Baptisms and New Creations

Matthew 3:13-17

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.  John tried to dissuade Jesus, saying, “I should be baptized by you, and yet you come to me!”  But Jesus replied, “Leave it this way for now. We must do this to completely fulfill God’s justice.”  So John reluctantly agreed. Immediately after Jesus had been baptized and was coming up out of the water, the sky suddenly opened up and Jesus saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and hovering over him.  With that, a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Own, my Beloved, on whom my favor rests.”

Two of my friends from seminary happen to be married. They had all 3 of their boys before the oldest one turned 5. As clergy, they have found that their community are the other pastors in their area, so their boys were baptized by the Bishop of their conference. Every year they post a photo and tell the story of their sons’ baptisms. 

Memory is imperfect and malleable, which is why our stories are so important, why telling stories is so important. But even in telling stories, the details sometimes change. My family hasn’t been very good at sharing stories or story telling, and there are probably 100 reasons for that. 

Quinnesec United Methodist Church. Quinnesec, MI

All of that being said, I have a vague memory of my baptism, I was probably 3, so don’t freak out. It was at my Grandparent’s church in Michigan. It’s a tiny town and a tiny church but it has always been warm. Knowing that, I’m certain I was surrounded by my family who loves me. The story is a little incomplete, because no one shared it with me, and I was little... so maybe I made it up…

But I love stories. The now retired Melkite ArchBishop of Haifa, Nazareth and all of Galilee Elias Chacour tells a story of baptism. Abuna Chacour was a young boy when the modern Nation of Israel was formed army marched in and drove his family and his neighbors from their homes and villages. The way he saw it, he had two options when seeking a way forward: a way of violence or a way of peace. This is how he became priest who is a revolutionary and not a violent revolutionary. He was a priest in a town call Ibillin and long before he had arrived, there was a great divide in the Melkite Church. There were church members who were protesting the annexing of land by the Israeli government and the priest at the time condemned the protesters actions and removed them from the church. These protesters, maybe 200 of them, joined the Greek Orthodox Church, but the damage was done and there were those who drew clear lines, made lists, of who was acceptable and who was not. 

This list was given to Abuna Chacour by his… essentially council chair, so he would know who to interact with and who not to. Abuna Chacour welcomed in, and  welcomed stories, conversations, and relationships with the Orthodox, the communist, and the Muslims of his community. 

Me, Acrchbishop Chacour, and 2 of my traveling companions. nbd.

One such former member shared his story, and his pain, and in joy of friendship with the priest, he gifted Abuna Chacour with a grape vine. The priest promised to care for it, to tell it of its significance in rebuilding relationships, and watch it bear fruit. So he planted it in the church courtyard. 

The Council Chair was not pleased to see the plant, and he was not pleased from whom it came. He demanded it be dug up and removed from the church yard. 

Abuna Chacour asked for a bucket of water, quietly grieving digging up such a symbol of friendship and love. The Council Chair was pleased, the soil will be loosed and it will be easier to remove. 

The priest poured the water all over the vine tree, made the sign of the cross, and said, “Oh Vine Tree, I baptize you Christian in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The one who uproots you will be uprooted. The one who waters you will be watered by God’s grace.” and then he said, “My dear sir, uproot the tree now if you can. But you can’t. It will grow and become very, very big.” (We Belong to the Land by Elias Chacour)

Something happens at baptisms.

In these 5 short verses there is packed a huge story. We meet John at the River. He has been calling out the powerful and bringing together outsiders. He didn’t invent the concept of ritual cleansing in water. The Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, in Jewish tradition entering into a mikvah--a pool with moving water--could make someone ritually clean who previously was not. John didn’t come up with this one his own--he was changing the terms from the powerful to everyone else. John spoke of the one who was to come. And one day, there was that one was. 

Jesus stood in line, and took his turn with the others who had gathered. When John put up a fight, Jesus said this was about what God wanted and this was about justice. 

As Jesus comes out of the water the sky opens and a voice claims Jesus as Beloved. Let’s start with the second half of this: Jesus is called Beloved One, in whom God is well pleased, or favor rests. And when we think about who Jesus is and what he did, why wouldn’t have have favor. Healing people, speaking truth to power, welcoming the outcasts… but none of that had happened yet. In this moment, Jesus wasn’t functioning as the Christ, he was just one of several folks in the Galilee named Jesus. Here is the thing, He, in that moment, chose to live fully into who God had made him. 

Some call this moment Jesus submitting to God’s will, but what if we see it as embracing and letting go: Choosing to live that way, choosing to embrace all his humanity. Embracing the secrets he tried to hide, his family’s weird complications. And letting go of expectations, of other people’s hopes for him, of trying to be someone he was not. I think, one of the reasons we baptize infants is to say to them without any history and without any expectations: I don’t know who you are going to be, but you are already beloved. But for those of us with histories and expectations-fulfilled and not, how much do we need to hear that we too are beloved? You are beloved. 

Our translations tell us that before the voice was heard, the sky was opened. It sounds lovely, like when rain hasn’t been seen in weeks and weeks, and the sky opens and the rain comes, saturating the dry ground. But translations are imperfect, just choices that translators make. The word used to describe the sky “opening” is the same as when the curtain in the temple that divides the place where God lives and the temple and people was ripped apart. When Jesus was baptized, door didn’t open in the sky, it was a skism, torn apart, ripped asunder, creation was torn and remade. The tangible and intangible, Heaven and Earth met. God was made known in that moment because Jesus stepped into the who he was made to be. And everything changed. This was a new creation, remade when the skies were torn apart. Jesus’ work of God’s justice was about to begin. And this justice is to love one’s neighbor as they love God, to heal the sick, to free the captive, to release the prisoner. Choosing reconciliation over war, abundance over scarcity, generocity over accumulation. This justice is good news to all but if it is not good news for the poor, the oppressed, the dispossessed, then it is not good news. 

This is what was created that day at the river.

This is one part of the story we tell when we talk about Jesus’ baptism.

But this story is also about memory, and it’s about you and it’s about me. 

There are so many ways to think about baptism. Much of it has to do with who is the primary actor: humanity or God. In the most overly simplified way, do we choose to be part of the community or are we already Beloved. Not because of what we have done but because we are? We are the image of our Creator. 

The skies were ripped a part, creations was re-written because you are Beloved. With no expectations and no accomplishments, just the hope that you will become fully who you are created to be, that you will love abundantly, that you will step into the work of justice and mercy, to treat your neighbor as beloved as well. In these moments the tangible and intangible, Heaven and Earth touch, the veil is thin and God comes close. 

We remember our baptisms and even in this moment, the world is changed because you, maybe for the first time, maybe again for the hundredth time, are embracing all that you are, choosing to become who you are made to be. 

Everything changes at baptism, at the font but it is part of the process, part of the growth and becoming and living with our whole God created selves in this world. I think again of the vine tree, and it’s unlikely baptism. The old ways were creation and systems were being torn apart and remade in the image of God, of love and hope and justice and reconciliation. That little vine tree was given an opportunity in it’s baptism to grow, to be what it was created to be. 

In  a bit we're going to remember and renew our baptism vows. After, during our times of music or singing or leaving today,  come forward, touch the water, take a rock, remember you are already beloved. 

May we grow and bear fruit of justice and mercy, love and kindness, liberation and hope, telling the stories of how we met God and were made new.