No audio this week, sorry!
Grace, Mercy and Peace to you from the Holy Trinity. Amen.
The best laid plans...
My plans for this week were to wax poetic about the theological reasons for my love of pigeons, so I posted on Facebook asking people what their first thought was when I mentioned pigeons. The best advice I got from that post was "sometimes my vicar scares me". And I can't thank Amanda enough for that comment because that comment made me stop thinking about the theology of street birds because the greek word for dove is the same as pigeon, and more about what the story of the baptism of Jesus means.
I don't know what you all think about baptism, but like anything here at House, I know that there are many different beliefs surrounding the act...it's purely symbolic, it's God's presence in water, it's about membership into a community, it's the key to salvation, the list could go on for as many people as are in this room tonight. And so preaching a sermon about my view of baptism, or the Lutheran view of baptism would likely be met with some resistance.
So instead of forcing doctrine down your throats, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about plans...and how they go right...or wrong.
When I was a little kid, I had plans to be a forest ranger for the National Park Service. Then I had plans to be a chef. Then I had plans to be a mail carrier....before I finally settled on my final plans to be a theatre artist. And yet, here I am...in Denver, not New York.
When I was coming out, I had plans to tell my parents when I was good and ready...and yet someone in my hometown outed me and I had to do it over Christmas break.
When I was dating who I thought was the love of my life, I had plans to get married to him...but then he broke up with me and I was pushed down the long road of heartbreak, lonliness, and depression.
The best laid plans...
Maybe you’ve made plans too. The plan to move across the country and start over, only to realize that you can't run from isolation. The plan to move back home to rebuild and repair relationships with family and friends you have loved all your life, only to be met with animosity. The plan to keep adding things to your To-Do list so you don't have to worry about what will happen when you reach the end of it, only to find out that keeping yourself busy won't stop you from needing connection. The plan to self medicate and self soothe the wounds other people have inflicted only to realize that no amount of drugs, or alcohol, or shopping, or Pilates, or Netflix can undo the hurt and pain that they have caused. The plan to never have anything to do with church again.
These plans we make for ourselves, often cause us temporary happiness...but soon enough, reality barges in, or other people foil our plans, or the shiny newness fades, and we realize that we are in the same place we were when we started...saying the best laid plans.
And I think that might be what John the Baptist is thinking to himself during this story. The lectionary gods cut out two verses which tell us that he is in jail, and thus not able to be a part of his cousin's baptism. You see, Luke tells us that what John said about the coming messiah was heard by the Roman authorities, who didn’t like what he had to say, so he got shipped off to prison for trying to speak the truth of God’s power to the world. He's cut off from his community, isolated, alone. Unable to be a part of the joyous celebration of community, and rebirth, and renewal. Unable to witness God opening the heavens and sharing with the world the renewing life and power of the Holy Spirit.
What he said landed him in a spot he didn't want to be in. His proclamation that one greater than him was coming, his plans to share the good news with others was met with resistance. Our words, our actions...and other people's words and actions toward us can often land us in the same spot. Our promises to love one another fall flat in the face of conflict. Our promises to make ourselves better in the New Year fall flat when that piece of cake shows up at the potluck. The promises other people make to us, telling us they will love us unconditionally fall flat when we don't fit into the mold they have planned for us to fit into.
Leaving us feeling cut off.
The best laid plans...
And so, faltering as we are, we come together in a community which has been surrounded by baptism, and surrounds the table together. We come together, like that crowd on Jesus' baptism, supportive of each other. That's what being part of a community which sees the presence of God in ordinary things like water, and wine, and wheat does...we see that God's presence isn't in the idealistic plans we make....but is in the most common things possible. We see that our presence in each other's lives is what it means to live out the promises that are made in the rite of baptism. In that act, not only does the person getting baptized, or the parents of the person getting baptized say that they will support that person in faith, but the whole community is charged with that same question. It's not just about one person. It's about the entire community coming together to say to the person being baptized that we believe in, and will support them in their life of faith.
And, man, does this community do that. I've been witness to some of people's most intimate and fragile moments on facebook where people in this community come together and pray for others. People in this community, more than any I've seen, care for each other in moments of pain, moments of rejection, moments of anguish. This is a community, whether baptized or not, which lives out it's call and promise to hold people and remind them that they are loved.
Which is awesome. But the best laid plans... Nadia at the Newcomers brunch, an event in which we welcome people new to this church, says to people that she will let you down, this church will let you down, but please don't let that stop you from coming back and reconciling with people. And so, in spite of our community living into the vows we make when people are baptized, we aren't perfect.
So remember this. Regardless of our community, regardless of our self identification, regardless of who we've hurt, or who we've been hurt by, God offers us a promise that we know of from the story we just heard. Baptism is a celebration of that promise, but the promise existed before that, it was true the moment the Spirit breathed life into you. God calls us beloved. When all the plans we've made fail, when all the bad motives we have for doing things are exposed, when with all the best intentions we have hurt instead of helped, when our community doesn’t live up to our expectations, God calls us by name, and calls us beloved.
In baptism, people are marked with the cross of Christ, and gathered into a community of people who are all God's beloved, without exception. Because unlike us, God is not in the business of tallying up our good moments and our bad moments. God is not in the market of making plans that cannot be completed. Because God's plan is to call us beloved, and nothing we can plan can stop that from happening.
In the kingdom of God, in the waters of baptism, and in the community gathered around the table, we find ourselves surrounded by the love of God. In the midst of our broken, messy lives, God daily opens up the heavens and promises to call us Beloved. God promises not to keep track of our good parts and bad parts, and instead through the resurrection, Christ tells us that he loves us for who we are...deeply broken, and just as deeply whole, children of God and children of one another. So when God opens the heavens and speaks to the community gathered around Jesus, calling him God’s beloved, those are also God's words to me, and God's words to all of us. That God will love us and love us well despite everything that we are and everything that we are not is something to take comfort in. And we can take comfort in knowing that each of us brings something to this table of bread and wine, and each of us belongs to one another in the community of Christ surrounded by water, wheat, wine, and words of grace. And that Each of us gets to love each other and gets to be loved by each other, and most importantly, gets to be loved by God.
Amen.
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