The color of debate

Matthew 3: 1-2, 11-17
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
January 8, 2017

            For about seven years I drove a 1995 Ford Escort sedan. It had the automatic seatbelts that everyone hated. It even had a sunroof. But the color seemed to defy definition in our family. It was a teal color, but David thought it was more green, while I thought it was more blue. We called it the color of debate because we never could agree.

            Some years later I took an online color hue test and asked David to take it as well.  Sure enough, my eyes erred on the side of blue while David’s favored green.  Neither of us was right or wrong.  The rods and cones in my eyes are configured or wired in such a way as to pick up on more of the blue wavelength of light, and then transmit that information to my brain, shaped by my experiences and emotions and thoughts, which then interprets those signals to say that there is more blue in the paint than green.  David, with his eyes and his brain, sees more green in the paint color.  Funny thing is, now we have a new car with a color that both David and I agree is blue, but Andrea thinks it is teal while Olivia says that it is blue.

            Much of reality is this way, in that we all perceive it differently—sometimes just a bit, other times we wonder if we’re talking about the same thing.  We want objectifiable truth, something we can all agree on, when really each of us contributes a piece of it:  our own truth, our perspective of what is needful, real, true and good.  Every religion, philosophy, or area of study is an attempt to objectify truth and create orthodoxy and orthopraxis—how we practice and embody that orthodoxy.  Yet we’ve never really been able to, nor should we, outlaw heresy.  In both Greek and Latin the root for the word heresy is “choose”.  To be a heretic is to make a choice and a free one at that. 

            In fact, religion, or relationships or community or anything else, doesn’t grow well without the ability to choose freely.  The United Church of Christ would not be here if not for our Protestant heretical forebears like Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, Ulrich Zwingli, and several women such as Marguerite de Navarre and Marie Dentiere.  Jesus, his disciples, and followers of the Way were considered heretics of a sort in that they inspired others to rise up against the Roman Empire.  Abraham and Sarah made their choice when they decided to listen to their stillspeaking God, leave home, and follow where God would lead them.

         John is offering an alternative choice with a baptism of repentance there in the Jordan rather than in Jerusalem.  Usually if one required a mikvah, a ritual cleansing required to get one right with God for many reasons under Jewish law, it was performed by a priest in the temple for a fee.  John is offering a mikvah of repentance for free, for anyone, especially for those who may not be welcome, like tax collectors, prostitutes, and other outcasts.  But John doesn’t understand why Jesus wants a baptism of repentance.  The way John sees it, what does Jesus have to repent for?   

The Greek word for repent means to think differently:  to change our mind, our heart, our life.  Jesus is the one who would be helping people to think differently about God, about their lives, about the world they lived in.  Jesus doesn’t need to turn away from sin, think differently about his life, and follow God’s ways; he’s already there and prepared to lead others to turn their path. 

The way Jesus sees it, it is to fulfill all righteousness—justice and mercy for all, not just for some.  This is the beginning of his public ministry, of his vocation as a rabbi, and a mikvah bath would’ve been part of his ordination.  By having John baptize him in the Jordan, on the border, at the margins with God’s marginal people, Jesus was aligning himself not with the establishment, not with the religious authorities but with those whom he would be spending most of his time: the poor, the sick, outsiders, sinners, tax collectors, drunkards, and prostitutes, those of God’s people who needed justice and mercy the most. 

Like Communion, each of us sees and experiences and thinks about baptism differently.  Each of us contributes our truth, our experience, our thoughts and feelings, the different traditions from which we come.  Everything we touch, we change.  Everything that touches us, changes us.  Neither Communion nor baptism are a once and over event but invitations to grow.  If we want to have new life, we must be willing to let go of the life that is not working for us.  If we want to renew the church, we must be willing to let go of that which is holding back the church from renewal.  If we’re looking for calm waters, unchanging ways, and a clear horizon, this is not the baptism that Jesus offers.  Troubled, moving, living waters are part of the good news of Jesus.  Troubled, moving, living waters are a life lived in the presence and in the care of God.

How do we, the New Ark United Church of Christ, need to repent, that is, to think differently about our life together?  In what ways do we need to change our minds, our hearts, our lives?  Whether we’ve been baptized or not, how does the Holy Spirit make herself known to us?  Who are God’s marginal people now?  How might we be Church for those on the margins?  How might we practice baptism on a daily basis?

           We are beloved children of God, each and every one of us, whether we’ve been baptized or not.  In creating each one of us, God has declared us good.  And however it is that we’ve said yes to Jesus, by doing so we have declared that we will live our lives as mightily as he did, with compassion, with healing, for justice and mercy’s sake.  Our lives will never be the same again.   

For that we can say with deep gratitude, thanks be to God.