You Are My Son... Now Go Act Like It!

It's been a while since I posted my sermons, and for that I apologize. With the new year, I'll pick it back up, and (hopefully) post them sometime before midnight local time each night. This, of course, remains to be seen... but eight pm on Saturday night seems a good way to start, doesn't it?

There are so many wonderful directions to take the Scripture passages this Sunday. What is the "unquenchable fire?" Is it Hell, as so many people believe, or is it a cleansing, Holy Spirit fire, burning off that chaff within us that is not good seed? That's just one of the directions I wanted to go... but did not. Perhaps next year, eh?

The story of the Princeton Professor comes from Lindy Black of Lindy's Nuggets, by the way. It's one of my go-to locations for insight and often-awesome one-liners.

Please feel free to offer insights and constructive criticisms.

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."

Acts 8:14-17

Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Our reading from the Book of Acts takes place very early on in the life of the Church. This passage follows the stoning of Stephen, when there is great persecution against the group of believers in Jerusalem.

Up until this point, amazing things had been happening, and the Church had been growing by leaps and bounds, but it had been confined to that one city. Even within the conflicts that church leaders had with the Jewish authorities, there was a common knowledge and experience. With this new outbreak of persecution, though, most Christians leave the city, and in fleeing the persecution spread the message of new life in Jesus Christ all across the region.

Even in, of all places, Samaria.

The person who first preached the Good News to Samaria had to either be the bravest person in Judea, or someone with such a poor sense of direction that they had no idea where they were when they evangelized.

After all, no self-respecting Jewish person would so much as speak to a Samaritan; much less spend enough time in their corner of the province to preach a message! They were… different, after all. Ethnically, Jewish people considered the Samaritans to be mutts: though the Samaritans claimed to be purely descendents of the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh and Levi, Jewish tradition held that they were a mixture of the bottom-of-the-heap Jews and the foreigners that the Assyrian king, Sargon II, brought in to repopulate the area. This was after the more gifted and powerful had been taken when the Assyrians defeated the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC.

And make no mistake; the Samaritans despised their Jewish counterparts just as much. Quite aside from the open xenophobia, where the very idea of a Jewish person’s foot touching the dirt of a Samaritan town made them unclean, there was the very real (and often violent) dispute over what books of Scripture were truly holy, and where the center of worship should be. For the Jews, of course, this was Jerusalem, on the mount known either as Moriah or Zion, depending on the Biblical scholar. But for the Samaritans, the place where God had chosen to establish God’s name was Mount Gerizim. Further, the Samaritans recognized only the Torah, or the first five books of our Old Testament, as being authoritative and holy.

So as much as we might think that the Jews and Samaritans were related by blood and tradition, and called upon the name of the same God, the revulsion each group felt for the other was an insurmountable obstacle.

Until the apostle Philip walked in to that one Samaritan village and told whoever would listen that God, in Jesus Christ, loved them… and the people who heard the Good News believed. By the way, Philip has no problem with his sense of direction. We meet him very soon after this passage, preaching the Gospel to an Ethiopian eunuch. Perhaps unique among the Apostles at that point in history, Philip truly sees no limitations on the love of God. When Jesus told him to go into to all the world and preach the Gospel, Philip took him literally.

I really wish that the writer of the Book of Acts had given us a little more detail about the moment when the Apostles heard about how the Samaritans had come to believe in Jesus. All we are told is that when they heard it they sent Peter and John to them, and that’s what counts, of course. But given the history of animosity between Jews and Samaritans, could it have been that simple?

Well, yes, given the fact that the apostles were so sensitive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it certainly could have been. But I like to imagine a scene where Philip walks in to the Apostle’s room – in my head it’s the Main Office, and the apostles are sitting at a big first-century conference table doing apostle-y things. Philip is sweaty and out of breath from his hurried journey, covered in dust from the road. Everyone is happy to see him of course, until he blurts out: “Guys! Guys! The Samaritans believe!”

Ten mouths hang open in shock, everyone staring at Philip. The stunned silence goes on forever. Of course, in my imagination, the first person to speak is Thomas, and you know he has to say, “I doubt that,” right?

But it was true, and from that point on the Gospel spread like wildfire, from the Samaritans to that eunuch I mentioned, to the Gentiles, and on and on and on. No one was off limits. No one was unreachable.

And, in this regard, let me be clear: nothing has changed: today, right now, no one is off limits to the love of God. No one is unreachable to the grace and forgiveness found in Jesus Christ.

This is the day in the liturgical calendar when the Church commemorates the baptism of Jesus. It is a familiar account to most of us: when Jesus is baptized, the heavens are opened and the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus in the form of a dove, and a voice from heaven says “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

The story is told of a New Testament professor from Princeton Seminary who visited a high school youth group one evening. After the professor finished speaking about the significance of Christ's baptism as a revelation of God's presence in Jesus, one high schooler said, without looking up, "That ain't what it means."

Now, as someone who did youth work for a long time, I can tell you that it’s a good sign when a student disagrees. It means they’re listening. Luckily, this professor understood that. So the professor asked, "What do you think it means?"

The young man still didn’t look up. "The story says that the heavens were opened, right?" "Right." "The heavens were opened and the Spirit of God came down, right?" "That's right."

The boy finally looked up and leaned forward, saying, "It means that God is on the loose in the world. And it is dangerous."

The professor was, of course, not wrong. At the baptism of Jesus, God’s imprint upon and intentions for his Son were made clear. Christ the King was anointed, but in a way unlike any other king before or since.

The idea of anointing someone or something is to set that person or thing apart, make him or her or it – or certainly, recognize him or her or it – as unique, special, honored. It’s usually done with pomp and circumstance, though not always, and it is almost invariably an act performed with oil.

And yes, that happened with the baptism of Jesus. But Jesus was not anointed king with oil. Hear the Word of God from our Gospel reading: “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized…” You see? Jesus was first anointed not with oil but with water – and in a manner no way unique. He was baptized just like everyone else.

The Holy Spirit which descended upon Jesus as he was praying is also, since the day of Pentecost, available to all who believe… even, as we see in our reading from the Book of Acts, a people so hated, so removed, so unlovable as the Samaritans.

Bishop Desmond Tutu tells of a time when he was a parish priest, and was giving a Bible exam to some young people. One of the questions on the exam was “What did the voice from Heaven say to Jesus when he was baptized?” Most of the kids got the answer right, but one of the “wrong” answers stood out in Bishop Tutu’s memory: “You’re my son. Now go act like it.”

Whether we were sprinkled or dunked, whether we were infants or adults, we share the same baptism with water as Jesus. Through our faith in Christ, we share the same Holy Spirit that descended upon Jesus that day.

And like the student said to the Princeton professor, God’s spirit is loose, and God’s spirit is dangerous. No one can predict or control who God will love, who God will bring in as a fellow citizen of the Kingdom of God next.

Scripture affirms that we are a royal priesthood and joint heirs with Christ, whoever we are, whatever our background or ethnicity or nationality or gender or orientation. That wild, dangerous and unpredictable Spirit of God demonstrated in the eighth chapter of the Book of Acts that no one was outside the circle of God’s love, grace, and forgiveness in those first days of the Church – not the Samaritans, not eunuchs, not Gentiles… and that same wild, dangerous, egregiously loving, lavishly forgiving Spirit is still moving, working, and proving no one is outside that circle today.

And as the Spirit worked in and through Philip and Peter and John and the other apostles and believers in those early days of the Church, the Spirit works in and through you and I, joint heirs with Christ, a royal priesthood, today. And what that young person said to Bishop Tutu is what God says to each and every one of us in the here and now: “You are my children. Now go act like it.”

I Have Called You By Name!

First off, I owe much to "Partners In Urban Transformation" for background on this sermon. Also, the opening story is taken from "Rebecca's Community."

As always, please comment, criticize, etc. as such things will make me a better preacher.

Isaiah 43:1-7
But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.
Because you are precious in my sight,
and honored, and I love you,
I give people in return for you,
nations in exchange for your life.
Do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you;
I will say to the north, "Give them up,"
and to the south, "Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away
and my daughters from the end of the earth —
everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made."

Acts 8:14-17
Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

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."

This is the Word of the Lord.

Ella was fourteen when she ran away from home. She went as far as her meager savings would take her, and ended up on the streets of the community of King's Cross. Within days Ella came to the attention of a drug dealer who was skilled in the art of taking advantage of others.

For around two weeks he supplied her with free drugs, saying she could pay him back at a later date. He showed her how to shoot-up and supplied her on a daily basis. He also protected her from other drug dealers, pimps, and people bent on violence.

The aim, of course, was to get her hooked, and after using heroin for two weeks Ella was well and truly dependent, both on the drug and on the dealer to supply her fix.
It wasn't long before Ella's debt to the drug dealer totaled well over a thousand dollars, and he issued an ultimatum: She had three days to pay back the money, or become a prostitute in order to work off the debt. Do nothing, and her throat would be cut.

Elle became, in effect, the property of the drug dealer.

Fortunately for Ella, the drug dealer wasn't the only person on the streets of King's Cross who had taken an interest in the teenager. Numerous homeless people had warned her about the path she was going down. She was warned not to use drugs, not to build up a debt to a drug dealer. She had ignored every warning.

Now, fearing for her life and not knowing what to do she turned to some of the homeless people who had warned her. They knew, given the particular drug dealer involved that the threat on her life was very serious and there was no way out. There was no point approaching charities for help. What charity would pay money to a drug dealer? Informing the police was not an option. On the streets, “narc-ing” someone out is a death sentence in itself.

They could have told her to go away, that she should have listened to them in the first place, but she had made her bed and now it was time to sleep in it. Instead, over the following three days a small group of homeless people raised the money needed to pay off Ella's debt.

They paid off her debt with money that had been stolen, money that had been made selling drugs and money that had been made from prostitution. They redeemed Ella through the “commerce of the streets.”

The day these homeless people bought Ella's freedom, they issued their own ultimatum. They took her to the train station and gave her money for the train, and told her “Take the chance you have been given and never, ever come back here.”

Six centuries before the birth of Christ, much of Jerusalem was in ruins and nearly abandoned. The Temple itself was a pile of rubble. After years and years of running after other gods and acting in abominable ways, after years and years of ignoring warnings from prophet after prophet, Jerusalem had fallen to Nebuchadnezzar, and the best and the brightest had been carried off to Babylon. More years passed, and the captives despaired. Psalm 137 remembers, “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps.”
Into their bleak circumstance, God speaks hope through the Prophet Isaiah: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”

Not long after Jesus rose from the dead, ascended to Heaven, and sent the Holy Spirit to his followers, news came to the Apostles that the Samaritans, too, were responding to God's grace. The Samaritans thought differently, acted differently, worshiped differently, and were considered by the “good” Jews of the day to be beneath contempt. Yet as Peter and John lay their hands on these believers, they saw and heard irrefutable evidence that God had redeemed, had called by name, had claimed as God's own, even the Samaritans! That day the Apostles began to learn, as the Apostle Paul would write later, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

On the Christian calendar, we have left the season of Christmas for Epiphany. While the Feast of Epiphany remembers the Three Wise Men discovering the Christ Child, this season represents a time of discovery for all people, both in the church and outside of the church... an opportunity to discover the essence, the meaning of God's grace, an opportunity to see that God has called us by name.

Now in our American, twenty-first century culture, this idea of God calling us by name is kind of a nice, warm-fuzzy kind of thing, the stuff of a devotional book by Max Lucado. When we hear the phrase, “I have called you by name”, we interpret that to mean that God takes note of or recognizes us, and thus gives credibility to us.

For me it reminds me of growing up. Being called by name when you're a kid isn't always a good thing; you could be getting called home for dinner or called on the carpet for doing something wrong. Now, I could always tell which it was by how much of my name Mom used when she called me. “John” was OK, it was suppertime or maybe “Match Game” was on, but “John Richard” was trouble... and how much of the second syllable you heard was an indication of how much. “John RICHard!” was a talking-to, “John RicHRT!” meant RUN!

In the understanding of those who wrote and read the Scriptures, though, this idea of being “called by name” went much deeper. It is in fact a technical term used for indicating the establishment of sovereignty over a person. For a king to “call you by name” means that the king has selected you from his court to bring you under both his protection and his authority. For a superior (in this case, God) to call someone by name means that the superior is declaring sovereignty over the other.

The person named now comes under that sovereign’s protection but is also under his authority and is therefore accountable to the overlord. God says, “you are mine.”

And unlike some earthly king or ruler who captures and conquers and annexes simply in order to have more and more territory and control and possessions, God's claim over us is a claim not of property but of family. Our Gospel reading, Luke's account of the baptism of Jesus, is an opportunity to remember our own baptism, when we became members of God's family, adopted or grafted in, sealed into an ever growing, ever dynamic, ever deepening walk with our loving Creator, who has redeemed us.

When we Christians hear the word “redemption”, we automatically think of the act of sacrifice by Jesus on the cross that brought about our salvation, and while that's true, it is an adaptation of the word. “Redeem” actually means “to buy back” or “to repossess.” It's primarily an economic term, meaning to free one from a legal or financial obligation by a transaction or agreement that takes place. Thus, for God to say, “I have redeemed you” is to have God declare, “I have bought you back”. Back from whoever we have tried to become or whatever we have done or wherever we have wandered, all in search of something to fill what St. Augustine called the “God-shaped hole.”

God has redeemed us, yet God's claim over us is not a claim of possession but of love. Elsewhere in Isaiah, the prophet quotes God as saying, “See, I have engraved you in the palms of my hands.” This same Jesus who we see baptized in today's reading of course goes on to have his palms engraved by nails in an act of redemption for all humankind: The people who are like us, and those who are not. Those we love, and those we don't like very much. People who impress us, and people who scare us. All humankind.

Thus our epiphany, our discovery, is that the beauty of the Gospel message is this: Whether we are trapped like Ella, exiled and enslaved like the Jews in Babylon, despised and marginalized like the Samaritans, or just normal everyday people, God speaks to us in every place and time and says, “ I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”

Thanks be to God!