Lectionary blog for Jan. 10, 2016
The Baptism of our Lord
Text: Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29;
Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Twenty years after I graduated from high school I attended my first high school reunion. Most people there hadn’t seen me since the day we walked across the gym stage to collect our diplomas. I had left home that summer to work on a farm across the state and then college and seminary and churches, etc. Just hadn’t been back much in two decades except to visit Mama and Daddy on the farm.
At the reunion I bumped into my old running buddy from those days. “Roy” and I had been fairly disreputable characters. We sat in the back of class making smart remarks and reading “Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers” comic books (think Cheech and Chong); we spent a lot of time on weekends drinking Jack Daniel’s and driving too fast on country roads. We especially made fun of church and preachers and the “holy rollers” in the school. Considering all that, it is understandable that Roy did not believe me when I told him I was a Lutheran pastor – indeed had been a minister for 15 years.
Well, “didn’t believe me” is a bit of an understatement – he thought I was pulling an elaborate practical joke. I showed him my business card, I showed him my ELCA health benefits card, my wife showed him a picture of me in a collar, alb and stole. Still, he thought I was lying. It was only when I got our classmate Tony, who was a member of the local Lutheran congregation and known to be a straight shooter, to come over and testify on my behalf that Roy believed me.
He turned white, uttered a mild profanity, and sat down staring at me while his wife, a nurse, took his blood pressure. She was afraid he was having a heart attack. He finally managed to spit out, “But, but, but – you were the biggest atheist in the school. What happened?” All I could think of to say was “God. God happened. And I have no idea why.”
As we look at Luke’s story of Jesus’ baptism, we are invited to contemplate the question of why God calls particular people at a particular time and in a particular place for a particular purpose. I’m certain that when John the Baptist emerged from the wilderness, wearing his camel’s hair and eating wild honey, spouting off about broods of vipers and repentance – there had to be people who remembered him from before he got on this religion kick. Sure, he was a priest’s son and his parents were, like really old, but still, he had been normal enough, and then he went into the desert and everybody forgot about him for about 10 or 15 years. And then BOOM – out of nowhere he appears like a roaring whirlwind. They had to ask, Why him? And why now? And what difference does it make to me?
And Jesus. Except for that one time in the temple when he was 12, he had been a pretty normal kid. Lived at home, learned his father’s trade, took care of his mother, went to synagogue every week, kept to himself. Then, he gets baptized and BOOM – a voice speaks from heaven, proclaiming him God’s son. Why him? And what for?
In his book, “How Odd of God: Chosen for the Curious Vocation of Preaching,” Methodist Bishop Will Willimon tells of a conversation with a man who, years after his conversion from Hinduism, found himself a bishop in the Church of South India. The man said, “I am amazed why, of all my family, God spoke to me. Why was I chosen for the daunting errands God has given me? I have few natural inclinations that qualify me for such assignments. It’s all a mystery, a miracle, but also a reality.” (p. 35) Why? Why me, Lord? Why these people? Why John the Baptist? Why any of us? Why?
One way to think about the why question is the way Roy asked about me and the bishop in India asked about himself. Is there something special about those who are called that makes them worthy of God’s attention? Have they done something especially good, smart or holy that made God think they might be appropriate candidates for the God squad? Well, not really. As the good bishop said, it’s all a mystery and a miracle why God calls us, any of us.
This mystery and miracle is what the Bible calls election: God’s choosing of us before we are capable of choosing God, maybe even before we are aware of God. This choosing happened not only to people like John the Baptist, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Martin Luther, Thomas Cranmer and Mother Theresa – and you and me. We are incapable of figuring out God’s reasons for choosing, electing or picking any of us.
But another bishop from the Church of South India helps us get at a more important meaning of the question, “Why me, Lord?” Leslie Newbigin was a Church of Scotland minister who was a missionary in India when the Church of South India was formed, and he was chosen to be one of its bishops. After retirement, Newbigin wrote a book based on his years spreading the gospel in India. In “The Open Secret,” he makes the case that our election is never a reward for our past but rather a commission for our future. To be picked by God is to be picked for a divine purpose.
For whatever reason God chose John the Baptist, what God chose him to do is clear. John came to call people to repentance, “to baptize them with water,” and to point them to Christ, who would “baptize them with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Whatever else that may mean, it is certain that it means at least this: Repentance and water refer to removing the sting and stain of the past; the Holy Spirt and fire point to lives being transformed in the present for the good of the future.
Jesus’ baptism was the beginning of his public ministry, his going out into the world with a message about God’s love and grace that is for all people in all places at all times. Our baptism is like Jesus’ baptism in that the memory of it reminds us that when we come up out of the waters of baptism, God calls each of us by name, God sends the Holy Spirit into our lives, and God invites each of us to go out into the world on a mission, spreading the love and grace of God to all whom we meet.
And, if we do, we will certainly help some people and surprise the rest.
Amen and amen.
