Baptism of our Lord Year B January 11, 2015
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Genesis 1: 1-5 + Psalm 29 + Acts 19: 1-7 + Mark 1: 4-11
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
This week I heard the story of a young Ebola orphan in Sierra Leone. She is named Sweetie Sweetie and she is 4 years old. She is the only member of her family to have survived what killed her parents and siblings with quick cruelty. After her father and sister died, an ambulance came to take her very ill mother to the Ebola clinic. Although Sweetie Sweetie had no symptoms and seemed fine, no one in her village, not even her family members, would take her in. So she climbed into the ambulance with her mother and went to the clinic where she spent two weeks at her mother’s side. It was a biohazard area and her mother’s caretakers were wearing moon suits. Sweetie Sweetie wore nothing. “After her mother died, the young girl stood outside the clinic’s gates looking around with enormous brown eyes. There was no one to pick her up. She was put on the back of a motorbike and taken to a group home, whose bare, dim hallways she now wanders alone. Social workers are trying to find someone to adopt her, and Sweetie Sweetie seems to know she is up for grabs.” [1] One day there were visitors to the orphanage and Sweetie Sweetie is said to have asked them: “Do you want me?”
This story tugs at our heartstrings for all of its pieces are poignant and sorrowful. The small girl. The terrible epidemic that claimed her family. Life in an orphanage. Even her name. When I was trying to find out more about her, my search for “Sweetie Sweetie” yielded things like pie shops and candy stores and a business that made children’s clothing. There is nothing in a name like Sweetie Sweetie that seems prepared to carry that kind of sadness.
Earlier in the week I also enjoyed a lovely evening with a couple from this congregation. We talked about how the congregation has changed over the years, about how the children have grown to be adults with children of their own. I love these stories because I was not here to witness them. But of course, these sorts of stories happen everywhere. We also talked about the ups and downs and cycles of this congregation. I asked them why, when many years ago, families with young children left this congregation, they chose to stay. And this is what they told me. They said that they actually lived closer to an ELCA congregation who at that time had a thriving children’s program. They knew that their children would have fun there – with lots of kids their own age and lots of activities and lots of programming designed just for their age group. But, they said, when they came here, to this place, their children were cherished by the people here. They were loved and doted upon and valued. And they knew it. And no programming, no extended peer group can do as much in the heart of a child as the knowledge that they are cherished simply and only for who they are.
For several days I have held these two stories side by side in my heart. Sweetie Sweetie, left so alone that she asks complete strangers “Do you want me?” And children who, no matter the difficulties they might encounter in the course of a week, could come to this place and know that they are cherished and valued beyond measure.
I like to think that there is a vast chasm between Sweetie Sweetie and the children we cherish in this place. That an entire culture and oceans and continents lie between them. And maybe at some time in history that was true. But now, this congregation consistently reaches out to families whose children are not certain where the next meal will come from. In fact, if we are willing to tell ourselves the truth, these are also our children. We do the good work of bringing food for the food bank, but it’s another story altogether to go down there and look at the families standing outside in the rain in a line that stretches down the block. And to recognize them.
We do the good work of supporting the Compass Center’s many shelters but it is another thing entirely to go down there and cook a meal. We did this, last year, with our confirmation class. We piled into a church van and went down to Pioneer Square and made tacos for the men’s homeless shelter. The kids were excited and happy – chatterboxes – laughing and telling jokes. And when the chime rang and the clients came in for their meals, as one of the students said, I was looking into my grandpa’s eyes. What we learned that day was that they are us. We are them. There is no separation anymore. And our confirmation kids are faithful enough to know that this is the Gospel truth.
It is a complex, complicated, almost overwhelming thing to imagine how we, this gathered community of people who love Jesus, can possibly help solve the problems in today’s world. Ebola. AIDS. Terrorism. Poverty. Hunger. Global warming. Homelessness. What can we do? And what we are learning is that we can journey with and accompany and be with those who come to this place, to these doors. Sweetie Sweetie may not be here asking us “Do you want me?” but others come. They come every single day.
They are the young mother with her own 4 year old daughter who is about to be evicted from the run down hotel room they live in because they don’t have $80. They will have it on Friday and she can prove that she’ll have it on Friday. We can call the bank and verify that. But that hotel clerk doesn’t care. And it’s a cold November day. And they have been to four different places who have told them to fill out paperwork to get started to get in their system. But they don’t have that time. She has to give that hotel clerk $80 today. And in one hand she holds her little daughter’s hand and in the other she holds a sheaf of papers that prove her plight is authentic. And because of your faithfulness to the Gospel message we could bring them in from the cold, give them hot tea, let them sit and catch their breath and get warm. And we took food you had brought here and gave it to them. And hand warmers and a hat for the little one – oh, she got to choose what color she wanted! And we paid that $80 hotel bill. And the mother wept happy tears as she clutched her daughter’s hand.
Friends, it is easy to offer our help from a distance. To write our checks and bring our donations. Drop things off. Oh, those are important and helpful acts,, don’t get me wrong. But the Gospel calls us into deeper waters.
When my oldest son was a young teenager we lived near the Tennessee River. On Sunday afternoons after we came home from church he would change clothes, grab his fishing pole and head down to the river. Ostensibly he went to fish, but he often found himself bearing witness to a good old fashioned baptism. Local congregations would leave their buildings and come to the river, which in the south is not as clear as our northwestern rivers. The bottoms of those rivers are slick with slime from all sorts of sources. The congregation would pull up in their cars and the baptized would wade into that muddy water, careful not to lose footing on the slick river bed. And down they would go, under the water, with the whole congregation looking on and a firm grip on the pastor’s hand.
In some ways being baptized in muddy rivers with filth lined bottoms is better preparation for the Gospel call than the baptism we might have known. Our beautiful font, though, serves as symbol of the waters of baptism – that both wash us clean once and for all AND remind us that the work of the Gospel is messy and complex.
At Jesus’ baptism, which we remember on this day, he arose from those waters to hear a voice from the heavens calling him Beloved. And his work of ministry had just begun – he had done nothing to ‘earn’ that title – Beloved Son. It was just who he was. And it is who we all are – God’s beloved children. The hurting and the hungry, the widowed and the orphaned, the comfortable and the healthy. We are all Beloved children of God. Cherished simply for who we are. Wanted and loved by the God who claimed us in baptism. May that belovedness give us strength for the journey and may it call us into the deep and messy water. Thanks be to God. Amen.
[1] New York Times