Baptism of the Lord Sunday January 11, 2004 Sermon by Pastor Barb Kenley

"His Master's Voice"

Psalm 29

Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings,

Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name;

Worship the Lord in holy splendor.

The voice of the Lord is over the waters;

The God of glory thunders,

The Lord, over mighty waters.

The voice of the Lord is powerful;

The voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;

The Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon.

He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,

And Sirion like a young wild ox.

The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire.

The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;

The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

The voice of the Lord causes the oaks to whirl,

And strips the forests bare;

And in his temple, all say, "Glory!"

The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;

The Lord sits enthroned as king forever.

May the Lord give strength to his people!

May the Lord bless his people with peace!

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat in his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus had also been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

You and I are very familiar with setting people apart. We do it all the time. This summer, our major political parties will set apart someone to run for president as that party's chosen representative: the nominee. The NCAA and NBA will set apart teams through the use of playoffs. The Indy 500 does it with time trials. Women are more often set apart for their beauty - from the local prom queen to Miss America or Miss Universe. It seems that all of human setting apart involves competition, a winnowing of the many, to the few, to the one.

Today the Church remembers the baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in doing so, our own baptisms as well. Baptism was and is today a setting apart. But as a divine institution, there is no competition. The day Jesus was baptized, so were many others, as Luke reports. And once Jesus was baptized, baptism didn't cease, but continues to this day, by his example and at his command.

Baptism involves 3 things we want to recall today. First, we are called by name. It wasn't that long ago when a child's baptism was the first time a child's name was used in public. With sonograms, parents know their child's gender weeks before his or her birth; a name is selected and used often before the child is even seen by the parents. By the time the child comes to the font, the name is familiar. But in the baptismal rite, we ask the parents, "By what Name shall we baptize this child?" the parents respond with the chosen name and the baptism continues using it. Many families have stories of names slightly changed by pastors who flub the pronunciation during the baptism. What the minister says over the child is the name that is to stick! Presbyterians, being the practical people they are, have an Elder ascertain the name before the baptism. And so you will hear our Clerk of Session Elaine Goodwin read the name to all of us when the child is brought forth for baptism.

In today's Old Testament reading from Psalm 29, we hear the kind of voice the Lord has. This is not the still, small voice Isaiah spoke of; this is a voice that can break cedars, shake a wilderness, even strip a forest bare! This is the voice that was heard when Jesus was baptized and came out of the water. There was no doubt about who He was: the very Beloved of God.

All of us know what the tone of a voice can convey. My husband Bob stays in a family-run hotel near Washington, DC. It's a busy place, because the room rates are within government reimbursement limits, the rooms are clean, and it's located near a Metro stop. An older woman manages the front desk, keeping everyone on their toes. Bob was waiting in the crowded lobby one morning, and heard the manager summon an employee by name. She said it loudly and distinctly, and it implied something was not quite right, and she was about to get to the bottom of it. Bob told me with a chuckle, "You could tell who all the married guys were in the lobby. She said that one name, that one time, and ALL our heads spun around to see what WE had done wrong and what fate would befall us!" The kind of voice that could strip a forest bare!

A friend of mine teaches kindergarten and her adult son visited her classroom this week. He noted his mother's interaction with her students and at one point heard her use her "discipline voice." Even though that voice wasn't directed at him, he said he wasn't thrilled to hear it from her. He said he knew that voice only too well. And yet, that kind of voice reinforces our connection. It is the voice that says, "You are mine, to teach, and train, to caution, and even if necessary, to discipline."

That is the second thing we are to remember about baptism. It is that we recall that the God who created the universe and all that is in it bends over us with all the love and passion in his heart and says for all the world to hear, "Mine! You are mine!" The prophet Isaiah wrote in the first verses of the 43rd chapter, "I have called you by name; you are mine!" In baptism, we are claimed as God's own. And it's not something we control.

Many denominations insist on baptizing only those who can make a public profession of faith, who can articulate what they believe before another group of believers. When we baptize a baby, we as a church and a denomination are proclaiming that God is the one who takes the initiative and that we weren't consulted about whose we think we are.

The very first baby I baptized was Kyra Paige Phillips, Mary Jane Luken's first granddaughter. Kyra was sound asleep and when I scooped the water out of the font and placed it on her head - much to my surprise -- she didn't move a muscle! I placed water on her head three times, and she never stirred! It remains my favorite picture that, when God claims us, there's no resisting him! And it's not about what we can do or say or even consciously know. It's about what God has done in Jesus Christ for us, and what he says about us and will say for all time: "Mine!" Luke reports that God said to Jesus, as he rose up from the water, "This is my Son, the beloved…." In baptism, we are named and claimed as God's own.

The third thing we are to remember about baptism is that in it, we are set apart for a purpose. There are many stories of God's calling people to a purpose in the Bible -- from Adam and Eve, who were called to care for God's creation, to Abraham, who was called to be the father of a people who would be an example to the whole world, to Esther, who was called to save her people from extermination - God always has a wider purpose for us than to live for ourselves.

Like many of you here, I have no conscious recollection of my own baptism. I was baptized as an infant, in the chapel of a Catholic hospital, where my father served as CEO. My very devout grandmother had just passed away. So to cheer up his dad, my father invited him to my baptism, which did indeed please him.

What my parents weren't counting on was the prayers of my sponsor, Sister Mary Eucharia. She was the abbess of the Sisters of Mercy who founded and ran the hospital where my father worked. Eucharia was a no-nonsense Irish-American who rose to be the Mother of the Sisters of Mercy worldwide. After the priest concluded my baptism, Eucharia stepped forward, took me from my unbelieving parents' arms, and placed me on the chapel's tiny altar. She knelt down and laid her hands on me and prayed in a loud voice that "Barbara's life would be dedicated to God, and lived for his service."

I'm not sure how my parents felt about all this, because I was never told that story growing up. It was not until my second year of seminary when my parents revealed it to me. God called me for a purpose, just as he calls each one of us at our baptism.

It's our task as a church to help young and old alike find that purpose and live it out. There is a world waiting for us. I know some of us don't feel equipped to do that, but next month, we're going to begin 40 Days of Purpose as a congregation. In those 40 days, we will seek our God-given purpose, and we will help others find their purposes, too. I want you to plan on being a part of that. There are groups to join, so you won't have to seek your purpose alone. There's a book to be read, to help you think and pray about it each day. When you do this, you're more than pleasing a pastor who has had a very good idea; you're fulfilling your baptism, and helping others do the same.

I worked in an office in California that had a two-tiered fountain right outside the window. The water was controlled by a timer, so it went off each evening as I left, and went back on the next morning. It wasn't a very big or deep fountain, and California being as arid as it is, the water would evaporate each night, so the fountain was bone-dry the next morning. Each day when I arrived, there was a flock of doves that would perch on the upper rim of the fountain, waiting for the water to come on so they could bathe and drink. Many other doves waited their turn below. When the water came on, the upper tier would fill up, and then overflow into the lower level. That's when all the other doves would fly up for their share.

When we live out our life's purpose, given to us by God at baptism, we all do our ministries out of the overflow of our baptismal waters and many wait for us. Let's not keep the world waiting. Let us pray….

Lord God, let us hear your voice anew this morning, full of love for we your creatures. Speak to us again our names; claim us as your own, and renew our true purpose within us. Let us live this week listening for that voice, and living out our purpose, that others might be blessed by the overflow of your abundance. Let us be Your sign to a thirsty world, for we ask in the Name of Your Beloved Son. Amen.