(Genesis 1:1-5, Mark 1:4-11)
We want to shout it out! Go tell it on a mountain! We search for the joyous good news that must still be resonating from the holiday season. The carefully wrapped gifts. The delicately decorated cookies. The thoughtfully written cards. The well-planned family get-togethers and work Christmas parties. The halls that were decked out with greenery and lights.
But instead, suddenly, everything is all packed away. Instead of magi, instead of a star, instead of the silence of the night—here we are, down by the riverside. Time shifted. Boundaries torn. The story reshaped. Here, we listen to the many ways in which God has ripped into the world through a cosmic narrative. Here, I insert for you the question that we avoided by just reading 2 of the 4 assigned bible passages for today. For in the book of Acts, in chapter 19, which we did not hear read in our midst this morning, Paul asks the faithful gathered together, “Into what were you baptized?” (Acts 19:3).
Memorial UCC has 2 FaceBook pages. One is a public page on which we share the “good news” of the congregation, such as the service and advocacy activities in which we take part in locally. We even worship there: On December 21, we hosted our first online worship service, gathering both here, inside the sanctuary, and there, on social media. Together, face-to-face and digitally, we gathered for the Longest Night Service. Thirty-three people sat here. One hundred and forty-six people connected with us online. Time shifted. The story reshaped. We posted videos, such as the centering mediation Cindy Ketchbaw offered, in which the 33 people here participated in—and an 51 additional people have watched online. The online worshippers responded with comments such as, “Love the connection tonight,” and with thanks: “Thank you so much for making this service available for those of us who so wished to be present but could not make it in person.”[1]
In the darkness, the chaos, the frigid void, we want to shout it out! THIS is good news! Go tell it on a mountain! But instead we are here. Down by the riverside. Time shifted. Boundaries torn. The story reshaped.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was barren, with no form of life; it was under a roaring ocean covered with darkness. But the Spirit of God was moving over the water” (Gen. 1:1-2, CEV).
Wind. Spirit. Ruach. This Hebrew word, ruach, has been translated into English as wind, breath, and/or Spirit. In Genesis 1, God’s ruach, breath, is the Spirit that courses through the seen and unseen, creating order out of chaos (Gen 1:2). Marjorie Suchocki nods toward this Spirit in “…the rhythm of the universe (that) is in the mystery of the dance between past, present, and future.”[2] Boundaries torn. God speaks. Past, present, and future are intertwined, flowing through all that is.
“And it happened that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized [washed] by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the sky ripped apart and the spirit [wind] swooping into him like a dove; and there was a voice from the sky, ‘you are my beloved son, with you I was delighted’”[3]
Boundaries torn. God speaks. Wind. Spirit. Ruach. Augustine declared, “God is poured forth in all things and God is Himself [sic] everywhere, wholly.”[4] My spiritual mentor, Belden Lane, notes that the “French Jesuit paleontologist… Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)…” said that “God enters into a world of bodily risk and physical beauty… so as to draw it into a community more fully conscious of its wholeness… (and) goes on to identify the Cosmic Christ as the unifying principle of this converging earth community…”[5]
One of the ways we encounter Jesus in our own time and place is through the sacraments. In my understanding of God as a verb, and Jesus’ constant motion, I experience baptism and communion as a re-membering of God’s ongoing covenant—not the singular word “remember,” but “re-membering”: the pulling together the Body of Christ throughout time, deeply enmeshed in our “now.” Ruth Duck, homiletics professor, writes that “To see the sacraments as connected with everyday life is also to relate them to lives of love, justice, and peace in the world…in the way we interact with one another not only in the church, but also in the world, thus showing the first fruits of life in God’s reign.”[6] I appreciate Theodore Jennings’ thought regarding the concept of bodily learning in that “ritual does not primarily teach us to see differently, but to act differently… (providing) a pattern of doing”[7]
So people of God, and especially those of you who have been baptized, have you taken time to think about “into what” have you been baptized? And… if you have not been baptized… what is this baptismal thing all about? How do these sacraments that we immerse ourselves in today, baptism and communion, teach us to act differently? Boundaries. Shifting. The Spirit breaking forth. Expanding. Driving out. Howard Thurman wrote that, “Community cannot feed for long on itself; it can only flourish where always the boundaries are giving way to the coming of others from beyond them—unknown and undiscovered (siblings).”
The “first fruits of God’s reign.” “God said” (Gen. 1:3, CEV), “God spoke” (Gen. 1:3, The Message), for “The earth was barren, with no form of life… But the Spirit of God was moving over the water” (Gen. 1:1-2, CEV). Boundaries torn. Eternal, creative Love revealed. Lane points out that Teilhard:
“was captivated by the ‘astonishingly cosmic character’ of the Body of Christ… biblical writers depicted(ed) the resurrected Jesus as having been present from the beginning of creation. In him all things hold together and toward him all things converge (John 1:1-2, Colossians 1:15-17). From this perspective, one needs to trace the initial manifestation of the incarnation back 13.7 billions years to… the Big Bang. Throughout history, God has been waiting for us in things—in the very stardust from which everything in the universe derives.”[8]
God waiting forever… immediately. For there is an urgency in the revelation. A transformative urgency poured forth in our baptismal waters. Here, all things converge. Birth waters. Welcome. Torrential floods. Death and despair. Resurrection. A coming out of the current of lifelessness. Sin. Rebirth. Here too, time shifts. Past, present, future knot together in the narrative. Boundaries rupture. For what happens next in the book of Mark, along that crowded, muddy shoreline, God breaks into the world once again, speaks, “And immediately the spirit [wind] throws (Jesus) out into the wilderness.”[9]
That same urgency continues today, as it seems we are tossed into a chaotic void in our own time. Here I invite you to continue the story. Remember your baptism. This week, on Memorial’s second FaceBook page, “Ever-Widening Circles,” a private, sacred, digital space in which we as a congregation can gather throughout the week when we are not here in this place, I posted these questions: “If you have been baptized, what do you remember about your own baptism? If you were baptized as an infant, do you remember any stories about the day? Or… is there a particularly memorable moment that you recall from a baptism that you witnessed?” There, people had an opportunity to re-member, pulling together, personal, moving stories as they posted their own experiences. I encourage you to continue telling the story, your story, today after church, during fellowship. And, if you have not yet joined our “Ever-Widening Circles,” feel free to stop me after worship if you would like to find out how to be a part of church digitally.
Then come. Face-to-face. Online. Enter into the narrative. This is a story that needs to be shouted from the mountain top—and immersed in our lives. This never-ending tale of God still speaking, bursting into the world. Ruach. Breath. Bread. Wine. Resurrection. Boundaries torn. Love urgently coursing through the past, present, future. The Body of Christ is our bodies. Our souls. Our presence. Our responses.
Come, tear boundaries, for the Spirit of God is moving…
Pastor Kris
[1] “Memorial United Church of Christ.” Facebook – Log In or Sign Up. Accessed January 06, 2018. https://www.facebook.com/MemorialUCC/.
[2] Suchocki, Marjorie Hewitt. God, Christ, Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology. New York: Crossroad, 1984. 21.
[3] Jennings, Theodore W. The insurrection of the crucified: the “Gospel of Mark” as theological manifesto. Chicago, IL: Exploration Press, 2003.
[4] Lane, Belden C. Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. 173.
[5] Lane, Belden C. Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pgs 172-175.
[6] Ruth C. Duck, Worship for the whole people of God: vital worship for the 21st century (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 147.
[7] Theodore Jennings, “On Ritual Knowledge,” The Journal of Religion, April 1982, 117.
[8] Lane, Belden C. Backpacking with the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. 176.
[9] Jennings, Theodore W. The insurrection of the crucified: the “Gospel of Mark” as theological manifesto. Chicago, IL: Exploration Press, 2003.