Sermon Archive

Books on “how to preach” always say there are two things you need to do when preparing a sermon. One is to “exegete the text,” which is a fancy way of saying you need to study the scripture and figure out what it might mean. The other is to “exegete the congregation,” which is a fancy way of saying, think about your audience. Think about the the couple who just had a baby, the man who just lost his job, the teenager who’s been depressed, and ask: what might each of them hear in this scripture, and what might their questions be?

Now, I confess I usually spend very little time exegeting the congregation, because I tend to preach to myself and hope you all don’t mind going along for the ride. But this week felt different, because this week is Baptism of the Lord Sunday, the day we remember the baptism of Jesus and invite all who are baptized to renew their baptismal vows. And when I exegeted all of us, I figured we were in very different stages of baptism or unbaptism, and we’d have different feelings and questions on Baptism of the Lord Sunday.

Maybe you’ve never been baptized. Your parents weren’t Christians, or they wanted you to make the decision yourself, and although you come to church you’re not ready to sign up, and maybe you’re wishing you stayed home this morning. Or perhaps you were baptized as an infant and made a profession of faith in 6th grade, but you’re not sure what you believe now and wonder if you can renew your vows with integrity. Or perhaps you remember your baptism with gratitude, struggle every day to live up to your call, and you look forward to this day the rest of the year. Or maybe none of these descriptions fit. But some of us will be coming forward and others of us won’t. Some people may feel affirmed in their faith, and others may feel uncomfortable and wonder if they belong. And what might God be saying to us through the scripture – about inclusion and exclusion – to each of us with such different experiences of baptism?

Let’s go back to our story. Before his vision, before he met Cornelius, Peter believed that Jesus was sent to the people of Israel, period. God was Lord of all creation and cared about the welfare of the nations, but Peter understood that God’s people were the people of Israel, and God’s promises had been to them and their children. In this respect Peter was like everyone else in the ancient world. Of course the gods were partial: they were partial to their cities, to their cults, to their nations. Judaism may have been unique in believing that Yahweh was the only God, but generally speaking, people had their gods and gods had their people. Peter’s new understanding that Christ was sent to people of all nations, that he was a savior for all, was very different. But from a distance of 2000 years we may not see it as so radically inclusive. After all, isn’t Peter saying that God is partial to baptized people? Partial to people who have received the Holy Spirit and confess Jesus Christ as Lord?

We have to admit that is what the church has often taught. It has taught, sometimes unwittingly, that baptized people are God’s favorites; that God is partial to Christians as opposed to Jews; to Christian Europeans as opposed to those pagan Indians; to people who come to church as opposed to people who spend their Sunday mornings reading the New York Times; to people who come up to renew their baptismal vows.... But that is not the gospel, and we know the harm that has caused. This is the gospel:

Parents understand that “showing no partiality” doesn’t mean equally withholding affection from all their children. It means loving all their children in whatever ways they can. And we all know that love needs to be demonstrated, in acts of kindness and justice, mercy and tenderness. The good news is that God is not off in heaven, keeping to himself because he doesn’t want to play favorites or show partiality. The good news is that God reaches out in love for us through Christ, who as Peter said was baptized, anointed with the Holy Spirit and went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by all kinds of devils, who was hung on a tree but raised on the third day and who is with us still. And the good news is that God invites everyone of us into the love of Christ – no matter how rich or how poor, no matter our nationality or background, no matter how many guilty secrets we may hold. But the good news is also that because God does not show partiality, we can trust that God reaches out in other ways and issues other invitations – we may not know what they are, but God has not abandoned the billions of people who are not baptized. God did not give us the sacrament of baptism to create a group of favorites. God has given us baptism to bring us to her through the body of Christ, and so that we may love God in return.

Our love relationship with God, like any love relationship, requires us to commit over and over again. Those of us who are baptized know that those promises to trust in Christ and renounce evil are not easy to keep, so saying them again, together, can help – we invite you to do so. And if you have not been baptized, or if you’re feeling ambivalent about your baptism, we invite you to watch, and pray, and listen: the invitation into Christ’s love is for you, too. It will not make you one of God’s favorites, but if you feel called to accept it – and it’s OK if you don’t – you are promised new life and love through Jesus the Christ.