Baptism of Our Lord
When I was a kid, my parents enrolled our family in the Fresh Air program. For those of you who may not be familiar with it, the purpose of the Fresh Air program is to give inner-city kids an opportunity to spend two weeks in a rural environment.
We had multiple experiences with two different kids. Fray and Timmy, both of whom were from New York. It was an eye-opening experience both for them and for us. For both of them, it was their first experience living someplace other than an apartment. It was a house. A big house, with 2 ½ acres of yard to play in. We had a barn, a smokehouse, and an outhouse!
I remember it took the little girl, Fray, a whole week to trust us that she really could go outside and play in the grass in bare feet. That she didn’t have to be afraid that the lawn was littered with broken glass. Can you imagine, not playing in the grass in bare feet for the first time until you were 9 or 10 years old? It was inconceivable to us, because we didn’t even know what shoes were during the summer, when I was a kid.
The other memory that is indelible for me is when Timmy, who was a handful, saw cows for the first time. When I was little there was an Amish farm up the street, but their pasture was right across the road from us. The first time Timmy saw a cow he was awestruck. He just stood there, which was really something because otherwise he was constantly moving. His mouth hung open. And then, after a few moments of this he said, “Man! I didn’t know they were so big!”
Who knows what he was picturing in his mind, when it came to cows. I mean, let’s face it, even as adults I think we sort of tend to forget exactly how big a cow is. And then we finally come up against a cow, and our response is usually, “Man, I’d forgotten how big cows are!” It’s funny because we have that experience of “cows are big”, and then we go away from that experience and, in our minds, they start to get a little smaller again. Until the next time you happen to actually bump up against a cow. And you think to yourself, “Man, I’d forgotten how big cows are”.
And as in our experience with cows (OK, my experience with cows), so, too, do we tend to experience God the same way. Every once in a while, we’ll have an experience of God whereby we’re reminded of God’s depth or God’s vastness. And yet, it’s all too easy to forget that. Actually, “forget” is the wrong word. Because I don’t think we ever really forget. But it makes God too unmanageable. And so, we make God more comfortable for ourselves by making God smaller. We make God, once again, manageable. We make God definable. We make God in our image. We make God small.
I recently ran across an article by a man named Richard Green. The article is entitled: “Albert Einstein and the Scientific Proof of 'God'” In the article he proposes a new way of beginning to grasp God, recognizing that God ultimately defies definition. He writes: “And yet this new definition of the non-definable […] is actually best represented, with scientific accuracy, in a three letter and one number mathematical formula ... a formula that, appropriately, is the most famous in history: E=MC2…”
“Here's the E=MC2 math and the Theology, all rolled up into one: Step One: Add all of the matter on Earth and contained in the rest of G_d's creation, 100 billion galaxies, each with about 100 billion stars. Step Two: Multiply that amount of Matter by the speed of light. Step Three: Square that number ... and then understand that every gram of that incalculable amount of matter has the energy of a Hiroshima nuclear bomb. A 100-pound human, for example, contains the force of approximately 45,000 Hiroshimas. A 200-pound person over 90,000 and 6.5 billion humans, with an average of 100 pounds of mass, contain over 292 trillion times the force of an atomic bomb. Add other animals, mountains, oceans and the mass of the Earth itself and we have approximately 13 septillion pounds or approximately 6 octillion (6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) or 627 atomic bombs worth of force contained in just the Earth itself.”
“Understanding that Earth is a small part of one solar system which is a tiny part of one galaxy which is a tiny part of a Universe estimated to have 100 Billion galaxies, each with 100 Billion such solar systems ... one can quickly begin to comprehend that the quantity of Force/Energy/Power/"G_d" determined by Einstein's tiny formula, E=MC2, is beyond all human comprehension.”
“E=MC2, scientifically, thus, allows us to define the quantity of Energy in the known Universe.”
“Einstein, despite his massive intellect, himself surrenders to the unfathomable nature of G_d. He wrote the following in 1932 ... "The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as of all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all there is."”
The Bible witnesses to this truly awe-inspiring power.
“Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness. I am the LORD, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them. The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD, over mighty waters. The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty. The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon. The voice of the LORD flashes forth flames of fire… The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness… The LORD sits enthroned over the flood; the LORD sits enthroned as king forever.”
That God’s power and reach, that God’s interests for that matter, should not be constrained by our preconceived notions of what should be of interest to God is attested to by Peter in his sermon. "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” With that one sentence, Peter upends nearly 1000 years of religions tradition and doctrine. Suddenly is Israel no longer “the chosen people”. God, instead, calls to all nations through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus, the one "anointed" by God (the messiah) dies on a tree (10:38-39). But according to Jewish law anyone who dies this way is cursed. Literally cut off from the people of God (Deuteronomy 21:23). Yet Peter’s sermon tells us that God is most fully revealed in the most unthinkable of places-in the execution of a criminal on a cross. By whatever measurement-religious, social, cultural—the death of the Jew named Jesus was hideous, shameful, and offensive. God takes that which is a symbol of shame and being cast out, namely being crucified, and turns it in upon itself: the cross becomes a place of forgiveness and reconciliation.
God's love is set loose in the world. It is a wild and unruly force. It wins over the hearts of centurions like Cornelius. It reverses conventional categories of who is "in" and who is "out." It eats with sinners and upholds love of enemies as a new norm. We should be dubious, at best, regarding human attempts to corral and control this power. In fact, we should blatantly question and challenge them. The Holy One of Israel has a way of eluding human attempts to hold tight. The Holy One of Israel defies being contained or controlled. It’s that same unruly and wild love that we see being born into a stable. Surrounded by unruly and wild company. Animals and unsavory shepherds. Foreigners bearing strange gifts.
It’s that same unruly and wild love that’s revealed to us not only in the death and resurrection of Christ. It’s also revealed when we visit people who are sick. It’s revealed when we reach out to those who are grieving. It’s revealed in feeding the hungry and seeing to it that the homeless have someplace to sleep at night, like when we support Lutheran World Relief. It’s revealed in a bunch of kids and adults get together on a Sunday morning to put together the Grace Bags, that still others then keep with them in their cars, to hand them out to those in need. When the captive are released, it’s because of the power of God’s love has freed them. When justice is granted to the exploited, it’s because the power of God’s love has been their advocate.
It’s that same unruly and wild love that we meet in the waters of baptism. It’s what makes the death and resurrection of baptism possible. It’s the power that alters our spiritual DNA. It’s what makes us children of God. Brothers and sisters in Christ. And it begs to be released, because while the power of God’s love cannot be controlled, it can be ignored. It will only take root and change lives where it is permitted to do so. Where it is fostered and encouraged. Where it is given free license to do the things it has the power to do. That power is the power to change lives. I’m not the same person I was over 35 years ago when that power, for the first time, moved in my life, the gift of faith was created in my heart, and I finally understood and accepted my call to the ministry of word and sacrament. Nor was I the same person 3 years later when I got married. I’m not the same person now that I was 11 years ago, when we first arrived here. Because the experience of the power of God’s love to change us is an ongoing one.
We have done a lot of growing and learning over the past eleven years together. And given the impact of nearly three years of pandemic, it’s time now to step out with greater boldness than ever before. It’s time to learn to be a congregation that has at its heart the desire to share the power of God’s love with the world around us.
We do that in two ways. First: we do it by intentionally reaching out to those in need. Having spent several years in the LEAD process, discerning the needs of our community which go unmet, we must now bring our tremendous gifts as individuals and as a congregation to bear upon those needs.
Second: we do it by intentionally sharing with others what God’s love has achieved in our lives and how we see that love being expressed at Calvary, as inclusive and compassionate community, where everyone is connected in relationship with God and each other to foster wholeness of mind and soul. In other words, telling people why you love Calvary and what makes it worth coming back every week.
Forty-plus years ago, I saw how my parents opened their home to total strangers: Children, treating them if only for a short time, as a son and a daughter. And I saw how their love changed the way those kids understood their world. The power of God’s love calls us to open up this house, as well, and to be bold in inviting others to join us. Not just to change perceptions of the world. But to change hearts and minds. To make this world a better place. AMEN