“Where the Journey Begins”

Matthew 3:13-17

January 9, 2005

St. Paul Church

Rev. John Andrew Fleming

I would like for you to imagine a scene with me this morning. Here is the scene. It is a hot and sweltering summer afternoon, at a community swimming pool, somewhere in the south. The begging and negotiations of a son with his mother are in the works. He has promised to clean his room and to be on his best behavior if his mother will take him to the swimming pool. He quickly cleans his room, the way any six year old would clean his room. If there were clothes on his floor, they found a new home, shoveled and jammed under his bed and in his closet. His mother will not discover his cleaning methods until the following day. So, with a haphazard inspection of her son’s room complete, she and her six year old climb into their family’s van and make their way to the pool.

At the pool, there are kids everywhere, jumping and running around. The teenaged lifeguards are on their stands watching as closely as they can to the commotion in and around them, blowing their whistles and showing their authority from time to time. At the shallow end of the pool, there are three and four year olds with their floaties on their arms or around their waists. Their parents are either in the pool with them or very close by. At the deep end, the more experienced swimmers are jumping off the two diving boards. One of those boards is considered the low dive; the other, a high dive. You need to know that there are two boards. It is significant for this story.

The moms and dads of the more experienced swimmers are lounging on the chairs near the pool. Two of these, two mothers, are sun bathing and catching up with one another. One of their sons, Tommy, is making his way to a diving board, the higher diving board. He is in line with everyone else, waiting his turn. He has conquered the lower board. Now he thinks that he is ready for the greater challenge. If you had the chance to be in Tommy’s head, you would know that he is having second thoughts about his high dive experience. There are ten kids behind him when his turn to jump arrives. Five of those ten kids are on the steps that climb to the board. Friends, it was a moment frozen in time. It seemed as if everyone in and around the pool stopped to watch Tommy jump. But Tommy had no intention of jumping. He was looking for a way out. He was plotting his exit strategy. It was about that time that Tommy’s mother noticed her son standing there, shaking in his swimming trunks. I would like to tell you that she was compassionate, a real encourager, in the running for mother of the year because of what she said to her son while he stood there. She was not any of those things. She looked up at her son and said, “Tommy, go ahead and jump. Look at the line behind you!” He just stared at his mother and then at the ones behind him. His mind was willing, but his flesh was weak. Fear had paralyzed him. He did not budge. She yelled to him again, “Tommy, I did not pay all that money for swimming lessons for you to stand on a diving board. You jump this very instant!” He did not move. Guilt had not worked, so now she was going to try peer pressure. “Tommy, look at all those kids behind you. They’re not scared. You jump right now!” Tommy looked behind him, took a couple of baby steps towards the edge of the board, but he did not jump. Guilt and peer pressure had not worked. Tommy’s mother next was going to try to flex her parental muscles. She said, “Tommy, I am not asking you. I am telling you. Jump off that board right now or you are going to be grounded for two weeks!” That did not phase him. Unless the ones behind him moved, he figured that he would still be standing where he was in two weeks. Next Tommy’s mother appealed to her son’s responsibility to her. She said, “Come on, Tommy, you are embarrassing me. Please jump.” That may have been what enabled Tommy to gather enough courage to bend his knees, close his eyes, and take the plunge. Tommy’s mother breathed a sigh of relief that everyone in the pool could hear. She took that deep breath, turned back to her friend, and said, “Thank goodness he jumped. Everyone was staring at him. But honestly, I don’t see how he did it. I would still be up there!”

I can relate to Tommy and his story. On hot summer days when I was Tommy’s age, my mother would take her three children to the Sun and Swim in our hometown. On one of those days a so called friend of mine dared me to climb the steps and jump off the high diving board. There were kids everywhere, waiting in line, for their turn to jump. I stood in line and when I reached the front of it, I pushed everyone aside, asked people to move so that I could climb back down!

It is a different kind of plunge, this morning, that we are invited to be a part of. The scene is not a summer swimming pool, but the river Jordan where hundreds of people have gathered to hear John the Baptist preach and then to be baptized by him. There standing in line with everyone else, as if he were like everyone else is Jesus. In my almost eleven years of preaching, when I have preached on the baptism of Jesus, I have emphasized the heavenly affirmation that happened on that day. You know how it goes; as Jesus comes up out of the water, soaking wet, the heavens are opened and what I imagine is the deep and powerful voice of God says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” It is that voice that I think is the backdrop for all of our baptisms and the idea that God is watching, that the heavens are remarkably opened, and the voice of God says to us what it once said to Jesus, “You are my child. I love you. You are worth so much to me. I am pleased with you.” That is important. Our baptisms give us life long identities as God’s beloved children. The idea of baptism is there on wedding days. Near the beginning of the ceremony, a minister will say, “I ask you now to declare your intention to enter into union with one another through the grace of Jesus Christ, who calls you into union with himself as acknowledged in your baptism.” Not every time, but often, a reference to baptism is made at a memorial service of someone who has died. There is great identity in baptism. There is also great symbolism in it. There is the going down into the water and being raised up again. It is powerful, friends. There is another part of baptism that we often do not speak of, for some reason. We downplay it. We do not mention it. But when we are baptized, we are baptized into something.

I can remember my sister’s tenth grade year of high school. That was the year that she pledged Kappa Beta Chi sorority. For a semester she went to meetings, paid dues, learned the rules of a social sorority. At the end of her time of pledging, the week before she was to be initiated, she had to do bizarre things. She had to wear a black and gold beanie that was bobbie pinned to her head. She had to wear bright red lipstick, carry a notebook around, and a cigar box full of candy, to be given to the sisters who had already made it, the initiated ones. At the time, I thought that her doing all of those things was crazy. Then I went to college, pledged a fraternity, went through the fall semester, came to my own last week, and did unusual things. There was so much talk about the initiation. Fear surrounded it. There were many unknowns. It was a scary thing to go through and to experience.

That is not the way that it is in the church. One of the things that I do is to talk to families about joining our church. If they have not been baptized, I talk with them about what that means. Usually at the end of the conversation, they will say, “That is all that I have to do?” Our initiation ceremony, our baptisms are easier than what my sister and I did to get in sororities and fraternities. All we really have to do is to talk to the preacher on our behalf or on behalf of our children or babies, put a date on the church calendar, come up at the appropriate time, and have a little water put on our heads. When we baptize babies (as is our tradition in the United Methodist Church because we believe it is not some decision they make, but one that God makes for them, to be in their lives, and to help the parents along) it is not a scary thing. It is not something to be dreaded. In fact, it is a great and wonderful thing. The folks in the congregation are all smiles. Oohs and Aahs are spoken. It is an honor to baptize. I remember each baby, each child, every person that I have baptized. It is a powerful experience. It is also harmless. Could it be that the hard part comes after the initiation, after the baptism?

Matthew is the only gospel writer who records the conversation between John and Jesus. John thinks Jesus ought to be the one doing the dunking, not him. Scholars believe that it is an initiation of sorts for Jesus. This gospel, Matthew’s gospel, has Jesus’ ministry beginning with his baptism and ending with the words to go out into the world to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Still wet from his baptism, with water dripping from his hair and his beard, Jesus left the waters and went to do God’s business. Every crying person, every one who knew what a broken heart felt like, every hungry person, every diseased person, every alienated person, every suffering person, was Jesus’ business. Because it was his business and because we follow him, it is our business, too. Look at what you are being initiated into. Look at the promises that you make or are made for you. These are the questions that we ask on baptismal days. “Will you turn away from evil and repent of your sins? Will you put your whole trust in God’s grace. Do you really believe that Jesus is your savior?” Here is one for the children, “Will you nurture your children, teach them, bring them up in the church until they are old enough to lead their own personal Christian lives?” This is good stuff. It is a powerful experience. How do you answer the questions? What difference does it make if you stand up and say that you will do those things if you do not do those things? What kind of a saving experience is that? What difference does it make if we say we believe but our lives have no connection between what we say and how we live? “What difference does it make,” one minister boldly put it, “if the baptismal gown is pretty, but don’t see the child again for months and months and months?” There is such a thing as a Christian life and baptism gets us started in it. It is where the journey begins. Barbara Brown Taylor says this in one of her books about this life, “It is a life of long days and short nights, on the move with no travel allowance, no first class accommodations....in short, a life of sacrifice, but a life worth living beyond a shadow of a doubt, a life with so much life in it that death cannot touch it...” It is a life where God’s business must be our business.

Let me close with a story. Fred Craddock, a preacher and teacher of preachers tells of the three years that he was assigned to a small community in Oklahoma. In that town, there were four churches. A United Methodist one, a Baptist one, a Nazarene congregation, and a Christian Church. Each had their share of the almost five hundred people in that town on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings and nights. Beyond the four, there was another congregation that gathered at the café while their wives and children were at worship services and Bible studies. These men talked about the weather, their cattle, and other such subjects. Fred Craddock tells that every once and a while a member of the worshiping café congregation would be lost. His wife or one of his children may have gotten to him. So he put on a nice shirt and made his way to one of the four churches.

Fred tells that the leader of the Café Church was a man named Frank. Frank was seventy-seven years old when Fred met him. Frank was a strong man, a rancher, a cattleman, a farmer. He was born in that town and had never left it. His credentials were strong and everyone at the café considered him their leader. Fred tells that one day he met Frank in the middle of town. Frank, of course, knew Fred was one of the preachers. Fred was not one to accost people in the name of Jesus, so the two of them just visited. Near the end of their conversation, Frank took the offensive and said, “Preacher, I work hard. I take care of my family. I mind my own business!” What he was really saying was this, “I am not a prospect. Leave me alone!” Fred did that. Because he did that, he was surprised the day that Frank came to a worship service at his church. Near the end of the service, when the invitation was issued, he walked the aisle and asked to be baptized. When church was over, the entire town heard about what had happened. Rumors flew everywhere. Some guessed that Frank was sick. Maybe it was his heart. Others thought that he was sick and was afraid to meet his maker. There were all kinds of stories. None of them were true. Frank was as healthy as one of his cows. The next morning Frank went to see his new preacher. Curiosity had gotten the better of Fred, so he asked, “Frank, do you remember saying to me, I work hard. I take care of my family. I mind my own business’” Frank remembered saying that. He admitted that he said those words often. The preacher asked, “What is the difference? Why were you baptized?” Frank said this, “Until recently, preacher, I didn’t know what my business was. Now I do.”

God’s business you see, became his business. It must be our business, too. We are baptized into this life, initiated to take care of one another, to care for the brokenhearted, to feed the hungry, to love as Christ loved. Now the initiation is easy. The life, well, it is a little harder, but well worth it. Let us pray.

(Special thanks to Rev. Tom Letchworth for the opening story of this sermon. He told it at the baptism of my nephew and namesake, Andrew Fleming. Special thanks to Rev. Jeanie Burton for an idea or two in this sermon. Thanks to Fred Craddock for the story about Frank and his church in Oklahoma. And thanks to my folks who had me initiated at an early age and kept their promises to God on my behalf!)