Named and Claimed

This sermon was first preached on January 9/10, 2010 at First Lutheran Church in Kearney, NE.

Scripture: Luke 3:15-22

You know, when I was a kid, I used to get called “Thunder thighs.” Yeah, wasn’t one of the best names in the world to be called, and admittedly, once I started being called that – that was really how I began to see myself as well.

What we are called makes a difference in our lives. Let’s face it – people who are called loser, pathetic, no good, etc. all their lives eventually begin to see themselves as that and begin to live as though that were true. What people call us is what molds and shapes who we are. We may say “sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me,” but we know that’s not true. Words – and in particular names – are an integral part of our identity. It’s an integral part of how we relate to one another.

What we call each other matters. And there is great power in the names that we call each other. For instance… I know when I see some of you out there and I still know I don’t know your name… I feel at a loss. What do I call you? How do I relate to you when I don’t know your name! And yes, it is extremely embarrassing after this many months when I know there are people whose names I SHOULD know but still don’t.

Because there’s power in knowing someone’s name. For the people whose name I know, I am able to relate to. I am able to call upon them and get their attention. And likewise, when I use their name, they know, I know them. I know who they are. There is relationship now. There is a way that I can identify that person. I’m making a “claim” on them to a certain extent. I’m claiming a type of relationship – relationship that says, “Now I know your name – and knowing your name, I can identify you.”

And messing up someone’s name also tells us something too. It’s like – when a phone solicitor calls and asks for Mrs. Craig, I know immediately – this person knows nothing about me.

And we have different names, don’t we? Nick-names are quite common, and you know if someone calls you by your nickname, you know immediately what their relationship to you is. People who call me Becky I know were people I knew back before college. People who call me Rivkah – which is the Hebrew pronunciation of my name – I know are from seminary (Yes, we’re a bunch of geeky, strange people). I know the relationship I have with someone by the name that they call me.

In both our Old Testament and New Testament readings for today, we see this naming and claiming by God going on as well. In the Old Testament, God is claiming the Israelites as his own. “I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” God says you, Israel, you belong to me. “You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.”

What is strange is that Israel had done nothing to deserve this claim God had made upon them. In fact, when this section of Isaiah was written, the people had been carried off to Babylon – God had allowed the Babylonian armies to sweep in and carry them away because of their unfaithfulness and the way in which their society had become unjust and uncaring. But in the midst of that is God saying “I’m not done with you yet. I may have been angry with you for being unfaithful – but… you are still mine. I have claimed you. You are PRECIOUS in my site. I love you.” What words to hear from God.

At Jesus’ baptism, we see more of this claiming and naming that God does going on. The heavens rip open and God says: “You are my BELOVED Son; with you I am well pleased.” God is claiming Jesus as his own. He’s identifying the relationship between himself and Jesus: You are my son. Not just a son – but a beloved son. I claim you and I name you. Jesus’ identity has been established in this baptism. Who is Jesus? He is God’s beloved Son.

This is what we teach about baptism as well – that in our baptism, we are being claimed and named by God. That baptism is the start of our relationship of both being known by and knowing God. For Jesus, baptism is the beginning of his ministry.

And Luke, in particular, wants to make it clear that something new is starting here with Jesus. He makes sure readers understand that John’s ministry is now over and done with. He’s been carted off to prison. His ministry is at its end – now it is Jesus’ ministry, the beginning of what Jesus is going to do in the world – and it all starts at his baptism.

After this – the scriptures start getting a little erratic when it comes to the methodology of how baptism occurs. In our Acts text, it says that these people had been baptized… but the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon them. It would be nice if we could use this text as our “model” then for baptism.

But, we discover later on that it happens in reverse for other people. They’ve got the holy spirit going on… but haven’t been baptized. Huh? So, Peter has to rush off and see to it they get baptized.

Sometimes its individuals – like the Eunuch from Ethiopia… other times it’s entire households like with Lydia’s household. There just is no pattern that we are given to follow. The Holy Spirit gets all messy on us – and to top it all off, it goes and starts claiming people that, as far as the Jews were concerned, the Holy Spirit shouldn’t have been going and claiming!

In the Acts text for today, it’s the Samaritans who have gone off and gotten themselves all baptized, and the Jews are going… “Wait a minute… the Samaritans? Our ENEMIES? These unclean people who have mingled with gentiles and are a bunch of ethnically impure people?” They had Gentile and Israelite blood both running through their veins. How is it that God could do something this… SCANDALOUS???? Baptizing Samaritans?

In chapter 10 of Acts, the scandal becomes even worse! Not only is God going to Samaritans,  but he’s going to GENTILES! Peter goes before the council in Jerusalem and tells of how these Gentiles—unclean, totally unworthy Gentiles are receiving the Holy Spirit!! What on earth is God doing?? God is not claiming Gentiles as well, is he? How can He do that? That’s even MORE scandalous than the Samaritans!

But there it is. God is not allowing our preconceived notions of how He should work to limit His abilities or limit who his spirit works in and who it goes to – Jew and Gentile alike. Individuals and whole households. Male and female. Young and old. There is no rhyme or reason to it. It’s God choosing and working through no work of ours.

And our practice of infant baptism is scandalous as well – because we put the work of baptism on God – the one who is doing the baptism – the one who is giving the promise, rather than on ourselves and the one who is being baptized. Baptism is the beginning of being named and claimed, of becoming God’s own beloved child. Of being immersed in a life of faith.

I ran across not too long ago a Greek recipe for pickling. It utilized the Greek word for baptism in the recipe. It said you take the cucumber and you “baptize” it in the vinegar solution and let it sit there for a long time until it is no longer a cucumber, but has changed into something else – now most of you know what happens when you take a cucumber and let it sit in vinegar for a prolonged period of time. You eventually get a pickle. I thought this image of what it means to be baptized was great. To be baptized is to be changed – to be pickled! It is to be immersed in the Word and the Teachings of God so that we will be changed as well. Changed into something wholly and completely new.

And I know people object to baptizing infants and children because they can’t possibly know or understand what is happening. They have no faith at that point. We think children are too clueless to have any concept of what faith actually is.

And yet – we know from our own scriptures that Jesus tells us that the children have it figured out far better than we adults do! “He says, ‘let the little children come to me, and do not stop them. For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” And that we must have a “child-like faith.”

So when children are baptized, it is as equally scandalous as Samaritans and Gentiles being baptized – it shouldn’t be going to them – but it is. God is making his claim, naming us “child of God.” It is not something that is done and then forgotten. It is an ongoing relationship that begins in this moment of claiming and naming. It is our identity as Christians. And it is something we live out daily – getting up in the mornings, standing in front of the mirror and remembering: You are a child of God. You have been claimed and redeemed, because you are precious in His sight. Luther had a practice of every morning, getting up and making the sign of the cross on his forehead to remind him who he was: a child of God.

When we get baptized, we are being joined together with Christ, God’s child. Paul states in Romans 6:3 that in baptism, God joins us to Christ's death and resurrection. Baptism is the way in which one is connected to Christ and the promises of new life. Baptism then is a promise God is making to humans, not a promise humans are making to God. We are adopted into the family of God by God. And, like most adoptions, it’s the parent who does the adopting, not the child adopting the parent. That of course doesn’t mean that when that child gets older – they sometimes, sadly, opt not to embrace their adoptive parent anymore.

This is how covenants have worked throughout all of scripture – that God makes the promise, but human beings have to figure out whether they’re going to embrace that promise or not. Did every Israelite that God called precious retain faith in God? No. We humans still have an ability to reject the claim God has made on us, to reject the relationship.

Our Isaiah text pulls heavily on this salvation through the water – God saved Noah through the flood. Did Noah and his entire family “deserve” to be saved? We don’t know. His kids were somewhat questionable based on their actions after the flood. Noah went and got drunk after 40 days and nights on the boat. (Though, can you  blame him? 40 days and nights on a boat with a bunch of smelly animals and your family in confined quarters – would probably drive me to drink, too)

Did the Israelites that God brought out of Egypt and through the Red Sea all “deserve” to be saved? Well, after God displays his mighty salvific act – they immediately go and build themselves a golden calf. Thus does everyone who gets baptized automatically have faith? Not necessarily. Does everyone who gets baptized, whether child or adult, fully understand the theology of what they’re doing? Of course not. My god-daughter knew at the age of one that there was something special about Jesus. She’d run over to the manger in the nativity and giggle and clap every time you asked her about Jesus. The 3000 people who got baptized at Pentecost heard just a single sermon and were baptized – I doubt they fully understood what they were in for. And look at Simon Magus – who is actually part of this story that we read for today in Acts – he was a Samaritan sorcerer who heard, believed, and was baptized, the Holy Spirit comes… and then immediately Simon tries to buy the gifts of God and Peter informs him he will no longer have any part of this ministry and that he needs to repent, for his heart is not right before God. Full and complete comprehension of what it means to be baptized into Christ apparently is not a stipulation for baptism.

What we do know is that God makes a promise in that baptism, just as he made a promise to the Israelites and made a covenant with them, but it is a promise that finds its fulfillment through our immersion in the teachings of scripture and our faith in those promises and faith in that claim God has made upon us. The claim, the promise still requires a life lived in faith – a life lived in relationship to the one who calls us His child.

As Christians, who we are revolves around what God calls us – what God names us – and believing we are what God calls us. We are his beloved – because we are baptized into the same death and resurrection as Jesus Christ. We share everything that is his – we share in his identity as brothers and sisters in Christ, including God’s love and God’s claim upon us. So for a person of faith – no matter what anyone else may say about you – no matter what anyone else may try to claim about you – you have the claim and the name that matters: Child of God. And our baptism assures us: God knows who you are.