Making a home in the wilderness

 

Mark 1: 4-11
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
January 10, 2021

Those of us who are baptized, how many of us remember our baptism? While some of us do, many of us do not. Martin Luther, instigator of the Reformation, is quoted as saying, “When you wash face, remember your baptism”. All I know of my baptism is photos from that day and a letter from the Air Force chaplain who baptized me. My great-grandparents traveled all the way from Massachusetts to the Air Force base in Amarillo, TX to be there for the firstborn of a firstborn of their only child.



Over the centuries of infant baptism, we have tamed and domesticated the original baptism of repentance that John was offering. To be sure, baptism of children has taken on other meaningful significance and value, especially that of covenant and care. We can remember that our baptism has taken place, that we are part of something larger than ourselves, but more often what we need to remember is to turn away from evil and turn toward what is good, holy, and true. Not only that but there are times we need to recall a significant moment when that occurred, when we died to self and rose to new life. That is the baptism we need to remember.

This past year has been one long invitation to a baptism of repentance. Rev. William Barber tweeted in March, “This virus is teaching us that from now on, living wages, guaranteed healthcare for all, unemployment and labor rights are not far left issues but issues of right vs. wrong and life vs. death.” John the Baptist proclaimed a baptism of repentance, an immersion in the sacred memory waters of the Jordan, in the wilderness, away from the establishment and institutional religion and the power that they wielded. By doing so, he invoked the freedom fighters of the past—Moses, Miriam, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha—each of whom challenged and upset the status quo, confronting the systemic sins of their time. Issues of right vs. wrong, life vs. death.



This is the baptism that Jesus consented to: that he would join this prophetic tradition of liberating the oppressed, upsetting the status quo, leading people to repentance, turning away from that which destroys and turning toward that which leads to holiness, to wholeness.



Normally, this ritual washing, this mikvah bath would have taken place in Jerusalem or in a local village. Instead, John called people out into the wilderness, reminding them of their wilderness roots, of the exodus and exile, and that God was perceived closer when they were on the road, in flux, and unsettled.

This baptism of repentance baptizes us out of the establishment and into the wilderness, out of the structures of power and exploitation and into vulnerability, out of binaries and so-called norms and into what is real. We associate biblical wilderness with suffering and pain, with wandering and loose ends, with grief and the unknown. It’s not a comfortable or comforting place. What we want is the Promised Land.



Theologian Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes is of the mind that there is no promised land. There is only wilderness. But wait, we say. What about justice and peace? What about enough for all? What about equality and restoration? This ideal existence has always been a moving target, a goal just out of reach. It’s what propelled our ancestors in faith to leave England and then Holland to come to what they called the New World and usurp the lands of the Wampanoag and hundreds if not thousands more to follow. There is no promised land; there is land where someone else is living. There is no ideal existence; there are human beings struggling and evolving.

Dr. Walker-Barnes advises that we then find a way to make a home in the wilderness. Some of us do not know anything but the wilderness if we are an addict, if we are gay or queer or trans, if we are people of color, if we are poor, if we’ve been incarcerated or unjustly accused, if we are disabled, if we are neurodivergent, if we live with depression and anxiety, if we are indigenous people, immigrants, or refugees. A baptism of repentance means that we not only make our home with wilderness people, but that we become a wilderness people.



The promised land was not a promise for everyone. Despite what we read on the Statue of Liberty, “bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”, this nation was not and still is not a promise for everyone. And the Christianity we brought with us to these shores was not the Christ who rose from those waters of baptism. Even as the Christian faith has rediscovered its roots in justice work for the poor, in resistance against state violence in all forms, a corrupt false Christian White nationalism has festered since before the Civil War and unchallenged it has now found its way into our government and a significant portion of our populace. Though we cannot demonize or dehumanize Americans like these, neither is there room for “both sides”. White supremacy, racism, and anti-Semitism are the demons, the evil among us, within us, and in the founding of this nation. This isn’t something we move forward from that we might heal. That’s more wish-we-could-be promised land talk that ignores accountability and mocks actual healing.

Ironically, former President Barack Obama recently published the first volume of his memoir with the title A Promised Land. The title indicates the future we hoped for with the first Black president was an elusive one. Though I am appreciating listening to him read it aloud and hearing his reflections and insights, I disagree with his assessment of this pandemic in The Atlantic: “I’m convinced that the pandemic we’re currently living through is both a manifestation of and a mere interruption in the relentless march toward an interconnected world…”. I think the pandemic has revealed too many disparities and inequities, too many deep wounds for this relentless march to continue. I believe our repentance and our future is to be found in the wilderness, in solidarity with wilderness people, in being a wilderness people.



I’m not sure how we’re going to move forward from here as a nation, what our repentance for our original sin of White supremacy will look like, or if we’ll even get there. But as Church we are called to grieve and to repentance: to confess our sin, our complicity with whiteness but also claim our righteous anger and remember our baptism. Even if we have not been baptized or our baptism of long ago has lost its importance, the promises that are made are ones we need to enflesh, to become our touchstone as we feed the hungry and welcome the stranger, as we make our home in the wilderness.

Is it still our desire to be part of the faith and family of Jesus Christ, to be a wilderness people?

Do we renounce the powers of evil and desire the freedom of new life in Christ?

Do we profess Jesus as our teacher, our sibling, as one who saves and liberates?

Do we promise by the grace of God to be a disciple of Jesus, to follow the way of Jesus, to resist oppression and evil, to show love and justice, to witness to the work and word of Jesus Christ as best as we are able?

Do we promise to grow in faith, to be faithful in our service?



Uncertainty, risk, vulnerability are all part of the wilderness life but so are hope and courage and love. As we live and serve through these days, as these days baptize us into the wilderness, we repent and we remember: we are love enfleshed. 

Amen.

Benediction


It’s tempting to go timidly
Or blood racing with adrenaline
Instead let us move forward with courage
Filled with the same Spirit
That turned ordinary people 

into prophets and freedom fighters
That calls us to be love enfleshed, 

wilderness people, the body of Christ.