I couldn't decide if I should preach today on the Epiphany story, or the baptism one. So today's sermon is going to be about gifts from God— gifts of powerful and transforming words.
First, to celebrate Epiphany, I have "star words" for us today. As the magi followed a star, searching for God, we too search our world for a word from our God. We look for meaning, for connection, for a voice that makes sense of the chaos in which we can find ourselves. In our search, we often puzzle over or reject encounters that we later understand to have been precious gifts. "Star words," are prayerfully chosen words, written on a wooden star, that you are invited to pick from this gift bag. As you each pick one star at random, we will prayerfully ask the Holy Spirit to open each of us to "our" word over the coming year. I invite you to keep your word in prayer throughout 2023, asking for God to help you live into the word with intention and faithfulness. Put it on your desk or on your dresser, and open yourself to God's voice in this year's "star word."[1]
And now, here are the most important words of all for us today. [Unroll paper sign with "I am Precious and Beloved" written large across the top.]
Take a good look at these words. These are divine, holy words. When you're born, God engraves them on your soul. Everyone--each son and daughter of Adam and Eve, from the beginning of Creation until now--carries these words deep within their very being. There are no exceptions. These words are who we are in God’s eyes, who God created us to be: “I am beloved and precious.” Say them with me!
Can you feel the words stir around somewhere inside? If you feel silly doing this, it’s because these words are strangely hard to believe. My preaching mentor used to always say that it’s easy to convince people that they are terrible sinners. What’s hard is to get them to believe that God loves them. Usually, young children have less trouble calling themselves beloved than we adults do. It’s only in babies’ eyes that you can see straight through to the special words. Baby’s eyes have a kind of soft glow, a thinly-veiled twinkle. I think that’s God’s hand-etched love language shining through.
What happens to us as we get older, then?
Well, I bet you can all remember that time when that kid in sixth grade told you that she wouldn’t be your friend anymore? Or the first … or the tenth …. time that you got picked last for the team? Or didn't get hired for that job? Rip, went part of God’s beautiful name for you. (Children tear paper and let it fall).
Remember the time when the teacher sent you out in the hall for talking, when you were just trying to help your neighbor? Remember your first B, or C, or D on a test? Remember that first failed romantic relationship? Rip, went part of God’s beautiful name. (Children tear paper and let it fall.)
How about the time when you didn’t get a Valentine, and everyone else in the class did? Or the time someone yelled at you really, really loudly? Or even worse, belittled you in front of others? Rip, went another of those letters. (Children tear paper and let it fall.)
And then there was the time that you prayed really hard for something, for something important, and it seemed like God didn’t hear you. There was the time that you or a loved one, or your pet was really sick, and it sure didn’t look like God was doing anything to help. Rip, went another of those letters.
Pretty soon, that beautiful name that God gave you is covered over by hurt and lost behind all the ugly names that life pastes on top. The letters are torn in little pieces by the destructive powers that swirl around us in this world. Oh, we’re all still anxious to touch these words again, of course. We'll do anything for words of approval, words of unconditional love. We'll work too hard, hoping to hear them. We'll buy whatever advertisers promise us will deliver them. We'll hunt for them in food, or alcohol, or money.
We might forget where to look for these words, but God never gives up on us. God is like the nanny in the film, The Help. She croons over and over to her neglected and abused young charge, “You is good; you is beautiful; you is important.” In today's Gospel, we see a crowd of God’s beloved people thirsty for answers, starving for hope. They think that they might see that hope in the person of John the Baptizer. They pray that they will find the wholeness of these words under the waters of the Jordan. Even Jesus. Like each of us, each child of Adam, Jesus needs to gather the strength of these words before he can fulfill the Father’s plans for him. God breathes them down from the heavens for all to hear: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well-pleased.”
When we remember our baptisms, too, God sends the Holy Spirit to breathe us back to wholeness, to the loving, living wholeness of Jesus. My favorite part of every baptism is when I get to take the blessed oil, the chrism, and make a tiny cross on the forehead of the person being baptized. “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked as Christ’s own forever,” I say.
What I didn’t know until recently is why we make this sign of the cross on the middle of the forehead. According to an ancient tradition, the eye of the soul is located here, in the middle of our foreheads. While our regular eyes look out to see the world, the eye of the soul both looks out on God’s spirit in the world AND looks deep within us, to the place where God resides in us, to the hidden place where God’s name for us is still intact. Our baptism washes the dirt from this third eye. It washes this eye open, here in the middle of our foreheads. Our baptism wakes our souls to what God intends for us. With the third eye open and sealed with the Cross, we can once again see ourselves as God sees us.[2] We are made ready to love God, to love others, and to love ourselves. We are made ready to do the work of love that Jesus gives us to do.
Artist Janet Richardson tells the story of an unhoused, mentally-ill woman named Fayette. Fayette found her way to church and asked to be baptized. The priest explained that baptism was “this holy moment when we are named by God’s grace with such power it won’t come undone.” In the chaos of her troubled life. Fayette would come to church every Sunday, and ask, “When I’m baptized, I am …?” Everyone would tell her “a beloved, precious child of God, and beautiful to behold.” The day of her baptism, she lifted her head from the font and shouted, “And now I am ….?” And the congregation responded, “beloved, precious child of God, and beautiful to behold.” “Oh yes,” she shouted, and began to dance around.
Sometime later, the priest of this church heard that Fayette had been attacked and beaten out on the streets and was in the hospital. The priest stopped by for a visit, and from the door to Fayette’s hospital room, he saw the woman pacing back and forth. “I am a beloved, precious child of God, and …” she said, over and over. She was hurt and disheveled from the attack, and the words were stuck and torn, like these pieces of paper on the floor. Looking at her bruised face in the mirror, though, she persevered. “I am the beloved, precious child of God …. and God is still working on me. If you come back tomorrow, I’ll be so beautiful I’ll take your breath away,” she finally said triumphantly.[3]
You, me, Fayette, every child of Adam and Eve, every child of God: We are all beloved and precious, bound to God in Christ, bound to one another in God’s love. Forever.
[1] See https://revgalblogpals.org/star-words/.
[2] John Shea, The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers: Following Love into Mystery (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2010), 70.
[3] As told by Janet Richardson, http://paintedprayerbook.com/2010/01/03/epiphany-1-baptized-and-beloved?#sthash.wMZfB0kT.dpu
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