This sermon was preached at Trinity Lutheran Church in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, using the texts for Baptism of Our Lord. Many thanks to my colleague Rev. Lauren Muratore for the theme inspiration!
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One of my favorite poets is Mary Oliver. She has a way of
capturing the often mundane aspects of life with a sense of awe and wonder.
I'll share with you one of my favorites from her poetry. She writes: “Instructions for
living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” Oliver invites us
to join her in noticing, appreciating, and sharing the life around us.
Today we celebrate the festival of the Baptism of Our Lord.
As it is for Jesus, our baptism is not simply a one-time event, but rather the
beginning of an ongoing relationship with the God who created us, calls us, and
continues to accompany us throughout our lives.
Mary Oliver’s instructions for living a life are also
good instructions for living a baptized life.
Pay attention to the people around you. Baptized life is
life in community and life in relationship. In baptism we are joined to the
Body of Christ, and we need each other. Each of us has gifts, talents,
perspectives, and ideas that enrich our common life. As part of a community, we
are called to notice one another and notice how God is at work in and among us.
Pay attention to where and how God shows up. We have certain
expectations, spoken and unspoken, about where and how God is present among us.
In the Jewish tradition, the Temple was the central location
of God’s presence. Mediated by priests, God’s people came to make burnt
offerings to God, and the Temple was where confession, repentance, and
forgiveness were located. In this story, however, we see God’s presence not in
the Temple, but rather in the wilderness. Mediated not by priests, but by wild
John the Baptist, clothed with camel’s hair with a leather belt around his
waist, who ate locusts and wild honey. If God can and does show up here, where
else might we need to pay attention so that we see God?
Pay attention! God is tearing apart boundaries to reach
God’s people. Pay attention! God’s Spirit rests on you. Pay attention! God is
all about liberation and freedom, and the freedom that comes from confession,
repentance, and forgiveness is available to you.
What have you noticed when you’ve paid attention in a new
way to the people and places and events happening around you?
Instructions for living a life: pay attention. Be
astonished. There’s something magical and warm about a childlike sense
of wonder and astonishment. We need those moments where our eyes are wide open
and our mouths drop to the floor. To be astonished can have positive or
negative connotations. In either sense, though, something out-of-the-ordinary
catches our attention and causes us to stop. If we are paying attention,
I think we’ll find quite a few things to be astonished about.
Particularly as the baptized people of God, we find
ourselves regularly astonished by the ways God uses surprising people and
places to accomplish God’s work. Sometimes, the surprising people and places
God uses are us, and our congregation, and our city. Most often, though, the
the surprising people and places God uses to accomplish God’s work are those we
look down upon - people like addicts, the homeless, the poor, those who do not
look like us; places like the inner-city and the very rural, places one might
refer to as “shithole countries.” Be astonished!
Sometimes, the most astonishing thing we can hear is that
God calls us Beloved and is well-pleased with us. This is one of the gifts we
receive in baptism - a tangible reminder that we are loved and forgiven, and
that we belong to God forever. Not when we’re on our best behavior, not when we
deserve it or have earned it, not because we’re “good people,” but because of
God’s great love for us.
Other times, we need the reminder to be astonished because
the astonishing has become ordinary, routine, mundane. Oh, communion, we might
say. That’s just something we do at church. It’s just
a symbol, something we do to remember the Last Supper. No no no. Be astonished!
Communion is the body and blood of Christ FOR YOU! Communion is God’s promise
of salvation, forgiveness, and new life that you can hold in your hand and
ingest into your body!
Oh, baptism, we might say. That’s just something you do with
your new baby - grandma needs pictures of our little one in the family gown. It
doesn’t mean anything. No no no. Be astonished! Baptism is wild and dangerous!
It’s a forever-promise from God, and water becomes for us a forever-reminder
that we are claimed, forgiven, and loved, and nothing can separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus.
If we're being honest, almost everything about Christianity
is astonishing. We worship a God who came down to our level, literally, by
becoming human and putting on flesh to dwell with us. We worship a God who
always sides with the suffering and marginalized and those experiencing
injustice. We worship a God whose power is found in weakness. We worship a God
who was tortured and killed. We worship a God who not only defied death once,
but indeed has destroyed the power of death forever. Astonishing, indeed.
What astonishing things have you seen this week? Where and
how has God been present and active in your life and the lives of others?
Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be
astonished. Tell about it. The promises we receive from God in baptism are too
wonderful and too important to keep to ourselves. In baptism, the Spirit of God
rests on us, empowers us, and also drives us out to be instruments of God’s
love and grace for the world.
The things that have astonished us will likely be astonishing
for others to hear, too. God’s promises for us are also promises for others.
What should we share and tell? No one is out of God’s reach! God’s Spirit rests
on you! God calls you Beloved! Forgiveness and liberation are for everyone! God
is well-pleased with you - tell about it!
Where might you be able to tell about it? Who might need to
hear the good news you have to share?
The baptized life is not for the faint-of-heart. In baptism,
God calls us Beloved, fills us with the Spirit, and sends us out to tell
others. Through it all, we are accompanied by the one who created us and all
that exists, and for this we can give thanks to God. Amen.
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