RVCC Pastor's Sermon

Sermon - January 11, 2009

“Torn Places”

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Mark 1:4-11

A mother was at home with her two young daughters one afternoon. Everything seemed to be just fine until she suddenly realized that something strange was going on. The girls were upstairs, and the house was very quiet – not necessarily a good sign.

The mother first checked each of the girls’ bedrooms, but they were not there. Just before she might have gotten really worried, she heard a sound. It was the sound of whispering followed by the flushing of a toilet. Following the noise, she soon found herself standing in front of a closed bathroom door. She listened for a moment more: whispers, flush. Whispers, flush. Whispers, flush.

Poking her head into the room, she beheld both of her daughters standing over the toilet. Whispers, flush. One of them was holding a dripping Barbie doll by the ankles, and the other one had her finger on the flusher handle. Whispers, flush.

Not knowing what to make of the scene unfolding before her, the mother stood very still and just listened. Whispers, flush. And then she heard her daughter say, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and in the hole you goes." Flush.

You are right! Today we are focusing on baptism, first on Jesus’ baptism, as told in the Gospel of Mark, the earliest narrative we have of the life of Jesus – and then on the meaning of our own baptismal promises.

Mark is unique among the four gospels, you know. In his writing, there are no shepherds, no angels, and no magi to start off his narrative. The Gospel writer says nothing about the origins of Jesus – no stable, not a syllable about Mary and Joseph, no cosmic wonder of the word becoming flesh and dwelling among us. Jesus just appears – like the existential man. He is who is he is. He comes with no past, no baggage, no history.

Mark is much more ordinary than his synoptic counter parts, and he narrates with stark simplicity. This is the Good News, he starts off. This is the Story of Jesus. And Mark chooses to begin not when Jesus is born but at the point that he sees as pivotal, a good 30 years later at the moment of Jesus’ baptism.

From a liturgical perspective, Mark bypasses the hubbub of Advent and Christmas and jumps right into the season of Epiphany. You see, Epiphany is our opportunity here in the church to get down to the nitty gritty. It is our time to tell the story of Jesus. You see, the word “epiphany” means revealing or appearance, and so we in the church are called during this post-Christmas season to discover just who it is that was made flesh and dwelt among us, Emmanuel, God with us.

Between now and Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent, we will be unveiling each week more and more about this person Jesus. And so today we begin where Mark began, on the banks of the Jordan River where Jesus’ cousin John baptized him, and a voice from heaven proclaimed to Jesus alone: “You are my son, my beloved, and I am very pleased with you.”

Nobody standing around watching that afternoon – awaiting their chance to be baptized by the preeminent baptizer of the day - seemed to hear the voice from above. It must not have been the booming voice of God that we hear in the movies, but more like the still small voice, just a whisper – meant undoubtedly for Jesus’ ears only. Nobody seemed to notice either that the heavens were torn apart and that the Holy Spirit, like a dove – the bird of peace and wellbeing – had descended to alight on the Nazarene.

When Matthew and Luke tell this story, they will write that the heavens simply opened, like a door. However, Mark uses the Greek word, “schitzo,” which literally means torn asunder, like a great piece of fabric ripped unceremoniously from end to end. His word choice is very important – and I do not think accidental. Surely Mark knew that ragged, ripped edges will never go back together quite as seamlessly as they did before. There will always be a hole of some sort.

In a word, Mark tells us in no uncertain terms that Jesus is baptized, his ministry begins, and the heavens and the earth are never the same. “In you, my beloved, in you, my Spirit will be present on the earth in a new way.” The heavens have been ripped apart, opened, never to completely close again. What a comforting yet at the same time challenging acknowledgment Mark makes!

For Jesus himself, that affirmation means being called for the remainder of his days to “tear apart the social fabric that separated rich from poor, break through hardness of heart to bring forth compassion, break through rituals that had grown rigid or routine, tear apart the chains that bound, and tear apart the notions of what it means to be God's Beloved Son,” as Barbara Lundblad writes. Nothing would ever be the same.

As so for us, when we are immersed or dunked or sprinkled with water during the sacramental ritual of baptism, nothing for us will ever be the same either. You see, when we are baptized, we make promises (or promises are made for us by our parents), promises to first and foremost walk in the footsteps of Jesus – no matter what, promises to affirm that wherever else God may be, God is in the torn places, the raggedly ripped apart places in our lives and in the world.

As with that sodden Barbie doll hovering over the toilet, God is with us as we dangle by the ankles over whatever waters of chaos flood our lives. The sacrament of baptism acknowledges and challenges us to embrace all of these things. "Swirling Breath of God. Oh breathe, Sweet Spirit of God, breathe life into our emptiness," as an unknown poet mused.

Mark reminds us that when God comes into our lives, God comes through that place that will never be closed quite so neatly again – perhaps not with a booming voice for all the world to hear, but in a whisper, in a breath, in a spirit that surrounds us with comfort and courage and peace – and the words are always the same: “You are my beloved sons and daughters, and in the end I will be pleased with you.”

And if you believe nothing else about the sacrament of baptism – what actually happens, what it means - then remember that. You (names from congregation) are my beloved sons and daughters.

Is there a torn place in your life? God won’t seamlessly repair it, but God will be in the hole. Do you see torn places in the world around you? God will not seamlessly repair them either, but God will be with you when you follow in Jesus’ footsteps and minister within the holes you see.

Barbara Lundblad reminds us that “at the end of his life Jesus hung on a cross between heaven and earth, and when he breathed his last, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, torn apart as the heavens had been torn apart (at his baptism).

The holy of holies no longer separated the sanctuary from the people. The curtain could never be repaired. (However), there was no voice from the darkened heavens that day. God was silent, not even a whisper.

But there was a voice not far off but close. Not up but down. A centurion soldier stood at the foot of the cross keeping order, marking time, waiting to pronounce death. When he saw that Jesus had breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was God's Son."

It was almost as if that soldier had somehow heard for himself the words whispered to Jesus alone (on that long ago day) at the Jordan.” Just as the word had come through the torn place in the sky years before, so it came through the torn curtain as well: "This is my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."

There at the beginning and at the end of Mark’s Gospel – at Jesus’ baptism and at his death - is God’s affirmation – like bookends – holding his life together – and down through the ages, our lives together as well. “You are my beloved sons and daughters.”

For us, baptism is God’s affirmation that even though we do not always live up to being made in God’s image, all is not lost for us. It is our acknowledgement that we belong to God before we belong to anything or anyone else. It is about following Jesus, being transformed by his message, saying “yes” to God, trusting in the torn places, and acknowledging that for us too heaven and earth will never be the same.

“You are my beloved sons and daughters.” You know, as humans we all try to discover who we are; however, it is when we discover whose we are that we really begin to understand and claim our identity as children of God. Maybe, in the end, that is what our baptism is all about.

Sermon - January 11, 2009

“Torn Places”

By Rev. Nancy Foran Mark 1:4-11

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Mark 1:4-11