Bathed in Greatness - January 7, 2007
Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22A couple of weeks ago I was telling you that I remembered President Nixon’s resignation from the White House. I also remember Gerald Ford’s oath of office. It was an historic moment. Many of you probably got to see some of the commemoration of Gerald Ford, who passed away the day after Christmas at the age of 93.
Shakespeare said that some are born to greatness, some learn greatness, and some have greatness thrust up on them. I heard many accounts this week that perhaps Gerald Ford would have claimed that the particular greatness to which he arose—that of President of the United States—was actually thrust upon him. By all accounts Gerald Ford never had any Presidential aspirations. By the time he was plucked from relative obscurity to replace Spiro Agnew as vice-president, Congressman Ford had served his country in the Navy during WWII, and the people of the great state of Michigan as Representative of the 5th congressional district.
Gerald Ford is the only person to have become President of this country by appointment—which is to say that he had never been elected to either the office of Vice President or President. But twice when his country needed him for duties above and beyond what he personally felt called to do, Gerald Ford answered the call—both times taking on great responsibilities after someone else had left the office in disgrace.
I learned something else about Gerald Ford this week. His name at birth was Leslie Lynch King, Jr. That was the name of his biological father. Shortly after young Leslie’s birth, however, his biological father proved to be not exactly father material. He was abusive to the boy and his mother, threatening to kill the both of them. Dorothy King did what was probably pretty daring for a young woman in those times—she left her husband and took her newborn son to Michigan, where she married a man named Gerald Rudolff Ford, who renamed Leslie and raised him as his own.
Sometimes a name means more than meets the eye. Part of our baptismal liturgy includes the naming of the child to be baptized. In ancient times, the name for a child was not in fact used until the child had been baptized in that name.
In the story of Jesus’ baptism we read today, Luke leaves out many of the familiar details that Matthew thinks are so important: there is no traveling to the Jordan, John the Baptist isn’t even there—he’s already in prison. There is no request from Jesus that John baptize him no protest from John that “No, Lord, I need to be baptized by you.” There isn’t even water if you look at it closely enough. None of the things we have come to think are essentials to the baptism story are present in Luke’s account.
There is a dove, and a voice from heaven, and a naming of sorts, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” It is the first time in all of Luke’s narrative that Jesus is given the designation Beloved, and it is the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.
A friend of mine is ending her ministry with a small church in Maine today. It is poignant day for her, and one she has known would have to happen for quite some time. Those of us in her circle of friends have been thinking about call stories—about that moment or series of moments when we knew that we would be called to learn greatness, or would have it thrust upon us even as we avoided it like the plague.
Last week Pete and I had dinner with a friend of ours who was the very first person to ever hint to me that I might have gifts for ministry. His nickname in the narrative of my call story is “the Helicopter.” This is the story of the helicopter: A man was standing in his house during a flood, as the waters rose, he yelled out the window “God save me!” Just then a man came by in a rowboat and begged the man in the house to climb aboard. But the man in the house said, “God will save me!” Then the man had to climb up to his attic, and as he did he prayed, “God help me!” He looked out the attic window just as a rescue motorboat came by but again he refused a ride to safety. Finally, as the flood waters rose still he was standing on his roof crying out to God “Please save me!” and saw a helicopter hovering over his house, but he refused a ride, “God will save me!” he proclaimed.
The man drowned and went up to heaven. When he encountered God he said, “God, I don’t understand! I prayed and prayed but you did not save me.” God replied, “What do you mean? I sent you a rowboat, a motor boat, and a helicopter! What more did you need?”
My friend and his conversations with me the week we were at Youth Triennium were just a sign in a long line of signs that my life was about to take a different direction. I had already worked myself into the top tier of available employment with the agency at which I worked. My work there seemed to have lost its challenge on most days. I’d become restless, anxious to return to school. None of the degree options I explored (Nursing, MSW) seemed doable with young children and a sizable commute each day.
But it took a cosmic ‘slap up side the head’ with the Divine 2X4—a carpool trip to Purdue University to be a small group leader—that’s four hours trapped in a car with a very enthusiastic recent graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary— to become the final clue (from a God with an exquisite sense of humor) that I was being called to something greater than myself. But it didn’t begin there. My own call to greatness began the same place yours did: at my baptism. It was there in a tank in an Assemblies of God Church that a choice was made to follow Jesus, to submit my life to God’s authority. And things were never the same after that.
Baptism bathes us in something greater than ourselves. The mark of God, the calling out of God to God’s Beloved, which has happened at every baptism since the baptism of Christ, is the call to do something we never dreamed possible—to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Sometimes we shrink from that baptism, and from that greatness. We say “Oh I could never do that! I’m not smart enough, or educated enough, or a good enough speaker, or a good enough (fill in the blank).” But all God asks of us is that we behave as though we are God’s Beloved, in whom God is well pleased. All God asks is that we live out God’s promise for us—no matter where that promise takes us.
There is a quote that is attributed to Nelson Mandela. Someone wise sent it to me when I was feeling particularly self-indulgent in my refusal to just go ahead and accept the greatness that was about to be thrust upon me:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
In our baptism we are given a new name—God’s beloved in whom God is well pleased. It is a name that comes with both authority and responsibility. It is name that means liberation, and shining light, and a greatness that we may feel unprepared to live out, but that God will lead us to, even if it takes a helicopter to do it.
In accepting the call to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, nothing is ever quite the same again. Brothers and sisters, Beloved children of God, brace yourselves—prepare for greatness!
Thanks be to God
