Theological truth: Baptism claims our true identity and incorporates us into the “family business” of loving everyone home.
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
In The Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana, children of clergy attended Diocesan schools tuition-free. We still paid for books, fees, and meals, but given the quality of the education, it was an incredible and generous benefit for clergy families. Unfortunately, while the waived tuition certainly helped our budget, it also brought about other financial pressures. Let’s just say that the Heine kids weren’t wearing the trendiest fashions or arriving in the same vehicles as their peers. What do you say to your sixth grader when they say, “But Dad, everybody is getting a new BMW for their birthday!”
Fortunately, smarter clergy than me had navigated these waters. My colleague Michael Kuhn taught me a wonderful line. Whenever his kids felt disappointed or confused because their friends were going to Vail for Christmas or the Caymans for spring break, he or his wife would calmly respond, “Well, in our family, we go to grandma’s”. Or, “In our family, we go camping.” Or, “in our family, we share vehicles.” It was a way of acknowledging that our family was different. Our identity shaped what we valued, how we acted, and the decisions we made. Who we are affects what we do and how we do it.
The gospel stories in the next several weeks leading up to Lent — what we call Epiphany Season — manifest who God is by what Jesus says and does. Today’s first manifestation begins with Matthew’s account of John baptizing Jesus in the River Jordan. After Jesus is baptized, as he’s coming 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 beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’” (Mt. 3:16-17). This initial revelation of Jesus’ identity as Beloved Son, anointed by the Holy Spirit, sets the stage for all the coming manifestations of who God is by the other things Jesus will say and do. It’s God’s way of saying, “In our family, people are beloved and anointed, called by name and sent to restore the family.” It all starts with Baptism.
Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism is the only one where the voice of God is directed to the bystanders. The voice from heaven doesn’t say to Jesus, “You are my son,” but to us, “This is my son.” We’re the ones who need to hear that earth and heaven are connected. The beloved Son is Emmanuel—God with us. But God the Son comes in a very specific and surprising way. Not with wrath. Not with special treatment. But with a holy humility attentive to God’s will, not his own. Following God’s timetable, not his own. Seeking God’s glory, not his own. In God’s family, we bring forth justice, but with a gentle humility that wouldn’t break a snapped reed or quench a dimly burning wick. And it all starts with Baptism.
Matthew emphasizes the importance of Baptism. Jesus’ first and final words in Matthew’s gospel are about Baptism. When John resists Jesus’ baptismal request, understandably hesitant to baptize the One who is already “in the family” and has nothing to repent of, Jesus delivers his first lines: “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” (Mt. 3:15). It starts with Baptism and ends there, too. Jesus’ last words in Matthew’s Gospel are also about Baptism. Following his resurrection, he meets his disciples in Galilee and gives them his final words, The Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mt. 28:19-20). Peter eventually gets it, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.” (Acts 10:34)
It’s all about Baptism for us, too, where we are brought into the household of God; we claim and reclaim our truest identity as God’s beloved children; we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. And then we join the family business of proclaiming the good news of God’s love for the world. Like Jesus, in this family we are beloved and we are anointed. We are named and we are sent. We are baptized to become disciples and to make disciples, looking always to the way of God made known in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. We follow his way of powerful weakness, transformative humility, victorious surrender. In God’s family, we see all people not as heretics to be cast out or villains to be destroyed, but as lost siblings. We join the family work of loving them home. It starts with Baptism and continues by remembering Baptism—his and ours.
You’ve probably realized by now that Jesus’ way of loving and living is not an easy path to follow. In the very next verse after today’s reading, Jesus goes immediately from Baptism to the temptations in the wilderness. The tempter’s first attempt is to plant the seed of doubt about his identity: “If you are the Son of God…” It’s the same doubt that trips up Adam and Eve. We face it too. Can we fully, really, truly believe that we are God’s beloved? Do we think maybe it would be better to go our own way, or take matters into our own hands? What do we do when faced with the temptation to adopt a different, more expedient path?
Nadia Bolz-Weber suggests taking “a note from Martin Luther’s playbook and defiantly shout[ing] back at [the] darkness “I am Baptized!” — not I was, but I am baptized.” (https://sojo.net/articles/how-say-defiantly-i-am-baptized, emphasis mine). That was Luther’s response when he “was hold up in a castle translating the Greek Bible into German…and struggling mightily with doubt and discouragement from what he understood to be the devil…In addition to throw[ing] the occasional ink pot at whatever was tormenting him and causing him to doubt God’s promises…he could also be heard throughout the castle grounds shouting “I am baptized!”
In the darkness of our days, when justice is delayed, and the powerful hold sway over the powerless; when we face the temptation of wondering if we are truly God’s beloved children and begin considering taking measures into our own hands at the risk of becoming that which we detest, remember Luther’s urgent defense: I am baptized! We are baptized. We are God’s beloved children. We have been anointed by the Holy Spirit. This is who we are and what we do. We are the family of God, laboring in the family business of loving everyone home. We are the body of Christ given for the life of the world.
