Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Baptism of the Lord Sunday
January 11, 2009
W. Gregory Pope
Series: The Attentive Life: Listening for God
WHO ARE YOU?:
LISTENING FOR GOD’S AFFIRMATION
Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11
In less than 72 hours, another television season of American Idol kicks off. Thousands of people dreaming of Hollywood and a superstar identity will be told by Simon Cowell how truly terrible they are while Paula Abdul tries to make them feel better about themselves.
What about you? Who are you? In the depths of your honest heart, how do you answer that question?
There is no shortage of voices seeking to answer the question for us:
Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and Abercrombie tell you without you knowing it: “You are a consumer who will wear what we tell you you should wear, and you will think you are free in doing so. But you are in reality an enslaved consumer.”
Wall Street says: “You are a cog in the wheel of the great economic and corporate machine, and you will stay faithful for the sake of financial security.” Though the machine’s not looking too great these days and the finances not so secure, we still give ourselves to something less than we are and allow it to shape our identity.
The voice of Comparison says: “You’re a nobody because your check is not large enough, your house is not big enough, your clothes not fashionable enough, your car not expensive enough, your position not high enough.”
The voice of Success says: “You’re a failure. Remember that job you lost. You’re divorced. Your spouse left you. Your kids don’t like you. You can’t keep it together. You’re nothing.”
Who are you? What voices are you allowing to answer that question?
Jesus had to answer that question. He was about to head into the desert for forty days to be alone with God and search out his identity. He would be tested by other voices calling him to question his true identity: “If you are the Son of God . . .” the voice would say.
And he would be offered the kingdoms of the world to rule with coercive power and to be worshiped as a real king.
He would be offered a Superman identity to pretend he was immune to suffering and death and leap off tall buildings and have God rescue him.
And he would be tempted to be a Human Animal driven only by bodily cravings.
But he said no to them all. He told that other voice: “I worship God alone. I will not put God to the test. I can not live by bread alone but by every word of God.”
Why was Jesus able to say no to those voices?
Because right before he entered the desert, before he heard those other voices, there was another Voice that continually rang in his ear. It was the voice from heaven that came to him as he rose from the waters of baptism. The Voice said: “You are my child, the Beloved, with you I take delight.” It is the voice of God’s affirmation and acceptance. And it is the voice I believe God wants us to hear at our baptism and every day of our lives.
Martin Luther said we should awaken every morning with the words: “I am baptized.” In his famous hymn, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” he speaks of our battle against “the prince of darkness grim.” And he says “One little word shall fell him.” What is that “one little word?” A Lutheran pastor/theologian says it was the Latin word which means “I am baptized.” And to be baptized is to hear the voice of God’s welcome embrace: “You are my beloved in whom I take delight.” That is the blessed biblical identity given to every person on the first page of scripture, claiming us as creations in the image of God at birth and reclaimed at baptism.
But some people’s Bibles begin on the third page of scripture in Genesis chapter three with the sin of Adam and Eve, and “original sin” is the first word they hear about who they are. Some evangelistic presentations begin by saying, “You are a sinner and have fallen short of the glory of God.” And that is true. We are all of us sinners.
But that’s not the first word the Bible has to say about us. One writer said to start with Genesis three and the Fall of humanity is like coming into the movie twenty minutes late.
It is important to begin at the beginning with Genesis chapter one, with God creating us in God’s own image, blessing us and calling us very good. Our story begins with “Original Blessing” rather than “Original Sin.” Sin has blinded many of us to God’s original blessing, but God’s original blessing was not wiped away by our sin. We are all of us born and we all of us live as God’s beloved children.
In his book The Life of the Beloved Henri Nouwen reminds us of this. He wrote the book for a friend struggling with the meaning of the Christian life. And he offers his friend these words:
All I want to say to you is “You are the Beloved,” and all I hope is that you can hear these words as spoken to you with all the tenderness and force that love can hold. My only desire is to make these words reverberate in every corner of your being - “You are the Beloved.” [1]
For each of us, baptism is the first day of the new creation. We are reclaimed as God’s beloved, created in God’s image.
In his memoir, Telling Secrets, Frederick Buechner says that from very early in our lives
the world sets in to making us what the world would like us to be, and because we have to survive after all, we try to make ourselves into something that we hope the world will like better than the selves we originally were. That is the story of all our lives (he writes) . . . , and in the process of living out that story, the original shimmering self gets buried so deep that most of us hardly end up living out of it at all. Instead, we live out all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather. [2]
Throughout our lives a false self is created that hides our true self. The false self is constructed in large part in order to win the approval and love of those around us.
What about you? What about the part you find yourself playing, the self you put on like a costume. Who cast you in that role? Most of us are living out a script that someone else has written for us. We’ve not been invited to live from our heart, to be who we truly are, so we put on these false selves hoping to offer something more acceptable to the world. The awful burden of the false self is that it must be constantly maintained.[3]
The invitation of Christ is to stop that madness. Jesus says, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
And the truth about ourselves is that we are God’s Beloved. It is absolutely crucial that we understand who we are as God’s Beloved. For it will affect everything, everything we do.
William Sloane Coffin puts it this way:
"Of God’s love we can say two things: it is poured out universally for everyone from the Pope to the loneliest wino on the planet; and secondly, God’s love doesn’t seek value; it creates value. It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value. Our value is a gift, not an achievement." [4]
We were made to live in God’s Larger Story, but as G. K. Chesterton discovered, we have forgotten our part. He refers to
"the story of the man who has forgotten his name. This man walks about the streets and can see and appreciate everything; only he cannot remember who he is. Well, every [person] is that man. Every person has forgotten who he/she is. . . .We are all under some mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten who we really are." [5]
Christian prisoner and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer asks the question “Who Am I?” Listen and see if you can find yourself and the voices you hear in his words.
Who am I? They often tell me I would step from my prison cell poised, cheerful and sturdy, like a nobleman from his country estate.
Who am I? They often tell me I would speak with my guards freely, pleasantly, and firmly, as if I had it to command.
Who am I? I have also been told that I suffer the days of misfortune with serenity, smiles and pride, as someone accustomed to victory.
Am I really what others say about me? Or am I only what I know of myself? Restless, yearning and sick, like a bird in its cage, struggling for the breath of life, as though someone were choking my throat; hungering for colors, for flowers, for the songs of birds, thirsting for kind words and human closeness, shaking with anger at capricious tyranny and the pettiest slurs, bedeviled by anxiety, awaiting great events that might never occur, fearfully powerless and worried for friends far away, weary and empty in prayer, in thinking and doing, weak, and ready to take leave of it all.
Who am I? This man or that other? Am I then this man today and tomorrow another? Am I both all at once? An impostor to others, but to me little more than a whining, despicable weakling? Does what is in me compare to a vanquished army, that flees in disorder before a battle already won?
Who am I? They mock me these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, you know me, O God. You know I am yours. [6]
Chesterton and Bonhoeffer help us face our honest questions and piercing doubts about who we are. But here is the saving gospel truth: God knows our names. And with ears to hear we can hear God call us by name even now, telling us that we are God’s beloved.
There’s a song by a rock band known as The Who whose popular 1970's song “Who Are You?” has been made very well known in the past few years by the television drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. The song begins each episode, in many cases asking the question of an unidentified body or the perpetrator of the crime.
However, Pete Townsend of The Who said the song’s original meaning is actually that of a prayer of a destitute man on the street, looking up to the sky and asking God:
Who are You? Who are You?
I really want to know.
If that is so, listen to the last verse with the pronoun “you” as a reference to God:
I know there's a place you walked Where love falls from the trees My heart is like a broken cup I only feel right on my knees I spit out like a sewer hole Yet still receive your kiss How can I measure up to anyone now After such a love as this? [7]
Such is the love of God for each of us:
A voice from the heavens
falling through the trees
into our broken hearts
like a kiss from God’s Spirit
freely received never achieved
bringing us to our knees
in baptismal waters
calling out to us our own secret name
with the blessing we cannot live without:
You are God’s beloved.
You are God’s beloved.
______________________________
1. Henri Nouwen, The Life of the Beloved, Crossroad, 1992, 26
2. Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets, Harper San Francisco, 1991, 45
3. Brent Curtis and John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance, Thomas Nelson, 1997, 84, 88.
4. William Sloane Coffin Credo, Westminster John Knox, 2005, 6
5. G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Doubleday, 1959, 54
6. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison, “Who Am I?” SCM Press, 1971, 347-348
7. The Who, “Who Are You?” 1978
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CRESCENT HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
2800 Frankfort Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky 40206
(502) 896-4425
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