HOMILY FOR THE BAPTISM OF MIDTOWN YOUNG PEOPLE

Exodus 32:1-14
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10
Psalm 51:1-18

Dear Maddie and Jake and Nick and Christian and Ian and Victoria and Jocelyn and Nate and Mitchell and Emma,

Tomorrow you are going to be baptized. I can’t promise you anything at all about the temperature of the water. It might be really cold. You might confess your belief in God your Father, Jesus Christ your Lord, and the Holy Spirit your Comforter and Guide through chattering teeth. In fact you might draw in a sharp breath when you first get in, and wonder if this was such a good idea after all. Who in his right mind hops into the cold water this late in the year? Sensible people would be staying dry and wearing sweatshirts right about now. Have you lost your common sense, jumping into the water like that?

You need to know that in following Jesus you have to do a lot of things that seem to go against common sense. You have to obey the teachings of a person you have never seen, but only read about. You have to give away some of your money and your stuff on a regular basis. You are not allowed to hurt people, even though you really want to. And if others hurt you, you have to forgive them. You have to help people who have no possible way of paying you back. You have to join a community of others who follow Jesus, and some of them are not very likeable, but you are stuck with them, and they are stuck with you.

So, if the water is a bit cold, that is not such a bad thing after all. Cold water wakes you up, doesn’t it? Your eyes pop wide open and your muscles tense up. And you need to be wide awake for what is to come in this life-long journey of following Jesus.

Because, as the reading from Exodus shows, something is wrong in the world. What is wrong? People were created to live in friendship with God and with neighbor, but the loyalty of the human race has quickly abandoned God and run off to serve false gods. Because God is more good than you imagine, and more loving than you imagine, he refuses to let that be the end of the story. So he has been organizing a rescue mission to the world. But as you can see, we live in a world which, on the whole, does not cooperate well with God’s rescue mission, but tends instead to serve false gods who make the problems of the world worse.

One of the difficulties of false gods is that they lie. They do not say, “Good afternoon. I am a false god. Follow me and do what I say. I will lead you away from walking with God, and bring sorrow into your life.” Rather, they are deceptive, and they try to pose as something attractive. Weirdly, when Aaron set out to build the golden calf in Exodus, he said that they were going to have a festival to the Lord. And maybe it started out sort of innocent and respectable, but pretty soon people were down in the dirt, acting like animals, de-humanizing themselves and others.

We do not have golden calves today. Not ones that people bow down to. But false gods we have aplenty.

We have the false god of thoughtless destructive momentary pleasure. That can mean foolish wasting of God’s money, or wrong use of the body he has given us, or addiction. All these things result in a very short time of pleasure followed by a very long time of pain.

We have the false god of getting lots and lots of money. Now, money is pretty cool. You can use it to get burritos, or put gas in the car, or buy someone a present. You can use it to bring relief to people who are suffering. But if you want to use it all on yourself, or keep it in big piles and get more and more, it becomes a false god, and you spend day and night worrying whether you have a big enough pile of money, and hoping nobody steals it.

We have the false god of thinking that our kind of people, who look like us and talk like us and live like us, are God’s favorite kind of people. This false god tries to get us to forget God’s multi-colored love for all the people of the world, and his intention to bring them together in his kingdom.

When you go into the water to be baptized, you are dying to all these false gods. Let me explain.

Sometimes, like at school, we teach things to others by acting out a skit or a play. People can understand better if they see something acted out. Baptism is like a play, and you are the main character. What you are acting out is dying, being buried, and coming back from the dead. That’s why you go under the water and come up again. Of course you aren’t really going to die (unless Mr. Gombis holds you under too long or perhaps you freeze), so why are you acting out death and life?

You are doing it for three reasons. First, Jesus did it first, and for real. He died and rose from the dead. By acting it out, you are saying that you want to be like Jesus, to copy him and imitate him and follow him. You are saying that you trust him to raise you from the dead in the new world to come.

Second, you are telling all the false gods: “I will not serve you. If you want me for a slave, you can forget it, because as far as false gods are concerned, I am dead and buried. But where Jesus Christ is concerned, I am alive and ready to follow.”

Third, you are telling this church that your faith in God is becoming your own. When you were small you believed whatever your parents and teachers and big brother or sister told you, because little kids are just that way. When they told you about Santa Claus, you believed it. When somebody said there was a monster under the bed, you believed it. When your dad did that dumb trick where he pulls a quarter out of your ear, you believed it.

Those days are gone.

Just as you outgrew those childish ways of believing, you have also outgrown letting the adults be the only ones who know God. It is time for you to walk with God yourself. And in baptism you are saying to the whole church: “This faith is mine now; growing up in a Christian family does not make me automatically a follower of Jesus; I now choose it for myself.”

And when we follow Jesus, where do we go? Once we pick up the trail of footprints, where do they lead? I am sorry to tell you that following Jesus is a very unpredictable way of life. You just don’t know where you may end up. We do know, however, that as you follow the footprints, they will often take you to places where the world is in pain. This is not a mistake; Jesus has not gotten lost. Or rather, in a sense he has gotten lost. He goes on purpose to the places where lost people can be found. And he wants you to follow.

Remember the false gods? The ones you are going to rebuke and reject tomorrow? Well, they have gone about doing evil in the world, and left the world in pain. God is moved in compassion to answer and heal the world’s pain and forgive the world’s sin. When he calls people like you to become followers of Jesus, he is assigning you to his rescue mission to the world. Just look at the places Jesus likes to go: He goes where the least favorite people in town can find him and listen to him. He goes to places that ruin his reputation. He goes there because the joy of reconciling one person with God and with neighbor is so great that it causes cosmic parties to happen in the heavens. You will need to follow him there.

To be forgiven of sin and called to follow: they are the same thing. God does not say: “Your sins are forgiven. Have a nice day, and try to stay out of trouble.” He says: “Your sins are forgiven. Get up and walk.” Paul says the same thing in his own way: forgiveness and the call to follow are the same thing. And remember Peter, who had a very bad night during which he told everyone within hearing that he had never met Jesus. For him, the word of forgiveness and the word of calling were the same: Feed my sheep.

So it is with you: Your sins are forgiven. Follow Jesus.

Beloved young Midtownfolk, you are not doing this alone. Though you go into the water one at a time, and faith in Christ is now your very own, you are not alone. For many centuries people have been rejecting the false gods, receiving forgiveness, and following Jesus to the place of the world’s pain. You are not the first nor the last, neither the best nor the worst. You are just the next. It is like joining an enormous parade that stretches from the western horizon and out of sight to the east. You are very small, but you are part of something very big. And though he has millions upon millions of followers, Jesus Christ knows you particularly. With him you have no ID number or barcode. He knows you completely and loves you completely.

And for at least the next few years of your journey he has placed you here, among those who know you, if not completely, then pretty darn well; and who love you, if not perfectly, then about as well as can be expected. This little church, this unlikely gathering of people, is only one minor outpost among the mighty uncounted hosts of churches throughout the world and the centuries. It is small and a little bit shabby and not very important in the grand scheme of things.

But it is yours. We are yours. So we will walk with you. We will try to show you how it’s done, and set a good example, and all of that. One day your turn will come to lead, and you also will know the worry of making a mess of the Christian life in full view of your kids. So please forgive us when we don’t lead well, and learn from us when we do lead well. It is good and right that we are on this journey together. We love walking with you.

And now, we bless you:

+Your fathers bless you in the name of God the Father;

+Your mothers bless their daughters and sons in the name of Christ the Firstborn from the Dead;

+The whole church, filled and guided by the Holy Spirit, blesses you in the name of the Spirit.

Amen.