January 11, 2004 (Jimmie Johnson)

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire." Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." 

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Genesis 1:1-5

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

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Have you ever witnessed someone doing something he or she was not supposed to do? On December 1, 1955, a lady name Rosa Parks, a seamstress in her early forties living in Montgomery, Alabama, did something she was not supposed to do. She sat down at the front of a bus in one of the seats reserved for whites only. This African-American woman, by doing something she wasn’t supposed to do, changed America for the best.

Legend has it that a graduate student asked Ms. Parks why she sat down in the front of the bus. She replied by saying that she didn’t sit down in the front of the bus to launch a movement. She said, “I sat down because I was tired….”

Now there were factors influencing her. She had studied the theory and tactics of non-violence at the Highlander School where Dr. King was also a student. She was secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, and her chapter members had been conducting discussions about civil disobedience. No doubt a mysterious preparation had been going on in her soul through these experiences. So in that moment when she sat down because she was “tired,” my hunch is that she simply reached a point where it was essential for her life that she embrace her true vocation, her calling, not as someone who would launch a civil rights movement but as someone who would be her God-given self in the world and was weary of not being this God-given self.

She decided, “I will no longer act on the outside in a way that contradicts the truth that I hold deeply inside. I will no longer act as if I were less than the whole person I know myself inwardly to be.” She was tired of participating in her own diminishment as a human being.

After she sat at the front of the bus for a while, the police arrived and warned her, “If you continue to sit there, we are going to throw you in jail.” She replied, “You may do that.” Her reply is a very beautiful way of saying, “What could your jail of stone and steel possibly mean to me compared to the self-imposed imprisonment I’ve suffered for 40 years—the prison I’ve just walked out of by refusing to conspire any longer with this racist system.”

Something, or perhaps better said, Someone rose up in her that day that knew the punishment imposed on us for claiming our true God-given self can never be worse than the punishment we impose on ourselves by failing to make that claim. And the opposite is true as well: no reward anyone might give us could possibly be greater than the reward that comes from living by our own best lights.

Theologians have debated for centuries why Jesus on that day decided to be baptized. Why did he decide that the time had come to be true to his vocation, his calling? Somewhere within himself he heard someone call him by name and set him apart.

In the Call to Worship we recited the verses telling of God’s calling Israel to be God’s people. Although Israel would be called to difficult, demanding tasks, there was the promise, “I will be with you.”

The Christians taking this text from the Older Testament and other texts like it interpreted the call of Jesus in this same light. Jesus decides one day to go down to the river. He decides to respond to the promise of God to be with him in the fulfillment of his mission. The crowd cannot figure out whether Jesus might be the Messiah or not (Luke 3:15). Perhaps within Jesus himself was the prayer, “I believe, help thou my unbelief.” We simply don’t know. But at his baptism Jesus chooses to hear and respond to the Good News. The voice makes explicit that Jesus is the one with whom God “is well pleased.”
Jesus’ calling was bathed in his baptism. So are yours and mine.

In many ways, people like me who have chosen to be ordained as a church minister, to be a reverend, have taken the easy way out. I don’t face the hard work of straddling two different worlds as you do. You don’t have the luxury of avoiding such a difficult dilemma. Therefore, I am incredibly proud of you and grateful for you.

Here’s what I mean. Unlike you, I know where I belong, and anyone who sees me wearing my clergy collar knows. But you in the pews, unlike us who stand in pulpits, face a more difficult life. You have dual citizenship.

People know what a preacher’s life is all about in some ways, but you carry the burden of living in two worlds. When you come together as the church, this is where you belong in God’s country which is governed by love. When I see you leave this place, I know you are crossing the border into another country governed by other, less forgiving laws, and you have to live and work there, too.

Barbara Brown Taylor, the wonderful Episcopal preacher, tells of a man she knows who describes your dilemma so well. He told her: “On Sunday morning I walk into a world that is the way God meant it to be. People are considerate of one another. Strangers are welcomed. We pray for peace and justice. Our sins are forgiven. We all face in one direction, and we worship the same God. When it’s over, I get in my car to drive home feeling so full of love it’s unbelievable, but by the time I’ve gone twenty minutes down the road, it has already begun to wear off. By Monday morning it’s all gone, and I’ve got another whole week to wait until Sunday rolls around again.”

I know you people in the pews have it a lot tougher than I. That’s one reason I am so proud of you and pray for you and look forward to seeing you each Sunday so that I can know you made it through another week in the difficult realm between the two worlds where you work and live.

The only thing I know to tell you today is that your life has a holy calling to it. You are doing what you are meant to do. Whether you are immersed in the corporate worlds of business and finance, law, construction or education or in the domestic world of household and family, I want you to know you are doing God’s work in the trenches of God’s world where clergy like me don’t have to. Look, you are the real ministers in God’s world. That’s what your baptism means. You have been called, set apart. Professionally, you are not a minister, but theologically you are. You are called to ministry to God’s world for God’s glory. I know you might be thinking this sounds like more work, and already you have your hands full with more work than you can do. I know it sounds as if I am placing more responsibility upon you by talking about your baptism’s call to ministry when you probably already feel yourself staggering under loads too heavy. Maybe you are listening to me talking about the theme of today’s worship and commenting on these texts of scripture and think I am asking you to do more—to lead the every member canvas, to drive a Meals on Wheels route, or to teach the second graders during Vacation Bible School. Maybe you are listening and thinking I am calling you to be more—more generous, more loving, more religious.

All I am asking you to do is to consider that your ministry might involve being just who you already are and doing what you are already doing with one difference that can make all the difference: namely, that you understand yourself to be God’s person as you are living your life and being yourself. That is what I believe worship on Baptism of the Lord’s Sunday and the text about Jesus being baptized are all about.

What I am saying is “With you I am well pleased.” I think that’s what God is saying in your baptism, claiming you and saying, “With you I am well pleased.” See if you can hear that voice this week at school, in the courthouse, at the bank, at the job site, in the operating room, at your office desk, as you turn on the dishwasher, or as you drive your Meals on Wheel’s route; see if you can hear God saying through your baptism, “With you I am well pleased.”

I want you to know from my perspective in the pulpit, you are doing an amazing job of living in the two worlds where God has called you: the world here at church and the world where you live and work. Pastor David and I will be praying for you this week and looking forward so much to seeing you next Sunday and knowing you made it through another week of living in two worlds. Your two pastors are well pleased with you and proud to be associated with you and grateful for your ministry in the church and in the world where you live.

(This sermon is greatly indebted to the work of William Willimon in Pulpit Resource, Jan.-Mar. 2004 edition.)

 

 

 


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