The Baptism of our Lord, Year C
Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
“If
I only knew their names,” I thought
in a panic!
It
was just over a year ago that Kentucky Refugee Ministries called on us to help a
struggling Somali family with nine children. It was a simple request: the eight
older children needed to get out of their small apartment for a few hours while
their parents dealt with a medical crisis. “Let’s take them to the Science
Center!” Deacon Delinda and I decided. “That should be fun!” Several of our St.
Andrew’s families took on the project with enthusiasm, and off we went.
How
many of you have been to the Louisville Science Center before? How many of you
have been there during Christmas vacation, or another holiday? It’s a madhouse,
isn’t it? … Children running everywhere … bunches of people crowding around all
the live exhibits. Imagine walking in there with eight children, ages three to
thirteen, whom you never met before. They speak little to no English, and you
don’t really know their names, beyond the strange-sounding words scribbled on a
crumpled piece of paper in your pocket.
Even
though our adult-to-child ratio was about one to two, it was a near disaster.
As soon as we got the children's coats off, they all scattered, and we couldn’t
call them. We tried to set boundaries, but we couldn’t communicate. We could
barely tell the six brothers apart. Each child darted from one activity to the
next. Who could blame them? They were starving for freedom after being cooped
up in a tiny apartment. They were hungry for distraction after the trauma of a
family crisis. They were curious about new things, after a life with very few
toys and books. They had no idea who we were. We hadn’t even been able to
introduce ourselves. Why should they listen to us? They didn’t know our names,
either.
[Right
now, children, I have written the names of all eight children for you on a
piece of paper in your worship bags. I invite you now to pick one and to write them
a letter, or draw them a picture, introducing yourself to them. Tell them what
you like to play, or tell them about your family. If you know them already from
one of our outings together, just write them a nice note. But most of all, tell
them your name. We will give your letters to the children, and I know that they
will enjoy reading them, now that they can read in English. Maybe, they'll even
write you back?]
I
think that we adults can sometimes interact in our world like the _____ children
did in the Science Center. We flit from one distraction to the next, filling
the void in our lives as best we can. We bury our hurts and our deep questions;
it’s so much less painful to cover them over with material goods or busyness. Our
world can easily feel like a mingled mass of nameless strangers, all darting
around to get what they need and to stay ahead of others. We can feel as if no
one really knows who we are, not truly and deeply. Often, we don't even know
ourselves.
It
is so easy for our true names to get buried in all of the chaos. At the Science
Center, I kept track of the children in my mind by giving them superficial
names, and not always kind ones. "That one there is the ornery one,"
I thought, full of judgment. "This one is the shy one," I decided.
"And that one is the boss," I assumed. Goodness only knows what they
called me in their minds, as I hovered and told them what to do every two
seconds. In life, without even thinking, we powerful ones often cover the true
names of those with less power with unwanted names of our own invention. Africans
stolen from their families and homeland and brought to this country lose their
humanity further when we name them "slaves," or worse things, rather
than calling them what they were: "enslaved people." Human beings who
have paid their debt to society in prison we harshly call, "ex-cons" when
instead, we could consider them "returning citizens." Men and women who
leave home to feed and protect their families become subhuman "illegal
aliens," instead of "undocumented migrants."
There was once a brilliant rabbi, Rabbi Yehuda,
who was a famous scholar and inventor. One night, he dreamed that he died. In
his dream, he approached the throne of God in heaven and introduced himself to
the angel of the Lord. He said, "I am Rabbi Yehuda ben Bezalel, famous
inventor." He asked the angel holding the great book of life to search for
his name. The angel began reading out from the great book all the names of
those who had died that day. In response, one by one each soul got up to be
admitted before God’s throne. When the angel had finished reading, the rabbi looked
up in shock and despair. He had not heard his own name. Filled with the
injustice of it all, he cried out, “Why didn’t you call my name? What have I
done wrong? Why did all of these people get in, while I'm excluded?”
The
angel calmly replied that the rabbi’s name had most definitely already been
called, for everyone’s names are inscribed in God’s book. The problem is that
many people never hear their true names during their lifetimes. They think that
they know their names, but since they have never heard their real names, they
do not recognize them when they are called. These people must stand before the
throne until they hear their names and know them.
After
hearing this truth, the rabbi awoke from his dream and prayed that he might be
granted just once to hear his true name from the lips of his brothers and
sisters before he died.[1]
What
is your true name? Not the name that others impose upon you, but the name that
God gives you. How often do you hear it? We hear it from God himself in today's
first lesson. To a wounded people in the midst of the chaos of exile, God comes
down and gives them their name. Like the _____ children, the people of Israel
had lived through war, famine, and the loss of their homes, even the loss of
their identity as a people. “How can we be God’s chosen people in a strange
land?” they mourned. God answered them. “Do not be afraid. I have called you by
name; you are mine." And what is the name that God gave them? "You
are precious," God said. "You are honored. You are loved.”
When
we hear the word “precious,” we might think of roly-poly puppies or fuzzy
kittens. But to be “precious” is not to be cute—it is to be bought with a high
price, to be “redeemed.” If we are precious, we are so valuable that God would
give anything for us. In the Hebrew Scriptures, if your “life is precious in someone’s
eyes,” then they have just spared you from death.[2]
To be precious in God’s sight is to be lifted from the waters that cover
our heads, to be raised up from death into life. God saves the life of God's
beloved people. God brings them out of painful exile and gives them new life,
because God loves and honors them.
Redemption
and new life should sound familiar to our Christian ears. In today's Gospel, a
crowd of people have gathered around John the Baptizer. They are the powerless
pawns of a bloodthirsty empire. They are desperate for meaning, starving for
hope. They are looking for wholeness under the muddy waters of the Jordan. Standing
in their midst, the Son of God waits patiently in line with all the other weak
and unwashed bodies. He doesn't pass around the waters, watching us human
beings from afar; he passes through the waters as we do, joining us in all of
our humanity, in all of our pain and fear. Jesus dives into our world, into the
overwhelming floods of emotion, into the trials by fire, and into the isolating
loneliness. And as he rises, Jesus takes us with him. Brought into new life in
Jesus, we hear God call to us: "My child, my beloved, with whom I am
well-pleased … precious and honored child whom I created for my glory, whom I
formed and made, whom I redeemed." It is a name that we share with our
brothers and our sisters, a name that we must both own and give away.
Now,
when we go to visit the _____ children, names are no longer a problem. Several
St. Andrean's have been visiting them every week over the past year to work on
reading English. "Mr. Jim, Mr. Jim! Ms. Lora, Ms. Lora!" the children
all shout at once, their faces alight with smiles. "Ayub! Saleban!
Farhijo!" we reply, the names now slipping warmly from our tongues. The
names and the cultures and religions in which they rest are still unique, still
ringing with foreign tones on both sides. But through love, the names have
grown together in mutual discovery and definition.[3]
They are all names filled with God's glory, the names of honored sons and
daughters, the names of God's beloved children. They are names that are
valuable beyond imagining. They are the names of brothers and sisters.
[2]
Anathea Portier-Young, commentary found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=494.
[3]
Rowan Williams, "Nobody Knows Who I Am Till Judgement Morning," in On Christian Theology (London:
Blackwell, 2000), 289.
