Joining the Crowd
By Rev. Dan Smith
January 14, 2007
The Second Sunday After Epiphany
Lessons: Luke 3: 15-22
Within the past few years, Mary and I have answered more than a few calls from people who live in the area asking if they could have their child baptized at First Church. We’ve noticed a sort of trend. When we ask them what they have in mind, one common response has been, “We were hoping for something private. Maybe even just family?” they say. To which I respond, “Maybe something outside of a Sunday morning service?” And they say,“Oh yes, that would be lovely.” Then, I usually have to break the news to them that without a larger community, a baptism just isn’t baptism. Maybe they would like a baby dedication or a naming ceremony perhaps, which we’ve sometimes done privately, outside of our services, but a baptism isn’t baptism without some kind of crowd.
Take Jesus’ baptism, for example. Do you remember who else, besides Jesus and John, were there on the banks of that Jordan river that day. Don’t let yourselves be fooled by those Italian Renaissance paintings we’ve seen that depict a small private affair between Jesus and John and maybe a few angels. Do you remember who else was there?
Would you believe “everyone”? Everyone was there at Jesus’ baptism, in a way! In Matthew’s version of this text, we learn that the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to John the Baptist and all the region along the Jordan. Sounds like quite a crowd, wouldn’t you say? And do you know what? They weren’t even there for Jesus’ baptism. They were there for their own. Luke himself says it,,,now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized, the heavens opened up! Stop right there.
A part of why we’re quick to forget the crowd is because of what comes next. Its among the most beautiful and oft-quoted lines in scriptures, and I’m the first one guilty of jumping straight to it when I read this passage. It’s the punch line of the passage, what the Spirit says to Jesus. “You are my beloved child, and with you I am well pleased. Who can resist that line? Who hasn’t at one point or another been hurting in their very bones to hear such penetrating words of affirmation and acceptance, from our parents, from our partners, from our friends, from our colleagues, even from God. But, if we go there too quickly in this passage, we’ll make the same simple mistake as those Renaissance painters and leave out of the scene its most important players, namely, the ordinary folk just like you and me. Each of the synoptic gospels somewhere makes the point that Jesus was baptized amidst a large number of people - city folks, country folks, all who answered “YES!” when those first century choirs sang their versions of “Shall We Gather at the River?” And we think 5 is a large number of baptisms? Sounds like a far larger crowd they had back then, wouldn’t you say?
By the church calendar, we are week late in celebrating Jesus’ baptism, but I don’t think we took too great a liberty in postponing our observance until there was more of a crowd. Just as it was in the first century, Jesus’s baptism is not so much about us honoring Jesus, but about Jesus coming to meet us by the river, where we are. Jesus wanted to meet us, in all our humanity, standing sometimes awkwardly by each other, often in a crowded community of friends and strangers alike. He wanted to meet us where we are, to know what it means to be human in this world, to mess up sometimes, to have our hearts broken. He wanted to be with us, dipping our sore and smelly feet into the muddy river after a long trek through the desert to the West Bank. He sought solidarity not only with the least of these, but with the least extraordinary, the most ordinary, the every man and the every woman. He wanted to be surrounded by a crowd of human joy and sorrows. He wanted to meet us there! Most especially, he wanted to meet us there, where most of us are, most of the time, in that needful place, where we are far more desperate than we know to hear a soft word of acceptance, to see a sign of peace right over our heads, to feel grace showering over us and making us whole, like water trickling down our faces.
When we offer the sacrament of baptism here and now, we do it to show a special sign of God’s grace, and to offer a special welcome into our community. We also do it to remember Jesus who chose solidarity with all other human beings as opposed to a lording over of his special status. Did Jesus need to plunge himself into that river, did he need that particular ancient custom which back in the day was meant to be a cleansing and forgiveness of one sins? Probably not, but he did it anyway, so that he could be nothing special, and so that he could meet us here where we are, even and most especially when we happen to show up late!
Guess what, Jed, and Sofie, Emma, and Gabrielle, and you too Sam? I have a piece of news for you that I hope you won’t hear anywhere else. You ready. You’re nothing special either! Your hearts will break too. You’ll make mistakes. And you too will one day know if you don’t already what it means to be needful of a soft word of God’s grace, just like the rest of us. And its with a great joy and pleasure in my heart that I can say “Welcome to the crowd!”
Now, having said all that, when we do remember the crowd of humanity and our crowds of joys and sorrows, then and only then are we really ready to go ahead and read the rest of the story. It says, after Jesus was baptized and he was praying, the heaven was opening, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” Holy Spirit didn’t come because Jesus had just been baptized, the Holy Spirit came because Jesus had joined the crowd. Could it be that the Spirit said that then because it Jesus had learned that the way to be special in God’s eyes is to achieve the wisdom that at base you are no different from anyone else?
Baptism, like Communion, is not about building up walls that divide us from one another – you’re either in or you’re out. Properly understood, baptism is about tearing down barriers, and about learning, again and again, that we are no different from our neighbors, be they richer or poorer, blacker or whiter, gay-er or straight-er! None of us are anything special which is exactly what makes us all special in God’s eyes, all God’s beloved children. Jesus knew this better than most anyone.
And so began Jesus ministry, to the crowd. As Jesus comes up and out of the Jordan, he carries this Spirit-given wisdom into the wilderness for 40 days later, and comes out of there ready to stand again with the crowd, to stand with them and to stand for them. With that message of God’s love and acceptance, he has all he needs to know to lead with and for them, to suffer with and for them, and to die with and for them.
Brothers and sisters, thanks be to God for drawing the extraordinary out of the ordinary, and for calling us each and everyone of us ordinary folks, God’s Beloved children! Today, in the midst of this crowd, with you too, God is well pleased