Mark 3:7-12 "Is There a Doctor in the House?"

         “People who are well do not need a doctor, but only those who are sick.  I have not come to call respectable people, but outcasts.” “Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? I’m here inviting the sin-sick, not the spiritually-fit.”

         That is what Jesus told a couple of nosy and outspoken Pharisees who questioned the authenticity of a self-proclaimed rabbi who would intentionally dine with the likes of tax collectors and their assorted low life friends.  That is part of the story that we heard last week here in church. 

         However, what we did not hear was that Jesus apparently cared nary a whit if his actions flew in the face of strictly observed Jewish purity rules dating back to Moses.  You see, a couple of days later he healed a man with a paralyzed hand, on the Sabbath no less.  You can imagine the uproar that moment of selfless love caused!

         And so from then on, Jesus was known as the compassionate rabbi who was willing to stand up to the theological rigor mortis of first century Judaism.  Not only that, he had the reputation of being a healer for the common folks – for the ones who had no health insurance or primary care physician, the ones who knew that they were broken in body or in spirit (and probably both), that they were flawed and outcast in one way or another, that they needed to turn their lives around and become whole if they were to enter the Kingdom of God that lay at the very foundation of Jesus’ ministry, if they were to be part of God’s dream for the world, an expression of God’s passion.

         Wow!  When did all that occur?  I mean, Christmas is but a few weeks past.  Some of us still have our wreaths on the doors, and yet, so much has happened – particularly when told from the perspective of the Gospel of Mark.

         As Lutheran scholar James Boyce observed, “We seem only barely to have begun, yet in these first few chapters Jesus has whirled through Galilee -- baptized at the Jordan, the Spirit alights on him and God’s benediction of choice is pronounced; he walks by the sea and summons fisher folk to follow, and they fairly leap from their boats in obedient response; he teaches with an astounding authority, but a kind of secrecy enshrouds him which only the demonic seems to recognize; a secret power breathes from him that will not be contained, as witnessed by the numerous events of healing that mark his route. This is Jesus…”

         No wonder, according to Mark’s Gospel narrative, word spread quickly.  No publicity was needed.  The grapevine was very effective.  The goat herder told the shepherd.  The shepherd told his wife.  His wife told her friends when they gathered at the village well in the morning to draw water for the day.  Her friends told their friends and their friends told the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. 

         And the reputation of Jesus soon reached far beyond the Sea of Galilee along which shoreline he often strolled in the early morning hours and near which he had begun to tell stories about God’s dream for the world and had laid his hands upon the physically sick - and sick at heart.  And they all felt better for his words, and many were healed by his touch. 

         The Gospel writer of Mark tells us that people flocked to the little backwater villages that nestled at the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  As Baptist pastor Geoff Thomas observed, “Jesus had begun his preaching a few months earlier by telling people that the rule and power of God – (the) Kingdom – was near, and then (he) manifested the actual presence of the Kingdom in this eruption of healing miracles. These signs and wonders couldn’t be ignored. No one could close their eyes to all that was happening. It was absolutely gripping news, even to people who lived far from Galilee. This was the theme on everyone’s lips, “Did you hear what Jesus of Nazareth did yesterday?” 

         And so women and men came in droves from as far away as Jerusalem, walking over a hundred miles just to meet Jesus. They straggled in from Tyre and Sidon on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the north and west.  They journeyed even further from the southern land once populated by the Edomites near the Dead Sea, and they traveled from Judea. 

         So many were the halt and the lame, the deaf and the dumb, so many were the walking sticks and crutches, the hollow eyes of the blind and the trusted hands of the caregivers, so many were the wheelchairs and the pallets, so universal the cries and the moans – like the buzzing of a million bees – so overwhelming was the loneliness and depression, the emptiness and broken hearts, so piercing the cries of the evil spirits that haunted the demented and spooked the psychotic – so big was the crowd that Jesus instructed his disciples to prepare a boat and be ready to sail away from the shoreline and into the Sea of Galilee should the crowd clamor so much to reach him – be within earshot, close enough to touch him -  that he become overwhelmed and crushed. 

         What is going on here?  Why is the Gospel writer including this little vignette in his narrative?  I think it is a transition tale, a way to let us know beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jesus had achieved rock star status.  Even his adversaries – the demons – knew who he is. 

         The Gospel writer is telling us six ways from Sunday that the world is about to turn – and not just Jesus’ local world. By going to great lengths to tell us exactly where people journeyed from , Mark proclaims that Jesus is on a global mission to make God’s dream a reality, to usher in God’s kingdom, to oppose the forces of evil the world over.  The Gospel writer wants us to understand that Jesus and his mission are big.  This is no small potatoes!

         We do not know whether or not Jesus had to step into that boat.  We do not know if he was able to stand his ground further up on the beach or if he ended up preaching, teaching, and healing in ankle deep water. 

         However, one thing we do know is that Jesus’ ministry began at the shoreline.  It began on the edge.  In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus does not march into the temple and announce who he is and what his intentions are.  He does not journey to Jerusalem and begin his work in the very epicenter of Jewish religious belief and scholarship.  He begins on the margins. 

         Jesus begins small – not with scholars and religious leaders to guide him but rather with a few fishermen and a tax collector – ones who were small in life experience and maybe even smaller in brains.   However, though they hailed from small towns, they were big on commitment and big on following this man wherever the Spirit might lead.  And look what was happening now!  Huge crowds were clamoring to be near Jesus, so many that a safety boat had to be ready to carry him away.

         We too – here in our church - may come with smallness – in numbers, in life experience.  The question is whether we also come with bigness – big on commitment, big on Jesus – as the disciples were. 

        You see, as ethics professor Ted Smith remarked, Jesus does not ask his followers to “add one more task to their busy lives. He calls them into new ways of being." Discipleship then is not a list of things to do, but "a new identity." 

         Imagine: This church business is about a whole new life!  This Jesus thing is no small potatoes!  How that calling will play out for us as a congregation – whether our bigness will win over our smallness – is an important question for us – one we need to take up a bit at our Annual Meeting and into 2018.

         Something else that the Gospel writer of Mark emphasizes in his narrative is the healing power of Jesus in an ancient world of hurt. In my mind’s eye, I picture Jesus stepping into the boat – if only to keep his feet dry – and I imagine this healer balancing in the gently rocking boat, his arms outstretched in an ancient sign of blessing and all the men and women around him standing and kneeling and sitting and lying on the beach, their moans and cries hovering in the air, all those people who sought to be whole and to leave their assorted ailments behind. 

      And I think of all the world’s people today who, like those first century men and women who walked hundreds of miles to find Jesus, all the people today would give just about anything to be healed.  I think of all the people on our prayer list and all the people you ask to be remembered in prayers and all the people whose names you murmur or whisper silently. 

         I think of the ones whose lives and the lives of their families have been irrevocably changed by illness or injury or death – those who are undergoing difficult chemotherapy treatments, who have recently been diagnosed with cancer, those with heart problems, those facing months of rehabilitation, and those who have become reconciled that the way they now are physically is most likely the way they will always be. 

         I think of those with dementia and those whose bodies are just worn out.  And then I think of those whose pain is not visible – those whose marriages are falling apart, those who battle addiction, those who cannot make sense of the world, those who are just plain tired.  Like the people who flocked to Jesus over two thousand years ago, we live in a world of hurt.

         And in my imagined scene I picture those people whose names we know on the shoreline clamoring for Jesus, for the one who, with power unlike any we have ever known, can bring healing, if not always physical healing then at the very least wholeness to any broken life.  And I imagine healing power surrounding them, emanating from the man in the boat.

         And then I re-imagine Jesus in that boat with all those people on the shoreline who travelled such distances to be near him.  And I picture Jesus not only as a man but also as a symbol – a symbol of love, grace, forgiveness, and acceptance.  In my mind’s eye, I envision that same healing power coming forth and surrounding the crowd, ferreting out all the petty malice and resentments they carry, all the intolerance, all the hatred and fear and racism, all the disrespect – and in the holes in their hearts left behind – I imagine a warm gush of compassion flowing in.

         I guess for me the gist of this passage for us today in our church is that our ministry – whether big or small - must always be a ministry of healing.  We too can and must be healers.  Why?  Because there is so much healing on so many different levels that needs to be done. 

         We could do worse than be the church whose mission is healing.  We could do worse than be the church whose mission is that all its programs and ministries lead to wholeness – for those to whom we minister, but also wholeness for ourselves.

         It would not be an easy mission because it would involve more than sitting in the pews on Sunday morning. It would involve a widespread commitment to actually engaging with each other, with our community, and with the world.  It would involve embracing a vision that is anything but small, but a vision that I believe would be authentic and could be deeply meaningful. 

         And my prayer is that we would respond to the “prescription” that  Richard Cardinal Cushing suggested when he talked about the modern church: “If all the sleeping folks will wake up, and all the lukewarm folks will fire up, and all the disgruntled folks will sweeten up, and all the discouraged folks will cheer up, and all the depressed folks will look up, and all the estranged folks will make up, and all the gossiping folks will shut up, and all the dry bones will shake up, and all the true soldiers will stand up, and all the church members will pray up, and if the Savior of all will be lifted up . . .then we can have the greatest renewal (and I would add the greatest healing) this world has ever known.”

Mark 1:14-20 and 2:13-17 "Fan Base"

         About ten years ago, Kevin Kelly, the founding editor of Wired Magazine, wrote an essay arguing that a successful enterprise needs 1000 true fans.  He included a colorful and detailed chart and did the numbers.  But yikes!  A thousand true fans!  Anyway you cut it, a number like that to guarantee success is huge!

         If Kelly’s argument holds water, it goes without saying that the number is especially daunting (if not downright depressing) when it comes to the viability of the American church nowadays.

         However, I like to think that, since the church has survived for over 2000 years, most recently in these post-modern secular times and since half the churches in America these days have less than 75 regular Sunday morning attendees, when it comes to the church, Kelly’s figuring simply does not add up.  In short, when it comes to the church, the magic number of true fans would seem to be much less than 1000. After all, Jesus settled on twelve, and he found that most doable.  Actually he started with fewer than a dozen.

         First, there were the four fishermen he came upon during his solitary early morning stroll along the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee.  As he picked his way amongst the seaweed and driftwood, he came upon Peter and Andrew, who were hauling in the last of their nighttime catch.  “Follow me,” Jesus famously said, “And I will make your fish for people.”  “Follow me, and I will show you how to capture people’s hearts.”

         Apparently those were just the words these two young men needed to hear because the Gospel writer of Mark tells us that they followed Jesus without a moment’s hesitation.  We will never know why, but maybe it was the idea of travel and excitement and challenge that hooked them. 

         Or maybe it was their so wanting to get out of the first century Galilean fishing business, an industry that was politically and economically embedded in the Roman imperial culture and taxation system.  According to Biblical scholar K.C. Hanson, fishing was controlled and sustained by either the political hierarchy or elite families (most likely an incestuous combination of both)….these fishermen (like Peter and Andrew and James and John) were (heavily) indebted to local brokers for their fishing rights, boat leases, and harbor slips.

         They were anything but independent businessmen, and so it was not a particularly easy life that Peter and Andrew chose to leave.  And, of course, the same goes for James and John, Zebedee’s sons.  Not only did they leave the fishing industry cold, they left their father and his leased boat high and dry - along with a stack of unmended nets.

         In short, as Reformed preacher Scott Hoezee notes:  “Smelling of fish and looking every bit like the working-class folks that they were, Simon, Andrew, James, and John hitch their wagons to Jesus’ still nondescript program and begin to follow him. Jesus does not tell them where they are going. Beyond some cryptic promise to become “people fishers,” he also does not tell these four the specifics of what they might expect to happen next. He certainly does not promise them riches or rewards or anything tangible whatsoever. Yet they follow - but their doing so hardly is the stuff of great promise or portent.”

         Face it!  When it came to picking disciples, Jesus went out of his way to choose ordinary people to be his fan base.  I mean, he asked illiterate, low class fishermen to do the unexpected things that characterized his mission and ministry.  During the next three years or so, their traditional beliefs and religious inclinations would be challenged.  Though they would on occasion sit at table with wealthy businessmen, more often they would be serving a meal to the poor on a hillside.  They would get kicked out of places and get way too close to lepers for comfort. Their lives would become increasingly complicated and downright dangerous.  And all those people they had been taught to look down on?  They would learn that it was precisely those types living on the margins that were the ones God inevitably favored. 

         Jesus chose ordinary people to be his first disciples.  Surely that is one idea that the Gospel writer wants to convey to us.  And, if we have any doubts about it, Mark also includes another story of Jesus calling someone, and that is the story of Levi the tax collector. 

         Once again, we find Jesus strolling by the shore of Lake Galilee.  He was in the midst of a crowd this time, and so he found himself both walking and teaching - mostly about God and repentance and the dawn of a new age, a new reign, God’s kingdom come to earth. 

        He ended up in town and saw the local tax collector, Levi, sitting in his office, chewing the eraser end of his pencil and furiously calculating the dreaded upcoming tax bills on his abacus.  Jesus stopped, the crowd backing up behind him, bumping into each other.  Jesus stuck his head in the doorway, cleared his throat a couple of times to get Levi’s attention, and then offered his quick one sentence invitation:  “Follow me.”  And just like the fishermen, Levi got up and followed – not even bothering to lock the office on his way out. 

         The men and women listening to Jesus were aghast that he should initiate any sort of a conversation with a tax collector. You see, the crowd might have been largely a group of marginalized folk, but tax collectors were the lowest of the low. 

         As one blogger I read this week wrote, “The actual collection of taxes was contracted out to private tax collectors. A tax collector paid the tax for his entire territory upfront, and collected the individual taxes from the populace later. To make this profitable, he had to charge the populace more than the actual tax rate and the tax collector pocketed the mark-up. The Roman authorities thereby delegated the politically sensitive work of tax collection to members of the local community, but it led to a high rate of effective tax,

and it opened the doors to all sorts of corruption.”  No wonder most of the Jewish populace despised people like Levi.  He was robbing them all blind!

         Levi, however, for his part, was so excited at meeting Jesus’ that he had him over for dinner that very night with a bunch of his tax collector and assorted low life friends.  Some Pharisees (who thought pretty highly of themselves and their grasp of Jewish religious mores) wondered out loud how Jesus, if he really was a rabbi, could justify hobnobbing with such outcasts.  Jesus answered them plainly. 

         He had come for the sick and the needy – and there was no time to lose.  He had come to invite the lowly and the sinners (like tax collectors) into God’s Kingdom that was, he believed, on the brink of becoming real.  The so-called respectable types would have to fend for themselves. 

         You see, the gist of Jesus’ message (at least in the Gospel of Mark) is this:  The Kingdom of God is at hand.  The world is about to turn – and so Jesus needed disciples, followers, to lead the way with him. 

        There is a sense of immediacy unique to this Gospel – and that is another idea that the Gospel writer wants to convey to us.  In fact, Mark uses the word “immediately” or “straightaway” over 40 times in his 16 chapters.  The Kingdom of God is at hand.  The time is now – and – even over two millennia later - the message has not changed.  It is the same for us – as individuals and as the church.  The Kingdom – God’s dream – the way life should be - is so close.  It is so within our grasp.

         You know, often we live our lives in response to the time-honored (if not Biblical) adage:  Look before you leap.  As Methodist pastor Alyce MacKenzie notes, we “take days, even weeks, to consider each potential choice, to prayerfully enter into it, to weigh all the implications and all the ramifications.”  We crave preparedness – all the fish off the boat, every last net mended, each tax calculation completed and the abacus put away – all the risks accounted for and controlled.  And perhaps there is a time and a place for risk-free living.

         However, our theological lens this morning – and for these next few weeks of our worship series – is the Gospel of Mark.  And the writer of this Jesus narrative argues for the urgency of Jesus’ message – the need to immediately minister to the sick and the homeless, the need to immediately become peace-makers and reconcilers, the need to immediately turn our sights to who we are as individual Christians and to what our vision is for the Christian church in the 21^st century.  There is no time to lose, and so the writer of this Jesus narrative looks to another time-honored (if not Biblical) proverb:  He (or she) who hesitates is lost.

         Mark wants us to get on with kingdom building.  We may not feel prepared.  We may not be prepared.  Heaven only knows – Peter and Andrew, James and John were not prepared because Jesus was not looking for a few good men to ensure that there was a fish on every plate in the evening.  Levi was not prepared either because Jesus was not looking for someone whose fingers flew over the abacus with no errors. 

         Jesus was looking for folks who, at the very least, were captivated by the wild and crazy idea that here was a man who looked, as Scott Hoezee wrote, looked “like someone who offered…a chance to bring people into that kingdom whose nearness Jesus had been talking about ever since arriving in Galilee.  And maybe the thought of reeling folks in to that better place was just intriguing enough (for) these men to start modeling their lives on the life of the man whom they did not previously know but who seemed to believe (and this is important) seemed to believe in a future greater than could be imagined in that present moment.”

         And so it is with us – as individuals and as this church.  Jesus is not asking to see a resume.  He is not doing interviews and calling references.  He is simply offering that terse invitation – “Follow me” – along with the prospect of a life purpose more significant than any we have ever known. All the preparation we need is just being a little bit intrigued by his message and by the accompanying notion that changing our lives and maybe even our little part of the world deserves a high priority in our busy lives. 

         However, for us as a congregation, I sense that we are not all that sure what our vision is for our church and how we actually go about changing lives in our community and in the world.  My sense is that the first part of our mantra of “small church, big heart” may just be becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Not that there is anything wrong with being small in numbers, but being small in vision, small in energy and commitment, is problematic. 

         We have a couple of very important volunteer positions opening up this year.  We need a treasurer to help us strategize how to manage our money, so we can focus on what the church is all about – loving one’s neighbor.  We need a Missions Coordinator who can ensure that our outreach monies are being spent not only to assist people but also to encourage their independence rather than their dependence and sense of entitlement. 

         There is Jesus work to be accomplished, and Christian ministry to be done and, according to Mark, there is no time to lose. And, in the end, it really all comes back to the fan base.  As communications consultant Mark Behan recently noted in a conversation about churches, “Your greatest asset is the people who are already sitting in your pews.” He would point out that all of you are the true fans of this church. If you do not engage, no one will.  However, Behan would note, if we have a vision and are willing to think outside the box and take risks to follow our calling, then we can do just about anything.

         So – in conclusion, close your eyes for a moment and imagine…You are at the shoreline of your life and the life of this church.  Together we stand in the midst of all possibility. Imagine your feet planted firmly in the sand as you gaze out to the horizon, waiting to receive what comes in with the tide. Imagine climbing into your boat, sometimes rocking in the gentle give and take of church life and sometimes straining against the storms.  Here at the shoreline, we are alive, and anything is possible.  Here at the shoreline, we hear the voice of Jesus calling once again, “Follow me…”

         Are you ready?  Probably not.  But, hey, this is the Gospel of Mark, and the message is this:  The Kingdom is so within our grasp.  The spirit-filled direction of this church lies at our fingertips.  The world is about to turn.

         So - are you ready?  Probably not.  But neither were Peter, Andrew, James, John, and Levi, and Jesus called them, so let’s go anyway.

    

        

         

Mark 1:1-11 "Torn Apart"

         A priest was preparing to baptize a young child. He approached the father of the child and said solemnly, "Baptism is a serious step. “  And then the priest asked, “Are you prepared for it?"

         "I think so," the young father replied. "My wife has made appetizers, and we have a caterer coming to provide plenty of cookies and cakes for all of our guests."

         "I don't mean that," the priest responded. "What I mean is this:  Are you prepared spiritually?"

         "Oh, sure," the father answered, not missing a beat. "I've got a keg of beer and a case of whiskey all set."

         It is a funny story perhaps, but its point is clear.  Baptism is meant to be so much more than the trappings – be they appetizers and beer or a marble font and elaborate ritual.  At least, baptism was certainly much more than the trappings for the Gospel writer of Mark, whose account of Jesus’ baptism we just heard.  For this Gospel writer, baptism was nothing less than where the story of Jesus Christ begins. 

        You see, this earliest written Gospel has no birth narrative with shepherds and angel choruses.  That is found in Luke.  There are no magi, nor a star, nor King Herod.  We will read that version only in Matthew.  No – for the Gospel writer of Mark, we rocket right through the first 30 years or so of Jesus’ life and begin when he is an adult – at the moment of his baptism, when he, like so many other Jews that day, filed down to the Jordan River to be baptized by the new prophet in town, John the Baptizer. 

         Baptism was not a usual occurrence for first century Jews.  However, if you were going to be baptized, the Jordan was a wonderful place to do it – so full of tradition and history it was.  Flowing along a huge geologic fault in the earth’s surface that separated ancient Judah from the mountains of Moab, the river wound its way through the bottom of a valley near Bethlehem, bringing water and minerals into the Dead Sea, 124 miles away. 

         And oh, what a colorful history the Jordan River had!  It had been where Elijah had given his cloak or mantle to his young sidekick Elisha and then had been taken into heaven on a chariot.  The Jordan was where Elisha instructed the commander of the Syrian to bathe seven times to rid himself of leprosy.  And now it was the site of John’s baptizing and his calling people to turn away from sin and back to God, his imploring people to “prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God”, as the prophet Isaiah famously said.

         When Jesus’ turn came, John dunked him like he had dunked all the others.  Jesus held his breath below the sacred muddy waters until his lungs felt like they would burst.  Then he came to the surface, coughing and sputtering, shaking his head, droplets of water flying everywhere. 

         It was then that he saw above him the very heavens – not quietly opening with a cooing dove gently being deposited on his shoulder (as one might conclude from a variety of artistic renderings).  Rather, the heavens were unceremoniously torn apart such that they – and he - would never be quite the same again.  It was at that moment that Jesus heard a voice that, according to this Gospel narrative, no one else heard, a voice that said, “You are my own dear son, and I am so pleased with you.” 

         As blogger Roger Owens wrote, “At this new beginning, (Jesus) is being reminded of his identity— reminded of who he is, who he has always been, who he will always be.

He did not achieve this, so he can’t lose it. He did not earn it, so it can’t be taken away. This is simply who he is: God’s beloved son.”  At this moment of baptism, God identifies with Jesus and seals their relationship with a powerful statement of approval.

         And so it was true.  Jesus would never be the same again – nor will we, we who choose to follow in his footsteps and be baptized into the Church founded in his name.  

         The Scarlet Letter Bible tells the story this way:

         “So John showed up in the middle of nowhere, dunking people in a river, telling people to straighten up because it’s time to break free. People came from everywhere, even from Washington DC, to renounce their misdeeds and get cleaned up in the river.

         John dressed in ratty coveralls and leather suspenders. He kept to a strict vegan diet. And his message: ‘Get ready for someone so cool I’m unworthy to even tie his shoes! I just got you wet. He’ll set your life on fire!’

       That was when Jesus came. He arrived from Nazareth and John dunked him in the Jordan River. As he emerged from the water he saw the universe as it really is, and he felt it resonate to his core: that he was God’s precious child, and God was joy.”

       The commentator of the Scarlet Bible goes on to note:  “Baptism might just get you wet. Or it might just change your life. In itself, there’s nothing magical about a dip in the water. Even if it’s a religiously motivated one, with a formal liturgy, specially blessed water, godparents, and the whole works.

         What makes it special is what you do with it after you get out of the water….Your baptism is when you realized who you are at your very core and you accepted that realization with joy. So much joy, that, as difficult as it may have been (and still be), it’s impossible not to live the rest of your life out of that moment.”

         Most of us, I suspect, however, do not remember much about our children’s baptisms, let alone our own.  If yours was like mine, you probably can figure that your parents held you in their arms as they mumbled affirmations to questions that neither they nor we can likely remember. Then the minister dotted your head with water as he or she spoke your name.  What we probably most recall are the stories told about us – whether we cried or smiled and whether we did anything embarrassing in front of the home church congregation. 

         However, just as baptism was the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Mark’s Gospel, so it is the beginning for our ministry as well – and therein is the crux of its importance.  Baptism is the beginning of our life in the community of faith we call the church.  It is when we enter the stream of God’s story.   It is when God’s words rumble through all eternity to surround and embrace us:  “You are God’s beloved son or daughter.  God is pleased with you.”  Regardless of our age, baptism is when we become part of God’s eternal narrative, and the heavens above us are torn apart, and, in so doing, we are never the same again. 

         As our blogger wrote, “Joined to Christ through baptism we make a discovery: these words to Jesus, just like the waters of baptism, these words—they spill over him and onto us as well. You are my beloved child. This endorsement spoken to Jesus—it belongs to us as well. We don’t earn it, or achieve it, or campaign for it. It’s simply given.

The deepest truth of who we are—beloved children of God.”  Through baptism, we become part of God’s people, part of God’s family.

         All this is pretty heady stuff that Mark’s version of the story leads us to reflect on, and it makes me think that perhaps we understand our baptism less than we think.  Baptism is really not some warm and fuzzy event for babies capped off with a catered lunch and a keg of beer.  It is more like an earth-shattering moment that reorients our very identity and, if taken seriously, changes our lives forever. 

         Perhaps it should be as UCC pastor Maxwell Grant speculates, “What if....what if instead of a little chaste sprinkling of water on the forehead or even a full immersion on the banks of a local river or something in between...what if the only way to (be baptized, to become part of God’s family) was by skydiving? The very idea makes my stomach do backflips (he writes). But think about it. Free fall, then the rip cord, and then a gentle floating down to the ground.”  Bet we would all remember our baptism then!

         And so each year, on first Sunday after Epiphany (which commemorates the magi finally reaching the Christ Child), we remember not only Jesus’ baptism, but ours as well. 

As your pastor, I try to make that remembrance more along the lines of sky diving than a ritualistic sprinkling of water.

         And so we will listen once again to those promises made long ago on our behalf – and we will reaffirm our intent to, come what may, remain in the stream of God’s story and realize in a new way that our joy is only really to be found in embracing the fact that we are God’s beloved daughters and sons, and so we need to live our lives as if that really matters. 

         Mind you, we do not reaffirm our baptism as a sort of magical way to make our life easier in the year to come.  That is not what baptism did for Jesus, and that is not what reaffirming our baptism will do for us either. 

         Baptism did not keep Jesus out of trouble, and it certainly did not make things turn out as he had planned.  I think part of the significance of his baptism was the realization that when he found himself in trouble, he found also that he was not alone.  He still had God’s blessing and the company of the Spirit.  And so it will be for us as we enter this new year that is so filled with fearful uncertainty. 

        As Episcopal priest Michael Marsh beautifully noted, “To return to the waters of our baptism returns us to the truth God knows about us even when we do not know or believe that truth, even when we have forgotten or denied that truth, even when we cannot see it in the world around us, and even when we have acted contrary to that truth. Those baptismal waters drown the other voices that speak untruth about us and each other. They embolden and strengthen us. They renew hope and refresh the weary. They cleanse our eyes that we might see each other and ourselves in a new light.”

         (As I noted,) none of this necessarily makes life easy. It doesn’t magically fix our life’s or world’s problems. Instead, it reveals life to be holy, sacred, and worth the effort. It lets us start from a new place and with a different truth. (After all,) where we begin in some way makes all the difference in where we will go.”

         When we renew our baptismal vows, we renew our commitment to the Gospel message to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  We renew our call to ministry, to discipleship, to following in the footsteps of this God man, Jesus. We affirm that we will continue to tear open that which needs to be torn open in our world, just as the heavens were torn open millennia ago at the time of Jesus’ baptism on the shoreline of the Jordan River.

         By renewing our baptismal vows, we commit to tearing apart that which separates the rich from the poor, tearing through hardness of heart to real compassion, tearing through rigid and meaningless rituals to find new ways for the church to be authentic in a secular world, tearing apart the chains that hold us prisoner, tearing apart all the rhetoric that keeps so many in the world from believing that they too are God’s beloved children.

         So let us come once again to the baptismal waters to claim our identity as God’s beloved children.  Let us come to renew our call to ministry.  Let us come to understand, once again, that God has revealed herself in humanity through Jesus. 

         As Michael Marsh wrote, “Whatever your life has been or might now be, the baptismal waters await you. Cannonball into the mercy of God. Immerse yourself in the water of God’s love. Splash in the waves of God’s forgiveness.

Backstroke through the pool of God’s grace. Dive deep into the gift of having been created in the image and likeness of God. Drift in the stillness of God’s peace.”  Imagine that you are skydiving - and prepare yourself for ministry in Christ’s name.