Baptized In ...

Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:15-22

January 10, 2016

There is a story that tells you who you are. More accurately, there are several stories that tell you who you are. This is not news, though sometimes we are surprised by it – surprised by the way a story comes back to claim us when we had all but forgotten it.
I am a southern boy, a fact I sometimes forget. Last week as Twitter erupted in amusing hashtags mocking the ranchers who seized a federal government building in Oregon I was reminded that the story of proud liberal southeners has claim on my heart when I reacted fiercely to the hashtag “y’allQueda.” Those yahoos don’t deserve the grace of y’all in my book. The southern story has many strange, twisted, and bitter chapters, but those guys are not part of it. So get off of my lawn; my sunny, southern lawn!

Oh, and by the way, get out of my building, or, more properly, our building. Because, you see, I am claimed by another story, as well – the one that begins, “We, the people, of the United States of America ….”

We submit to the claim of these stories by way of rituals: watching fireworks on the 4^th of July; singing This Land Is Your Land in elementary school; listening to Dr. King’s dream of freedom ringing from every mountain side. By such rituals we are baptized into the American story. The baptismal font into the southern story is filled, I believe, with grits.

There are, of course, many ways to read and respond to the stories that claim us. I am quite certain that the Oregon ranchers think of themselves, first and foremost, as patriotic Americans. I am, similarly, more than passingly familiar with the warped readings of the southern story that filled many southern hearts with hatred, racism, and violence. You can’t clean that mess with grits.

It matters, then, what’s in the font, how you enter the rituals of your baptisms, how you read and receive the stories proclaimed in these rituals, and how you are claimed by ritual and story all along the way.

Jesus entered the baptismal waters, the gospels tell us, and as he emerged he was claimed by the story of the One who called to him, saying, “you are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

We’ll spend some time, in a few minutes, talking about the claim that the baptismal waters of the Christened one have on our lives, but first I want to hear about other stories that claim you, into whose waters you have been submerged and submitted. So, what are some of the stories that have a claim on you, that tell you who you are, that have shaped your life thus far?

I invite you into a time of silence and reflection as you consider what stories claim you. Stories of gender? Stories of race? Stories of sexuality? Economy? Age? Enter a time of silence and let the memories of these stories wash over you.

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What stories came to your mind? How do they shape you?

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Listen again to the words of the prophet Isaiah, speaking a word of comfort and of challenge to a people who have lived in exile and are being called home:

But now thus says the Lord God who created you, O Jacob, who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth— everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Put yourself in their place. Honestly, I can’t do that, although if I think for a moment or two about the stories in the news in recent months about Syrian refugees I can begin to get a small sense of the anxiety, the urgency, the fear that must be the shape of such dislocation. Put yourself in such a place. What do you hear in the story of the prophet’s words – I have called you by name, you are mine.

Such compassion, such grace, such love fill the font of the Christened one. That is the story of our baptism because it is the story of the baptism of Jesus. Baptism is an invitation to living love, to living grace, to living compassion. Baptism is an invitation, also, to submit to the demands of love, grace, and compassion.

As such, baptism flows directly from the conversation we had last Sunday about God’s resolutions for the new year. You see, if we believe what we wrote last week about what God desires – peace, healing, justice, radical welcome, joy, love, and all the others – if we believe that, then we are confronted, in these waters, by God’s invitation to submit to the claim of this story as we are submerged in the waters of this baptism.

So by way of conclusion this morning, I invite you to consider what we said and wrote last week – get up and go read the words if you like – and as you recall those resolutions of God consider one step you can take toward seeing this dream become reality.

To symbolize your commitment, and to remember your own baptism, or to look ahead to it someday, I invite you to bring forth the stone you were given when you entered this morning and drop it into the font.

Remember the one who created you. Remember the one who called you by name. Remember that you are not alone as you pass through the waters. Remember, and be remembered.