First Congregational Church UCC in Auburn, January 14, 2024
Mark 1: 4-11 — John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And the whole Judean region and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him and were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins. 6Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the strap of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove upon him. And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
One day my mother served a new, and delicious, soup. In those days, I loved soup – I still do – and this soup was really good. It had a lovely, bright flavor, and lots of veggies and other things. So I asked her what else was in the soup.
She asked me if I liked it, and I said yes. Then, in her wisdom she said, you don’t really want to know what else is in it; if I tell you, you won’t want any more. I trusted my mother, and it was years before I discovered the un-namable ingredient – tripe, which, it seems, is the nice name, the cooking name, for cow stomach. In other settings, tripe is what gets stuffed with oatmeal, sheep innards and onions, and turns into haggis. Yum, am I not right?
Well, maybe not so much. But, trust me, pepper pot soup was great. If it had been spicy tripe soup, I probably would never have tried it.
The name made a difference.
Think about it. The book of Genesis tells us that God said, let there be light, and there was light. Once light had been named, it was real; we could see it. It was the name that made it visible to us.
Names can make us visible; names can make us invisible.
Now names can be good things… and sometimes, not so much. During World War I, hundreds of thousands of German immigrants here in the US found that the name German was dangerous. They stopped speaking German, stopped eating German food, reading German books, sometimes even changed their names to sound more “English”. My mother’s German family, even fifty years later, downplayed any connection to Germany. They didn’t speak or read German and when they ate German foods, they said they were Amish foods – which they were, because Amish are German. But they’re also cute, and so it was more acceptable to be Amish, and somehow Amish didn’t read as German — kinda, sorta. Yes, I know that’s not factual, not logical, but it was acceptable to eat Amish, but not to eat German, food.
We all know it’s less acceptable to be Black. One of the most painful parts of our lives today is letting those of us who have the best of intentions understand that, no matter what white people thing, no matter how kind and welcoming we are, it is still less acceptable to be Black. Lots of novels have a character of ambiguous ethnicity and one of the plot lines is “is he or isn’t he”. Even today, if someone’s background isn’t readily apparent, they will have more opportunity, more social acceptance, if people think they are white. Being identified as Black, named Black, can be difficult, sometimes dangerous.
When I baptize a child, just before the baptism, I ask the parents, by what name shall your child be called? Naming, officially naming, gives that child a new and clearer identity.
But there’s more — because, and this is the point of my sermon – the act of being baptized gives us another new name – Christian.
The name Christian, the name all of us share, clarifies and defines our lives. It names us as people who have agreed to live lives of decency and generosity, love and welcome.
We follow a God who loves us as we are, where we are, and who gives us a way of life that brings us ever closer.
Nadia Bolz-Weber, the Lutheran pastor, writes: You know the one thing I love most about the Baptism of our Lord text is not just that God the Father says “This is my son, the beloved with whom I am well pleased”, but that God says this – before Jesus had really done anything. Think about that. God did not say “this is my son in whom I am well pleased because he has proved to me that he deserves it, he has quiet time with me each morning and always reads his Torah and because boy can he heal a leper.” Nope. As far as we know Jesus hadn’t even done anything yet and he was called beloved. The one in whom the Father was well pleased. That’s God for you. And I mean that literally. That is God FOR YOU.
There’s more to being a Christian than knowing that God loves us, now, before we’ve done anything. There’s nothing we can do to earn God’s love, but there’s everything we can to in response to that love. That’s why, sometimes, living up to our name can be challenging.
Now being known as “Christian” is more than enough, but it can’t hurt to add to that name, to perhaps focus in on one part of living up to the name of Christ. And that’s why, today, I’m going to give each of you a new name for this year of 2024. In just a few minutes, after the sermon, the deacons are going to share a basket of words among you. You will be invited to pull out a star, and take the word that’s written on it as a kind of name, a watchword or watch name, for this year.
I invite you to use this word to help you think about your life. The words aren’t the names of saints, and they’re not deep theological concepts. Each word is a facet, a part, of what being Christian is about. Your word might be joy, or comfort, or peace. It might be responsibility, or determination, renewal, goodness. It might turn out to be something you already do, well, or something you wouldn’t normally do at all. It might be anything, but most of all, it can be a focs for you, a way to think about, reflect on what it means to you, right here and now, to be a Christian.
For we are Christians; we are consecrated by God, and intended to be models of love. We are supposed to be welcoming, kind, generous. Sometimes, living up to our name is easy, sometimes it’s difficult. And sometimes it is dangerous. As you can imagine, from time to time, ours the sort of behavior that can get angry people, mean people, bigoted people going. It’s not always a piece of cake to live out our Christian name.
None the less, in our baptism, God claims us and names us. God gives us a way of life. God has given us our true name. That name, Christian, is the name by which we shall be known. . . now and always.
Amen.
© 2024, Virginia H. Child
To Believe is to Care. . . To Care is to Do 