St. John’s United Church

And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water,
suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said,
“This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17)

What is your name? Go ahead and say it! Say it out loud! Do you know that God knows your name? Do you know that God knows YOU? You may be a Liberal or a Conservative. It doesn’t matter to God. That’s not a name God cares about. You may be Irish or Scottish, Indian or Korean. It doesn’t matter to God. That’s not a name God cares about. You may be divorced or widowed, married or single. It doesn’t matter to God. That’s not a name God cares about. You may be a United Church person or a Catholic, a Muslim or a Jew. It doesn’t matter to God.

That’s not a name God cares about. God knows YOU by name. God knows who YOU are.

When we are just moments old, and sometimes even before that, our parents give us a name. Sometimes, our parents can do us a disservice when naming us. For instance, here is a list of actual names I came across when searching the Internet. One wonders about the parents who give such names - Chris B. Bacon, and Douglas Fir, Adam Sapple and Aaron Tires, Ben Lyon and Dwayne Pipes, Harry Arms and Pete Moss, Penny Lane and Gene Poole. Most of the time, however, parents choose names carefully and wisely. Good thing, as names confer heritage, and grace us with belonging. A recent poll indicated that most people, if given the opportunity to change their name, would not do so. You see, our name becomes a part of us - it helps to define us and to make us who we are.

But our parents aren’t the only people who give us names. Others name us as well. My parents named me Myra Lee – and, to the day she died, that’s what my mother called me. However, when I stated school, a number of my friends shortened it to “My,” much to the annoyance of my Mom. Being called My took some getting used to. When Barry and I had children – Jonathan and Kimberly and Laurie - and they grew up and learned to talk, “Mommy” was one of the first words they learned. Being called Mommy took some getting used to. When I responded to the calling of God, I went off to Queen’s Theological College in Kingston and was ordained to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. People started calling me more names. Pastor. Preacher. Reverend. Minister. Chaplain. Padre (at the Legion). Being called pastor took some getting used to.

The world sometimes gives us names, or more accurately labels. Sometimes these labels are helpful in defining who we are. More often, it seems to me, they are not. Liberal / Conservative - communist / fascist - pro-life / pro-choice - white / Black - gay / straight - rich / poor. When words are used like this, more as labels than names, they have just the opposite effect from what a name is intended to do. Instead of acknowledging a person’s uniqueness, they lump us all together in some group defined by the person doing the labelling. Labels group things together according to sameness. Names distinguish things according to uniqueness.

Even the word Christian can be misused as a label instead of a name. As a college student, the Reverend Peter Perry remembers sitting out on the quad between classes, reading, when two students approached him with Bibles in hand. They asked him if he was a Christian and he said, “Yes.” They proceeded to interrogate him about what he thought it meant to be a Christian. Apparently, his answers to their questions were found to be lacking, and so they told him that he wasn’t a Christian after all. The clincher for them was the manner of his baptism. Like many of us, Peter had baptized as an infant, sprinkled instead of immersed, by a Methodist pastor whose theology was found wanting by these young evangelists for the Lord. Therefore, if he really wanted to be saved, if he wanted to be a “real” Christian, then he needed to be baptized their way - and only their way. Unfortunately, what those young Christians didn’t understand was that there are a lot of varieties of Christians, that there are many ways to come to God, and that there are many understandings of what happens in the act of baptism.

It all goes back to this day on the banks of the Jordan River, when a carpenter by the name of Jesus appeared from his obscurity to be baptized by his cousin, the prophet, John. For thirty years or more, this Jesus had lived a normal life, just like and me. Sure his birth had been unusual to say the least, followed by a sort of exile in Egypt for a few years, and then that little incident at the Temple in Jerusalem when he was twelve. But we, who follow this Jesus, know very little about the years leading up to this day in the water.

No doubt, during those years, Jesus collected some names and some labels. Son of Joseph and Mary. Big brother. Carpenter. Nazarene. Jew. Maybe someone at work tried to shorten his name. I wonder if they called him Jeez? What went before? Who was he? What names mattered to him? What labels did he bear before he went down to the river that day?

According to the Gospel lesson, John didn’t want to baptize Jesus for John knew that there was something special about Jesus, that indeed, perhaps, Jesus should baptize him. But Jesus insisted that this needed to happen. And so, John complied. When Jesus entered the water to be baptized by John he entered it with hundreds of years of his people’s expectations swirling in the current. He entered it, not to undo all that had happened until that day, but in fulfilment of all that had gone before and in anticipation of all that would come after. He entered the water not to get rid of who he had been but to embrace who he was called to be. And as Jesus came up from the water, the voice of God was heard to say, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

God recognized Jesus there in the water. God’s plan progressed there in the water. I don’t think God was too worried about John’s credentials, about the depth of the water, about the words that were said by the prophet, about any of the details surrounding the event. What God cared about was that Jesus was named, and that the name was claimed. “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Remember Harry Potter? He lived at 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey with his aunt and uncle and their obnoxious son Dudley. Harry was a wizard, the son of Lily and James Potter who were killed by Voldemort when Harry was a few months old. He could not remember this but one of the things that revealed Harry’s identity was a thin scar on his forehead like a flash of lightening. At our baptism, we receive a new identity as a son or daughter of God. We are marked with the sign of the cross on our forehead to remind us of that Jesus acts in choosing baptism, and God acts in naming and identifying Jesus. This is important for it signifies the beginning of the Jesus’ ministry. Through his work, Jesus lived out his identity. He taught us about God as God walked among us. And God learned about US, as Jesus walked as one of us. And so OUR baptisms begin OUR ministry, whether we are baptised as infants or adults. We live as God’s children - claiming our new identity.

Dr. Fred Craddock, one of the great preachers of our day, tells a story that illustrates what I am saying. Dr. Craddock was travelling through a small town when he stopped for lunch at a diner. It wasn’t even a Mom and Pop place, because Pop was the only person. He cooked, took orders, served them, and made conversation with his customers. Of course, he knew this particular customer was a traveller, so he asked him what he did for a living, and Dr. Craddock allowed as how he was a preacher. At that the man plopped himself down and began to tell his story. He had been born in this same small town - to an unwed mother. As he said, in that town, there was a word used to refer to children born out of wedlock, and he heard that word many times in his young life. He heard it on the street and on the playground. His mother wanted him to attend church, but he felt that the church folks looked down their nose at him. He was probably right.

Then, one day, he went. He was about ten - and there was a new preacher. After service, he tried to slip out before he was noticed, but he ran smack into the preacher. “Well! And whose boy are you?” the preacher asked as he hunkered down. The boy hung his head in shame, thinking that the new preacher already knew EXACTLY who he was. The preacher lifted the boy’s chin and gazed into his eyes for a moment - then he grinned. “Why, I know whose boy you are! There’s quite a strong family resemblance!” The boy waited. “You are a son of God.” The man stood up and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You’ve got quite a family heritage to live up to - get out there and be about it.” The man said to Dr. Craddock that he had lifted his head at that point and never looked back. He knew whose boy he was - and it made all the difference. There was no water - but it was a baptism all the same. The boy put his barriers behind him and walked into his future with a new identity. He was a child of God.

That’s what Jesus’ baptism did for him - it announced his identity. He acted out in being righteous. He came to that river with a purpose in mind and a call ringing in his ears. And he came out of the water with a new name - a new mission - a new understanding of himself. That’s what our baptisms do for us. They result in our being bonded with God. God washes away all that hides us from God. We stand before our Creator, washed and clean. And God says to us, “You are my beloved children!”

However, baptism and repentance are not guarantees against further harm or pain in this life. Even Jesus was not inoculated against living the full range of human experience. In fact, as one theologian has said, when Jesus went to be baptized by John, he chose to stand in line with sinners. Jesus understood that by being baptized by John he was identifying with the people’s hopes, longing, and expectation of a Messiah, a deliverer, a new Moses to lead them through the water to freedom.

In the same way, our human act of baptism is a symbol of faith - a recognition on our part of all that God has already done in the act of our creation and our salvation. And as we participate in the rituals, as we name the child or adult being baptized, as we recite the promises, as we pledge to honour the name we are given, we are simply following in the footsteps of Jesus, who as a sign to us all, went down into the water.

Today, I want to offer you the opportunity to remember your baptism and to remember that you, too, have been claimed by God, and that those words which were said over Jesus – “You are my beloved child, with you I am well pleased” - have also been said over you. Perhaps, you need to hear them again today. Perhaps, there are things you need to have washed away - sins, hurts, trials, feelings of uselessness or worthlessness. Perhaps, you need to be reminded, also, that God can and does take all that has happened to make you who you are and uses it to make your life beautiful. Perhaps, you need to touch the water and be reminded of its power and grieve the loss of so many lives. For THIS water is a touchstone for all those responses and more. Whatever your need, the font can become a healing fountain for you today. Come and remember your baptism into Jesus Christ. Come on down, the water’s fine! In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Acknowledgements: Peter Perry; Fred Kane; Claire Clyburn; Gordon Ramsay; Ian Savage

A meditation preached by the Rev. Myra Garvin at St. John’s United Church, Brockville
Sunday January 9, 2005 - 1st after Epiphany A – Baptism of Jesus