Sermon: “Get in Line!”
By Rob Leveridge
July 29, 2012
Luke 3:21-22
I had a professor in Seminary who had a pet peeve about which she was
pretty adamant. If you ever referred to John the Baptist, she would cut you off –
“That’s John the Baptizer! John was not a Baptist.” Now she didn’t have anything
against Baptists, and John was not a member of any denomination, but he has a good
name in our tradition, for who he was. In scripture some people were named for the
town where they were from, some were remembered for who their parents were.
John’s title comes from what he did.
He called people to the water. The water of forgiveness – your value as a
person preceded your sins, and it will outlast them. The waters of repentance your mistakes do not define you, they do not own you. You can do better.
The waters of new beginnings where all are welcomed with extravagant humility,
because we are all works in progress, we are all in this together, as sisters and
brothers in God’s family.
Come to the water, he said. Come on in, it’s fine. This was John’s full-time
occupation. He preached all up and down the Jordan river from Judea to Galilee,
from the sea of Tiberias to the Salt Sea, about sixty miles, and always on foot, and
according to the Gospels thousands of people throughout that area came to John.
That’s a lot of people getting baptized.
One day, Jesus came to the river, and he joined the crowd. He didn’t reserve
the space, he didn’t book John for the hourly rate and a private ceremony, he mixed
in, one person among a bunch of people. Baptized with the same water, the same
words, at the same bank as everybody else, set his things down in a little pile, and
prepared for his turn. The Gospel of Luke tells the story in an unspectacular way:
“When all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized,” Our
reading from Luke was just two verses, no flourish, no big drama. When Jesus came
to be baptized there wasn’t any fanfare. No band playing, no paparazzi, no red
carpet going down to the water. When all the people had been baptized, and when
Jesus also had been baptized…
I picture John knee-deep calling out – Next! It makes me think of Jesus
standing in line. And I hate being in line, don’t you? I don’t know what to make of
my Lord having to wait his turn. In America in this day and age, no body wants to be
in line, really for just about anything. When I get up in the morning and I think
about all that I need to do for the day, I plan on going here, doing this, visiting so and
so, I don’t plan time for just waiting to go - Any time I spend standing in line, that’s
time I’m spending not doing what I have set out to do, and I don’t like that. I’d like
to skip ahead, I’d like the world to accommodate my desire to get on with it.
If I have the status or the connections or the cash, the world will
accommodate me and you. You can be a preferred customer now. Have you ever
been waiting to get on a plane, and it’s been delayed, and you’re surrounded by 150
tired and cranky people, bumping into each other, fighting over those awful airport
chairs, and everybody wants to be done with the airport, and an announcer speaks
into a microphone, saying “We’re about to begin boarding, so if you could all just get
in line. But before we do, we’d like to invite our platinum club members to come
aboard, so that we can get you settled in with your champaign before we get started
with everyone else. A line will try to force a more or less egalitarian treatment on
everyone, but if we’re honest most of us will have to admit that if we can figure a
way to get past that line, we’ll take it.
It’s a challenge for us as Christians to remember the story of Jesus’ baptism in
which he got the same treatment as everybody. No special treatment, even for the
Lord. When the all the people had been baptized, and when Jesus also had been
baptized…
52-year-old blacksmith; Next! Acne-ridden 14-year-old boy; Next! Wealthy
landloard; Next! 20-year-old widowed mother of three; Next! Mentally disabled
man; Next! Tea Party activist; MoveOn.org community organizer; Next! Despised
tax collector; Next! Long-awaited Messiah; Next! Prostitute; Next! Barley Famer;
Next! And so on.
I don’t like being lost in a crowd, but crowds can be good for us. I don’t like
being in line. But lines are good sometimes. They are important, they serve a
purpose – a line forces us to remember who we really are, and who we really are
not. You are a person – you are made in the image of God, you are as much a person
as any other who ever has been, no less and no more.
A couple months ago I was at a conference for clergy in Boston, and one
evening about 30 of us went to a pub, and had this back room to ourselves. There
was an open mic night at this bar, but it had been cancelled for some reason, and
these two comics had come out hoping to do a stand-up routine at the open mic
night. They were disappointed, but noticed our big group in the back and asked us if
they could do an impromptu performance for us (they didn’t know we were all
ministers, and why ruin the surprise?). Being very supportive and encouraging
people, we gave them a warm welcome, and they got started. And their humor was
filthy, like sewage filthy. And not only that, they were mean. And not only that, they
were unfunny. You all know that for a reverend, I’m pretty irreverent – I love
comedy and I’ll go along with the off-color stuff if it has some meaningful social
commentary, or at least is just clever. But these guys were just lame, unfunny, and
jerks. Jokes about the holocaust. They made jokes about gays, and there were
several gay people there who began talking to each other across the room about the
fact that they were gay, to try to let the comics no how uncool they were being.
Then, and I am not making this up, one of the comics starts a long joke about a guy
who has no legs, and my pastor friend who literally has one leg, takes his prosthetic
off during the telling of this joke, and sets it on the chair next to him, about four feet
from the comic telling the joke. The guy sees it, sort of nods, and just goes right on.
Well, they finished up, and they offered to do another routine – we’ve got even more
material! – but we let them know we weren’t interested, thanks anyway, we’re done
here. And then one of these guys asked us, “So you guys all know each other - is this
like some kind of a high school reunion or something?” And my friend Sara steps up
and says, “No actually, we’re all pastors.” And all of the sudden both of these guys
went beet red, and began to apologize for all the things they’d said. And that was
the most offensive part of the whole thing. If you care about how your words are
heard by anybody, then you should care about how your words are heard by
everybody.
When Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, went to the river, he went like
everybody else. He expected nothing more, nothing less, than what was offered to
everyone. No special treatment. And he wasn’t just trying to go incognito or be cool
(though he was cool). He was demonstrating that God’s will for healing, redemption
and reconciliation is for everyone, for each as much as any other. And because Jesus
went forward like everyone else, and got the water that everyone else got, we know
the words he received from heaven – You are my beloved, and with you I am well
pleased - those are words from God to all of us.
One of the biggest news stories for the past week or so has been the shooting
in Aurora, CO. The gruesome details of this event echo so many stories of chaotic
bloodshed in our society. We are filled with horror and grief for those who died,
because we understand that we are fundamentally the same as those who are
suffering in another community, even if we’ve never met them in person. That could
be us. And I suppose it’s this fundamental awareness that’s missing in the hearts of
those who commit acts of senseless violence. In their brokenness, in their pain and
instability, they cannot see the essential unity of the human family. They don’t see
themselves or those they hurt for what they really are: gifts of great value, precious
children of God. And they do not see that human beings can share things greater
than hatred and brutality. We can build fellowship and well-being, shaped the
power of grace.
Come to the water, said John. Come down to the river, pray with us and be
born anew. Know the truth of forgiveness. Know the reality of repentance. Come
and be baptized, and watch the doors to your future with God be thrown open.
Come, you children of God. Join the club. Get in line.
When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper on communion Sundays, we come
down the aisle in a line – as we receive the elements, the bread, the cup, each of us is
told the truth: The body, the blood, broken and shed for you. The fullness of God’s
grace is poured out for you – for you. Grace is offered to you individually,
personally, specially. And that grace is poured out for everybody else, the same as
you. The exact same. You may think yourself better than some people, even if you
only think it subconsciously. You may think that others are better than you. It’s not
true.
Pain comes to everyone, shame comes to everyone, grief comes to everyone
failure comes to everyone. Grace, amazing grace comes to everyone, no first class
seating.
Being in line is a good thing. Being in the crowd by the river Jordan is a good
thing. A recently baptized person might think of herself as a new Christian, a young
Christian, but she is not a partial Christian; you are not a probationary member of
the family of God, but the same as everybody else, you are fully in the fold. And I tell
you, in this space by the waters, this space where all of our silly presumptions about
the differences in value between us and those around us melt away, it’s in this space
in line by the water that we can become ready. Ready for repentance, ready for
forgiveness, ready for the calling that is placed upon us, ready for God. And it’s good
to be ready for God.
One time years ago I was in line at the grocery store. I discovered at the
cashier that I didn’t have any cash or credit cards with me, and a stranger paid for
my groceries. He did it quickly, without giving me the chance to protest, and then
left quickly, without allowing me to insist that I could pay him back.
I followed him out, and as I did I asked him if he was a church-going man, and
he said yes. That’s the only time I ever saw him – but I haven’t forgotten him. I have
done for other people since then what he did for me. And so has my wife – once not
long ago she came home from the store after having taken a few minutes longer than
she’d expected. I asked if everything was okay, she said, “Yeah. There was
somebody in line. You remember that time?” Yes, I said – I remember. And however
many times Shannon and I pay for somebody’s groceries in the years to come, it
won’t just be a matter of paying back or paying forward a good deed with another
good deed. In moments like that, we simply remember that we’re the same as the
other people in line. You and I should try to remember that all the time.
Amen.