BRANDED !

Mark 1:4-11

There's something slightly oppressive to me about early January, after the holiday lull when we finally forget the taste of eggnog and the long-dead Christmas tree is by the curbside waiting to be thrown into one of those green garbage trucks. We realize the party's over. Time to get serious. Time to crank the huge iron wheel that says, "WORK" or "SCHOOL" or "ROUTINE" and get it spinning again. So, today, time to get back to doing some serious theology.

Today, we need to talk about baptism. The New Testament reading today--about the baptism of Jesus by John--is the first story in the Gospels about the grown-up Jesus. After celebrating Jesus' birth, we skip what must have been the messy stages of Kindergarten and puberty, and encounter a story that discloses the character of the adult Jesus just as he begins his ministry.

The other synoptic gospels, Matthew and Luke, speak to the fact that it was controversial for the earliest Christians that Jesus submitted to baptism, being divine and sinless, and not needing to repent and be cleansed. In Matthew's gospel, John the Baptist protests: "I need to be baptized by you." But whatever the case, we get the clear sense that this story is important because, in a sort of paradoxical way, it discloses the character of Jesus, as the messiah, the divine-one become human.

At staff meeting this week, Jeanne Aicher shared with us a poem, written by Joseph Donders, which speaks to how this story reveals that divine character. The poem likens the River Jordan to a muddy stream; here's an excerpt:

"The mud of human evil is very deep, and there was Jesus, in front of John, asking to be allowed to bend down in that mud."

Incarnation, God becoming human, is about the fact that Jesus, the divine man, is willing to hang out and companion us in the very messy business of being human, bending down into the human muck of our existence. This is why we come here, isn't it? This is the spiritual journey--to understand how it is possible that Jesus is companioning us in the wonderful catastrophe that is our very human life; to understand how Jesus is with us in that.

But, what does baptism mean for us? This story is a reason to us to think about our baptism--what does it mean for us to have received this wonderful and strange gift?

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St. Augustine wrote a good deal about the meaning of the sacraments (which for us are baptism and communion) and has a wonderful and perhaps familiar definition of what a sacrament is: "an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace." In other words, it's the tangible thing that confirms and discloses to us that the invisible thing is real. And he has this equally wonderful metaphor to describe the meaning of baptism--at least one important meaning of it. He says that baptism is like getting a tattoo. You see, in those days, if you were drafted into the Roman army, you were tattooed--branded if you will; permanently etched--to show that you belonged to Caesar. But of course, like the soldier, how we understand that tattoo is up to us--we can run away, we can go AWOL. Or we can embrace that mark, and claim it as our identity. Either way, we will always be marked with that mark--it's impossible to get rid of it; it's simply up to us how we understand it, and whether we embrace it.

Interestingly, did you know that the word "character" originated in a word that literally means "to tattoo." "Character" means "to etch." To make a permanent mark, which discloses ones defining qualities. (And if you don't believe me, go ahead and look it up for yourself!) Baptism describes our essential character as Christians, a character that has been given to us, etched into us; something most of us didn't choose, but in a sense, chose us. But, it's up to us as to whether to embrace that identity or not.

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As I was procrastinating in my sermon writing on Friday, I was joking around in the office about the sermon title, and we were talking about that 1970s TV show, you know "Branded"; Chuck Connors as an outlaw who's been "marked." And we were talking about what it would be like if that were the ritual involved in becoming a Christian--coming up the aisle toward a red-hot brand; certainly would cut down on our new member program. You may be interested to know that Baptism actually replaced the ritual of circumcision in the Jewish tradition, which in the very early stages of Christianity, when it was seeking adult converts, was a serious impediment to its growth. Aren't you glad?

But, I suppose the question I'd like to leave with us today is this: what does it matter? What does it matter to us that we've been marked in this way through our baptism, "branded" by God? What does it mean to carry this identity? To call ourselves Christian? I find that for most people--even including myself at times--talking about my faith is rather like talking about sex in mixed company. Everybody gets very uncomfortable when you talk about it. Why is that? Is our Christianity so peripheral that we're embarrassed to talk about it, to embrace this aspect of our lives?

But maybe the more important question to ask is: does it change us? Does it change the way you are with the people waiting in line with you at the grocery store? Do you wear that mark when you talk about sports at dinner parties, or talking with your kid at the family dinner table? I guess that's the question we might take away from today, as we re-affirm our baptismal vows. Do I belong to God? Does it matter?

What does it matter to us that we take into ourselves today that which becomes, in faith, the flesh and blood of Christ, that it might come alive in us? What does it matter?

Amen.

January 8, 2006

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