Baptism for Action

At the first church I served, I was offering chapel time for the preschool crowd.  It was this time of year and we were talking about baptism.  We read the story of Jesus’ baptism, and began to talk about our own baptisms.  I had with me a baptismal bowl.  As I would talk about Jesus’ baptism, I would take water in my hand a flick it at them.  Most of the children were delighted at this surprise shower and giggled.  But one child was quite upset, she said you were talking about water, but I didn’t think it would be wet!

I wonder how often, we have found ourselves thinking like my young friend. I knew you were talking about water, but I didn’t think it would be wet!  I like baptism for the belovedness of God, but I didn’t think I would be called to do anything!  I know God loves me, but I don’t need to do anything, right?

In the spirit of a new year, I promised one three resolutions for our church body for the year.  Last week, I challenged you to read your bible.  We have had great feedback on people who are picking up their Bibles and reading along with one another.  It is not too late to pick up the blue paper and begin reading along.  There are built in breaks, which are great chances to catch up if you have fallen behind.  Today, I want to offer the second resolution: Commit to one act of loving your neighbor this year.

I love the passage from the prophet Micah.  Whenever I hear the call to return to our biblical roots, I hear the call of the prophet Micah!

How can I stand up before God and show proper respect to the high God?
Should I bring an armload of offerings topped off with yearling calves?
Would God be impressed with thousands of rams,
 with buckets and barrels of olive oil?
Would he be moved if I sacrificed my firstborn child,
my precious baby, to cancel my sin?

Should I show up with the cleanest house or the strongest stock portfolio? Do God want me to have the fastest car or the latest technology?  Should I go into great debt for a grand house?  What does God want me to do!!  How can I come before the God of the whole universe, creator, redeemer, sustainer?

Hear the words of the prophet Micah, echoed again and again throughout the scripture:  Listen carefully, God tells us what women and men of God should do:  Do Justice, Love kindness, and walk humbly with their God.  The prophet Micah raised his voice and risked his life against the powers that be.  He spoke to the city elites from the rural perspective about how they had forgotten to live as God’s people.   Where they had gone astray and forgotten the rest of God’s people.  In the midst of corruption in government and concerns about the self-focus of rulers, Micah called the people to do justice, lover kindly, and walk humble with God.

We have often thought of justice as ultimate justice.  The kind that comes in the final days when God sets the world right in one foul swoop!  If this is our only image of justice, we have denied ourselves the fullness of what God calls us to and what God offers to us.   Martin Luther King, Jr.  preached:  “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” God calls us each and every day to seek justice in an unjust world.  A world in which some children have food choices each and every day and other children go hungry.  A world in which some people have more house than they could fill, and others are still searching for a place to call home.  A world in which some have ample education to live out their gifts and over scrap by without enough resources or chance to live into who God has made them to be.

What does it mean for us to seek this justice?  We must not be content with our own accomplishments, but rather remember our baptism calls us to action.  On September 15, 1963, white racists bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young African American girls who were attending Sunday School.  Tragedy on par with the Emmanuel AME killings.  Did you know Dr. King offered eulogy for those girls?  Dr. King said that “these girls have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician who has fed his constituents the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism…. they have something to say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution[1].”

Every time I think that I have assuage myself with having chosen to do justice, I think of these words.    I wonder if you too are like me.  Our caution has often looked like choosing what we believe to be walking with God over doing justice.  We have often tried to separate them as those they were separate but equal.  Our mistake, my friends has been that God does not separate justice, kindness and walking with God.  This is not a multiple-choice test of how to follow God.  Following God is an opt-in exercise that we sometimes avoid.

John the Baptist calls us to the good church folk, you know the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  Those of us who know the rules and follow them.  Those of us who have always been in the church and can spot someone who hasn’t a mile ago and start to get a judging revving up as they walk up.  To us, John cries out –brood of vipers!  Ouch, that hurts!  But John the Baptist, like Micah before him, does not seek to get caught up in calling one another names.  Rather, the prophets want us to be follow God, to live out God’s way, and to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.  To live out our baptisms for action.

But it’s hard and the systems are established.  It feels like the government is not on our side, like we think it used to be.  The prophets who have come before us call us to these actions regardless of what governmental system is in place.  Micah had the oppression of the Babylonians and Assyrians who ransacked Jerusalem as well as the elites who went along with it.  John the Baptist had the oppression of the Romans through Herod and ultimately, his life was handed to them on a silver platter.  Dr. King had the oppression of segregation and systematic racism, and his life was also given in pursuit of God’s justice.

Today, we need to hear again, that our baptisms are a call to action.  Barbara Brown Taylor reflects this way: “all of us, in baptism, are ordained to ministry.  Which is what many Protestant churches say – all are ministers of the church of Jesus Christ. They agree to let people look at them as they struggle with their own baptismal vows: to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to resist evil, to proclaim the good news of God in Christ, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to strive for justice and peace among all people.[2]

Where are you striving for justice and peace among all people?  Where are you resisting evil?  Where are you proclaiming the good news?  Or as Micah said: Doing justice, loving kindness, and walking jumbly with our God?   No one is asking you to save the world – Jesus is already taken over that role.  However, what I challenge you and me to do is commit to one act of loving your neighbor.  How will you love your young adult neighbor who is addicted to opioids?   How will you love your young child neighbor who isn’t always sent to school with a pair of mittens when it is cold?  How will you love your elderly neighbor whose social security is not quite enough and sometimes at the end of the month has to choose between feeding herself and her cat?  How will you love your neighbor who is caring day in and day out for aging parents, a declining, and/or growing children?  How will you love your neighbor who is waiting for their loved one to return from prison and have deep fears about how they will safely and sustainably come back?

Our baptisms call us to action.  There is justice to be found here and now, that need not wait until ultimate justice?  In fact, Jesus calls us to help usher in the ultimate justice with our actions now.  Every time we choose justice over ease, kindness over engagement, and walking with God over trying to solve the world’s problems ourselves, we help to usher in the kingdom of God.

As my sweet friend discovered, water is indeed wet!  Baptism is indeed a call to action!  Let us act as disciples of Christ who do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.

This is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_eulogy_for_the_martyred_children/

[2] Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life, 30-31.

Old Testament Lesson: Micah 6:6-8

“With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

Gospel Lesson: Matthew 3:7-11

But when John saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruit worthy of repentance.  Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Meditations For Your Week

Sunday, January 15 ~ Saturday, January 21

Sunday: “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?  Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves a year old?” Micah 6:6.  Our spiritual ancestors looked to offer physical sacrifices to God.  God wants our hearts, our lives, and our commitments.  Where are you serving God?

Monday:  “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” Micah 6:7.  Prayerfully consider God’s abundant grace as you consider your response.

Tuesday: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8.   Where are you doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God?

Wednesday: “But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Matthew 3:7.   As we serve, it is easy to see others and wonder about their motivations.  Pray for God to grant you focus and commitment as you serve faithfully.

Thursday: “Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” Matthew 3:8-9.  Repentance is turning from the ways of the world and towards God.  Prayerfully consider where you need to repent.

Friday: “Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” Matthew 3: 10.  Where are you doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with your God?

Saturday:  “‘I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Matthew 3: 11.  Jesus came to change lives.  Where is Jesus changing your life?