PAST SERMON 2009 #1

by Canon Bill Kibblewhite, delivered on Sunday January 11, 2009,
at the Church of the Holy Spirit.

Feel God Tugging at Your Heart

Mark 11: 4–11

Gracious God, at the baptism of Jesus you anointed him with the Holy Spirit. Equip us, we pray, and all who have been baptized in Christ’s name for ministry, and keep us ever faithful to you, the God of all.  Amen

There is a story about three clerics from different denominations who got together and found they all had the same problem. They all had bats in their belfries — in their bell towers. The bats were making a terrible mess. 

“I got so mad,” said the Roman Catholic priest, “that I took a shot gun and fired at them. It made some holes in the ceiling but it didn’t seem to bother the bats.”

“I tried to trap them: said the Pentecostal pastor. “I drove eighty kilometers out of town and released them, but they beat me back to the church.

“I haven’t had any more problems,” said the Anglican priest.  “What did you do?” the other two asked. “I baptized all of them. They haven’t been back since.”

This is a view of baptism that many have today. They see baptism as something to get done, a religious duty, and once you’ve done it then you can forget about its meaning and move on to “more important” stuff.
In recalling Jesus’ baptism today, we celebrate his willingness to respond to God’s call him and begin his brief but transforming ministry.

Baptism is a symbol of our spiritual beginning. At Christ’s baptism, God clearly identifies him as “my son, the Beloved, with [whom] I am well pleased.” At baptism, we too receive our identity from God.  We are named and we marked as “Christ’s own forever.”

When we think of new birth, we usually associate it with the birth of a child. Another, often more traumatic form of birth occurs when a growing child starts to become independent, with a mind of his or her own. We recall our sometimes awkward, sometimes exhilarating teenage years. If that wasn’t enough of a challenge, many of us chose to live them over again as parents of teenagers.

A third form of birth is that of our spiritual birth when we become open to the Spirit of God and sense God’s presence in our lives.

Jesus experienced these three stages of birth. We have just celebrated the wonder of his nativity. Like all infants, Jesus was totally dependent on his mother and father. Mary and Joseph fed him, washed him and clothed him. They taught him the meaning of love.

Then came the inevitable pain Mary and Joseph felt as Jesus began to establish his own independence. They must have been aware of this stage in his life when, at age twelve on one of their pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Jesus stayed behind in the temple, listening to and asking questions of the teachers. Little is known of Jesus’ life from that age until the beginning of his public ministry at age thirty. He no doubt worked with Joseph in his carpentry shop and helped to support his mother and siblings after Joseph died.

Up to the age of thirty, we can presume that Jesus pursued the normal patterns of life of a man of his time and society. We can also imagine that he must have experienced some inner wrestling as God’s call became stronger and more defined. His decision to travel south to where John was preaching could not have been an easy one. He no doubt felt some responsibility for providing for his mother and the family. In addition, there were a variety of religious movements in the turbulent society of ancient Palestine, including John’s, that were viewed with suspicion.  Some may well have questioned Jesus’ decision to link up with his strange cousin, who ate insects and wild honey, while spending his time living and teaching in the Judean desert.

In the end, Jesus left for the encounter with John in the waters of the Jordan River. It was important that the son of God be baptized and have his identity confirmed by God. It was only after Jesus was baptized and had received the Holy Spirit that he was empowered to begin his public ministry.

In terms of our own spiritual experience, we don’t usually expect voices from the sky, nor do we expect doves to appear out of the blue. But surely, if we set out in search of God’s will and offer our lives in God’s service, a sense of affirmation, a sense of being named by God as son or daughter, is evidence of God’s Spirit in our lives. Look at the example of the disciples. Following Christ’s ascension, they were a frightened, ineffective group of men and women, until the Day of Pentecost, when God poured out his Spirit upon them. They were then able to boldly proclaim how God had made himself known through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Perhaps more relevant for us is the example of a twelve year old boy. After he had been baptized, the children at school asked him about it. “Did you hear God talk?” one asked. “No,” he said. “Did you see a vision?” another asked. “No”, he replied. “Well, then, how did you know it was God?” A third friend asked. The boy thought for a moment and then said, “It’s like when you first catch a fish. You can’t see or hear the fish; you just feel it tugging on your line.  I felt God tugging on my heart.” 

In celebrating Rod’s baptism this morning, we as a community of faith acknowledge God’s living presence and action among us. The challenges we face living in a global village are overwhelming:  war, poverty, disease, climate change and a failed economy. I don’t envy the challenge Barak Obama faces when he takes office as President of the United States in nine days. But he can’t do it on his own, any more than we can. In a vision, John the Baptist’s father, the prophet Zechariah, summed up God’s way for us: “‘not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit’, says the Lord….” (Zechariah 4: 6B)

The description of Jesus baptism contains many of the same elements as the story of creation.  At creation, God brought order out of chaos. The Spirit of God moved over the waters. At Jesus’ baptism there is water and there is God’s Spirit.  Christ’s baptism and the beginning of his public ministry ushered in a new age and a new order which, in our own baptism, becomes a personal reality for each one of us.

How can we recognize God’s call of us — the ministry to which God calls each one of us? It is rooted and grounded in our God-given gifts and abilities, in our limitations and in our hopes and dreams. It comes by modeling significant people in our lives and is shaped in terms of the circumstances in our lives. For Mother Theresa, it meant serving the poorest of the poor in India. For a curate of mine, a number of years ago, it meant selling his home, and giving up a career in banking and a six figure salary, to attend seminary, be ordained and serve as a parish priest at a fraction of his previous income. For some, it means volunteer service in the community. For other’s, God’s call is to be a parent with all the courage and love it demands.
When we weigh the gifts and talents we bring to God’s service, they may appear insignificant in comparison with those of others. That’s why we belong to a community of faith, where all our gifts can be brought together and each vocation can be affirmed in our common call to follow Christ. We model the example of Jesus, who following his baptism, brought the disciples together in community and equipped and enabled them to share the good news. Jesus empowered them to reach out and teach, feed and heal in God’s name. 

I pray that as Rod Jr. grows, he will feel God tugging at his heart, and that not just Rod, but all of us will feel God tugging at our hearts in this New Year. May we celebrate the identity we have been given in baptism and allow God’s Spirit to guide and direct us on our journey of faith.

AMEN.

Sermon copyright © 2009 by Canon Bill Kibblewhite.