Sermon 1/11/15
Mark 1:4-11
A New Name: Beloved
Tim:
Today we’re starting a new series in worship called, “A New Name.” Each
week, we’ll be looking at a different person in the Bible who goes by a new
name. Abram and Sarai become Abraham and Sarah, Jacob becomes Israel, Simon is
called Peter. Saul becomes Paul. In each of these cases, the new name
corresponds with a significant moment in their spiritual journeys. This is a
series Pastor Beth’s been wanting to do since her first weeks at Apple Valley.
Surviving a merger of congregations is a difficult task for churches. It
usually isn’t all smooth sailing. And sometimes there’s a lot of residual grief
and pain and tension and so on. Pastor Beth served as pastor for a few years at
a church that was a United Church – Presbyterian and United Methodist– and when
she first met with them, they told her about how firmly they thought of
themselves as united. This made sense, because they had been merged together as
one congregation for almost 40 years. And yet, Pastor Beth discovered that
within two weeks of being there, she knew whether everyone was a Methodist or a
Presbyterian! The differences between the denominations still stirred up
trouble in the congregation all these years later. Making a new congregation
out of older congregations isn’t an easy thing.
The longer she’s here, the more Pastor
Beth learns about the journey we’ve all been through to become one congregation
– and she knows it wasn’t always easy, even still. But, she says, “I have to tell you, from this outsider’s
perspective, you’ve done a remarkable job at becoming one congregation. Yes, I
know what congregations some of you were once part of – but it isn’t the first
thing that comes to mind when I interact with you. Every church has some
traditions that are special, but I’ve also found you refreshingly flexible when
Pastor Penny and I want to try something new. It’s really delightful to pastor
that kind of congregation, because it means that there’s room in us for God to
do something new.”
And we serve a God who loves to make
all things new. That’s one of the promises of the scriptures: In Christ, we are
new creations. When we follow Jesus, we have an opportunity to let go of the
past, let go of harmful behaviors, let go of destructive patterns in our lives.
We can actually let go of hurting ourselves and each other, and claim new life
in Christ, resurrected lives. So between now and the season of Lent, as we
begin a new year, we’re also thinking about what it means to be new creations
in Christ, children of a new birth, given new names. Today we do that as we
celebrate Baptism of the Lord Sunday.
***
Laura: Today,
in our gospel lesson from Mark, we find Jesus at his baptism. Hopefully this
text sounds a bit familiar – we just read most of it during Advent, the first
section about John the Baptist. Mark is very brief in all things in his gospel,
and so the actual baptism gets only three verses. John the Baptist, cousin of
Jesus, is in the wilderness, preaching baptizing people, a symbol of repentance
and forgiveness of sins. He speaks about one who is coming who is more powerful
than he, who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. And then, indeed, Jesus
arrives, and is baptized by John. The other gospels have a bit of dialogue
between Jesus and John where John wonders why Jesus needs to be baptized by John,
but that is of no importance to Mark. He only says that Jesus comes to be
baptized, and that when he was, as he was coming up out of the water, the
heavens were torn apart and the Spirit seemed to descend on him like a dove,
and a voice spoke, saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well
pleased.” Other gospels have these words from God directed to the crowd – This
is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased. But in Mark, this message
is right from God to Jesus – You are
my Son, the Beloved; with you I am
well pleased. This event marks the beginning of Jesus' ministry – from here he
goes into the wilderness himself for a period, where he is tested and tried,
and then he begins showing up in synagogues, preaching, teaching, and healing. But
it begins, in a way, with this baptism. “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you
I am well pleased.”
***
Bev: A
couple of years ago, Pastor Beth’s dearest friend Heather was struggling with
the process of getting a learning permit for her then 16-year old daughter, who
was ready to learn to drive. Somewhere along the way, Heather had misplaced her
daughter’s Social Security card, which they needed to get Mickayla’s permit.
Well, in order to get a new Social Security card, you need your birth
certificate, which proves your citizenship, but you also need proof of identity
– like a driver's license – which obviously she didn’t have. Of course, it
turns out that you can also use a photo student ID card or a photo credit card
or something like that, but proving your identity isn’t so easy.
Every
so often, you can read news stories about people who have accidentally been
declared dead in paperwork even though they are quite alive! Somehow names and
information got mixed up, and these folks had ended up with bank accounts
frozen, unable to get loans or credit, had stopped receiving things like social
security checks, and had real financial difficulties as a result of the mix-up.
And, as crazy as it sounds, some people have had an extremely difficult time
proving their identity, proving that they were really alive and who they
claimed to be, once this mistake had been made.
How
would you prove your identity? Author
John Reader, talks about how we keep trying to form our identity in different
ways in contemporary culture. Sometimes we try self-as-commodity – we are sort
of a “product” that can be branded and molded in a certain way. Sometimes we
try self-as-consumer – “I shop therefore I am.” We try to take what we have,
what we possess, and make it into who we are. Sometimes we try self-as-project,
he says, constantly trying to put together a good-enough self by making sure we
have the right trainings and qualifications and skills to be what
we want and what is expected of us. Identity formation is an important process.
We all go through a time or times in our life when we need to ask ourselves
critically: Who am I? What do I believe? What is my life all about? But
whenever we start building our identities from all these external sources, we are probably heading in a bad direction, never
knowing our true selves. So who are you, really? What is your identity?
***
Liz: Sometimes
we need to be reminded of who we are. John Reader was right: if we look in the
wrong places, we can find a million voices that will gladly tell us who we are
and who we should be. But these voices don’t know us. God, who created us,
knows us. Our identity is being shaped from the day we are born and before and
onward. We might, the day we are born, have had our feet dipped in ink to make
prints that would identify us. We have names that we were given that set us
apart. But even our names aren’t who we
are. When we celebrate a baptism in the church, we are celebrating the fact
that we all know someone's identity. We are celebrating that the person is a
child of God, made in God's image, and part of the body of Christ. That is our identity, our true self. It
is something we all share in, but something that is made manifest in each one
of us in a completely unique way. We are God’s beloved. With us, each of us,
even you, even me, God is well-pleased. We are Beloved.
Sometimes
people get worried about baptisms when they have newborns. A lot of traditions
and practices built up over time are hard to erase, and many pastors still find
it hard to get people to believe that nothing bad happens to you if you aren’t
baptized on a certain timetable. Baptism is a sacrament – and outward sign of
an inward grace. And the inward grace is from God – God's unconditional love
for us. Baptism, then, is a sign, a reminder
to us of God's love. It is the thing we do to celebrate what is true no matter what. God made us. We are made
in God's image. God loves us. Baptism is the reminder, the party, the
celebration of that amazing fact. That’s why Jesus is baptized. It reminds him,
as he starts what will be three years of heart-wrenching ministry that will
lead to his death on the cross, that he is Beloved. Jesus is many things, and
known by many names. But what he is first is God’s child, Beloved.
***
Tim: Isn't
it nice to be reminded of who we are? Figuring out our identities in this world
of competing voices can be exhausting. We can get off track. Lost. Mixed-up.
Isn't it good to remember? Who are you? What is the true self buried under all
those expectations placed upon you? What is your true self, when you strip away
all those layers you’ve built up to fit in, to get ahead, to be good enough?
Who are you?
We
have an opportunity to renew our
baptismal vows, to remember the celebration that marked our true identity, so
that we, too, might have strength for the journey that lies ahead. Do you need
a reminder of who you are? Are you a disciple? Are you a follower of Jesus?
Come, let God remind you. In whose image are you created? Who calls you by
name? Come, let God remind you. You are loved without condition, part of God's
own family. Come, Beloved, let God remind you. Amen.
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