Sermons

John Wilkinson                               Third Presbyterian Church   January 12, 2003                                      Mark 1:4-11

Some of you will remember the recent film, “A Brother, Where Art Thou.” Brothers Joel and Ethan Coen, the director and producer team behind such unconventional films as Raising Arizona and Fargo, borrowed loosely from the plot line of Homer's Odyssey for a comic saga about three cons on the run in 1930s South.

In one memorable scene, the three men are again on the run, and they emerge from a forest into a beautiful glade, punctuated by a glistening, flowing river. At that moment, a group of people is truly “gathered by the river,” a group from a local church no doubt, a Baptist church most likely, engaged in the act of baptizing, full immersion, it is called. The three cons on the lam are clearly bewildered. The church people are not. There is an appropriately pregnant pause, to set up whatever line comes next. The minister looks at the men, who are clearly troubled. “Come on in, boys, the water’s fine.”

Come on in, the water’s fine.

We are still saturated with Advent and Christmas and Epiphany, are we not? Some of us are still hanging on to Christmas decorations, not quite ready to – as poet Ann Weems suggests – “put the Holy Family back in the box.” And yet life moves on, for Jesus, for us, for all those who gathered at the manger or followed that star with beams so bright.

The Gospel of Mark, you will have noticed, gets immediately to business. No Christmas, no childhood. Here is John the Baptist, emerging full-grown as well, preparing the way. He is baptizing right and left, apparently, preaching a very harsh and demanding message of repentance. And though the story does not tell us this, he is apparently as well a bit concerned about all those people showing up, his own popularity. He announces to all who will listen that another one is coming, one who makes me unworthy even to tie his shoes. My baptism is with water – his is with the Holy Spirit.

And then, from nothing – at least according to Mark – Jesus appears. And given John the Baptist’s set-up, one would expect the first century equivalent of a ticker-tape parade or media tour. But something extraordinary happens that marks him, and us, forevermore. Jesus simply enters the water. Mark’s is a lean, spare telling of the story. In Matthew’s telling, Jesus and John go back and forth a little bit about worthiness and unworthiness. We imagine a bit here – if not an actual conversation, at least that face-to-face, eye-to-eye encounter – Jesus and John.

It is theologically consistent, to be sure. We have spent most of the history of Christianity battling over the nature of this one figure – called variously Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus, Son of Mary, Jesus, Son of God, Jesus, the second person of the Trinity. On this morning he is all of that, to be sure. But he is also fully human, humble servant, entering the water as one of us, placing himself in that most awkward and vulnerable moment.

We are Presbyterians, of course, and for us a few drops of water will most surely suffice. But if you have ever been to a church whereby full immersion is practiced – indoors or outdoors – you know what a powerful moment it can be.

But what strikes me this time around is another kind of power, the power of humility and service, Jesus’ willingness – at that moment and as a signal for all the moments to follow – to be fully human, to be one of us.

I don’t know if you remember your own baptism. I don’t. You will know that we Reformed Christians have been around on this topic as well over the last 100 years. Some of our best theologians have fussed – as fussily as theologians can get – over whether children should be baptized at all. We have decided “yes,” but not without controversy. How can a child understand what is going on, let alone a baby? Well, they can’t. Their parents answer the questions for them, and then years later, the youth re-answer the questions for themselves – confirm the promises made in their baptism. Commissioning, we have called it.

We understand full well the arguments for what some traditions call “believer’s baptism,” and surely they have a voice to share in our thinking. How could a baby understand? Well, they can’t – as good an argument for this as we can muster, I would say. If we believe in this grace stuff, that we are welcomed into the family not on our own merits, but because of the free and radical and extravagant grace of God – then what better way to demonstrate such a conviction than through the presentation of a baby at that very moment, whose baptism could never, ever be viewed as a self-determined act.

That’s why I like Mark’s version of the story – Jesus simply shows up and enters the water, one of us, fully human. And when he emerges from the river, we know fully where that moment is leading him. It is leading him to deep conflict with the political authorities and religious leadership. It is leading him to counter-cultural teachings and growing crowds. It is leading him to healings that upset the powers that be. It is leading him to liberating encounters with people whom polite society would rather ignore. It is, finally, leading him to death.

We sense it even now, so fast on the heels of Christmas, that the story takes him from Bethlehem to Jerusalem – and the River Jordan serves as the kind of pivot point, a prism for all that has been and all that will be.

It is no different for us, of course. That is the point. John the Baptist was right. Jesus didn’t need to be baptized. Yet his full humanity compelled it. We don’t either, I suppose. Yet our full humanity compels it.

Perhaps the greatest heresy at the turn of the millennium is not offered by competing religions, but the one suggesting that we don’t need this at all. And whether it happens the Baptist way or the Presbyterian way or some other way, baptism indicates something wildly alternative – not that we need religion, or the institutional form of it anyway (though I won’t preach that too loudly.) It indicates, it demands, that we need something beyond ourselves to fully become ourselves. And it indicates that to be fully ourselves, we are not about ourselves, but rather about the world and those who live in it.

Baptism is not a private experience – it is a public, communal enterprise. And we are not baptized unto ourselves, but rather we are baptized into a family, an unlikely family, a community, a body. And even then, we would understand that baptism frees us not only to live fully within the life of the church, but in and for the world. Baptism is about leadership, I would submit, and leadership of a kind that looks different than countless secular volumes of leadership might suggest.

The late priest Henri Nouwen wrote that: “Christian leadership in the future…is not a leadership of power and control, but a leadership of powerlessness and humility in which the suffering servant of God, Jesus Christ, is made manifest.” Nouwen continues: “I am speaking of a leadership in which power is constantly abandoned in favor of love. It is a true spiritual leadership. Powerlessness and humility in the spiritual life do not refer to people who have no spine and who let everyone else make decisions for them. They refer to people who are so deeply in love with Jesus that they are ready to follow him wherever he guides them, always trusting that, with him, they will find life and find it abundantly.” (In the Name of Jesus, pp. 63-64)

This conversation about baptism and leadership suggests something about our ordination practices, I would suggest. We will ordain and install officers in a bit. Those to be ordained and installed – along with the rest of us – might do well to remember their baptism this day, remembering that it does not set them, or us, apart, but confirms our leadership in the community.

Or, we might do well to remember that the deep conflict about ordination and human sexuality in the Presbyterian church might be well-served by remembering baptism as the essential entry point into the church, and that our practice of ordination does not set people above others, but rather places them in the community with certain and specific gifts that complement the certain and specific gifts of all of us.

We have called that over time “the priesthood of all believers,” and we all share in it, even as we are all called to it.

Writer Kathleen Norris considers this for us. “All Christians are considered to have a call to what is commonly termed “the priesthood of all believers”; all are expected to use their lives so as to reveal the grace of the Holy Spirit working through them. It’s a tall order, to literally be a sacrament, and it helps to remember Jesus’ statement in the fifteenth chapter of John’s Gospel: ‘You did not choose me; I chose you.’” And then Norris tells a story: “It was January, bitterly cold and windy, on the day that I joined the church, and I found that the sub-zero chill perfectly matched my mood. As I walked to church, into the face of that wind, I was thoroughly depressed. I didn’t feel much like a Christian and wondered if I was making a serious mistake. I still felt like an insider in the church and wondered if I always would. Yet I knew that somehow, in ways I did not yet understand, making this commitment was something I needed to do…Before the service, the new members gathered with some of the elders. One was a man I’d never liked much. I’ll call him Ed. He’d always seemed ill-tempered to me, and also a terrible gossip…The minister had asked him to formally greet new members. Standing awkwardly before our small group, Ed cleared his throat and mumbled, ‘I’d like to welcome you to the body of Christ.’ The minister’s mouth dropped open, as did mine – neither of us had ever heard words remotely like this come from Ed’s mouth…Ed’s words, those few simple words of welcome, had power. Like the sacrament of baptism, they seemed to make an indelible mark on my soul.” (Amazing Grace, pages 141-142)

We celebrate that indelible mark this day, and pledge ourselves once again to live into its promise, to lead and be led, in the name of the one whom God called “beloved,” the very one who calls us to be friend and follower. Remember your baptism, and be grateful. Amen.