Where is your baptismal certificate? For more than half his life Mario had been homeless.1 Before coming to the church shelter he had lived on the streets of New York. The friends who came to his sixtieth birthday party at the shelter declared that he didn’t look sixty. Mario answered by reaching into his coat pocket and taking out his birth certificate. Yes, indeed, he was sixty years old. Then Mario said, “Wanna see my baptismal certificate?” He pulled it out. The certificate said that Mario had been baptized as an infant in an Episcopal Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Why had Mario carried his baptismal certificate with him as he roamed the streets of Manhattan?
Why did Jesus come to the Jordan to be baptized by John? This question haunted the early church. If John’s baptism was for the cleansing of sin, and Jesus was indeed sinless, why did he need to undergo John’s rite? More to the point, if John was the Messiah’s forerunner, not “worthy to carry his sandals,” why did Jesus come to John asking for baptism? The account of Jesus’ baptism, as recorded in the gospel of Matthew, gives us some clues as to how the early church began to answer these questions.
After having provided Jesus’ genealogy, some details about his birth, and the account of the discovery of Jesus by the Persian astrologers, Matthew has brought us to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. In his account Matthew suggests that, to begin with, Jesus came to the Jordan in fulfillment of God’s commands. Using water as a sacramental means of purification and repentance was an established rite in Jesus’ time. Indeed, even today, among Orthodox Jews, ritual bathing is required for converts to Judaism and for women at the close of their menstrual periods. By allowing himself to be baptized, Jesus showed that he too, as an observant Jew, was willing to do what God required of him. His response to John’s reluctance to immerse him reflects and exemplifies his humble obedience: “It is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”
More important, in undergoing baptism, in being willing to experience all that those around him were experiencing, Jesus joined himself fully to our human condition. He was doing what his people did. Though he himself was sinless, he “inaugurated his public ministry by identifying with ‘the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem.’ He identified himself with the faults and failures, the pains and problems, of all the broken people who had flocked to the Jordan River. By wading into the waters with them he took his place beside us.”2
In the account of what transpired after Jesus went down into the water, the evangelist tells us something even more important. As he rose from the Jordan, Jesus had a vision. He saw the Holy Spirit descend on him. In that moment he knew himself empowered for ministry and commissioned as God’s anointed one. And more: a voice from heaven publicly proclaimed Jesus’ identity: “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Not “You are my Son, the beloved,” as in the gospels of Mark and Luke, but “This is my Son.” If Jesus, the onlookers at the Jordan, the hearers of Matthew’s gospel, or we had any doubts as to Jesus’ identity, those doubts must surely have been dispelled in that moment.
Obedient, in solidarity with broken human beings, affirmed, empowered, and commissioned, Jesus was all that and more as he went down into and arose from the Jordan. And here’s the good news: the waters that rolled over Jesus have also rolled over us. We too went down into the Jordan with Jesus, and we too came up out of the water with him. The baptismal font is our River Jordan. Whether we were brought to the font by someone else, or whether we came of our own free will, whether we were immersed or sprinkled, Jesus was standing beside us as those waters flowed over us. As we rose from the water, the Holy Spirit descended on us, and God publicly proclaimed us to be God’s beloved children. And in joining ourselves to Jesus, we too are affirmed, empowered, and commissioned.
Do you believe that you are affirmed by God, that you are God’s beloved child? Believe it! You are. You are loved, and accepted and affirmed by God unconditionally and forever. Yet it’s so easy to forget God’s affirmation of us. As children, we may have difficulty in school and discover that we don’t measure up. As teens we may hear other teens deride our ethnicity, our clothing, our taste in music, or our interest in science. The media bombard us as adults with messages reminding us that we are not sufficiently successful, rich, beautiful, athletic, educated, fashionable, or technologically with it – whatever message will sell the next new product. We may stop hearing God’s voice and forget that we are God’s beloved children. So try this exercise. How would you respond to questions like these?3 Do you think that Jesus might be proud of you, proud of you for trusting and believing in him? Might Jesus be proud of you for not giving up on yourself and others and for trusting that he can help you? Do you ever think that Jesus appreciates that you want him, and that you are willing to let go of all that separates you from him? Do you ever think that Jesus is grateful to you for all the many ways in which you show kindness and generosity to others? Do you ever think Jesus wonders why you can’t believe that he has forgiven you totally, or why you think are not loved?
When we know ourselves as beloved children, we also begin to see that God has declared all of us to be beloved children. There is literally no one who is outside the circle of God’s love, even those with whom we violently disagree. Gene Robinson, the retired bishop of New Hampshire and first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, said of Peter Akinola, the archbishop of Nigeria, who strongly opposed Robinson’s consecration, “By virtue of our baptism, Peter Akinola and I are brothers in Christ and one day we are going to be in heaven together, so we might as well learn to get along here because we will have to get along there. God won’t have it any other way.” When we meet those whom we think are unattractive, lazy, dishonest, or hateful do we forget that they too are God’s children? Do we let our own judgments about people drown out God’s affirmation of others? Most important, do we understand that because all of us have been affirmed by God, with Jesus, we have been empowered by the Holy Spirit and commissioned to be Jesus in the world? Do we realize and accept that we have been gifted with the power and the charge to care for all those for whom Jesus cared, those who are poor, oppressed, in need, and unloved? Do we know that we have been called to pursue justice and peace? Are we willing to take up the charge of creating communities of love and inviting those around us into them?
One wonders what Mario experienced on the streets of New York. Those who glanced at him as they walked by probably saw a bum, a homeless panhandler. Did they decide that he was part of the “undeserving poor,” someone who didn’t deserve government assistance or decent clothes or access to the kind of healthcare that you and I routinely enjoy? Did they even wonder whether local shelters and food banks had adequate funding? As I listen to the stories of people who come to Loaves and Fishes sometimes I ask myself the same questions. Recently another parishioner and I saw to it that one of our regular diners, someone who lives in an unheated garage, had a can of kerosene for the space heater that provides his only heat.
Mario was fortunate to finally find a congregation that recognized him as another of God’s beloved children. They understood that his baptismal certificate was an affirmation of his status as someone beloved of God, someone who deserved their care. They welcomed him into their shelter and into their hearts. They claimed him as one of their own.
As we live out our own lives, can we hear again God’s voice at our baptisms? The waters that washed over Jesus also washed over us. If the voice in your head is disparaging and judgmental, try saying to yourself, “I am God’s beloved child, and with me God is well pleased.” If the voice in your head turns toward another in judgment and criticism, say to yourself, “You are also God’s beloved child, and with you God is also well pleased.” Then accept the Spirit’s power and commit yourself to following Jesus up from the water and out into the world.
1. Based on Patricia J. Calahan, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Gospels, Matthew, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox), 44ff.
2. Daniel B. Clendinen, “Journey with Jesus,” January 12, 2014, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml .
3. Adapted from A Glimpse of Jesus: The Stranger to Self-Hatred, quoted in Synthesis, January 12, 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment