Dangerous Waters

Isaiah 43:1-7, Luke 3:15-22

January 14, 2007

Rochelle A. Stackhouse

In a list of the most dangerous things we might do in our life, baptism would not rank high among them. We love baptisms, don’t we, whether it is a baby we baptize or a child William or Andrew’s age or an adult. It’s a warm and loving time for the church, a time when these beautiful words of Isaiah seem so appropriate: “you are precious in my sight and honored, and I love you.” We can hear these as God’s words to those baptized and our words to them as well. They are words that ground us, that wrap us in the security and certainty that we are claimed and valued. We are firmly rooted in God, in the church, in a faith which can sustain us through deep waters and fiery trials, even through times of doubt and testing. That is very good news indeed.

Then, if we link our baptisms to the baptism of Jesus, a new element enters the picture, the element of danger and of risk, the sense that we should look up from our baptismal waters expecting that this water will mark us not only for love, but for trouble. If we link our baptisms to the baptism of Jesus, these waters become dangerous, indeed, and we can have the courage to enter them because of the firm foundation we are given in God’s assurances to us in baptism.

Think with me for a moment about Jesus’ baptism. John has just told the people someone is coming who will bring a powerful, purging fire from God to cleanse them of all that is against God’s will. John is an incredibly controversial figure, an annoyance to both the religious and political powers of his day, so much of an annoyance, in fact, that Luke reminds us that soon after these events, John will be arrested by King Herod, and, we know, eventually beheaded because he dared to call the King to account for his actions. The people that flocked to John’s message, a message of challenge to both the religious and political establishment of his time, were not, by and large, the proper and powerful people (and when they did come, he called them, in a literal translation, “snake bastards”). Those who came found no authority or spiritual strength in the messages they heard at temple and synagogue and sought something more. John was a dangerous leader, indeed.

And Jesus, not himself in need of a baptism for the repentance of sins, stands beside John and, by allowing John to baptize him, associates himself closely with this character of questionable reputation and extremist views. The fact that God chose the moment of Jesus’ baptism by John to reveal publicly Jesus’ identity and call clearly establishes Jesus as one with the mission of John, and therefore likely to cause the same kind of trouble. One might have expected Jesus to reveal himself in the Temple or the royal courts of Jerusalem, the places where he could get influential followers and the important people to receive his message, the great teachers and leaders of Israel. Why have this happen out in the wilderness with a renegade leader in a liturgical practice that was definitely outside the accepted prayer book? One assumes this was intentional on the part both of Jesus and of God. God might have spoken from heaven “with you I am well pleased, because you are hanging out with truth-tellers like John and those like him who are on the edges in these difficult times.” Jesus continued to do just that, so that at the mountain of Transfiguration, we’ll once again hear a voice from heaven being well pleased with Jesus and calling the disciples to “listen to him!”

You see, baptism is not just a naming ceremony for babies. It is not just an initiation rite into the family of the church. It is not just an occasion for a celebration. It is not a magic spell we say to keep our children or ourselves out of hell. Baptism is a call to examine how we live our lives, and even more, a call to follow Jesus and John into the dangerous waters of speaking truth, of confronting evil, of hanging around with those who struggle and suffer, of seeking to be healers and reconcilers, of constant discernment over what would make God well pleased, and not only ourselves or the influential people in our workplace or school or society. It is a call to be spice and light in the bland and dark places of the world. It becomes a call to take up our cross and follow Jesus. Yes, it reminds us that the voice of God calls to us and says, “You are precious and honored and I love you,” and then God gives us a little shove and says, “Now get with the program!”

It is, if you will, a call to explore how, in our lives, we may be a bit more like John, like Jesus, a bit more, if you will, colorful. A bit more extreme. To free ourselves from the constraints of needing to fit in, to be popular, to stifle our opinions in order not to rock whatever boat we happen to be in, to play along with games with which we are uncomfortable in order to get ahead, from the constraint of always needing to be “appropriate.” I think we need a regular opportunity to remember our baptisms, or to consider being baptized if we are not, beginning in our teenage years, when the pressure to conform becomes so powerful. The apostle Paul says we are called not to conform to the world, but to be transformed by the Holy Spirit. That transformation will often push us into being a bit extreme on behalf of God’s desires for the world: extreme in speaking truth to power, in insisting that all people are equal and loved in God’s sight, extreme in holding people accountable for their actions, extreme in reaching out to the poor, the sick, the prisoner, the oppressed, extreme in being willing to stand up for what we believe in even if it sometimes makes other people uncomfortable. Baptism reminds us that the call to be Christian is not a call to be “nice” but a call to be faithful.

Tomorrow we remember the great prophet Martin Luther King, Jr. During his years of ministry, King was often dismissed as an “extremist.” In his Letter from Birmingham City Jail, King wrote this.

I must admit that I was initially disappointed in being categorized [as an extremist]. But as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist in love. . . .Was not Amos an extremist for justice. . .Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist. . . .Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” So the question is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or will we be extremists for the cause of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary’s hill, three men were crucified for the same crime—the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality…The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness…So after all, maybe the South, the nation, and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

Helen and Ken need our prayers today, because if God’s Spirit is given free reign to work, then today we have loosed some creative extremism in Andrew and William, or at least I hope we have. We’ve touched them with some dangerous waters, allied them with some controversial ancestors, and invited them to trust in the love of God and so fear nothing the world can throw at them. And they helped me give you a touch of those waters as well. King’s question is as relevant today as in 1963: what kind of extremist will we be? Where in your life will you heed the call to some creative extremism? If you have been baptized, remember into what company and what Spirit you were baptized. If you have not been baptized, maybe now is the time to enter some dangerous waters. Amen.