Living as Beloved 1-9-22
Living as Beloved
Is 43:1-7; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Is 43:1-7
But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth— everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Prayer – Gracious and loving God, just as you proclaimed your belovedness of Jesus the Christ in baptism, so you proclaim the very same thing to us in ours. As your beloved children, we are called to live out of that belovedness rather than some sense of not good enough. Remind us again, gracious God, that your love for us is as deep as the oceans and as wide as the skies – that nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from being your beloved children – amen.
The week before Christmas I was called by one of the nurses that her grandfather had been flown in for a higher level of care. Her grandparents are cotton farmers and had just completed this year’s harvest and he had not been feeling good for several weeks according to my nurse friend. The evening before he had collapsed at home and was found to have multiple issues including blood clots in his lungs. That Sat morning I went in to check on her and her grandfather as well as her family.
When I arrived to the ICU, her grandfather was asleep, her mom and grandmother were at the bedside as well. Her grandmother was doing okay but her mom was as we put in the real world, ‘a hot mess.’ After introductions and taking the temperature of the room, I asked her mom what was her worry? Which triggered even more tears. She went on to say that she was worried that her beloved father was going to die and she wouldn’t see him again in heaven. I asked her about that and she said that he was always working the farm and didn’t go to church. Clearly she was worried about his salvation and whether he was indeed one of God’s beloved children. I probed a little deeper and she shared that he was a quiet, ‘salt of the earth’ type who didn’t talk about ‘feeling’ things but that he was a good man, was generous to a fault and that he always seemed to treat people with love and respect. I asked if she knew if he was baptized and she said yes. I asked if he believed in God and she said yes. From that point we went deeper to talk about whether that was good enough to be ‘included as one of God’s beloved children.’ She was convicted that if he hadn’t been saved that he was going to hell as if our salvation is dependent on something we do rather than the gift of belovedness that God has offered to each and every one of us.
I don’t typically ‘argue’ theology in the hospital with pts or families but it was clear that she had a deep fear based on her own understandings. Reminding her that God’s grace was deeper and wider than our understandings, I reminded her that as Oscar the Grouch used to say, that God don’t make no junk, and that God had made her father out of love, had called him by name and had redeemed him not because of a particular prayer but because that is God’s loving essence. I think I shocked her to a degree but she seemed to calm down.
Later that day, he coded and ended up passing away when the clots in his lungs hit his heart. I saw my nurse friend this past week and asked how her grandmother and mom were doing. She said her mom had a peace about her – that she finally accepted that God had indeed redeemed her father and she would seem him again. No matter who we are or how we live, God’s love is always the final world – and that is comforting to not only know, but live out of the sense of our belovedness.
In his book, Life of the Beloved, Catholic priest, professor and author Henri Nouwen writes to his friend Fred Bratman, a Jewish colleague, that it was through their many talks and conversations that Nouwen began to believe that the words, “you are my beloved,” revealed the most intimate truth about all human beings, whether they belong to any particular tradition or not. Nouwen goes on to say, the voice of God that declared to Jesus and perhaps to all of us, the voice that speaks from above and from within and that whispers softly and declares loudly, “You are my Beloved, with you I am well pleased,” is the most important voice we can ever hear. It certainly is not easy to hear that voice in a world filled with voices that shout, “you are no good, you are ugly, you are worthless, you are despicable, you are nobody – unless you can demonstrate or prove otherwise.”
These negative voices are so loud and so persistent that it is easy to believe them. That’s the great trap. It is the trap of believing we aren’t good enough. Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity and power, but comparing ourselves to everyone else and somehow buying into some notion that we just aren’t good enough. Success, popularity and power can be very tempting, but their seductive quality comes from the way they are part of the much larger questioning of our self-worth. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. Feeling unworthy, not good enough is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life, perhaps might even be our original sin, because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls each of us the “Beloved.” Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.
I have to admit that for many of us it is difficult to believe or accept that we are God’s Beloved as a core truth for our lives. It seems that we have a way of running around in large or small circles, always looking for someone or something to convince us of our belovedness. It is as if we continue to refuse to hear the voice that speaks from the baptismal waters and says to us – you are my Beloved. That voice has always been there but it seems that we are more eager to listen to other, louder voices that say, “prove that you are worth something; do something relevant, spectacular or powerful.” Meanwhile, the soft, gentle voice that speaks in the silence and solitude of my heart all too often remains unheard, or at least, unconvincing.
Why is it that we are searching for love in all of the wrong places, as the old country song goes? Why do we continue to hope to find our worthiness and inner well-being elsewhere? We seem to be waiting for the mysterious moment of feeling included and all the while we run around helter-skelter, anxious and restless, never fully satisfied. This compulsiveness keeps us going around and around, busy and never really getting anywhere. This is the path to spiritual burnout and death.
You and I don’t have to kill ourselves. We are the Beloved. We are intimately loved long before our parents, teachers, spouses, children and friends loved or wounded us. That’s the truth of our lives – we are the Beloved. Listen to these words from scripture – “I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my Beloved. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother’s womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. Wherever you go, I go with you and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will not hide my face from you. You know me as your own as I know you as my own. You belong to me . . . wherever you are I will be. Nothing will ever separate us. We are one.” (Life of the Beloved, pp. 25-32)
So for us as Presbyterians – what does baptism mean? We are a church with two sacraments – Baptism and the Lord’s Supper; this is an important question as we stand there at the font. Marcus Borg reminds us that baptism’s primary meaning is found as an initiation ritual which symbolizes and confers a new identity – an identity of Belovedness. I would suggest that it is not an initiation rather a confirmation of what God has already given us just as it was for Christ as he emerged from the baptismal waters of the Jordan River.
As Presbyterians, we believe that Baptism is the sign and seal of inclusion in God’s grace – that sounds a lot like – chosen as a beloved son and daughter of God’s grace. The Book of Order tells us that ‘Baptism is God’s gift of grace and God’s summons to respond to that grace – which means that in our baptism we are called to live out of that Belovedness. Being chosen as one of God’s beloved ones is not about exclusion of others; rather, it is about accepting others in their uniqueness. It is not a competitive choice, but a compassionate choice; perhaps too difficult to wrap our minds around it, but a place that speaks deep into our hearts.
Living out of our Belovedness is what brings us to this time and place today. We gather as a people of God, believers in various stages of life and faith. We gather around this table of Blessedness as Beloved one’s who come humbly to accept God’s gifts of grace. Our worth at this table has nothing to do with the size of house, the newness of the cars we drive, how big our HD TV may be, or whether Alabama ever wins another national championship, or whether we pray a particular ‘sinner’s prayer.’ Our worth at this table has nothing to do with how many lives we have touches or ruined; how many mistakes we have made or how many souls we have saved. Our worth at this table has everything to do with God’s claim on our lives as Beloved Sons and Daughter and absolutely nothing to do with what the secular worlds says about success or failure. That is a radical statement from a radical God who loves us so much that we are claimed as Beloved even before we enter the world.
Today we come to this table to remember Jesus’ Baptism and proclamation of Belovedness. Today we come to this table to celebrate our chosen Belovedness; for each and every one of us are precious in God’s eyes. In our baptism God claims us as his Beloved and in our Belovedness we are accepted as precious and beautiful and worthy, even when the rest of the world may say, not so much. Being one of God’s Beloved Ones is sufficient, is worth-making and summons us to offer praise and thanksgiving as we gather at this table – thanks be to God – amen.