Bread and Barth

Mark 1:4-11

4 John the Baptist was in the wilderness calling for people to be baptized to show that they were changing their hearts and lives and wanted God to forgive their sins. 5 Everyone in Judea and all the people of Jerusalem went out to the Jordan River and were being baptized by John as they confessed their sins. 6 John wore clothes made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He announced, “One stronger than I am is coming after me. I’m not even worthy to bend over and loosen the strap of his sandals. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

9 About that time, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. 10 While he was coming up out of the water, Jesus saw heaven splitting open and the Spirit, like a dove, coming down on him. 11 And there was a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”

Intro

This week, we begin a new sermon series: Bread, Bath, and Beyond. Series creator Rev. Dr. Marcia McFee reminds us that this sermon series is grounded in the hope that is ahead of us. Here is this season after epiphany we are looking for the manifestations of God in the world. We’re looking for glimpses of hope that God is at work in the world! So often in the New Year, we look to the future and hope that the next year is better than the one we leave being.

A real-world example inspired this series. You’ll notice that it sounds similar to a retailer we know all too well. In the last year, Bed, Bath, & Beyond has gone beyond their own limits in their own time of economic difficulty. They closed all of their stores, went online, and merged with Overstock.com. As we journey together over the next several weeks, we will look to the ways that our faith calls us to imagine the possibilities that can be and live into God’s future for our lives as individuals and as a community of faith.

In our second Gospel lesson this morning, we encountered the Baptism of Jesus. Mark’s gospel begins differently than the other Gospels. It does not begin with lineage or with Christ’s presence in creation. Mark doesn’t begin with Mary and Elizabeth. Rather, Mark jumps right in to John the Baptizer’s work in the wilderness. John the Baptizer had all of Judea, including those in Jerusalem, coming out to him to be baptized. John was one of the most popular figures in his time, and many people believed that John was the messiah.

Perhaps we ponder why so many people were coming to be baptized. As one theologian reminds us, “this baptism of his was a vivid way people seemed to express that something wasn't quite right in their community, and thus there was a need for confession and repentance. Leadership was failing them. The world around them felt threatening and unsafe. There was a growing divide between those who had means and those who did not. There was growing corruption among the leaders of their faith. Rebellions and violence were common.”

This reflection on the time surrounding the beginning of Jesus’ ministry sounds so familiar. Whether it’s denominational, at work, at school, or in politics, so many times it feels like our leaders are failing us. Time and time again, we turn on the news and hear of new violence around the world, around the country, and even in our own backyards. As we continue to face difficult financial times, it seems like there is a greater and greater split between those who are well-off and those who are struggling to get by.

On this Sunday, we find ourselves in this Gospel text reminded that in times of uncertainty, all were coming to be baptized. All were coming for initiation into God’s ways. This includes Jesus. Jesus arrives looking to be baptized. Unlike other Gospel accounts, Mark’s account gets right to it. Jesus came down and Jesus was baptized no protests from John, no distractions. The language translated for Jesus’ baptism is the same as everybody else’s. Then suddenly, heaven split open, a dove descended, and God spoke. “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.” The in breaking of God is in that moment made known.

Last Lord Sunday, we were reminded of our own “baths” of sorts, our baptism. As we read of Jesus’ baptism and we witness those who confessed their sins and were baptized by John, we are reminded of our own baptisms. For some of us, we remember. We remember the vows, we remember the confession, we remember the water, the washing away. For others of us, we have no memory of this. So often it seems like baptism has become just another event in our lives. As the number of baptisms has declined in the life of the church, we just think of baptism as an event marking the birth of a child or marking another step in our journey of faith.

In John the Baptizer’s time, being baptized was a risk. Going out into the wilderness, going under the water, being incorporated into this new thing was a direct affront to the religious establishment and to the government itself. While Caesar was being heralded as the son of God and the giver of peace, John was baptizing and forgiving sins for the true God. This washing away of sins marked a new way of life, a changing of hearts and lives for the newly baptized.

In times of turmoil, we remember that this is the same baptism we proclaim. We either professed for ourselves or someone professed on our behalf that we would resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. We confessed our sins and promised to turn our hearts and our lives to give our allegiance over to the one true God. It wasn’t just a mark on the journey, but a death of the ways of this world, a death to reliance on government for assurance, a death to every person for themselves, a death to exploiting others, and a resurrection with Jesus Christ and God’s ways.

And yet, so many of us don’t remember. I can tell you that in January 2004, I was baptized at Ewell’s Saint Paul’s United Methodist Church in Clayton, Delaware. That’s it. I don’t know who was there outside of my family. I don’t remember my outfit. I don’t remember a thing except this call to live into the vows. While I don’t remember much about my baptism day, I have a card in my office that signifies its importance…shortly after my ordination, I received a bowl from the Reverend Doctor Janine Howards with a card reading “Remember your baptism and be thankful. That is where this journey began. And it goes on. We are better for your presence with us.”

We had a chance last week to reflect on, remember, and live into the covenant found in our baptism. We got to remember or at least for those going through confirmation, anticipate our “bath.” We remembered our baptism. Especially in the times we find ourselves in, it is so important that we remember and reaffirm our baptism. Baptism shouldn’t be an empty ritual or something that happened long ago. We aren’t remembering exactly what happen. As one theologian reminds us, “We remember that the water is a sign of the Holy Spirit that renews, refreshes, and offers a ‘clean start.’ Remembering our baptism might be more than what we personally remember of our own baptism, and more about the baptisms we remember from our life in community with our siblings in Christ. We are one in this common ritual. And remembering the story of Jesus’ baptism and God’s declaration of love is also ours. We are beloved of God and a new start is always available.”

When we remember and renew these promises, when we renew our commitment to change our hearts and lives toward God, we are reminded that we are inaugurated into God’s reign on earth in the here and now. Our other Gospel lesson reminds us of this. In this passage, We are gathered into a new family. This family is not based on our family of origin. Our call to care is not based on how well we know someone or how close we are to them. Rather, our call is to care for those who have need.

Sometimes, it is a lot easier to care for people when we know them. I’m more likely to do something for a sibling, parent, or close friend, than I am from a random stranger. This is only amplified when it is something difficult or time consuming. I’ve drive hours to help a friend stuck on the side of the road. Would we do the same for someone unfamiliar? Yet Christ calls us to care for the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner. And as Christ reminds us in this passage, when we do it to the least of these, we do it for Jesus himself. In other words, rather than asking “what would Jesus do?”, we are called to ask “Do I see Jesus in you?” This seems simple enough, but it is easier said than done.

In 2017, insurance company State Farm created a campaign called the “Neighborhood of Good.” In the advertisement, the needy follow around an ordinary guy. Eventually, the ordinary guy goes and volunteers at a youth center. Reflecting on this campaign and this text from Matthew’s gospel, one theologian comments. “He responds to a community need, rather than every need presenting itself. Perhaps the passage is a call to reorient ourselves to the radical ethical shift Jesus’ birth brings about. Jesus is in fact a different kind of king, more often found with the least of these. His solidarity with the disenfranchised reconfigures the status quo for royalty and religious leaders.”

You see in our baptism, we are called into the radical living, this new loyalty, this shaking up of society that those baptized by John were called in to. With Jesus as our guide, we are called to live a new way. When we remember our baptismal vows, we renew our commitments to live in these ways. But it doesn’t just stop there. Remember, today we are talking about “Bread and Bath.”

Each and every time we come to the table, we are strengthened for this work. When we come to the table we confess our shortcomings and failures. We are honest that we have failed to be an obedient church. We acknowledge the ways we haven’t heard the cries of the needy. We name that we have not loved our God-given neighbors with our whole hearts. And then, in the breaking of the bread and lifting up of the cup, in our eating the body and blood we meet our savior. Jesus Christ shows up and meets us, and strengthens us that we are renewed for the journey each week. We are renewed for this work we are called to. We are renewed to work for the least and the last and the lost.

In our liturgy, there is a prayer that we pray after receiving. It goes like this, “Eternal God, we give you thanks for this Holy Mystery in which you have given yourself for us. Grant that we may go into the world, in the strength of your Spirit, to give ourselves for others. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

You see, this is it. This is the bread and bath. Because we were baptized into the family of God we have new priorities, new allegiances. Each time we renew this, and each time we gather at the table with our family, we are fed so that we might be strengthened and renewed for the journey. It’s why John Wesley believed that each and every time we gather together, we should have communion. As a pastor, I’ve heard it all. “It just isn’t as special if we have communion every week.” “The liturgy just becomes so boring if we do it again and again.” But church, what if we shifted our mindset? What if we saw communion as a meal where we are fed by our savior and nourished and strengthen for the journey? Because that’s what it is! What if we saw renewing our baptism as an opportunity to refortify ourselves for the journey. To acknowledge the promises, to take them on again.

Because when we take bread and bath, we have strength for what lies beyond.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.