This sermon connects to the chapter entitled, "Jesus Comes of Age."
Luke 2:39-3:14; 3:21-22
What Do You Want To Be?
James Sledge January
11, 2015 – Baptism of the Lord
“What
do you want to be when you grow up?” That’s long been a popular question to ask
young children. I doubt anyone has ever researched it, but I imagine that very
few six year olds grow up to be the astronauts, football players, firefighters,
or teachers that they offer as answers to that question.
I
wonder what John the Baptist or Jesus would have said when they were five or
six. Perhaps John would have said, “I want to be a priest.” After all, his
father was one, and the job was hereditary. People looked up to priests. They
had fancy robes and such. Surely at some point, John dreamed of being a priest
like Dad. Wow. That didn’t pan out.
Perhaps
Jesus would have said, “I want to be a carpenter.” Joseph was a carpenter, at
least in some of the biblical texts. I would only be natural that Jesus might
have wanted to emulate his father. Some Bible verses say Jesus that was a
carpenter, so perhaps he did become one.
That’s
mostly speculation. We know almost nothing about Jesus or John before they
begin their ministries. The gospels of Mark and John introduce Jesus to us
fully grown. Same for John the Baptist. Only Luke tells us about a twelve year
old Jesus. And only Luke links the births of Jesus and John, telling us they
were related. Did John and Jesus know one another as children? Did the family
stop by Zechariah’s house for a visit when they travelled to Jerusalem to
celebrate the Passover? As a priest, Zechariah must have lived nearby.
There
is so much we don’t know, but clearly both Jesus and John were brought up in
the faith. They learned about God and what it meant to be a member of God’s
people. Luke clearly paints Jesus as a prodigy, but he also makes clear that
Jesus learned and grew. He was a real boy who received lessons in Torah but who
was also keenly aware of God’s presence. It is tempting for some Christians to
picture Jesus as not really human. The carol Away in a Manger has a gentle
version of this. “The little Lord Jesus no crying he makes.” I doubt that
seriously. Luke says he was a human who grew in age and stature and wisdom.
Luke
doesn’t tell us anything about John’s childhood. I wonder if he was the
rebellious sort all along. After all, he ends up a long way from the temple
priesthood. No fancy robes for him. No ritual baths like those used by pilgrims
who came to the Temple. John seems to have rejected his father’s way of the
faith. John was out in the wilderness, dunking people in the river, talking
about how God was about to do something new, how just being a member of God’s
people wasn’t going to cut it. Just being a member of a church wasn’t going to
cut it. “Bear good fruit,” shouts John. “Share what you have. Don’t use your
power to take advantage of people. Don’t always being trying to get more.”
Luke
tells us about John’s ministry sandwiched between the story of a twelve year
old Jesus and Jesus’ baptism. That provides an interesting contrast. At age
twelve, Jesus causes his parents sheer terror because he stays behind to be in
his “Father’s house.” Jesus is there with folks like John the Baptist’s dad, discussing
the Law with the Temple experts. But when Jesus begins his ministry, he goes to
John out in the wilderness, far from the Temple. And he gets dunked in the
river. He connects himself to John’s rebellion, to that new thing where simply
being a descendant of Abraham or a member at the church won’t cut it. He
connects himself to John’s call to bear fruit.
I wonder what happened between age
twelve and how-ever-old Jesus is when he gets baptized. Jesus is quite different
from John, but like John, he spends most of his ministry far from the Temple.
He became a rebel himself somewhere along the way. As he learned the faith and
grew in wisdom and that combined with his special awareness of God, he realized
that things had to change, and that he was the one to change them.
Just
before Christmas, two different church members sent me a piece from the Wall Street Journal entitled, “God Isn’t
Dead in Gotham.” I’ve learned over the years to pay attention when I get two
different taps on the shoulder, and so I read it with some care. It was an
opinion/interview piece about a pastor and the church he had founded in
Manhattan 25 years ago. The church is not anything remarkable in terms of how
they do worship. It’s a fairly traditional, Presbyterian Church in America
congregation. Yet it has thousands of
people in worship each week and the majority of them are single and
under 35… in New York City.
This
is completely contrary to the current narrative of church in America.
Congregations of all stripes are struggling to fill the pews these days, no
matter the denomination, no matter if conservative or liberal. The millennial
generation is especially absent. Yet in Manhattan this congregation is bursting
at the seams, mostly because of all the millennials there.
It
totally undermines this narrative about the demise of organized religion, and
so I was struck by this statement from Timothy Keller, the pastor there. He
said, “Religion is not in decline so much as inherited religion is in
decline—religion that you’re born into.”[1]
That’s an interesting distinction, and it seems right at home with John the
Baptist and with Jesus. John says that inherited religion isn’t worth much.
Just happening to be Jewish (or Christian), just belonging to the faith doesn’t
count for much, he says. “Bear fruits worthy of repentance… For I
tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”
And then Jesus comes along and lets John
dunk him in the river, participates in his baptism of repentance, this ritual
of rethinking everything and honing a new identity that wasn’t inherited or acquired
by association. And Jesus would continue this “change everything” message of
John, calling people to new identities born of experiencing the depths of God’s
love for them, and from living lives of discipleship that followed the ways of Jesus,
this one who knew God so intimately and who gave himself so fully for something
wonderful and new.
___________________________________________________________________________
When
our gospel reading for today begins, Jesus and his family go to Jerusalem to
celebrate the Passover. That’s a bit like going to Rome to celebrate Christmas.
Passover was the biggest celebration in the Jewish year, remembering that long
ago event when God had intervened to rescue Israel from slavery and had formed
them as a new, covenant people in the Sinai wilderness. That was an ancient
story even in Jesus day. For some it was probably like Christmas or Easter for
many of us, a wonderful holiday and celebration that came and went without
having much impact on people’s lives the rest of the year, without shaping
their identities in really significant ways.
But John the Baptist comes with his
warning that this must change, and with the promise of forgiveness of the
coming of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus comes and joins himself to John’s message
of hope and change, and in that moment the Spirit descends as a dove and God
says, “You are my Son, the Beloved.” In this moment Jesus fully
becomes who he is and steps into the life he is called to live. Here he begins
to show us the way to our full humanity. Here he begins to invite us to become
who we are supposed to be.
_____________________________________________________________________________
What
do you want to be when you grow up? Or simply, What do you want to be. More to
the point, who does God want you to become? At your baptism, who did God call
you to be?
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