WHAT’S IN A NAME?
About a week before Christmas, I found a book in my box in the church office. The book is entitled, The Hole in Our Gospel, and it was written by Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision. There was absolutely no identification as to who gave me the book. In fact, the only mark on the book at all is where someone took a black pen and scratched out the print that indicated how much the book cost. In any case, the book is truly outstanding. I’d really like to know who gave it to me so I could thank them properly.
Richard Stearns, the author of The Hole in Our Gospel, was at one point in time the very well-to-do C.E.O. of America’s finest tableware company. They produced and sold luxury goods to those who could afford them. He lived with his wife and five children in a ten-bedroom house on five acres just outside of Philadelphia. As Stearns himself put it, “I drove a Jaguar to work every day, and my business travel took me to places such as Paris, Tokyo, London and Rome. I flew first-class and stayed in the best hotels…I was one of the good guys – you might say a ‘poster child’ for the successful Christian life.”
He goes on to describe how he wrestled with God’s call to become the president of World Vision. World Vision International, of course, focuses on feeding the hungry all across the globe. Yet in order to become president of World Vision, he would have to move his family from Philly to Seattle, and take a significant cut in pay. It was not an easy decision to make. It somehow ran against the grain of the proverbial Great American Dream. Stearns goes into what the decision entailed in great detail. In any case, he ultimately decided to accept the job, yet you might say he still had cold feet. Here’s how he describes his first day on the job.
I still remember that first day in my new office at World Vision. I had taken the plunge, but I was still terrified. I drove in early, actually hoping I wouldn’t see anyone as I rode the elevator to my new life. I was certain I looked like a deer in the headlights. I slipped into my office, closed the door, and cried out to God in prayer. “I showed up, Lord. I’m here. It took every ounce of my courage just to be here. But I can’t do this job. I feel helpless for the first time in my life. I don’t even know what to do next. It’s up to You now. You got me into this, and You’ll have to do the rest. Help me.” And He did. For perhaps the first time in my life, God had me right where He wanted me: helpless…and relying completely on Him.
Mother Teresa once said, “I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a letter of love to the world.” She had it right. We’re not authors, any of us. We are just the “pencils.” Once we understand that, we might actually become useful to God.
“I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a letter of love to the world.” That’s quite a statement, don’t you think? Yet how does one get to the point of seeing one’s self as a little pencil in the hand of a writing God? Or, perhaps better put, how does one arrive at the conclusion that it’s really about God, and not about me?
Let’s take a look at the passage we read from the gospel according to Matthew. There we see Jesus before John the Baptist at the Jordan River. Jesus has come to John to be baptized by him. John would have prevented it, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
There are a number of interesting questions surrounding the gospel accounts of Jesus’ baptism. They are questions that date from the earliest of Christian communities. In fact, given the various re-workings of the story by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, it’s likely that the very existence of this story at all was troubling. Why, the early church must have wondered, did Jesus need to be baptized by John? Surely it wasn’t for the forgiveness of sin, was it? After all, wasn’t Jesus, in fact, sinless? Surely it wasn’t because John was the greater teacher or prophet, was it? After all, wasn’t Jesus, in fact, the very Son of God? Why did Jesus need to be baptized by John at all?
Is it perhaps because Jesus saw himself as a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who was sending a letter of love to the world? Is it perhaps because Jesus had arrived at the conclusion that it was really about God and not about him? I think we might be on to something here. Jesus realized that if he was to accomplish what God had set out for him to accomplish, he would first have to surrender to the will of God. He began his surrender to the will of God by voluntarily surrendering to baptism by John. To realize that it’s really about God and not about us, we too must be willing to surrender. We must be willing to surrender control. Easier said than done, don’t you think?
In any case, what happened next? When Jesus had been baptized – just as he began to emerge from the water – suddenly the heavens were opened. The Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove and a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
This, my friends, is the place where Jesus learns who he is in relation to whose he is. Again, this is the place where Jesus learns who he is in relation to whose he is. In other words, upon his voluntary surrender to the will of God, Jesus is given the intertwined gifts of identity and affirmation.
Jesus’ baptism, of course, precedes the commencement of his public ministry. In the gospel according to John’s account of Jesus’ baptism, this public ministry begins with the calling of the first disciples. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, however, Jesus is tempted in the wilderness immediately following his baptism, and doesn’t begin calling his disciples until after that. Yet in all four gospels, I think the theme is clear. The gift of identity precedes the call to ministry. We might even go so far as to say that only after having a clear sense of God’s affirmation and identity can Jesus take on the enormous task set before him. And only after having a clear sense of God’s affirmation and identity can Jesus withstand the temptations that would soon be placed before him. You see, Satan calls into question Jesus’ relationship with his Father because he knows that Jesus – as with Adam and Eve before him – is vulnerable to temptation precisely to the degree that he is insecure about his identity and mistrusts his relationship with God. In other words, the more susceptible we are to temptation, the more unsure we tend to be of who and whose we are.
Perhaps this is where the story of Jesus’ baptism intersects with the stories of our own baptisms. For we, too, can only live into the mission that God has set before us to the degree that we hear and believe the good news that we, too, are beloved children of God. As with Jesus, we discover in baptism who we are by hearing definitively whose we are. Baptism is nothing less than the promise that we are beloved children of God.
I think of what I’ve been trained to say after every baptism I do. I say, “This child of God is now received into the holy catholic and apostolic church. See what love the Father has given that we should be called children of God…and we are.” We are children of God. Thus, no matter where we go, God will be with us. No matter what we do, God is for us. No matter what we encounter, God will help us. In baptism we are blessed with the promise of God’s Holy Spirit. And, we are given a name. That name is, “Beloved child of God.”
Ladies and gentlemen, this matters tremendously because names can be quite powerful. Some names we have chosen, other names have been given to us. I think of an old minister I once knew named Bruce Pray. He got a nickname given to him. His nickname was “Lettuce.” Get it? “Lettuce Pray?” Actually, it was a fairly appropriate nickname, given what he did for a living.
Some nicknames aren’t so appropriate though, are they? In fact, some nicknames sting. And in small towns, they tend to stick in perpetuity. What were you called when you were young? Was it something that made you feel good about yourself? Or was it something that made you feel ashamed? What’s in a name? A lot. A lot is in a name. A name can lift us up to lofty heights of achievement, or it can bring us down to the depths of humiliation.
When Jesus Christ was baptized, he received his identity and an affirmation. He came to know both who and whose he was. The same is true for you. By virtue of your baptism you now know who and whose you are as well. And, you received a name. Your name is: Child of God. And you are a pencil in the hand of a writing God sending a letter of love to the world. Amen.
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