“What Is Your Identity?”
Matthew 3:13-17
In the Upper Room Devotional for this past Wednesday, a woman from Ohio named Lois Wilson writes the following:
“On the first day of each community-college art class I taught, I would ask the students to write a brief answer to the question, ‘Who are you?’
Later I was eager to read their responses.
One of the answers I’ve never forgotten was, ‘I am a child of God.’”
Lois continues: “This young woman’s response left me in awe that she was so grounded in her faith.
It also led me to question myself: ‘Would have replied this way?’
I probably would have listed my education or my work accomplishments.”
(pause)
How about you?
How would you answer the question: “Who are you?”
How would I?
When Jesus was baptized God told everyone around Who He was and is: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
(pause)
Sadly, not everyone hears these kinds of words.
Too many children grow up in our world having never heard a father or mother say to them—either in words, looks, hugs, or in action—“You are my dear child, whom I love,” let alone, “I am pleased with you.”
Often, it’s the exact opposite…
…angry voices, bitter rejection, the slamming of doors.
Perhaps this has been your experience or the experience of someone you know or love.
The whole Christian Gospel could be summed up in this point: When the living God looks at us…
…God sees us, not as we are in ourselves, but as we are in Jesus Christ.
It sometimes seems nearly impossible to believe, especially to those who have never had this kind of support from their earthly parents, but it’s true!
In Christ, God looks at you; God looks at me and says, “You are my dear, dear child; I’m delighted with you.”
In knowing this, can we strive to look at others in this light as well?
Can we strive to see others as people loved by God, even if they annoy us or hurt us or disgust us?
You know, when we intentionally put ourselves in situations where we are loving and serving others no matter who they are, what they have done, what they look like or where they come from—we find ourselves becoming more and more like the God Who loves us.
Last Tuesday morning, my wife Clair was at a coffee shop meeting with some of our clergy friends.
I was unable to make it due to some other appointment.
In any event, things were breaking up and folks were heading in their different directions.
Clair was the second person out the door and into the parking lot.
And when she walked out, she saw that a friend of ours had been approached by a prostitute who was asking her for some food.
That friend, in a hurry, sort of brushed the prostitute off, got in her car and zoomed away.
Clair, then got into her car, and remembered that she had forgotten something in the restaurant.
When she walked back in she saw that another friend, a Lutheran Pastor friend of ours, had walked out of the restaurant and been asked by the same prostitute if he could get her some food.
He had answered, “Sure, let’s get you some food.”
And so, he went back in the restaurant with her and bought her breakfast and was sitting down at the table with her.
My wife was impressed and also a bit humbled.
When she was telling me about it that evening, she said, “We really don’t live out our discipleship to the full.
Instead, we put limits on how far we will go.
Like, we might say, I will go this far—but I wouldn’t take the time to buy food for some stranger who asks and then sit down with them and have a conversation—provide them with some company—some dignity.”
Jesus didn’t put any limits on what He would do for us, did He?
Jesus is King.
Jesus is divine.
Jesus is God.
And by allowing Himself to be baptized, He fully empties Himself on our behalf—He becomes like us in every way, and yet is without sin.
Mario was a homeless man who lived in a church shelter.
He had lived on the streets of New York City for half his life.
He spent his sixtieth birthday with friends at a church dinner at the shelter.
Several people at the dinner didn’t believe it was Mario’s birthday.
And so, Mario reached into his coat pocket to show them his birth certificate, which showed that it was, indeed, his birthday.
Then Mario asked, “Want to see my baptismal certificate?”
His baptismal certificate showed that he was baptized as a baby at an Episcopal Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
What an amazing thing!
Why would Mario have carried his baptismal certificate with him for all those years as he wandered the streets of Manhattan?
What did it mean to him; what did it represent?
Did it represent that even if other people had let him down, or seemingly, life itself—God still loves
him, accepts him, is pleased with him and has claimed him as God’s own?
We never know what other people have had to endure and why they have ended up where they are.
Where would I be without parents who brought me up in a good church, and taught me about the love of God by example and words?
I can’t imagine…
…on the streets?
…in prison?
…dead?
The knowledge that we are loved is what shapes us into people who learn to love ourselves and others.
That is one reason why Jesus said that the most important thing is to love God and love other people—there is no greater commandment; everything comes down to love.
(pause)
Jesus lived as a human would live before the Fall, even in this Fallen world.
And in doing so, Jesus gives us a glimpse of what God intends for us, if only we can embrace God’s intentions.
How cool is that?
In baptism, we are given our identity.
We are God’s children—called to a life of love, called to be fully and truly human—called to live into what this means.
And in this world, it means—in part, to accept one another’s faults and short-comings and to forgive and offer grace and mercy—the grace and mercy that Christ offers us.
I think it’s interesting.
We are all just human beings, and yet, we are so often fearful of one another.
We are afraid of what other human beings (who are no better than we are) think of us.
We are afraid of what other human beings (who are no better than we are) can do to us.
We live in fear rather than in confidence and love.
And rather than embrace who we are—we try and be something else, something fierce, or cold, or tough, uncaring, non-compassionate or whatever.
That isn’t who we were created to be.
We were created to be like the One Who wept at the grave of His friend Lazarus.
We are to be like the One Who loved and healed people simply because He had compassion for them.
We are to be like the One Who thought nothing of giving His time and His life for the sake of others, even when it wasn’t convenient.
We are to be like the One Who didn’t discriminate when it came to those He spent time with.
We are to be like the One Who fed the hungry, preached good news to the poor and gave release and freedom to those who were captives.
And how do we go about this?
By seeking to live lives of humble obedience to the will of God.
The baptism of Jesus reveals His identity.
And as Christian people, we take our understanding of baptism from Jesus’ baptism.
We believe that, through God’s unmerited grace, we stand alongside Jesus as God declares, “This is my child, whom I love; with whom I am well pleased.”
This is our Christian identity—people who are loved by God.
And it is through this identity that we find our value and are motivated and given the gift of being able to see the value of every other human being as well.
Just think.
Mario had lived on the streets of New York City for 30 years.
People who passed him by must have called him many things: a bum, homeless, a pan handler, human waste.
People avoided him and tried not to look at him.
We are all tempted, at times, to forget that God loves all people the same.
Perhaps we forget this when we meet a drug addicted homeless person, perceive others as unattractive, or attach any sort of negative labels to other people.
If we don’t pay attention, we will find that God’s voice and our identity as God’s children gets drowned out by our own judgments, words, actions or inaction.
And when this happens, God’s love shines a little less brightly in our world—and in us.
Even as others, through their actions and words declared Mario to be worthless, he continued to carry his baptismal certificate and his birth certificate in his pocket.
His birth certificate proved that he had parents who birthed him and named him.
His baptismal certificate reminded him that God had loved him and claimed him.
Mario is a beloved child of God.
To each of us who have had water poured over us in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, let’s allow those words to sink in and define us this morning: “I am a beloved child of God, God is pleased with me.”
I don’t remember my actual baptism, but my entire life is built on it non-the-less!
I am thankful for my baptism, how about you?
As we live through our days and hear others judge us, we need to remember God’s voice at Jesus’ baptism.
As we hear ourselves put someone else down for cutting us off in traffic, bothering us for money or food—whatever it is, we need to listen again to God’s voice at Jesus’ baptism.
Today is Baptism of the Lord Sunday.
You are going to be invited to come forward to the baptismal font, touch the waters and be thankful for your baptism and then take a shell to remind you of who you are.
If you have not been baptized, please let me know.
We can either do it this morning or schedule a time to sit down and discuss it further.
But come up to the baptismal waters nonetheless.
For as Jesus walked forward into the Jordan river, we come here this morning.
And as we do, let us listen carefully and hear God’s voice say to us: “You are my son, my daughter, my beloved, with you I am well-pleased.”
