O God, at the
Baptism of our Lord you opened the heavens and declared him to be your Beloved.
Grant that by Baptism we might be joined to him in your gracious love. Amen.
I have a good friend who has been
searching for jobs for the past couple of months. He’s asked me to read through
his application materials a few times as he tries to succulently describe who
he is and his sense of vocation. The titles and dates of previous positions are
easy to get. Listing duties and degrees is fairly simple. The hard parts are
the identity statements – who are you and why would you be a good fit here? And
it’s not just in a job search that we struggle with these questions. We all
struggle with those questions of “who am I now,” “who do I want to be,” and “what
is my purpose?”
These are questions that we thought
through as a parish when we were developing our identity statement last year.
When we pay attention to the narrative of Jesus’ life in the gospels, we see
that identity begins with grace. That’s why right at the top of our identity
statement, which is more of an image than a traditional mission statement, we
include the phrase “Abundant Grace.” And early on, at his Baptism, Jesus is
named as God’s Beloved for all the world to see and know and by God’s grace,
that same love is at the core of our identity and purpose.
Often, when we think about Baptism,
the questions that come up are “what does it mean?” And that’s never a bad
question to ask about a Sacrament. There are many ways of answering that question,
and if you want to read more about it, I’d commend reading through the
Catechism at the back of the Book of Common
Prayer. For this sermon though, I want to focus not so much on what Baptism
means, but rather what it declares.
It’s also important to recognize
that Baptism is not something that that Church invented, rather it is an
example that we follow. Before any of us were Baptized, Jesus was Baptized. So
if we are to understand our Baptism, we have to understand where it all
started. How wonderful that God has given us this Sacrament of being united to
Jesus! As St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “Do you not know that all of us who
have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have
been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised
from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of
life.”
First and foremost, Baptism unites
to Jesus. And once we are connected to him, we are given all that we need. We
are saved from Sin and Death through his steadfast dying and his glorious
Resurrection. We are gifted with his Spirit that we might do all such good
works as God has given us to do. We are given a family in the Body of Christ to
belong to. We are given a story of salvation in which to flourish. We are given
an identity which grounds us in love. And all of these things happen because
Jesus was Baptized and, through our Baptisms, we are joined, forever and
always, to Jesus. As we heard in our opening hymn this morning, we are bound to
the strong name of the Trinity and this binding happens through the abundant
grace of Baptism. Baptism unites us to Jesus.
It’s hard to put into words just how
amazing, beautiful, and transforming this is – that we are joined in an indissoluble
relationship of love with the Creator of all that is. And that’s where we find
our identity and the answers to the questions “who are you” and “what are you
doing here?” The answer is that you are God’s beloved child and that you are
here to grow in that love.
And this is abundant grace because
have not done anything to deserve or earn such a glorious gift. We heard St.
Peter in Acts preach that “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.” It
means that God doesn’t have favorites because everyone is God’s favorite. It
means that God isn’t partial to how sincere our prayers are, or how many good
things that we do, or how we neglect the poor. It’s not that such things don’t
matter, it’s just that God’s love is graciously and radically impartial. God’s
love is for the righteous and the wicked.
The way the Greek literally reads
here is that it says that “God is not a face-taker,” meaning that God doesn’t
take us at face value. And this is because God takes us at “grace-value.”
Because we are united to Jesus when God looks at us what is seen are not our
faults, our mistakes, our doubts, our fears, but rather the grace and mercy of
Jesus. God sees deeper than our flaws and God sees past our accomplishments to
a love that is unconditional, impartial, and never-ceasing.
This is an incredibly difficult message
for us to accept though because it goes against the way our society is
structured. Our culture is built on the assumption that there are consequences
for our actions, positive or negative. We want fairness. We get frustrated when
someone gets something that can’t be traced back to their hard work. But grace
goes against all of that. Grace simply is. You don’t deserve it, you don’t earn
it, you don’t have to defend it. And the really offensive thing about grace isn’t
just for us, but it’s for everyone. If it’s not, then it’s not grace.
So much of the world and Christianity
could be more closely aligned with the abundant life that God intends for us if
we could just accept grace for what it is instead of trying to put a fence
around it. Because of grace, it means that every single human being has
God-given dignity and worth. It means that every person is a child of God. And
as the news is all about conflicts, it is worth remembering that grace
means that we are not lacking in anything and that we can stop striving to be
right or better, because God shows no partiality. We are all equally loved and
redeemed. When we’re not having to prove ourselves, we can pursue peace instead
of selfish interests because our story is not what we make for ourselves, it is
the story of God’s love. Grace means that we can concede to others because we
know that we already have victory in Christ. Grace means that all people,
regardless of who they are, are loved by God because they are made
by God and because Jesus Christ came for all people.
This
is what makes the message of grace so challenging – it counters the narratives
that we live our lives by: that I’m not good enough, or pretty enough, or
outgoing enough; or that they aren’t like me enough, or they aren’t deserving
enough. What God’s abundant grace does is to erase the word “enough” from our
vocabulary. You are loved, you are forgiven, you are worthy of dignity.
Because this message goes against
all of the many messages that we receive from the world, we have to hear it
over and over again. One of the things I do each week as a part of my sermon
preparation is that I listen to a podcast called “Same Old Song.” I love that
title because each week, the hosts discuss the readings for Sunday with an eye
for grace. Sure, there are a lot of ways to interpret any Biblical passage, but
on “Same Old Song” they talk about how Scripture always points towards grace. And
maybe it gets to sound like a broken record: grace, grace, grace; love, love,
love. But we’ve got to have that message of God’s abundant grace saturate our
souls so that we know, without any doubt, that our identity is graciously given
to us as God’s beloved children. Just as a songbird greets each morning with a
song, the Church’s task is to proclaim this message of grace again and again.
And that’s what we will do in just a
few moments with Emma and James. We rejoice that they are being brought into
this story of love and grace. We pray that they will always know that they are
loved by this community and know that their story is the story of God’s love in
Jesus. Their Baptisms are also a reminder to us all that love is the truest
thing about each of us. As they grow, James and Emma will give us new glimpses into
how God’s love is manifest, they will give us opportunities to share with them
the message of grace, they will teach us new dimensions of grace as God moves
in their lives. By God’s grace, we are all receiving a new sister and brother
in Christ today, and so today really is a day to celebrate.
Baptism
graciously gives us our identity, it gives us our meaning, it gives us the story
of redemption to live by. May you live your lives by that same old song of God’s
abundant grace and love.
