Beloved
January 22, 2006
Matthew 3:13-17
In our lives we consider ourselves of a certain place. We are known as parents, which gives us an expertise or perspective of one arena of knowledge. We are known by the type of employment that we have, giving us a certain status at work and outside depending on our titles. Our neighborhoods, our income, our political affiliation all contribute to how we view ourselves and keep ourselves in this world.
When we meet others from another category, we are affected. And, how many categories you seem to have in common affects how you perceive the interaction, whether it is exciting or frightening. For example, let's use the Foreign Exchange student experience. A new student has come to your school to be a Foreign Exchange student. You know that this person is a student, and so are you, you have that in common. You know this person is your own age, you have that in common. You know that in order to qualify for the program you have to pay a certain amount of money, so the standard of living is oftentimes each country's version of middle or upper class. The student is often coming into our country to learn about being an American and learn English. This means we can learn to communicate with him/her in our own way, learning our own language not having to learn theirs. As their English grows and relationships deepen they share what their lives are like in comparison and contrast to what they are experiencing here. This is typically a positive and exciting experience. Many of us remember Satchiko who came to stay with the Wallaces two years ago and then visited again last summer from Japan. A wonderful experience to get to know her and learn about her life, exciting, friendly. It made the world seem smaller.
However, compare that experience to one on the street. Someone comes up to you and you do not know them. They are dressed differently from American dress. They are not speaking English, they smell differently, look differently and are trying to ask/tell/find out something from you. You perceive them to be agitated. Your heart begins to pound, you hold tightly to your purse or wallet. You try to get out of the interaction. It seems dangerous, unclear, and sometimes frightening.
John and Jesus are experiencing this dissonant experience of the second example. John lives out in the wilderness. The untamed place. The dangerous place. The place where you can not go without being changed. The place where danger lurks around every corner. John lived in that place with the outcast, the unclean, the violators, perpetrators and the different. He was called to use his gifts in the wilderness by using this water ritual to help people forgive themselves that they might begin again. Can you imagine, you've been kicked out, thrown out, set apart, labeled unclean, unworthy of living, dangerous and you run into John in the Jordan. Inviting you to step into this living water. This water that pulls and pushes. This water that rushes by you. This water filled with living things. This water that moves in spite of you. To step into this water, with your tired dirty feet. Step into this water and let it surround you, your body, your life. And, allow this water to sweep away from you all of your regrets, your actions of harm, your shortcomings, your dis-ease. Allow this water to symbolize that God has granted you a new path, a new beginning, a do over. And it begins the moment you rise from this water and walk to the shore. This John was offering up hope to those who had none. This John was offering an opportunity to be loved. To be so willing to be open to letting go of all the things that send us into the wilderness and begin again whole, whole enough to be loved. Loved by ourselves, loved by God, maybe even loved by others. This John was transforming lives right out there in the middle of the war zone.
Then, this Jesus comes along. I believe that John was a prophet. I've decided this week that Jesus wasn't out to change the community, the synagogue, the world. Jesus was simply a grassroots organizer. He came along and began living his talk. He came along to change how people experienced God. And, he lived into that call through all that he did. He changed the world and the faith community by living into love, peace, compassion and kindness, mercy and faith one person, one interaction at a time. Other things changed because of this work, but every day he solely focused on who God was, how he experienced God and sharing that with love with all he encountered. Sometimes it was tough love, sometimes critical love, but always it was love. John was a prophet, doing a new thing to transform lives. He brought hope to the hopeless. And, as our Scripture said last week, he was one path but another was coming who would be greater. John saw that Jesus was doing this same work of hope, peace, kindness, mercy and compassion. He sensed that Spiritual connection in Jesus. He saw the power he had with all of these outcast marginalized people. John could work in the wilderness, but he just couldn't minister in town. He wasn't couth enough. He didn't like the way they dressed. And, there were no bugs to eat within the city walls. He wasn't a city kind of guy. He liked his wide open spaces, organic way of living right out there in the middle of it all. But, this Jesus seemed to be able to work, talk and live with those inside and outside of the city walls. He seemed centered and comfortable both places. He connected with people in all settings and he was changing their way of living, their sense of hope and peace, their ability to be loved. Allowing themselves to be enough. Allowing themselves to be open to being loved by God and perhaps by others. He had started a movement, always surrounded by people learning, talking, sharing, growing. John saw that this Jesus was birthing something big. He did not feel his simple little baptism ritual was for this Holy Man. This man got this ritual in the way he lived, breathed, visioned. He didn't need it. John just didn't think he needed it.
But, Jesus, just another ordinary guy. The pressure of living life in this new way. Of bringing together all these people that have been divided for so long. Of speaking the name of God and applying the teachings to our living with one another, even those who were created outside of birth families. It was a huge responsibility. And, as many days as he felt called and living into this work, he doubted he was enough, and where it would all lead. And, he felt it was the same beautiful work of John. As an everyday average man, he respected this work of John's out in the wilderness. He respected how it was changing lives and helping people to consider what it means to be loved. What it means in our lives to be love. He wanted to be baptized to connect himself to that God of forgiveness, allowing us to let go. He wanted to connect his movement to this man who dreamed of making pathways that we all might find ways to be loved. Jesus was baptized by John.
Jesus opened himself up to be baptized by John. He opened himself to a man and his tradition which was different from his. A call with goals that were different but similar to his. And, John took him into that living water and blessed him, allowing him to begin again, refreshed, renewed, and feeling like the dirt and grime of living was all washed away. He was clean, fresh, lighter, ready to begin again. He heard the voice of God, calling to him, “My beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” He rose, reassured, reinvigorated, ready to keep walking this new path of discovery amongst this diverse people of God.
John opened himself up to baptizing someone he felt had more status and power than he. John opened himself up to recognizing that he can bless anyone who was willing to be open to blessing. It mattered not their status or acclaim. It was a primal need to allow all to be transformed through forgiveness and inclusion. It was a primal need to know that we are loved. That we can be loved. And, that God calls us sons and daughters, beloved. That God has a strong and tender attachment to us, and that our living pleases this God. And it has nothing to do with where we live, what we've accomplished, or where we've been. John's call was wide enough to be open to all of the people. Even this great prophet Jesus.
As many of you know, Cathy and I became parents eight weeks ago. Logan, a 16 year old boy, a brother to Amanda, another member of our faith community and to Angelo, Dacia and Nancy's new son, came to live with us. Logan has had a rough life. He does not know that he is loved. He does not know that he is beloved. He does not know how to respond to love. As he traveled through his growing years each time love was presented by him to another it was beaten, shouted, taken from him. He was manipulated, abused, neglected, cast out. He has lived in more places than a military family. He has been shut out, put away, torn down, and sold out each time alone. Because of this, I believe, he lives every day in the wilderness. Cathy and I have spent the last eight weeks teaching him about love, respect, joy, laughter and kindness. We have taught and demonstrated consequences for mistakes that don't hurt him but secure him. We have packed his lunch, taken him to school, helped him with homework, gotten to know his teachers, helped him join the school symphony. We held him accountable for his chores that contributed to the maintenance of the household and family and sat down each night for dinner together as a family talking, laughing, listening, cajoling about the day. But, it was clear that most of the days Logan felt firmly rooted in the wilderness. So burned he didn't believe he was safe, secure, or could be loved. But, there were glimmers…Can I keep my movies with yours? Bathroom things eventually staying in the medicine cabinet. Announcements about homework that had to be done. Plans for Rodeo weekend, a future violin concert, and driving this summer. Glimmers of hope, trust, opportunity that this might be home for awhile.
Logan has been in Foster Care in the state of New Mexico for at least three years. He came to Tucson trying to reconnect with family. He was accompanied by a social worker who gave Amanda his birth certificate, a copy of his social security card, Medicaid card and three vials of medication. He came with one pair of pants and two shirts and so many needs from being broken again and again. Amanda tried, Cathy and I tried to find out what these medications were for, what his treatment plan was, and how to continue from here, all to no avail within the system, and finally coming to crisis last Wednesday knowing there is not enough medication beyond the weekend. No doctor willing to refill. No system willing to rediagnose and begin again. No paperwork for how he got here to begin with. And, Friday morning the phone call came, the state of New Mexico was coming to take him back. They didn't have answers about medication, they couldn't find documentation, neither Tucson nor Southern Arizona has a place for Adolescent baseline evaluation, he was being taken out of our care. We were to pick up the transport social worker at 9:30 this morning and return Logan and him to the airport by 5 pm.
It has felt like a deadly nightmare leaving only emptiness behind. And, then we have this passage about “God's son the beloved.” I believe that Logan is beloved by God. I believe that he has lived most of his life in the wilderness and just needs a place that will allow him to be loved, model for him how to love, share with him kindness, mercy and compassion. Amanda's words ring in my ears, “Why did you send him in the first place if you weren't going to give him the services he needed to survive?” And they are quickly echoed by Harvey's words, “We were all strangers, Amanda, Logan, Angelo, and the people of this church. And, yet look at what we did. We loved this family. We stepped up for these boys and Amanda. We showed up, loved them, listened, spoiled and helped. This is what church is.” And, I feel the waters rising pulling, tugging, running through my grief and loss.
I know that his medications need to be figured out. I know that this broken boy needs to learn how to function in this world without hurting himself or others. I have no doubt he's in a good program now to do that. But, I know they can not and will not love him there. He will only be another client in a program having to find his way alone. And, as I've wondered about how it was possible to only have him with us for eight weeks, I think of all of you. And how we loved him. How he was here in time for confirmation. How he chose to be confirmed. How he made those promises. How he was accepted, challenged, encouraged and loved. How he didn't take off his confirmation necklace until Christmas when it was replaced with one from another member of the faith community. How he was told again, again and again, by this community of faith you are loved. By me, by God, by this community, you are loved and maybe just maybe it opened a door for him that he might just believe that he is love and he can be love.
This morning I needed to remind myself and each of us that we are bound by living water. Water that symbolizes the water that surrounds us in the womb, that makes up most of our bodies, that quenches our thirst. Water that was before and will be after we leave this place. Water that reminds us we are beloved. That God has a special attachment to us, that we are enough. Water that remind us that we can begin again, let go of the brokenness and love, be loved, give love.
In honor of my son, my beloved Logan, who will have to be loved from afar. In honor of all of those foster children out there lost, lonely, broken, being shifted around. In honor of all of these children here today, each one of us children of God, many of us broken in the past and often unsure of what lies ahead. Come to the baptismal bowl this morning. Come up here, put your hands into this living water, press it to your face, and remind yourselves you are forgiven, you are enough, you are loved and you are beloved to us. Come, come to the waters to heal and begin again.
Dear God, Thank you for reminding us of your love this morning. Thank you for this time to remember you are in our brokenness, our wilderness, our selves. Thank you for reminding us we are enough, just this way, and we can begin to be loved. To share love. To know love. And, thank you for the opportunity to build this community of love, filled with the actions of mercy, compassion and hope for each person who comes through these doors. Help us to remember that our witness Jesus didn't change the world through taking down the system, he changed the world through each person he met. Help our love to continue to extend to each person we meet, changing all of our lives through love. Amen.