Beloved Child of God: Belief or Practice?
Preached for Wollaston Congregational Church
on January 15th, 2023
Scripture: Matthew 3:13-17
A few weeks ago, I picked up a voicemail for the church from someone named Cindy, inquiring about our church Christmas fair. When I returned Cindy’s call to confirm the date and time of the fair, we got into conversation and she asked me a few questions about our church.
It’s always a little surprising to me how little people from New England know about the Congregational Church. After all, we occupy the white-steepled building in practically every New England town. And I’m under the impression that the history of the Pilgrims and the Puritans is etched into the memory of every child in Massachusetts from an early age, whether they are Protestant, Catholic, of another faith, or no faith.
And so, I reminded Cindy that the Congregational Church is as old as the country. Our ancestors in the faith are the Pilgrims and the Puritans, who colonized the area around Boston.
Cindy was curious about our beliefs, probably comparing us with the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. She asked, “do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?” And, taking a deep breath – because I’m pretty sure she didn’t have the time for my theology of what “Son of God” could mean – I just said “yes, we do.”
That seemed to satisfy Cindy, and it occurred to me that if I’d said, “well that depends on what you mean by Son of God” she might have subconsciously filed Congregationalists as heretics. Looking back, I wish that I had told Cindy that the United Church of Christ, of which we are a member congregation, has no rigid formulation of doctrines or creeds. Instead, we have a Statement of Faith, which is a testimony to faith rather than a test of faith.
And so, we turn to our text for today: the next episode in the story of Matthew’s gospel. Matthew approaches his telling of the story as if Jesus comes into ministry as the fully-formed Messiah. There is no learning curve with Matthew. Jesus is the exemplar of the Christian life, getting everything right in every situation.
And still, Matthew talks about Jesus’s baptism in the River Jordan by John the Baptist. In this gospel, Jesus knows exactly why he is coming to John for baptism.
In today’s text, we hear Jesus speak for the first time in this gospel. These first words are a response to a very natural question from John the Baptist. Jesus comes to John for baptism, along with all the great crowds drawn by John from around the region of the River Jordan. John sees Jesus as the One for whom he has been preparing the way. He sees Jesus as the realization of all that he has been preaching. And so he says to Jesus “I need to be baptized by you, [yet] you come to me?”
Jesus responds “[permit it] now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” This is enough for John. He must fulfill all righteousness. We imagine him pushing Jesus backward down under the water in the style of Baptist pastor. As Jesus emerges, gasping for breath following the sudden immersion, his body breaks through the surface of the water, and the heavens open to him. He sees the spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him.
Then everyone who is there – from miles around – hears a voice from heaven saying “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
And so, right there in our scripture reading we hear God pronouncing Jesus as God’s own son. If we are taking this scripture seriously we must believe it, mustn’t we? Because the statement “my Son the beloved” comes from the very mouth of God.
And still, I wonder if, as John, Jesus and the people gathered around hear that voice, they say, “this must be a doctrine – a right belief. Let’s write it down quickly before we forget.” Or do they stand and looking up in wonder at the heavens meeting the earth, and marvel at this man – still dripping with water from his immersion in the river? Do they acknowledge that they are standing on holy ground, having been touched by the grace of God on this day?
You see, I may be a little hesitant to answer a question like “do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?” but I have no hesitation in answering the question “do you believe in baptism as a practice of the church?”
I could say that I prefer orthopraxy – right practice – over orthodoxy – right belief. Baptism has been the practice of the church since the time of Jesus. The apostles began baptizing people as soon as they had received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. And Matthew’s gospel concludes with the famous “great commission” given by Jesus to the disciples, saying “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
Baptism is one of the two sacraments of our Protestant tradition. The other sacrament is communion. The sacraments are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual graces. Spiritual graces cannot always be expressed in words. Sometimes other expressions are needed.
People who are not able to process language, such as young children, or those who are cognitively, developmentally, or physically impaired, can experience grace through the sacraments. And then there are those of us who are a little too much in our heads and not so much in our spiritual selves. We may also experience the indescribable grace of God made known in Jesus, through the touch, the taste, the sights, sounds, and smells of baptism and holy communion.
I know that happens, because I have witnessed it in our congregation. Worship attendees give themselves permission to melt a little, when a beautiful baby or a lively toddler is splashed in the baptismal water. And they open themselves, once more, to God’s grace, when an adult professes their faith and receives the baptismal waters, even as their makeup runs and their eye-glasses get a little misted.
But before we get too misty eyed and too comfortable in these cozy images of baptism, let’s return to that image of Jesus emerging from the waters and being pronounced by God as “my Son.”
Matthew plants this seed in the 1st century church. He cannot have any idea what an important doctrine it will become for future generations of Christians. We hold onto this pronouncement, even in the year 2023, often forgetting the context of Jesus’s life and ministry and the context of his earliest followers.
Caesar Augustus was the Roman Emperor at the time of Jesus’s birth. Roman citizens were required to hail and revere the Emperor as God himself. Julius Caesar has been hailed as God in his time. And since Augustus was Julius’s son, he was known as the Son of God.
To pronounce Jesus as “Son of God” is to fly in the face of the Empire’s understanding of who is to be honored and revered. God chooses to bless Jesus of Nazareth, a humble Galilean of least importance in the Roman scheme of things, as God’s own Son. This is a unique and particular designation for Jesus. And, at the same time it also conveys the general understanding that God chooses to lift up all children who are considered “the least.”
And, as the Apostle Paul writes to the early church in Ephesus, “[God]destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” (Ephesians 1:5-6 NRSV)
Yes, through God’s pronouncement of Jesus as God’s own Son, and through our baptism and our relationship with Jesus, our savior and friend, we, also, are adopted as children of God.
When we who choose to belong to this community of faith through baptism, we also choose to understand ourselves as belonging Christ’s family, the Church. Jesus is our exemplar in the faith, the original child of God, the incarnation: God with us.
God embraces Jesus in the moment of baptism, just as God embraces us and blesses us as members of Christ’s own family in the moment Jesus broke through the baptismal waters. At the same time, God embraces all humanity, particularly those who are forgotten, and thought of as the least of these. And God bids us do the same.
Now a confession. Baptism of Christ Sunday was celebrated by most liturgical churches last week. We are off by a week, because we chose to celebrate Epiphany and the coming of the Magi last Sunday. And yet, I think our timing is not so bad.
Tomorrow will be the holiday to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the United States, I’d like to imagine for a moment that all other churches are off by a week too. I’d like to imagine African American churches all celebrating this Baptism of Christ Sunday today. I’d like to imagine First Nation Churches, Pacific Islanders’ Churches, Chinese Churches, African Churches, South American Churches, and Indian Churches all celebrating Baptism of Christ Sunday today. We can picture those members of Christ’s family, to which we all belong, hearing the words “this is my child, the beloved” and knowing that they are held in the loving embrace of God.
Perhaps you heard the media coverage of the unveiling of the sculpture to honor Dr. King in Boston on Friday. This dramatic bronze sculpture shows four strong arms mutually intertwined. It is called “Embrace.”
Dr. King used to talk of his vision for the world in terms of the Beloved Community. The Boundless Love Project says “People of the [Beloved Community] recognize the intrinsic worth of all people. Prejudice, cruelty, and greed are replaced with an all-inclusive spirit of friendship and goodwill.” [1]
When we remember the Baptism of Jesus, and we hear the words of God pronouncing “You are my beloved child” we hear God endorsing the message of the Beloved Community and the intrinsic worth of all people.
And so, may we make this our right-belief our right-practice, embracing every child of God as one of our own.
May all God’s people say,
Amen
[1] https://www.boundlessloveproject.org/news/2019/2/25/what-is-the-beloved-community-and-why-is-it-important