A Sermon for the First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of our Lord

 

And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.

 

And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.  Jesus is baptized, the Spirit descends on him, and he is named God’s beloved.  When we are baptized, the Spirit descends on us, and we are named God’s beloved.  Through the Spirit, God says to us in Baptism as God said to Jesus, “You are the Beloved.”

 

In a way, that is all there is to the Christian Gospel: the wonderful Good News that we are God’s beloved: God’s beloved daughters and sons, God’s beloved partners and friends, God’s own beloved.  In that single word is the whole of what God says to us in Jesus.  We are the Beloved: loved by God, deeply and richly for who we are, as we are, always and unendingly, from the soles of our feet to the tips of our hair; from the surface of our skin to the very innards of our bodies, from our lightest thoughts to the depths of our souls.  All of who we are, have been, will be is embraced and held forever in a love beyond our imagining.  We are the Beloved.  

 

If we have been fortunate in our human relationships, we may have experienced something of what it is to be beloved: that a parent, a partner, a spouse, a lover, a brother, a sister, or friend loves us for who we really are, always, no matter what.  Such experiences of being humanly beloved can be sacraments of being God’s beloved, ways in which human love convey something of God’s love to us -- and they are great and wondrous gifts when they come.  Yet even at their best these human sacraments disclose only a portion of what it is to be God’s beloved -- and, sadly, not all of us have had such sacraments in our lives.  So we all need to hear again and again the wondrous Good News of that word, Beloved, the single word that sums up the whole of the Gospel.  

 

Of course, we are given -- and need -- longer ways of hearing the Good News that we are the Beloved.  Slightly longer than that single word is the famous verse from John’s Gospel: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  [1]

 

The Creeds and the Great Thanksgiving of the Eucharist also tell the Good News that we are God’s beloved by recalling the great saga of salvation history: how God created us beloved in God’s own image; how God chose Israel as a beloved people; how Jesus came to share our life, to die and rise again for the sake of God’s beloved humanity; how the Spirit has come to live within us and to name us God’s beloved; and the promise of the coming Kingdom, in which we will live as God’s beloved forever.  

 

Yet if all of what that single word and its longer summaries tell us is true -- and it is -- why do we have such a hard time really believing that we are beloved?  Why do we have such difficulty putting our whole trust in God’s grace and love, as the Baptismal liturgy asks us to?  Why do so many of us have the terrible need to prove ourselves worthy of love by our work or accomplishments, or by getting it right, whatever “it” and “right” might mean? And why is it that in my years as a priest I so often have seen people moved to tears of disbelieving gratitude when even some small piece of the Good News that they are God’s beloved begins to breaks through to their hearts?

 

Henri Nouwen, in his wonderful little book, Life of the Beloved, suggests that we have such a problem believing the Good News that we are the Beloved because our world is filled with voices that speak very different words to us than the word “Beloved” that God’s voice speaks to us in baptism.  These are “voices that shout, ‘You are no good, you are ugly; you are worthless; you are despicable, you are nobody -- unless you can demonstrate the opposite.’ ” [2]  Prove that you are worth something; do something relevant, spectacular, or powerful, and then maybe you will have earned the love you so much desire.

 

These loud & insistent voices lead to what Nouwen sees as the great temptation of our time: the temptation of self-rejection.  That temptation is present not only when others’ accusations or criticisms lead us to say to ourselves, “I am no good. . .  I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned.” [3] It is often also present when we strive for success or popularity or power in order to silence that inner voice of self-rejection, or when we become arrogant and condemning of others to still our own self-doubt.  

 

To undo the damage to our souls and our lives that these voices and this temptation have  wrought, Nouwen urges us to listen instead to the voice that spoke to Jesus in his baptism and speaks to us in ours, the voice that names us Beloved.  “Listening to that voice with great inner attentiveness,” Nouwen writes, “I hear at my center words that say: ‘I have called you by name, from the very beginning.  You are mine and I am yours.  You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.  I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother’s womb.  I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace.  I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for her child.  I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step.  Wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch.  I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will quench all your thirst.  I will not hide my face from you.  You know me as your own as I know you as my own.  You belong to me.  I am your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your lover and your spouse ... yes even your child.. .  wherever you are I will be.  Nothing will ever separate us.  We are one.’ ” [4]

 

Whenever we baptize, we claim the newly baptized as God’s Beloved.  Whenever we renew our Baptism, as we do this morning, we reclaim for ourselves the depths of love in the voice that spoke in Henri Nouwen’s heart, and speaks in each of our hearts as well, if only we will hear it.  And in the Baptismal Covenant we renew, we commit ourselves, with God’s help, to living ever more deeply into the truth that we are God’s beloved -- and to sharing that truth with others. 

 

We promise to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship: the life of the Church in which the word that we are God’s beloved is spoken and – sometimes -- lived.  We promise to come to the breaking of the bread, that our Beloved may give us food to satisfy all our hunger and drink to quench all our thirst; and to listen for the voice of love sounding in our ears and in our hearts in prayer.  We promise that whenever we succumb to one of the many forms of the temptation of self-rejection, we will repent, returning to the Lord who loves us and forgives us; we promise to share the Good News of God’s love by what we do and say, by our service to our neighbors, and by striving for a world of justice, peace, and dignity for all of God’s beloved people. 

 

For that singular and wonderful word, Beloved, is not just for us -- it is for every human being on this earth, every person that we pass on the street, or walk by in the mall, or share an office or classroom or factory floor  or home with.  God speaks to them as God speaks to us -- and by the Spirit’s power God sometimes speak to them through us.  To us and to them, through us to them, and to all creation, God speaks the word that God spoke to Jesus, the word that is at the heart of the Gospel: “You are the Beloved. ”

 

 

The Rev. Jack Zamboni

January 10, 2010