Ann Barker, Baptism of Jesus, 1/13/08

From time to time, I attend workshops for female clergy designed to help us develop our leadership skills. One recent topic was effective communication. The workshop leader suggested some questions we might ask ourselves before talking with or to someone. One was “What do I need this person to know about me right now?”. Another was “What do I want to invite this person into at this moment?” God had clearly been to a similar leadership session before speaking to Jesus after his baptism. A very good idea on God’s part, because Jesus’ baptism was a big deal. It was the beginning of his public ministry, when God wanted him to bring the good news of God’s love to the people. So it was really important that Jesus get a clear message from God about who God wanted to be for him and what God expected. (p)

In Matthew, the message is only for Jesus. It is quite short, but it conveys everything it needs to. God claims Jesus as beloved Son, with whom he is pleased. God wants Jesus to know he is loved because he IS God’s, because he belongs to God, and not because of anything he has done or will do. It is a message of unconditional love and unqualified support. It is a promise of guidance and direction at all times from a parent to a child.

It is an assurance that God will give Jesus all he needs to be God’s incarnation into the world. No matter what happens, God will be there for Jesus.

God invites Jesus to trust that God will do what God promises. God invites Jesus to consent to be fully human, to be dependent and obedient. God also gives Jesus a gift. God’s Spirit descends like a dove and lights on Jesus – not because he was fully divine, but because he was fully human, and needed an expression of that love that he could hear and see and know in his human form. (P)

There are echoes of God’s message to Jesus in the passage from Isaiah, which is from one of the servant songs. Christians often interpret these “servant songs” as prophecies about Jesus. Once again, God has chosen this leader for no other given reason than the delight of God’s soul. The person has done nothing, said nothing, promised nothing, yet God upholds him. But this passage goes a bit further. God wants to communicate effectively to the people as well about this servant. He is the one who will bring justice to  the nations. He will not do it through arrogance or using power to oppress, but quietly. He will be compassionate and merciful. He will love the people even in their weakness, not breaking a bruised reed or quenching a dim wick, but being gentle with them, teaching them, supporting them, encouraging them until their lights shine with new brightness and their wounds are healed. (P)

The gospel ends with God’s message to Jesus, but not so Isaiah. God is not planning to stop with this leader. Now God is going to use good leadership skills to converse with the people – with us. God wants to let us know in no uncertain terms that God has called US to have righteous relationships with God and one another. God has led US by the hand and kept us. God has protected and supported and encouraged us as he did Jesus. When we were baptized, we received the same message Jesus did – that each one of us is a beloved child of our heavenly Father. God is well-pleased with us and God’s soul delights in us. We are good enough – we are God’s enough – because God says so, not because of anything we have done or promised to do. We belong to God because of God’s love for us, and thatlove will never change. (P)

Once God tells us what God wants us to know about God, God invites us into partnership, just as God did Jesus. In Isaiah and Acts, we are invited to be representatives of God’s covenant. We are called to be a light to the nations, to work to free all who are in the darkness of despair and unknowing. We are called to imitate our Lord, to proclaim the good news that through Jesus, God is even now bringing justice and peace to the world, no matter how hard that is to believe sometimes. We are called to compassion and mercy and forgiveness in all situations, as our Lord was called, even at the moment of his death. We are called to preach the good news that Jesus preached, to proclaim with joy the new things God declares that are even now springing forth. God also has a message about what we are not called to do. We are not called to judge the “good-enoughness” of others or of ourselves. That job belongs to Jesus. (P)

God’s invitation is not an easy one to accept. God is not inviting us to a party on a tropical island where we can escape life. God is not inviting us to play “Deal or

No Deal” with a guaranteed win of a million dollars so we can control our lives. God is not inviting us to paradise, where life is perfect, nobody hurts and nobody dies. God is inviting us to work hard for what God wants for the world. Jesus died doing that. We may not die, but we almost surely will hurt. We may become a bruised reed or a dim wick. God is inviting us, as God invited Jesus, to accept our humanity fully, to depend on God for our strength, support and encouragement, to give up control of our lives to God and be instruments God can use to bring light and love to all God’s people. We are invited to live life on life’s terms and to hope in God regardless of the outcome. (p)

That is a very tall order for anyone. It was a very tall order for Jesus. His ministry had its successes, but it also had its failures. He was praised, but he was also reviled. He had good times with his friends, but he was also frustrated and angry. In short, he lived life just like we do. And in God’s economy, so unlike ours, that is the good news. That is the new thing. That is God’s message of hope. Jesus lived a life just like ours. He felt our feelings, he had ups and downs, he suffered and he died. He was tempted to sin, to take control rather than to always surrender it to God. But he never did. He was always obedient to God’s will, no matter how strange it may have seemed to him. He always sought God’s guidance and rejoiced in God’s presence and support. He had the same choices we do, but he always chose the righteous path while we do not. And because he was willing to die for us – for the bruised reeds and the dim wicks, God raised him from the dead, offering us reconciliation, resurrection and eternal life with God. (P)

Jesus’ ministry was possible because of God’s unconditional love for him, expressed so eloquently in that short message at his baptism. God gives us the very same message of love and support and promise, not just at our baptism but any time we need it, through the power of the Holy Spirit. God promises to hold our hands and keep us when we accept

God’s invitation, to be our source of strength and power, to love us no matter what because we delight God’s soul. We are good enough for God just by being who we are.

God trusts us to do God’s work in the world by being our very own distinctive human self. Our job is to let our defenses down and be who we were created to be. Only then can we receive the dazzling, comforting, encouraging, joyful love that God wants so badly to give us. With God’s grace, may we accept this marvelous gift and allow its abundance to fill us, and through us, the whole world. AMEN

Jesus needed to hear that he was beloved of God before he could move forward in the strength of that love to share God’s message