Grace and Peace from God, our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Happy Baptism Day! Happy Rally Sunday!
I love baptisms—they are so full of celebration, they mark the fundamental point of our faith, the start of our life in Christ. It’s about where we begin, it’s about the love of God for us, it’s about how are lives will unfold, wrapped in God’s love, in community and partnership with Jesus, and with his church, together the hands and feet of God, the body of Christ, God’s family. It’s a glad and joyful start, little one, you have today. We welcome our newest baptized sibling into partnership with us in the gospel, into our little family of God, this congregation, with it’s mission: “reach out, share Christ with all”, into the big family of God that is all believers. Our common mission of following Jesus, loving our neighbor, living in, and living out his love for the world. I asked their family "What do you want this little one to know about their baptism, even years from now?": They are part of this great, God-loving community (HCLC, but the Church as well). They have this family to turn to when he’s lost or unsure. To know that they are loved and supported. By us, by God. Always. As we welcome our sibling as our newest partner in the gospel, we remember and celebrate our own belovedness, our own baptisms. My favorite phrase conveying the message of baptism is said this way: you are a beloved child of God, worthy of love and respect, and capable of making a positive difference in the world. That’s what it means to be a baptized child of God. That’s also what it means for all humans, who are made in the image of God. That’s the good news and promise of baptism. That you are beloved by God. And the best part of that love, is that it’s nothing to do with what we do. It’s all God. In our Bible story today Abraham is looking to please God. He’s trying to live a good life and do the things God requires of him. Today’s story is a tough one. It’s as if God is working with him, working with Abraham, to ponder the question what does God require from us? What will make us “beloved by God, worthy of love and respect, and capable of making a positive difference in the world.” What must we do to be right and obedient in God’s eyes? Abrahams backstory…. Abraham’s story starts suddenly in the Bible when God shows up and tells Abram to leave everything—leave the land where his family was, and go to the land that I will show you. “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” And Abram’s story starts out well. He takes his wife, his nephew, and all their stuff, and he heads out. As he goes, when he gets to certain places he hears God tell him “See here? I’m going to give your descendants this land” so Abram builds an alter there and then keeps going. And so on. Abram looks to be trusting God’s promise, God’s plan. But then I think Abram starts thinking that to please God, he has to make sure this plan of God’s comes about. It starts to get a little hairy in places. When he gets to Egypt, to make sure he would be safe he gives his wife away to Pharaoh. Bad move. Later in life God reiterates the promise of descendants, but Abram and Sari are getting old and have been barren, so Abram comes up with his own idea of what he must do to please God and make God’s plan happen. That when Abram and Sarai abuse their servant and he fathers a child, Ishmael, with Haggar. Bad move. Though God keeps on working with Abram, and now Ishmael, too. After that incident, God makes sure to tell Abram that he should stop trying so hard. The descendants I’m talking about will be through your wife—you will be a father of nations, you will be a blessing to the world. Live like you’re loved, rather than like you’re trying to be loved, and God will take care of the rest. So then we get to this story about Isaac and Abraham. A story of testing. It’s as if God is testing Abraham, not just about his obedience, but on what kind of God Abraham really thinks God is. Does God require the sacrifice? The blood of firstborns? Many other cultures of Abraham’s time would have had sacrifice, even child sacrifice, as a normal—perhaps extreme—act of loyalty and devotion. Would Abraham know that his god, the God of the Bible, was different? I can’t say if he passed the test…but God revealed something about Godself, and Abraham revealed something about himself. Abraham: Recklessly devoted, but a little off on the whole understanding the love of God thing. God: absolutely devoted and loves these screw-up humans completely. So there it is. Abraham’s not perfect. And, newsflash, Isaac wont be either, nor will his kids—but God never gives up, never goes away. God works with these people, works through these imperfect people, just like God continues today to work with, within, and through us. And it all starts with God…not us. Baptism is God’s displayed act of loving us – not the other way around. God’s relationship with, God’s love for you, has nothing whatsoever to do with you—you’re worthiness, your obedience, your faith, or your works. It’s all about God. Whatever you’ve built up in your head about your own shame, or worth, or deservedness of God’s love—that’s where the story takes a turn. Abraham thought he knew what it took to be in good with God. But then…God took over and revealed the truth. Like that ram in the story, Jesus shows us what kind of sacrifice we need for God’s love and partnership. None. It’s not us that puts forth the sacrifice, but God who comes alongside us and make the sacrifice for us. God steps down, Jesus Christ comes, and himself makes the sacrifice for our love. What can you possibly do to earn God’s love? Nothing. But God gives everything! Jesus gives EVERYTHING, to show you his love. It’s from that love, it’s out of that love that we live our lives. Backpack tag says “Be loved. Be kind. Be you.” I want you all to take these and have these as a reminder of that promise. As you go into a new school year, or just step again, daily, to work and to life…we need that reminder that we are a beloved child of God, worthy of love and respect, capable of making a positive difference in the world. Our baptism, our belovenedness, puts us in partnership—with God and with one another--to make a positive difference in the world. And today we express doing with these words. Be loved. Be kind. Be you. We will stumble, we won’t be perfect. But that’s not what God requires. God calls us loved, beloved. And that is life orienting and life changing. With that love, we are meant to go out and make a positive difference in the world, to be kind. And the best way to do that, is by just being you, beloved. Know you’re loved. And be that love in the world. Beloved, Be loved. Be kind. Be you. That is who God created you to be in these waters. That is who God loves. Comments are closed.
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AuthorRev. Chris Sesvold is currently the pastor at Halfway Creek Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Holmen, WI. Archives
October 2021
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