My Beloved
My Beloved
Luke 3:21-22
One of the biggest challenges in life is dealing with uncertainty. The old adage is that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. There’s truth in those words. There is only so much that we can know ahead of time.
Still, life challenges us to make choice after choice, day after day. Some of those choices seem routine enough to convince us that there is certainty involved: we decide to flip a switch so that there will be light in the room; we put the trash cans at the curb because it is trash day; we scratch the dog’s ears just the way she loves them scratched. 99 percent of the time, the light comes on, the trash cans are emptied and waiting for us at the curb, the dog’s tail wags in delight. However, even these most routine of choices sometimes lead to surprising outcomes. We flip the switch and the bulb is burned out. We put out the trash cans and they don’t get emptied because we forgot it was a holiday schedule. We scratch the dog and she looks at us like, “Why would you do that?”
Honestly, so many choices are so much more complicated. What is the loving thing to do for this person who is suffering? How can I help this person who is sick? What are the right words to communicate something to someone else who really doesn’t want to hear the truth that I’m trying to tell. If we are really honest, 99 percent of the time, we really don’t know how things are going to go. We’ve got a guess, maybe even an educated guess, but we don’t really know.
Here’s the odd thing about this…Not knowing ahead of time, no matter how hard we try, is part of what makes life interesting. Most of the time, we intend to do something and that’s not exactly what happens. Most of the time, that just fine. In fact, most of the time, the surprises can be delights: “Wow, that went so much better than I thought it would” or “Oh my gosh, that was really funny” or “Well, gee, I learned something there now didn’t I.” We are not omniscient or clairvoyant but we keep making choices and life goes on. We learn things along the way.
Here’s the biggest thing we learn. I think we learn to live our lives from the inside out. If we are going to live our lives trying to get a certain outcome (I want to get everyone to like me or I want to achieve this level of success or I want to get this object) then we are living from the outside in. The measure of what I’ve chosen is whether I achieved my desired outcome. Most people, but not everyone, discover that externalized living ends up being pretty empty. It turns out that there is not enough approval or money or stuff to fill the empty space inside of us. Besides, again, if I go “all in”on an external outcome being my primary source of meaning, I’m putting all my chips on something over which I have very little control. My well-being depends on other’s choices and those others may not even recognize that I exist at all.
To live from the inside out, we have to move from focussing on what I want to focussing on who I am. We have to let go of living transactionally. All you have to do is look at a child to realize what a challenge this is. We are born as a bundle of needs who has to learn fast how to get the humans around us to meet our needs because we can’t meet those needs for ourselves. Babies are masters at this! They get us to give up sleep, to deal with the most foul smelling things, to let them throw up on our favorite clothes—you name it. And, while they manage to get us to do all those things, we love them, right…99 percent of the time, right?
Of course, over time, things get more complicated. We decide we’re going to get a whole nights sleep and we find whatever the latest book is that will reassure us that it its okay to let our child cry it out. I would argue that not only is this not mean, this is vital. Our job as parents is to not perfectly meet our children’s needs. In fact, if we somehow thread the needle and manage to convince our children that if someone really loves you they will always be there for them and always be ready to meet their needs, then imagine the curse that person will be in the world when no one for the rest of their lives measures up to that standard.
At some point, as parents, the conversation with our children moves from, “What do you need,” to “What are you doing…and why are you doing that?” Our job isn't to be manipulated. Our job is to help our kids learn who they are, which they learn through the trial and error of making their own choices. Our job as tweens and teens and young adults is to try on identities as if we are in a changing room in a department store: “Who am I if I wear these clothes, if I listen to this music, if I hang with these people?” Sooner or later, this is a disaster. One of the reasons we have brothers and sisters and long term friends is that someone can tell the story of the day we thoroughly embarrassed ourselves by trying to be someone whom we are not. At the same time, those same people may help us remember the particular moments when they watched us discover one more piece of who we actually are. They remind us of the joy that radiated from us on that day.
The big question in life is whether we are willing to do the hard work of discovering who we are and whether we are willing to measure our choices not by outcomes but by how close we came today to being that person. We get some clear cut moments in life where we get to live up to our own sense of ourselves: “I don’t cheat;” “I don’t abuse vulnerable people;” “I don’t lie or steal or boast.” We have a lot of in between, less clear moments: “I think this is what it means to be who I am right now.” And, we get our fair share of thoroughly challenging moments, times when we really shake our heads and think to ourselves, “What in the world does it mean to be who I am now?” The bottom line across those moments, though, is that the goal is not to get something. The goal is to be someone—namely, the person whom God created me to be. The outcomes will be hit or miss. However, the closer I come to being who I am the more resonance there will be to the notion that what I am doing right now may, in fact, be part of the reason that I am here on this earth. The goal is to live with integrity and let the outcomes fall where they may.
Last week, when we met John the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan River, we noticed John doing two things. First, he detached living our faith from the temple. Faith isn’t what you do when you’re at church and then you can do whatever you want the rest of the time. Faith is in play everywhere in our lives, even in the wilderness. Second, John teaches us that faith is about making certain choices. We may be perfectly free to do all sorts of things out here in the world. You can treat other people badly. You can ignore others’ needs. If you’re a tax collector, you can cheat. If you’re a soldier, you can abuse your power. All of that is possible but what if you choose not to do those things, even though you could? What if you choose to live a better way, a more faithful way, a more compassionate way? What if you choose to think about something other than just getting what you want? What if something matters more than your own wants and needs? This is the shift that John frames in as the new life that is coming, the life that “the one who comes after him” is going to reveal.
Today, Jesus shows up to be baptized. Did you ever ask yourself, though, “Why did Jesus get baptized?” If your “Jesus” is super divine, at best this seems like Michael Jordan showing up on a playground and giving the local kids a thrill, right? If Jesus is super divine and everything is already written in stone, what’s the point?Remember, though, I told you last week that my Jesus isn’t super divine like that. I think Jesus struggled mightily to leave home: because he loved his family and friends and didn’t want to disappoint them or be irresponsible; because he loved the feel of his tools in his hand and the smell of fresh cut wood; because life was good. If he is one of us then his temptation has to be real.
I don’t think that Jesus showed up to be baptized in order to “tick” some divine requirement box or to show us “kids on the playground” how it’s done, I think he showed up there to seal the fact that he had made a choice to leave his own wants and needs behind and live differently. He was paying the price for his calling—dying to an old way of living and being reborn into something new. I think he was affirming to himself and to anyone witnessing the moment that he was committed to living differently and discovering where that living would lead.
Here’s the thing for me…I don’t think he knows what’s ahead. I don’t think his choice to show up at the river is based on certainty. One of our members last week, after worship, shocked me by asking if I had ever read Richard Rohr. (I have!) Richard Rohr is an amazing writer with great spiritual insights. Rohr says that Jesus is uncertain of his path and struggling all the way to the moment of resurrection. Doubt is with him all the way. The struggle is a daily struggle. (Thank you, my friend, for reminding me of Richard Rohr’s insight…)
Jesus shows up. He humbles himself and takes his place in the back of the line. Once everyone else has been baptized, John baptizes him. In the version of Jesus’ baptism that we read this morning, he’s just another guy in line, just another guy who gets dunked, just another guy who comes up gasping. Other Gospels say that there are “fireworks” right away or that John recognizes him and declares himself “unworthy.” None of that happens in Luke. Jesus waits. Jesus is baptized. The baptism sets the stage but what sets things on fire is the moment, after his baptism, when Jesus prays. Jesus connects to God. The Holy Spirit descends on him to empower him to do what’s hard. A voice speaks: “You are my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
The stage is set. Jesus has made his choice. That choice is grounded in trust. God will empower him for what’s ahead. God lead him on that journey. Most importantly, Jesus is assured from the start not of an outcome but of God’s unconditional love, the foundation for whatever’s ahead.
That same love is offered to every one of us. We are also God’s beloved children. If we choose to trust and do our best to follow, we have the chance through the decisions we make every day, to be one small part of God’s work in this world.