Baptism is Complicated

Today we mark the start of a season in the life of the church, the season of Epiphany. Yesterday was the feast proper, the day on which we celebrate the coming of the wise ones, the magi who followed the star and found an unexpected king. What starts out with star-following continues in the weeks that follow. Epiphany starts after the 12th night and lasts for several weeks. We could all use some Epiphany in our lives, especially today.

I love that the first reading today starts us at the beginning. We read the first lines of the first chapter of Genesis, and I also love that the reading stops where it does. Only in Epiphany do we pause to consider the light that has come into the world. We don’t move on to the creation of the earth and the plants and the animals. We don’t move on to the people. Not yet. We pause as God sees that the light is good. Goodness is there from the start. We don’t have to bring it into creation. God sees that the light is good.

Today we mark another feast of the Church, the second feast of the Epiphany season, the Baptism of Jesus. Today is a fitting day to remember our baptismal promises. Today I want to propose to you that Baptism, like most things in faith, like most things in life, is a little more complicated that it may seem at first glance. Baptism had depths. Baptism has more than one dimension. This morning, I want to touch on two seemingly conflicting themes, two truths about Baptism that are true simultaneously, though they may seem to be in tension. Here are the dimensions:

Baptism is a comfort and at the same time Baptism is a challenge.

First, some words of comfort.

Many of you know, I was fortunate to start my ministry at a beautiful historic church in Washington DC. My former rector, The Rev. Dr Luis León had a standing joke, that he wished he could have convinced the vestry to allow him to alter the beautiful dome at that church, a dome designed by Benjamin Latrobe, the architect of the US Capital. Luis wanted to make the church less like the capitol dome and more like the dome on the Dallas Cowboys stadium, retractable.

If he had been able to raise the money and get the permission, he also wanted to add in a holographic projector, stay with me now, so that every time someone was baptized, special effects would commence just as the water was dripping down their forehead. The dome would open, a holographic dove would descend, and a booming voice over the loudspeaker would say: “This is my beloved child, in him, in her, in them, I am well pleased.” Luis lamented he couldn’t get the vestry or the historical society’s approval for his plans for the dome.

My former rector joked about the dome because these words Jesus hears at his baptism, they are the words each and every baptized person should hear, they are the truth named by the sacrament: “You are my beloved child. In you I am well pleased.” Those are God’s words about every single person.

Jesus’ baptism is his “coming out” party, his initial public offering. Just yesterday, at the Epiphany, Jesus was a baby, being chased by the magi. Today we have jumped forward, and Jesus is an adult. The Gospels have almost no mention of anything that happens in between. Jesus’ baptism is regarded as the beginning of his public life, the beginning of his ministry. Notice, words of God to Jesus, come BEFORE Jesus does anything, BEFORE he heals, BEFORE he teaches, BEFORE any of the work, God loves him. God is well pleased. Grace isn’t merited.

That is true for you as well. You start out as God’s beloved. You start out well-pleasing to God. Nothing you can do can earn you another ounce of God’s love. Nothing. God’s grace is already infinite. Neither can anything you have done, anywhere you have been, negate God’s love. You are God’s beloved. You are God’s beloved. Take comfort. Baptism reminds us.

Baptism sacramentally marks a fundamental sacred reality. There’s a reason so many grandmothers fret about getting their grandchild baptized. Baptism is meaningful. Baptism marks a deep and lasting truth.

As a priest, I can’t tell you what a privilege it is to speak these words of God’s love to folks who are being baptized, to say “you are marked as Christ’s own forever.” JP and Mandy can tell you too, baptisms are among the best parts of our job.

The next time you are here for a baptism, listen to the words the priest says. “You are Christ’s own forever.” You are loved. Your children, your parents, your grandparents, and uncles and aunts and niblings and chosen family too, they are God’s own, forever. Forever. Take comfort.

Baptism is a Challenge

Take comfort, and. And. Know there is another simultaneous complicating truth about baptism: Baptism is a challenge.

The challenge of baptism arises because our world outside these church walls is such a mess. We live in times of deep division. We live in days where folks are intentionally dividing one from another.

If God’s love for you, for me, comes as a comforting truth, then something else is perhaps uncomfortably true: God loves every person, every person. Baptism challenges us to witness the truth of God’s indiscriminate love in a world full of discrimination. We witness to God’s unconditional love in a world that is very conditional.

Baptism is about naming, and the names we choose matter.

What we choose to call one another matters.

We know this well here at St. Michael’s. We have regular guests at our Landing Ministry who are petitioning for a particular name: asylum seeker. What we call our visitors from lands far away, it’s a question that has been deeply politicized, used to divide. Lately a large number of our guests have been young men fleeing violence and death threats in their home country of Venezuela. They have been through what is called a “credible fear” interview. Our government tries to determine if they are in real danger at home, if so they can be called asylum seekers. If they are granted this name, it comes with legal status, defined by federal laws and treaties. It turns out, Romeo, there’s a lot to a name.

This name, asylum seeker, is being politicized by politicians asking for votes this year. There are proposals to limit how many people can be named “asylum seekers.” Many of these politicians use other names for our guests, they call them illegal, aliens, and worse. The names they choose are meant to muster fear, because fear is a powerful motivator for votes. It’s just one example this season, just one.

What we call one another matters. Baptism challenges us to see our fellow human beings and to name each and every one first “God’s beloved.” Baptism challenges us to proclaim this truth not only with our lips but in our lives. When you next hear someone called an ugly name, when you next find yourself witness to the degradation of one of “God’s beloved,” when you next notice how people of a different sexual orientation, gender identity, skin color, ability, age, immigration status, or social class are treated by a neighbor, or an election board, or a law enforcement policy, will you remember your baptism?

Will you remember the words of comfort spoken of you, that you are God’s beloved, that you are Christ’s own forever? Especially if someone in the world or the church has called you a name meant to diminish, will you stand up? Will you remember that when God sees you, the first name he calls you is My Beloved child. No family member, no neighbor, no so-called religious authority can take that away.

And will you remember that those words belong to us ALL? Baptism is bigger than national identity. Will you accept the challenge of baptism, to build a community, to build a society, to build a world where no one is cast out. No one is named an ugly name for political convenience. No one is treated as anything less than the beloved of God? Alongside the comfort, will you accept the challenge of baptism?

There’s a poet and priest named Malcolm Guite, a sometimes fellow and chaplain at Cambridge University in the UK. Guite has written a set of sonnets for the Epiphany season, including a poem for the Baptism of Jesus. About this moment when the Spirit descends on Jesus, Guite writes:

The voice that made the universe reveals
The God in Man who make it new again.
He calls us too, to step into that river,
To die and rise and live and love forever.

Malcolm Guite “Baptism of Jesus”

God calls us to die, to die to all the ways our world teaches us to see our neighbor. Epiphany is a season all about light, all about sight. We may not have a retractable dome and a fancy hologram, but can we listen for the voice of God without special effects? Can we trust that God is still at work, still with us, still naming the belovedness of each and every one of us?

This Epiphany season, will you follow that star, will you look for light in all of the places our world calls darkness? In the weeks ahead, what new vision of yourself of others will you seek? Blessings in this season of light, this season of new vision. Amen.