Morning Prayer: Shannon Cook Choral Amen Hymn of Faith *What Was Your Vow and Vision* Witness of Scripture: Genesis 1: 1-5 & Mark 1: 9-11 Anthem *The White Dove* Derek Healy. Stephanie Clinton, soprano & Chancel Choir Sermon *Beginning* David Spain
Recorded on January 14, 2024
Over the years, my siblings and I have exchanged gifts for Christmas and birthdays—typically whimsical, but sometimes serious. Two came to mind, based on today’s readings from Genesis and Mark.The first gift given years ago that hung on the wall during elementary school days was a roughhewn wooden sign with words painted in rainbow colors, “I’m okay because God doesn’t make junk.”When one feels disposable or flawed, it is a good reminder; and what’s more it affirms God’s proclamation as echoed throughout the first chapter of the book called Beginnings—we call it Genesis.The second gift given some years later is meant to be funny which it is. Imprinted on a drink coaster are the words, “Jesus loves you…but I’m his favorite.”The only time it is not funny is when religions mistake the joke for truth, which sometimes happens.
Only two weeks into the new year and both biblical stories talk about beginnings—newness, freshness, possibility, hope. We think about resolutions with the turn of the calendar year but that is more than a societal impulse; it is also a faithful, biblical practice. Advent is the start of the Christian calendar year; Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah offer similar beginnings for our faithful Jewish friends. Within the Christian tradition, there are multiple moments for such beginnings not limited to Advent. Lent is a beginning; Easter is a beginning; Pentecost is a beginning. Beyond the Holy Days, there are the sacraments that in one or another always include some sense of beginning—baptism to be sure and this church’s gathering each week at the Communion Table carries within it the gift of newness, of beginning again.
What religion knows in its practice the wider culture also experiences—couples renew their vows on an anniversary; more broadly there is the freshness of the new school year—the brand new notebook and the fresh outfit for school’s first day; birthdays mark another trip around the sun and a chance to imagine what the upcoming days will be. For some, beginnings come with an every day commitment to be well that day, to be patient that day, to be hopeful that day. Sometimes newness presents itself in the unexpected harsh tragedy or the unforeseen good fortune. Beginning is in the rhythm of life, and faith at its healthiest celebrates that.
We know the need for resetting, renewing, refreshing, resolving because well, the Dairy Queen marque said it so well: “Dairy Queen: Ruining Your New Year’s Resolution since 1962.” Faith, thanks be to God, offers beginnings—two wonderful stories of beginnings from Genesis and Mark. Perhaps many who read the glorious first chapter of Genesis have the impression that God creates all that is out of nothing—“creation ex nihilo’ if we want to sound all theological. We have mostly the 1611 King James translation to thank for that impression. For all its beautiful poetry, the King James Bible was not always the best translator.Four hundred years of very faithful language studies help us understand something very important—when it comes to beginnings according to Genesis, God works with the stuff that is already there.God takes what is, imperfect as it might be, and creates newness. That is a helpful perspective for baptism, too.
Sometimes when people try to make the Bible do things it was never meant to do—like be a science book which it is not—the stunningly joyful proclamation that is there can be missed. The poetry, the liturgy of Genesis 1 proclaims the God who loves more than anything to take the stuff of life and make something new. More than “the how and the when” of life, Genesis is interested in the “why and the what for” of life. Both sets of questions are important, both sets of questions reveal truth.Focusing on the “why and what for” questions, Genesis tells of God brooding over life, which is to say God is already in relationship before form and void have taken shape. It is a critical clue of God—this God who relates, this God who promises initially and reaffirms steadfastly, is in covenant with everything God creates. So God moves into places, into stuff, and speaks a loving, generous, creative word.“Let there be” God gracefully says, and it is so, as God proclaims what is so is so good. We proclaim God has the first word, the last word and every word in between because as the old signs says—“God does not make junk.”
We listen for the words God proclaims in creation. First and foremost, God claims the world as belonging to God, which also means God lays claim on us. It is the very best of news because as the Psalmist sings—“the earth is the Lord’s and everything that is in it…it is God who has made us and not we ourselves…we belong to God.” Contrary to modern day mantras of self-autonomy and independence, creation reminds us that we would not be here without God’s generous, loving, claiming speech. It is a great gift if for no other reason than life can be a series of moments when others who are lower than God try to lay claim on us or give us a name.Genesis will have none of that.We belong to the God who says what God creates, even all of us, is good.
Unfortunately, there are some religions that suggest God’s original blessing of life no longer exists because of what happened as told in Genesis chapter 3, popularly known as the Fall. Although Walter Brueggemann reminds us the rest of the Bible is not held in tyranny to Genesis 3, there are various religious traditions that teach the doctrine of original sin—which by the way we owe to Augustine and not the Bible.Nevertheless, some religions claim the stain of original sin is all defining, a perspective that can inform an understanding of baptism in which the sole purpose of baptism is to wash away the stain of original sin. What an odd and tragic thing for religion to do—taking the gift of God’s creative blessing and the wonder of God’s generous gift of baptism and spinning it in a way to suggest that unless people are baptized, they are destined for hell. Oy vey—religions of guilt and threat. It is almost enough to make you believe in original sin—at least religion’s original sin! The clever cartoon Calvin and Hobbes has a fine take on the whole topic.Calvin asks Hobbes, “Original sin…does it mean we are all born sinners,” to which Hobbes replies, “No, it just means we are all quick studies!”
Years ago someone offered a baptism life line which is worth holding, the essence of which is “it makes all the difference in the world if you think of baptism as being saved to something rather than being saved from something.” That, I think is what Jesus shows us with his baptism. Mark’s gospel story is rather spare in his details about Jesus’ baptism. Mark does not say John wondered why Jesus would need to be baptized if he had nothing from which to repent. Instead, Mark reminds us that baptism gives God the opportunity to do exactly what God does in creating —to enter into the matter of life—Jesus’ life and our lives and do exactly what God does in creating: to bless and to claim and to say words even more intimate than “this is good.” With baptism, God says of Jesus and God says to us, “Remember you are mine, you are beloved.” When we baptize, we are not undoing something that has gone wrong; instead, we are reaffirming what has been true from the beginning—that God loves us, that God created us, that God claims us, that God calls us, that God gives us something wondrously important to be with our lives. The brooding, hovering God of the Genesis creating story is also the brooding, hovering God of Mark’s baptizing story. God is intimately, lovingly engaged.
Will Willimon has written, “I hope the church didn’t imply, in your baptism, that this was the end of your journey, its destination, your ticket to eternity.No, when you were baptized it was like Genesis 1 all over again…It wasn’t like in your baptism you were ‘one and done,’ fixed and finished. God didn’t just create you as a Christian, a disciple of Jesus, in one instant. God made a promise to you—‘I’ll continue to create.This is just the beginning. I’ll continue working with you and enable you to work with me…[In your baptism], the journey of faith and God’s creativity, has just begun.” (Pulpit Resource, January – March 2024, p. 4)
There are any number of important implications from this perspective. In the spirit of Calvin and Hobbes discussion, both creation and baptism as beginning steps rather than finished products means that if we are all quick studies then we are all also works in progress.God’s claim of us, of all the world sets life in motion, in relationship in which as the old hymn sings, “morning by morning new mercies I see.” And if we are all works in progress, then it means we are not yet what we will become, none of us has arrived because faith is dynamic and adventurous rather than static and dogmatic. Plus, if God is at work with us, then neither can we write off others as hopeless, lost causes. There is room for grace, for forgiveness, for mercy, for justice, for peace, for beginning.
Fred Craddock wrote that when Jesus was baptized, it did not grant him favored status.Instead, baptism led to vocation, for we are not only claimed by God but called into business with God. What is God’s business—to love, to heal, to care, to serve.(Cherry Log Sermons, 10) This is the life we are saved to. We remember that when we hear of Jesus’ baptism, when we celebrate baptism, when we gather at this Table—remembering God loves us and God claims us.
Years ago while serving in Texas, the church was celebrating baptism. One young boy who weighed about 70 pounds entered the waters. He was a bit scared, and rather than bending his knees as instructed, went stiff as a board when laid back. Water as we know is buoyant, so when his head laid back, his feet went up. Accepting all forms of baptism as expressions of God’s grace, we do practice baptism by immersion in this church. So here is this child to be baptized by immersion floating on top of the water. I tried discreetly patting down his knees and feet to make sure all of him was under water.There was nothing to worry about, because he was then as we all are now, already immersed in God’s love. What a fine beginning!