Jesus are spoken to each of us to be sure. But what is also true is that the summons to ministry issued to Jesus is issued to each of us. God has claimed us and is not going to let us off the hook. I suppose that is kind of the “fine print” of baptism. We are now Christ’s ambassadors in a hurting world. We have been blessed by God, in order to be a blessing of God in the world. And nothing we do anymore, no matter how mundane it may seem, is any longer exempt from the possibility of being used by God to further God’s will. When you answer the phone, close a business deal, comfort a crying child, mail a package at the post office, drive to work, I don’t care, that may be your moment! Your one opportunity for others to see God coming into the world through you. God is not going to let us off the hook.
Old Bishop William Quayle said once that he had heard the voice of God in a storm. He suggested to a friend, Dr. Merton Rice, that he give it a try – that he go out on some stormy night and see if God would speak to him. Rice tried it, stayed out for hours in a terrible storm, but when asked about the experience, said this: “My only thought was…what a fool I am!” To which Bishop Quayle replied, “And how much more did you expect to learn about yourself in just one night?”
My hope is that we might have learned something about ourselves this day…that God has said to each one of us: “You are my son. You are my daughter. My beloved. Now prepare yourselves to live that way, to become part of my family, to share ministry with me, because that is what I put you here to do!”
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