Gettysburg Presbyterian Church

Who Are We?
Luke 3:21-23
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Harry G. Winsheimer
January 11, 2009
Baptism of the Lord Sunday

In my previous congregations, I wore a name tag on Sundays. People often said, “We know you. Why do you wear the nametag?” My reply is: “I’m having an identity crisis. It reminds me of who I am.”

Oslo, Norway (AP) --- A determined ambulance crew that showed up at the wrong address slapped a healthy Norwegian onto a stretcher and rushed him to a hospital despite his objections.

“I tried to protest when the ambulance came, but I was told that from then on they were making the decision and that I had no say in it,” said the 44-year-old man.

The crew was supposed to pick up an ailing 57-year-old man with the same name living in the same village.

When the sick man—who drove to the hospital—tried to register, a clerk insisted he was already there.

In March of 2003, Charlotte and I on the same day each received a letter from Target, the store, with whom we did not have an account. The letters asked, Did you open individual accounts with Target and buy ten thousand dollars of goods in the last week of January in Florida? What! Target suspected fraud. They were right. We had not been in Florida that year. We filed police reports. We put a fraud alert on our accounts. Then Mobile-Exxon sent us a bill. We thought it was all over, but in June Southern Bell sent me a nasty notice that I had ignored earlier requests for payment, and my account would be sent to the collection agency. I spoke with the FTC’s fraud division, among many phone calls that I was instructed to make. I asked, “How did they open these accounts in Florida?” She said, “Probably by using your name and Social Security number. That is all that some companies request. Probably was done over the internet.” After the fraud alert was placed on our accounts, Charlotte applied for a cell phone with Verizon. They refused to give it to her, because there was a fraud alert on our account. She had to prove her identity and have her application notarized. Our identity makes a difference.

Pick up your bulletin or other piece of paper, and pen. Now, write a few words in answer to this question: Who are you? Write words which you use to describe yourself.

When I asked you who you are, you probably had to stop and think. We may deduce that Jesus asked the same question of himself and of God. He has been baptized. Now, his public ministry was to begin. He needed assurance, confirmation. I think that Jesus was praying something like this: “Father, confirm who I am. Confirm my mission. Confirm who I am to be and what I am to do.”

The lesson is from Luke. Authors highlight distinctive aspects of the same event, (read the writing of two authors and we get two views) so Luke’s account is different from those given by Matthew, Mark and John. To Luke, the baptism is background, preparation, for God’s message of identity and affirmation. In fact, Luke does not describe the baptism of Jesus, just reports that it had happened: Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized….” Obviously Luke was not interested in the baptismal ceremony itself. He wanted to communicate another message. He continued: …when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying---Jesus was connecting with God---the heaven was opened---that is an idiom for God responding to Jesus’ prayer. God came to Jesus---and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. Who makes the announcement? The Spirit of God. The image chosen was a dove, a non-threatening gentle bird. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.

How do you think Jesus felt? Did he feel loved and valued? Those words must have warmed Jesus all over. Many of us ache to hear our parents say that to us! Or, hear our spouses say it. Or, hear our children say it. Or, our bosses. Some of us spend a lifetime trying to please parents whom we could not please as children. Or, we live with a spouse who never esteems us just as we are. Or, we yearn for our children to say, “I am proud of you, Mom and Dad.” The script of conditional love, “I’ll love you, if you get on the football team, if you become a starter. I’ll be pleased, if… .” Knowing that we are loved unconditionally, that we please just by being ourselves, just by being present, is a great blessing. Knowing that we are beloved is food for the soul, regrettably appreciated most when absent. “You are my beloved…I am pleased with you.” Wonderful words to hear! No wonder Jesus had such incredible ego strength! No wonder he could be compassionate. No wonder he could care so much for people. No defensiveness. No craving to be important. Psychologically speaking, his strength came from a solid foundation of being loved. Knowing that we are loved makes such a positive difference!

Do you remember your baptism? I do not recall my baptism, because I was baptized as an infant. I remember confirming my baptism. By asking the question in the past tense, we usually think of baptism as static, a ritual that took place back when we were infants or teens. Now, we typically say, “We baptized the children.” Over. Done. Pick up what Luke did. He wrote, had been baptized, and was praying, things happened. Questions that lead to a richer theological understanding are these: Having been baptized, what has happened? Or, are you baptized? Baptism is intended to be a dynamic, living affirmation, confirmation that leads us into something. A proper appreciation includes the on-going, life-long self-understanding that we are baptized and living out of our baptism.

It is like being married. Some brides and grooms make me uneasy when they meet with me to plan their wedding. They are so invested in the wedding, making it the biggest and best celebration in their lives! If it does not go just right, they will be devastated. The wedding. The wedding. The wedding! I think, “Something is wrong here. They plan a wedding, but not the marriage. A wedding does not make a marriage.” The wedding is significant --- it is a major event --- but what comes after the wedding is what it is about. The baptism is important, vital for a Christian. I value the ceremony. But, it is a means to a new identity and relationship. Luke understood that baptism was a means to an end. Had been baptized, he wrote, the life of faith is lived. Would we ask, “Have you had a wedding?” No. We ask properly, “Are you married?” Let us ask ourselves, “Are you baptized?” Our baptism confirms our identity as Christians, and out of our identity flow our Christian values and behavior. So, I ask you, “Having been baptized, what difference has it made? Does it make?”

You are my Son, the Beloved. Son? “Son” is a message carrier, a symbol, a sign, to tell us that God and Jesus were intimately connected, flesh of flesh, bone of bone, two yet one.

Jesus as the Son of God does not carry quite the same significance in our culture as it did for Luke. Today, the son grows up and leaves home to make his own way. My son lives in Virginia. I am not part of his daily life. I have never been to his current place of work. The people with whom he works have never seen me. They make no connection between my son and myself. He is his own person with his own life. He is completely separate from me, except for family get-togethers, celebrations and crises. It was quite different in the culture of Jesus and Luke. The son and the father were symbiotic. The first born son would take over the family business, live in the same village, contribute to family reputation, carry on the family name. If my son does something embarrassing or laudatory in Virginia, you probably won’t hear of it. If I do something, no one learns of it in Leesburg. In the ancient village, the family was part of the clan, and everyone knew everything about you and you knew everything about them, and the family’s reputation was always on the line. You were not individuals living your own life. You were one of the Winsheimers, the McGowans, the Jones, the Neils, the Stellrechts.

Keep that culture in mind as you think about Jesus as Son of God. It is a title, an image, a way of speaking, to communicate to us that Jesus and God were as close as parent and child in a biblical village. In that culture there was no deeper bond. I remember the funeral of Chris Stellrecht, one of the pillars of a previous church. The pallbearers were six adult grandchildren. As they carried the casket down the church steps toward the hearse, I thought, “My! They look alike! You cannot deny where they came from. The grandfather is in every face.” The title Son intends to draw the response, “When I look at Jesus, I cannot deny that he is from God.”

Do you know that one of the meanings of baptism is that we are the adopted children of God?
The Presbyterian “Directory for Worship” says, “Baptism signifies … adoption into the covenant family of the church.’’
God’s family.

And, so we too are children of God! God says to us in baptism: You are my sons, my daughters, my children, my people, my chosen, my church!

This is not a generic adoption. It is a specific adoption of each one of us. Suppose that we took the children to be baptized, sat them together on the floor, and I took a sprinking can and sprinkled them all at once, and announced: “You’re baptized.” When Charlotte graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, the dean announced, “Would the school of education please stand. [Three thousand stood.] You are awarded the degree of Bachelors of Education, move your tassels.” When I graduated in a much smaller class, my name was called and I walked across the stage to receive the diploma and a hand-shake from the president of the college and the president of the board. How do we baptize? One by one, by name. It is Gospel and fabulous news that “God so loved the world that he sent his only Son….” The world is billions of people. Yet, God wants us to internalize this: God knows each of us by name and loves each of us individually. Each one of us is a son or daughter of the heavenly parent. So, we baptize by Christian name. God knows us by name, our baptized name. That is why, over the centuries, when a non-believing adult was baptized, the convert was given a Christian name. The Christian name announces: I have been baptized as a disciple of Jesus Christ; I am living as a Christian.

Please do this with me: I will make a statement. Then, if it is appropriate for you, please say it aloud with your name. “I am baptized. God knows my name and loves me, Harry Glenn.” If appropriate, please join me this time and conclude with your name, “I am baptized. God knows my name and loves me, ______!” I give you this assignment: Once every day this week, say aloud to yourself, “I am baptized. God knows my name and loves me, ________!” And, if the Holy Spirit is dynamic in you, this affirmation will come to be followed by a “Therefore ….”

Will Willimon wrote:
Back in high school, every Friday and Saturday night, as I was leaving home to go on a date, I remember my mother bidding me farewell at the front door with these weighty words, “Don’t forget who you are.”

Remember! You are baptized! You are God’s children. You are loved. Therefore …….

The Buffalo News, Jan. 4, 1994, p. 1.

Pulpit Resource, William H. Willimon, V. 23, No. 1, J,F,M 1995, p. 8.