What does baptism look like?
And lest you think I need to go back to seminary for some refresher courses, I do remember what baptism looks like, here in the church – the baptismal font, the water poured into it, the blessing of the water, the lighting of the candle, the anointing with oil, parents and grandparents and often a baby and you’re not quite sure if they’ll cry or try to steal your earrings… It’s a beautiful thing. But what does baptism look like, after it happens here in church or in the River Jordan?
Last week was the first Sunday of Epiphany, the Baptism of our Lord Sunday, when Jesus came to John, this moment in the wilderness when the world shifted from the voice of a prophet to the voice of the Messiah the prophet had been talking about.
This is what Jesus’s baptism looked like: Jesus coming out to the wilderness, where people had gathered to hear John the Baptist, who dressed in camel hair clothing and ate locusts and honey, as we know, coming down and being baptized with everyone else. That scene is imprinted in our imaginations – Jesus, rising back up out of the river, the sun shining on that water, a dove winging her way down from the sky, and a voice from heaven saying: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
Notice that the voice didn’t say this is my Son, my Beloved, but the Beloved. From the beginning, Jesus was named as belonging not only to God, but to the world, beloved not only by eternity, but by this imperfect timeline of imperfect people.
So this Sunday morning’s Gospel starts us on the road to what comes after baptism – for Jesus, for John, for Andrew and Simon Peter and for all the other disciples – and for us – what baptism looks like after the river, after the church service. Because making the decision to follow Christ is more than a one-time moment in the river. It is a lifetime promise. I’ve quoted my professor Dr. Lisa Kimball before from this pulpit, but I love these words, so I’ll say them again – she says, “we are always swimming in the waters of baptism!”
We remind ourselves of that promise, that long-distance swim, every time we speak the Baptismal Covenant and promise to respect the dignity of every human being, to seek peace, to resist evil, to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
The Rev. Joe C. Williams of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, wrote this week: “The waters of baptism don’t just welcome us in – they send us out to see and protect the divine image in every human face. On our streets. In our neighborhoods. In the headlines that break our hearts.”
Tomorrow we celebrate the life and legacy of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who died in 1968 at the age of 39, after giving his voice to the work of justice and equity and equality among all peoples, the work of civil rights, the work against war and poverty and the things that drive us apart as human beings and as the children of God – he spent his life following the covenant and call of his baptism, and his ordained life as a minister.
Along with this morning’s lectionary, I’ve been reading and re-reading some of Dr. King’s writings, and especially his last two sermons, which he preached in the days before he was killed – two sermons that addressed the human heartbreaks of racism, poverty and war, and spoke also of hope, of possibility, of a promised land that we are heading toward, and what our shared humanity and shared faith expect of us. Borrowing from Micah, “to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
The first sermon he gave at Washington National Cathedral – it was his last Sunday sermon – and the second, he gave at the Charles Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. Two cities with deep human histories, two cities that have seen conflict and violence and heartbreak over and over in the last century and in this one, but also two cities which constantly witness hope.
I’ve been thinking about holy ground. Dr. King stood on the holy ground of churches and city streets, of Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tennessee, in Selma, Alabama; Harlem, Newark; Whitman County, Mississippi; Asia, Africa, Latin America, India – practicing nonviolence and preaching love in places made holy because they hold both heartbreak and hope.
Reading Dr. King’s words, prior to the day we remember him and celebrate his life, is especially moving given the deep conflictedness in our country and around the world right now, the disconnections we feel with our neighbors here and our neighbors far away, protests happening around the country – tear gas against rocks and whistles against guns.
And reading from the 1st Letter to the Corinthians and from the Gospel of John, and from Dr. King’s sermons, I hear in all these words, echoing across 2,000 years of time and across 63 years of time, words that teach. If we are not sure what to do in these times, we can turn to the prophetic voices from across centuries..
In today’s Gospel, we are called to come and see – over and over, this emphasis on seeing, knowing, revealing:
John the Baptist says: “I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.”
“John… was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, there is the Lamb of God!’”
And “When Jesus turned and saw them following… He said to them, ‘Come and see.’”
Come and see this Messiah – come and see what is new, what is different, the life he is living and the way he is teaching. Come and see a way of living and loving that welcomes everyone, that says the last shall be first and the first shall be last and blessed are the poor. Here is a new way of seeing, making sure that everyone is respected and loved.
Dr. King spoke about seeing, about vision, in his final sermon, the day before he was assassinated, preaching from a pulpit in Memphis. He said:
“We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop.… And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land… Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
Dr. King, in the midst of what must have felt overwhelming and impossible, during segregation and the struggle for civil rights, saw and believed in the hope of the promised land, here on earth as well as in heaven.
Dr. King said: “Our world is a neighborhood.”
Paul, in first Corinthians, this morning’s letter to Corinth, writes about the fellowship of the saints, those called by God – writes to the fellowship of saints, those who answered the invitation by the River Jordan to “come and see.”
Dr. King, preaching in Memphis, talked about the way that technology at that time had brought our world together – we can take trips by plane in hours that would have taken months before we flew. We can talk with people on the other side of the globe in real time. This, says Dr. King, tells us that “Our world is a neighborhood.
“The world in which we live is geographically one,” he preached. “The challenge that we face today is to make it one in terms of brotherhood.”
And finally, Dr. King said, “the time is always ripe to do right.”
Dr. King reminded his listeners that day of the Parable of the Good Samaritan – the one person, a foreigner, an outcast and an enemy, who stopped to help a man beaten and left to die by the side of the road.
Two people, Dr. King reminded us, respectable, socially acceptable, religious leaders, had already passed by, afraid to stop – worried perhaps that they would be late for their destination, or that they might be in danger, that they might be attacked as well. They did not stop because they worried, if I help this man, what will happen to me? Instead, Dr. King says, the Samaritan “reversed the question,” asking “‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’”
This is a different way of seeing each other, a different way of being, a different way of understanding baptism, and it’s what Simon Peter and Andrew and all the rest of the disciples then and now find themselves signing up for when Jesus says, “come and see.”
And I wonder, what are we asked, in this day and time, to come and see? What are we asked to come and be? What does this baptism of water and spirit ask of us, especially now, especially in this new year, with its heartbreak, and its hope, with all its possibility stretching out in front of us. What does baptism look like?
Come and see.
Amen.
