Mark 1:4-11
“Worthiness”
January 10, 2021
Depending on the circumstances, the people present, or the reason to explain, when asked about my identity, I often give different answers.
To my extended family, I am the oldest child of seven, mother of one, only Vermonter and the only one who officially converted from the religion of our parents.
To my doctor, I am a middle-aged fairly short woman with A positive blood that takes forever to draw and controlled acid reflux who has undergone 5 surgeries in her adult life starting with a C-section with that one child and terrible eyesight that has been corrected with glasses since the age of 5.
To the IRS, I am married, filing jointly, and one who just had her $600 COVID relief money direct deposited into her checking account.
To the United States Postal Service, I am a person with a P.O. Box who subscribes to The Week and The New Yorker and Vanity Fair and The Christian Century and receives dozens of solicitations for money from non-profits around the globe that get shoved into said post office box every month.
Most days I barely give a thought to any of those identities.
I rarely have to write about them or report them to anyone and every one of you also has multiple identities that makes you uniquely who you are.
Recommitting to our baptisms, as we just did, offers us the chance again to reclaim our identity as God’s beloved.
That bit of water you marked on your head is not in itself the power. No, the power lies in the reassurance that just as Jesus hears from heaven “You are my child, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased. These are the words that started his ministry and named his identity. It is also true of us.
In remembering our baptismal promises, we have the choice of simply going along with what we agreed to or someone else agreed for us or we can be changed by it. As one who had the promises made for them at the age of one month old, I, too, am in need of reaffirming and reclaiming those long ago promises.
On Wednesday, Epiphany day, we watched in horror as a temple to the ideals of our nation was attacked and desecrated. We were witnesses to violence and fear in a place where our trust as a nation had been placed.
The destruction and loss of life in that place that is at the heart of our identity as a nation has left many of us frightened for what is to become of us. How might our identity as beloved children of God be lived out as we respond collectively and individually to Wednesday’s events and all that got us to that point?
The power of our baptism is in the blessing that we have received and which we are called to pass on. Baptism is not just a one and done event. In remembering it, the responsibility that comes with Baptism is also brought home again.
We may not like seeing every other one as a beloved child of God, but they, too, share in that identity. Regardless of all those other parts of their identities, they are also children of God.
We live in a divided nation and we don’t know what our identity is as a country. We’ve become divided based on political views and ideological priorities so much so that we can no longer even have a civil conversation with each other.
Theologian David Lose asked two important questions after Wednesday’s events. The first is “Can you differ with another person on important issues and still see this person as an American?”
The other is targeted to those of us who claim the identity of Christian.
“Can you see someone who differs from you on important issues as a fellow child of God?” (In the Meantime, www.davidlose.net)
We may struggle mightily with this challenge.
We may fall short and yet we are still – each of us – the beloved child of God.
That means we can try again tomorrow and the next day and the next.
We can do hard things.
On her third day at her new job, Rear Admiral Margaret Grun Kibben, was sitting in the House chamber as the newly appointed Chaplain to the House of Representatives on Wednesday. When the mob overtook the Capitol, she accompanied the frightened representatives and their staff members as they evacuated.
She was present with those with health conditions, a range of abilities and fragile emotional states.
Once sheltered, Rev. Kibben offered again the words of Psalm 46 that she had prayed earlier in the day at the opening of the House session.
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea.”
She then lifted up prayers, too, for those ransacking the Capitol.
When asked afterwards about her experience on Wednesday, she explained why it was important for her to be there. Kibben said,
“Our daily lives are not separate from God’s involvement in them.
God is very much present and very much has come alongside each and every one of us as we labor in the vineyard…If the labor is under siege, God understands the crisis and walks beside us in still waters – as well as in the shadows of danger.” (religionnews.com)
This is what Jesus’ baptism signifies. That, too, is the identity we reaffirm with our baptism. God with us – always. Amen.