I Have Called You by Name

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
January 10, 2016

The Baptism of Jesus

For many years after my grandparents died, I could still hear the way their voices called my name.  I was blessed to have a grandfather and three grandmothers, one of which was technically a step-grandmother, well into my adulthood.  I had the luxury of countless visits with each of them over the years, so I knew them well.  My Alabama grandmother had the lovely and distinctive accent of southeast Alabama.  My only grandfather had a deep voice that conveyed the twinkle in his eye.  His wife, who he had married 10 years before I was born, had the unmistakable accent of a South Carolinian.  And my Arkansas grandmother had a more raspy southern accent.  Hearing their voices speak my name when they were alive always made me feel special and loved.  Remembering that sound after they died not only reminded me of the impact they had on my life, but also, who I am and where I come from.

I am reminded of the sound of their voices this morning when I hear the words of Isaiah.  The Israelites are in exile in Babylon. Their life in the Promised Land has come to a screeching halt.  The land has been devastated and the Temple has been destroyed.  Their identity as God's chosen people was tied to that land and that Temple.  They are wondering whether or not they are actually God's chosen people when God speaks to them through the prophet Isaiah with the words we hear this morning.  "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.  I have called you by name. You are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.  When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned; the flame shall not consume you."  God is telling God's exiled, desolate people that they are not alone in Babylon.  God has called them by name and they belong to God, where ever mess they have made of their lives, whatever water or flame they might walk through.

Today is the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus. Today we see the heavens open, and the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus in bodily form like a dove.  Then we hear the voice of God say to Jesus "You are my Son, the beloved.  With you I am well pleased."  In recent weeks, we have heard the story of Gabriel's appearance to Mary with the announcement that she will carry Jesus.  We have watched Mary and Joseph make their way to Bethlehem to be counted in the census.  We have heard the angels sing at the birth of Jesus.  Just last week, the Magi arrived bearing gifts for a king.  These stories have given us a pretty good idea of who Jesus is.  But now we hear God's own voice claim Jesus as God's own beloved son.

The people who witnessed Jesus' baptism and heard the voice from God are likely pretty confused.  John the Baptist had told them that one was coming who would show up with a winnowing fork, clear the threshing floor, separate the wheat from the chaff, and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. Jesus shows up and gets in line to be baptized in the river with all the people who are hoping for another chance at life and a new beginning.  After everyone else is baptized, they are going home to start trying to live a different life to avoid that winnowing hook.  After Jesus is baptized, the heavens open, the Holy Spirit descends, and the voice of God speaks.  Could this possibly be the same person John was talking about?

John was right that one was coming who is mightier than he, who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  But John had the details wrong about how the coming one would do that.  God claimed Jesus as God's own beloved son at Jesus' baptism and God sent Jesus to reclaim humanity as God's own beloved children.  At the end of the reading from Isaiah, we heard these words: "Do not fear, for I am with you.  I will bring your offspring from the east; from the west I will gather you.....Bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the ends of the earth.  Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made."  The first two chapters of Genesis tells us that God formed and made all of humankind in God' image and for God's glory.  Jesus came, not to separate the wheat from the chaff, but to gather us all together.  In the gospel of John, Jesus says "And I, when I am lifted up, will draw the whole world to myself."  Jesus came to reconcile all of humankind with God, so that we would all know in our hearts that God calls us each by name and that we are God's beloved children.

Baptism is the moment in our lives when the heavens open a bit and God reaches down to claim us as God's own forever.  In the words of the baptismal liturgy, we are "sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ's own forever."  Baptism does not mean that we will never find ourselves walking through floods or passing through flames, metaphorical or literal.  Baptism certainly did not promise Jesus that he would never walk through raging water or the fires of hell.  But in baptism, we, like Jesus, are promised that we will never face fire or water alone.  And just as Jesus left the river and began his ministry ushering in the Kingdom of God,  we called to follow Jesus into the world as people claimed by God and continue that same work.  The prophets, including Isaiah, had harsh words for people who thought their status as the chosen people marked them for special privilege and status rather than sharing in God's work of making the Kingdom of God a more present reality on earth.

Our baptismal covenant, which we renew at every baptism and on baptismal feast days like today, reminds us of both God's claim on our lives and what that claim means.  Being claimed by God means that we will never walk alone as we do the challenging gospel work of being faithful in worship, of repenting and returning to God when we sin, of proclaiming the good news with word and deed, of seeking and serving Christ in all people, and in working for justice and peace among all people.  That work is only possible when we walk together and God walks with us.

"I have called you by name.  You are mine."  As Christians, we are called to hear the voice of God call our name and know in our hearts that we are created in the image of God, made one with God in Christ, and called through the water of baptism and the fire of the Holy Spirit to follow Jesus out into the world, knowing that God promises to be with us.

Amen.

By What Route?

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
January 3, 2016

Epiphany Sunday

When my sister and I were little girls, one of the great delights of our childhood was spending the night with our grandparents.  Our grandparents understood that their chief responsibility as grandparents was to spoil their granddaughters and shower them with unconditional love.  That responsibility was taken seriously.  They lived out in the country, in a small house with a huge yard that was bordered in the back by a creek, on the front by a field where a helicopter could land, on one side by woods, and on the other side by a family with a daughter our age.  There was no end to the adventures we could have outside. Inside the house....well, neither of my grandparents put much value on a clean or orderly house, so pretty much anything our young imaginations could come up with would create order rather than chaos.  This was heaven for two little girls and our visits to our grandparents would sustain us through chores, homework, and rules during the week.

But even better than being at our grandparents house was getting there.  Our grandfather would pick us up in his car, which, even at our young age, we realized was not a very reliable means of transportation.  But before we even pulled out of the driveway, we got to decide which route to take.  Would we take the route that was longer but took less time? Or the route that was shorter but took more time?  Our young minds had a hard time understanding how those choices were even possible.  Another attractive option was to go the middle way, through town, which had the added benefit of passing by a toy store.  Add to the choice of route the ever present adventure of a flat tire or running out of gas, and the journey to their house was an experience in itself.

The Magi are on a journey this morning, and while camels or whatever their means of transportation, don't get flat tires or run out of gas, the journey of the Magi is also an adventure.  They traveled some distance from the East to Jerusalem, following a star that beckoned them to the newly born King of the Jews.  Their friends back home must have questioned their judgement!  The Magi make a strategic error when they stop to consult Herod, the current King of the Jews, for advice on where to find the newborn and unrelated King of the Jews.  The Magi apparently underestimated the depth of Herod's insecurity and jealousy. Then they travel to Bethlehem, guided again by the star, until the star stopped over the house where Mary and the child were.  Overcome with joy, they enter the house and moved to kneel before the child, pay him homage, and deliver the gifts they had carried with them on their journey.  Afterward, they must have gotten some sleep because they are warned in a dream not to go back to Jerusalem, but to return home by a different route.

Which part of the story is journey and which part is destination?  The feast of Epiphany celebrates the arrival of the Magi to visit the baby Jesus and proclaims that the Christ Child is a gift for all people.  The feast of Epiphany also brings the Christmas season to a close.   We, like the Magi, have now been to the manger and can get back to normal life.  Today, we even unhang the greens and deliver the poinsettias to homebound parishioners.  By all appearances, Christmas is over.  By next week, the baby Jesus will be a grown man being baptized in the Jordan River.

At the end of the story of the Magi, we are told that the Magi were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, so they left for their own country by another road.  While, on the one hand, this seems to be a matter of geography in order to avoid Herod, on the other hand, I wonder if the change of route was not also a spiritual matter, showing that the Magi had been changed by their journey.  The trip to meet the Christ Child was not simply an out and back experience to drop off some gifts and be on their way.  Perhaps after the journey to meet the Christ Child and pay homage to a king who was not their king, they arrived home changed by the experience.  We have no way to know as the story of the Magi ends here.  But people who are willing to be guided by a star, to bring gifts to an unknown King who is not their sovereign, and abide by the directions of a dream are likely to be open to being changed by their journey.

Likewise, our trip to the manger is not an out and back trip to drop off a casserole, or in our case jars of baby food, for the new baby and his parents..  However we got to the manger, some journey or other brought us here.  If we have engaged the Christ Child, the story of God who became human in the person of Jesus, if we have brought him the gift of ourselves in addition to whatever other gift we might have brought, we may not go home by the same route as we arrived.  We will have been changed in some way, large or small, by the experience.   Perhaps we experienced a moment of grace in the glow of the candle light, or felt God's presence in the many voices lifted in song, or perhaps we heard some bit of the Christmas story in a new way.  Or perhaps, in the encounter with family, friends, or even a stranger, we met the Christ child.  Our visit to the manger each year is not a destination, but another point on a journey-a journey that may involve flat tires and running out of gas, but will also involve great joy, adventure, and unconditional love and can change the way we experience the world.  Christmas is only over if we think of the manger as a destination.  By what route will we go home?                                                                                              

Amen

A Real Story

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
December 24, 2015

Christmas Eve

When our children were little, their last request before going to bed at night was "Tell me a story."  Sometimes "Green Eggs and Ham," or "Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel" or a chapter of "Captain Underpants" would suffice.  But most of the time, they wanted a real story; a story about themselves when they were little.  They wanted stories about how they welded power over us when they were infants, keeping us up all night at will.  They wanted stories about their unique ways of playing soccer in kindergarten, or their own peculiar version of the monopoly rules, or the way they sang, or actually did not sing, in the preschool Christmas pageant.  We'd tell the same stories over and over again, night after night, and every time we got to the punch line, they'd squeal with laughter, like they had never heard the story before.  In short, they wanted stories about themselves from before a time they could remember.  Now Slocomb and Caldwell are adults, but we all still love sitting around the table, telling stories from the past about many different generations of family.  The stories of our past, both of ourselves and those who have gone before us, help shape our lives as they give us some understanding of who we are and where we come from.

This afternoon/Tonight we hear another story that transports us back in time.  The Christmas story has players like an Emperor, a Governor, shepherds, angels, and young parents who had to walk for miles to register with the government.  Not much of that strikes a chord with any of our own stories, yet this is our treasured story that we hear over and over again, year after year.  What do we learn about ourselves from this story about people we do not know, 2000 years ago, in a place most of us have never seen?  How is this story our story?

The story begins "In those days, a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.  This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria."   Luke locates the Christmas story at a particular moment in history, not because either Augustus or Quirinius had anything to do with the birth of Jesus, but because for whatever reason, God acted at that moment in history.  And at that moment in history, we are called to see the contrast between the power of the world and the power of God.  Who will bring peace?  The emperor of Rome or the baby born to unwed parents, miles from home, in someone's stable?  The story reminds us that true power and greatness are not about the ability to make people's lives difficult by requiring them to travel long distances at an awkward time to tend to bureaucratic red tape.  In this story, the baby born in this inconvenient birth is the Prince of Peace.  We hear from the angel that this humble beginning is actually a sign that the Messiah has been born.   We learn from this story that God acts within human time and uses ordinary people doing ordinary things to reveal real power in the world.

The story continues "In that region, there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.  Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified."  Anyone with a better option does something other than be a shepherd.  Shepherding is dangerous and dirty work.  But in our story, the angel comes to shepherds. The angel did not go to Augustus or Quirinius. In fact, Augustus and Quirinius seem to have no clue what is going on in this little corner of the universe.  Again, God is at work in the lives of unknown and unlikely people, in a tiny corner of the world, unbeknownst to the powers that be.

The angel says to the shepherds "Do not be afraid; for see-I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born today in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord."  Today, right now, this very moment, a savior is born.  The prophets foretold the coming of the Messiah at some point in the future.  The angel proclaims that this moment is now.  The child whose birth is being reported is a savior today, not just at some point in the future when he grows up.  The birth of the Messiah makes a difference today, as God becomes flesh and dwells among us, as Emmanuel "God with us" is born.  Today, God is born in our midst.

The Christmas story is our story.  We hear this story over and over again, year after year, like little children who know that life as they know it now isn't all that there is to who they are.  Because God acted during the time of Emperor Augustus and Governor Quirinius, we know that God acts in our time.  We hear that, even when the great leaders of the world seem to have all the power, God acts in the lives of unlikely people to reveal true power.  So, we look around us to see where true power might be revealed in our own world.  And we hear that while the world looks for salvation to come in large and expensive packages, and sometime in the future, the message of the angels tell us that a savior has been born today.  In what unlikely place might salvation arrive in our midst?  From the story of Mary and Joseph, the birth of Jesus, and the song of the angels, we know that just as the Christ Child was born in the midst of their complicated lives, so the Christ child can be born in the midst of ours.  

Do not be afraid, says the angel.  For to you, on this very night, in Springfield, Ohio, in the midst of whatever is going on in your life, is born a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.

Amen.