On Wednesday, amid the ICE surge, as we witnessed the murder of our neighbor, Renee Good, we entered a collective state of grief, shock, and sustained emergency response. I don’t know about you, but my nervous system has been flooded since then—with information, with emotions, with the need to make decisions. It’s really hard to focus with all this adrenaline flowing, with my phone constantly lighting up. It’s impossible to keep up with all the messages, all the requests, all the analysis, and all the opportunities to show up.
It strikes me that Jesus’ baptism, and the communal ritual rooted in this moment and handed down to us by our ancestors, offers us encouragement to stay grounded and centered in this moment. The heavens opened, the Spirit-dove descended, the divine voice spoke—and in that moment, a community coping with terror and repression was invited into a sacred pause, a moment of respite and reframing. It’s not an accident that John baptized in the wilderness, beyond civilization and outside the control of empire. John’s baptism ritual was about renouncing and resisting the ways of empire, and claiming a different set of values and allegiances. In Matthew, the baptism of the adult Jesus is set against the backdrop of the violence Jesus faced in his childhood. From his earliest days, Jesus was hunted by the Roman governor, Herod. As Herod ruthlessly murdered all the children under two, Jesus and his family fled to Egypt as refugees. In the midst of this terror, the community worked together to protect the vulnerable. God guided with stars and dreams. The child’s family and the magi shared hospitality and gifts and forged a collaborative, creative path forward. I think it was the ancient equivalent to a neighborhood signal chat.
Someone I don’t know recently reached out asking, how do I schedule a baptism at First Church? Is there an online application? Many people seem to believe that Baptism is a personal ritual that can be done privately. I wrote back to explain that Baptism here at First Church is rooted in belonging to community. It is deeply connected to our life as a congregation. If you’ve been part of a Baptism here (or a new member reception, which draws from the baptismal liturgy), you know what I mean. The congregation is an essential witness and participant. We make promises to each other before God. We commit to follow Jesus together in worship, in mutual care and healing, and in acts of justice. We pledge to give of our time and resources to build and sustain beloved community. We know that belonging is not something you fill out a form to receive. Belonging is a gift we give each other and it’s something we work toward together. It’s multi-layered thing, a fabric of trust that builds over time. So I invited the person who wants to be baptized to come and get to know our community and I sincerely hope they accept that invitation!
The story of Jesus’ baptism shows up in all four Gospels—so we know it’s important. But the little conversation between John and Jesus, in which John expresses hesitancy to baptize Jesus, is unique to Matthew. The implication is: Jesus didn’t need a baptism of forgiveness and repentance like all those others who came out to John in the wilderness. He didn’t need it; he chose it. Jesus reassured John, “It is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” “Us” not “me.” This baptism was a collaborative project, and it set the tone for Jesus’ ministry. Jesus was not going to stand above us or apart from us. He was going to stand with us. He was going to embody a humble love that’s got skin in the game. He was going to live in solidarity with all those who have water dripping from their hair and mud between their toes.
In the Hebrew scriptures, both righteousness and sin are relational concepts. Private, personal morality is not the focus. The book of Genesis says, “Abraham trusted God and God reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Righteousness is a collaborative relationship. It is the mutual care and responsibility that sustains community. And sin is the force that pulls us apart from one another, the thing that denies dignity and destroys community.
Traditionally, the liturgy for Baptism calls for the church, and the person being baptized, to renounce evil. Many years ago in another church I served, a family was welcoming a new baby. One of the moms, when she saw the lines about renouncing evil in the baptismal liturgy, burst into stunned laughter. It struck her as hilarious and absurd that as we blessed her beautiful, innocent child there was a need for such blunt talk about evil. She’s teased me about it for the last twenty years and it has become a running joke between us. Every time I see her, she gets a gleam in her eye and asks me: “Jane, have you renounced evil today?” I have to confess that her intense reaction led me to change the liturgy to soften those words and even edit them out. Reflecting on that decision now, I think it’s been a mistake. I’m putting them back in. It’s never been more clear to me, than in these last several days, that as followers of Jesus, our core work is to renounce evil. The art on today’s bulletin cover depicts Jesus standing on the head of a monster that’s lurking at the bottom of the river. Baptism is not a tame, cute ritual. There’s power struggle happening under the surface of those turbulent waters. This renouncing and restraining of evil is going on even as the holy water drips from Jesus’ head, even as the Spirit dove swoops in with blessing, even in that very moment when God’s voice is declaring him beloved.
My friends, ICE is an agent of evil, the instrument of a tyrannical government that has abandoned all pretense of serving its people. We must renounce and restrain this evil. And yet we can’t do it using evil’s own tactics. We have to use a different power. In the words of Dr. King: “hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.” We must renounce evil by standing together in the active and generative force of love. And as I look around this city, that is what I see happening. The power of love is intense right now in this place. I’ve never witnessed anything quite like it. I am completely confident that for every evil action ICE is perpetrating in our community we are renouncing that evil with at least five acts of loving solidarity. It’s been absolutely exhilarating to listen in and participate as much as I can, as our community organizes and collaborates in unprecedented ways—courageously observing and impeding ICE, delivering groceries, doing laundry, protecting schools and businesses, sharing funds and holding multiple protests, press conferences, vigils, and meetings every single day.
A parent of one of the kids in our confirmation class (a family from another church) shared about a conversation she had with her ten year old son. As they talked about what ICE is doing, she said she saw her son’s anger rising. So she told him the story of the apostle Paul, how God met Paul on the road with a blinding light and transformed him from someone who hated his neighbor into someone who championed them. She told him that could also happen to ICE agents and those in power giving the orders. In response, her son offered this prayer: “God I hate ICE. Make them stop doing this. Get your love on them soon.”
In his baptism, Jesus is named God’s beloved not for himself alone but for the sake of all of us. Love is the guiding value at the center of his being and his ministry, and ours. Love is what we do as followers of Jesus. We show up to embody divine love, love that is with us, love that is humble and collaborative, love that has skin in the game and mud between the toes. It is to this sacred love, that we all belong. Amen.