January 12, 2020
Matthew 3:13-17
In my previous life, as many of you know, I was a lawyer. I did several brief stints as a summer associate at big law firms. Which is, or was in the late 90s anyway, a pretty great life. Not too much work was expected and you got feted with fancy meals and trips to interesting places. But when we weren’t taken out to lunch, one of my favorite perks was the subsidized cafeteria at one of the firms. The food was decent and cheap, and it provided a great social break from the billable hour cycle.
But in the cafeteria there was a rather mysterious closed-off side room for the partners. And so while we’d sometimes enter the cafeteria with the partners, they always veered off into that special room and disappeared to eat. My friends and I would joke about what might be behind the door... imagining linen tablecloths and caviar by candlelight, and maybe some of those kneeling massage stations.
In the regular-people room, there were big round tables and sometimes I’d sit with people I knew and sometimes just sit at an empty seat and meet the folks at the table. It was a good way to get to meet new people, especially non-lawyers.
One day I found myself next to a man I hadn’t met who was so much fun to sit with that I joined his table several times after that. He was full of laughter and great stories about his family or weekend adventures. He always had interesting questions that would get us pondering deep things. He didn’t talk much about his work, though he was always interested in hearing about ours. He rarely wore a tie or suit coat, so I figured him for a paralegal or maybe someone who worked in the administrative side of the firm.
It wasn’t until close to the end of the summer that I went to a fundraising gala at the Public Library and someone introduced me to the Head Partner of the L.A. office. And there was my friend from lunch. I was really surprised, and had to confess that I’d had no idea who he was. He laughed and said he was glad. He said people tended to be a lot more fun to be around and more honest about their feelings about the firm before they realized who he was.
I had a flashback to that experience when reading our gospel story for today. Because it seems like Jesus really went out of his way NOT to stay in the fancy-people room.
We’ve just spent time with all the scandalous Christmas birth stories.
God could have arrived on the scene as a fabulous king, fancy and rich with the multitudes obeying his every word, rather than coming as a vulnerable, common-place baby in a backwoods town.
God could have come as someone with miraculous powers that would make himself grand, rather than using his power to make life better for the lowly and sick.
God could have come and befriended only the righteous religious people, the clean healthy people, the people that didn’t take so much work -- instead of the outsiders and the friendless and those stinky shepherds.
But that’s not what God chose to do. God came among the people as Jesus and lived among the least and the lost. God broke down every barrier between heaven and earth to live as one of us.
And we see that tendency again this morning in Jesus’ baptism story.
Just before the passage we hear today, we are told that all kinds of people are going out to be baptized by John. People from Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region along the Jordan. Even the Pharisees and the Sadducees were making their way to the river. They were all lined up together. People looking to be cleaned of all that made them feel dirty, forgiven for all that made them ashamed. People longing for something more.
And there are lots of things Jesus could have done in this moment.
Jesus could have waded into the water and tapped John on the shoulder and taken his place as the one dunking all these people.
Or he could have stayed dry on shore, offering encouragement to the people so in need of forgiveness. Maybe even holding out his hands to help the shivering masses struggle out of the water.
At the very least he could have cut to the front of the line to get the job done while the water was still clean!
And clearly the early Church (and maybe the present Church!) would have preferred it that way. Writing our Gospel story for today, Matthew seems totally uncomfortable, embarrassed even, with the idea that Jesus would need baptism, being already pure and fully God. And so Matthew goes out of his way to show John the Baptist trying to resist baptizing Jesus (“I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”). Matthew implies that this was just a box Jesus’ needed to check for righteousness’ sake. Matthew turns it into something closer to a royal ordination than a messy, dripping-wet symbol of new life and inclusion.
But even in Matthew’s version, we can see what’s really happening. Jesus is choosing to stand with the people. Jesus is ready to enter the water, one among many. Once again, Jesus is breaking down every separation between heaven and earth, between rich and poor, between righteous and sinner.
Jesus stands shoulder to shoulder with the rest of us messy imperfect humans. He joins the crowd of people -- some who are broken by the world and have given up hope, some who are still managing to hold it together. He identifies with all of us who are longing for something more and he enters the waters of new life right along with us. He is one of us, mud squishing through his toes, water dripping from his hair. Once again, Jesus refuses to separate himself from the world around him.
And I think our baptisms call us to do the same.
We have a tendency, I think, to see baptism as this special moment for one person and their family. A rite of initiation that brings someone into the Church. A box that needs checking for righteousness’ sake.
But baptism is so much more communal than that, and so much messier.
In a few minutes we will reaffirm our baptismal vows -- making promises:
To seek and serve Christ in all persons,
To love our neighbors as ourselves,
To strive for justice and peace among all people,
To respect the dignity of every human being.
Baptism isn’t a one-time thing where the water does the trick and we can check the box and walk away to grab a towel. Baptism is a call to new life -- every minute of every day. We step into the river shoulder to shoulder with all of humanity -- the healthy and the hurt, the brave and the weak, the successful and the flailing. And once we step into the river, we not only become Christ’s own forever, but we become responsible for each other. We spend the rest of our lives with that water seeping into our souls and bodies. Learning to love all these people as we go.
I wonder what these promises might call forth from each of us today?
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