Scripture:  1 Corinthians 12:12-31

When I was in high school, I wanted to be in the school plays, but there was an unspoken rule that if you wanted any chance to be cast in the Spring play then you also had to participate in the Fall musical.  So, for that reason I showed up to audition for Bye, Bye Birdie.  When the director/music teacher asked what part I sing, I told him I didn’t.   He told me that was nonsense and that anyone could sing.  I was cast in background roles in that musical, but I then did get cast in the Spring production.   The next year I once again showed up to try out for the musical which was the Sound of Music.  I was cast as the butler, which is the only role in the entire production that does not sing a single note.  I am not a very musical person.  In fact, I am one of the most musically challenged people I know.   If I attempt to sing and actually get the right notes it was probably because of dumb luck.  I never ever attempt to clap along to music, because I would fail to stay on beat with a metronome, and any kind of dancing that requires rhythm is a terrible, terrible idea.  Everyone has things they are good at, and music is very much not one of mine.  

   Even though I am terrible with musical things, I can still appreciate good musical ability.   In the realm of music, one of the things that I find most incredible is marching band.   You may not be aware but there are actual competitive marching bands.  They are part of an organization called DCI (Drum Corps International) and they travel the world competing against one another.  Just like only the best athletes make it to the professional level, only the best musicians and marchers make it on a DCI corp.   To see a marching band at that high of a level is kind of incredible.  Several dozen people, organized in different instrument sections, are all moving in perfect harmony with one another.   They cease to be individual musicians but become one marching entity.  It is impressive and amazing, and I think a good marching band can be a faith lesson for us.  A marching band illustrates what a church should be like when we assemble, and it gives us a good example to better understand this morning’s scripture. 

This morning’s scripture from 1 Corinthians immediately follows last week’s scripture and is really part of the same thought.   Last week we considered the first half of 1 Corinthians which was focused on Spiritual Gifts.   One of the major points that Paul made there was that all spiritual gifts come from the Holy Spirit to do God’s work.   In the church in Corinth, there was obviously some drama brewing about these spiritual gifts though.  Specifically, we get the image that some people were claiming that some gifts were superior and better than the others.  In last week’s scripture Paul explicitly states this not the case, but then in this morning’s scripture he doubles down on that claim with his well-known Body of Christ metaphor. The body is only complete with all the parts together and one part is not any better than a single other part.   It is a well-known metaphor but putting it into practice has always been a bit tricky.  

If the church is the body of Christ, then it feels like sometimes the right hand literally does not know what the left hand is doing.   I think it is fair to say that the body of Christ has a bit of a coordination problem, and we can struggle with all the parts working together sometimes.   This morning’s scripture shows that coming together on the same page has been a growing edge for faith communities from the beginning.  Unity between believers and working in perfect coordination for the common good has continually been a learning process for us.  

This is why I think marching band can be a good place for us to look for an example of what the church could be like.    One of the things that is so impressive about marching bands is that in some instances hundreds of people are perfectly united for a common goal.  When done correctly the move in perfect sync with each other.  All these different people, in different instrument sections all come together to create something that is bigger than themselves.   It is as if all these individuals almost move and work like one body.  This is what a church should be like.  As a faith community we should move together in perfect unity, all working for a common purpose.  We should be united in love to serve God and spread forth God’s compassion in the world.   In considering what kind of example a marching band gives us; I believe there are three things we can learn about how to better be the body of Christ

First, everyone has a part to play.   Marching band works because everyone does what they are supposed to do when they are supposed to do it.    Sometimes this means marching in place while another section of instruments gets to do fun and complex choreography.    However, all of the sections are essential to fulfill the bigger picture.  This is why Paul wrote in his body metaphor “The eye cannot say to the hand I don’t need you! . . .On the contrary those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable”   In the body of Christ we all have a role to play, but sometimes we lose sight of that.
              Verse 18 of this morning’s scripture states, “In fact God has placed, the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.”    God has an idea of how we can best serve Him and how we can make the most impact in our mission of making disciples and transforming our world.   However, sometimes we do not go that way because we feel that we should do something else.   In seminary I met someone who was a worship leader in her church, but it took her years to claim that.   Despite having a beautiful singing voice, she did not sing for years.    This is because her home church she grew up in had several gifted sopranos who could kill the high notes. However, this woman was very firmly an alto, and she grew up feeling that if she could not get the high notes then she was not well suited to lead music in front of others.  We can sometimes limit ourselves and hold ourselves back from fulfilling the role God has for us.

   Aiong the same lines, I remember reading a story once from a pastor about a man in his church who was having a lot of frustration.    He wanted to serve God and fulfill a role in the church.   This man was an accountant, so of course the church put him on the finance committee.   That was not where he felt he should be though.  Since he worked in business, he was nominated for Trustees instead.   That was also not a good fit.   What this man wanted to do was work with young children.   He tried to volunteer in the nursery, which is where all of the young mothers served.  This was a larger church with a lot of young mothers, so he was told that they did not need them.  The man went to the pastor out of frustration, and the pastor intervened and had him added to the nursery rotation.    It did not take long until he became a permanent fixture in the pre-school nursery.   He was the absolute favorite of every child, and he loved those little kids with the love of God.  It took him awhile to fulfill his role because others assumed they knew where he fit in best.    We all have a part to play, and we should follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and fulfill that role.  

The second thing we can learn about the body of Christ from marching bands, is that it takes work.  I know that the annual band camp is more like boot camp than summer camp.  Years ago, I served as the youth pastor at Avon UMC, and marching band is a really big deal at Avon High School.   Every year in the late summer, the band students in the church would complain that the freshmen cannot march.  Of course, they tended to forget that when they were freshmen, they could not march either.    Learning to march in time takes time and practice.   For a marching band to work in perfect coordination takes a lot of practice and effort.  Every member of the band must memorize the music as well as the choreography.  Then they must execute it in sync with everyone else at the same time.   This is why marching bands practice for hours and hours a week.    It takes a lot of effort to perfectly move together as one.

Being the church, being the body of Christ, is the same way.   It takes effort, being the church is more than just showing up on Sunday morning and putting our check in the plate.  To be the church we have to do the work of the church.  If we want to see new disciples of Jesus Christ being made, then we must be willing to be the one who is sharing the good news.  If we want to see this world transformed into a more kind and loving place, then we need to be the ones who are seeing the needs in our community and meeting those needs.  We can count on God moving and the Holy Spirit empowering, but we have a role to play and work to do when it comes to making disciples and transforming the world by sharing the love of God.  

It also takes grace.   Because as individuals, trying to work together to do the work of the church, we will not always get it right.  There will be missteps, there will be balls dropped, there will be mistakes, and there will be things that just do not work like they are supposed to.   When that happens in the church, we should be the model of forgiveness, the model of how to try again, and the model of how to come alongside someone and support them unconditionally.   When it comes to fulfilling the role in the body of Christ that is the perfect fit for us, it is something that will take effort and practice as we learn how to do it right.   The church as a whole needs to be a place that is full of support and grace while we learn how to serve God.  Because if one part suffers every part suffers with it; if one part is honored every part rejoices with it. 

The final thing we can learn from marching band is from the motivation that drove people to be part of the band.  For people who pursue marching band beyond high school, they do it for only reason.  It is the for the love of the music.  The love of the music and desire to be part of it is what motivates people to do things like join a DCI corp.  It is their passion for playing that makes all of the hard work and training worth it.  I think as Christians we should have similar feeling What should bring us here to assemble is the love of God.  What should bring us here is a tug we feel in the depths of our soul because we know that we love because God first loved us.    We know that God’s love for the world was fully revealed on the cross, and because of that our sins have been forgiven and we have been reconciled with God.  Our motivation for being here, for being part of the body of Christ should be because we know the great love of God and we desire to fully participate in that love by sharing it with others.   However, just like the band we find this is where we belong, because we are not alone.   A love of music motivates people to march and a love of God should motivate us to be part of the church.  A community of faith where we assemble, each doing what God has called us to do, in perfect harmony, in complete unity, to make disciples and transform the world.  

Paul wrote, “Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is part of it.”    No matter how long you have been a Christian, no matter how long you have been a part of this church, you are part of the body of Christ.   There is a role for you here.   There is a way that God’s love can be shared and that God can glorified that only you can do.   May you find your place in the body of Christ.   If you are not sure about what that may be, then I would love to sit down with you to talk and pray about it.    We are one body because as Paul wrote “we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body.”   Christians assemble so that we may faithfully march to the beat of God’s drum.   
 

               In the world of professional tennis, Naomi Osaka quickly gained a lot of attention as a prodigy and the next big thing.  She started competing professionally at the age of 15.  While still a teenager she began qualifying to compete in grand slam event, the highest level of play in professional tennis.   By the age of 22 she was ranked as the number one women’s tennis player in the world and she was considered one of the most marketable athletes out there.  In 2020 she ranked eighth in the number of endorsements from companies.  However, in 2021 she stepped away from tennis.   In explaining her reasoning for this decisions she said, ““When I win, I don’t feel happy. I feel more like a relief. And then when I lose, I feel very sad, and I don’t think that’s normal.”  Tennis had more or less been or life and it was no longer a source of joy in her life.  Fortunately, after a hiatus she did eventually find her joy and returned to tennis, but that is not always the case.  At high level competition, athlete burnout is a problem.  

​However, this is not an athletics problem.  It is an issue that can impact a lot of young people who are gifted in some way.  A lot of young people who are labeled gifted and put into accelerated programs or who train and practice at high levels can experience extreme burnout later in life.   This is common enough, that it even has an official name of gifted kid syndrome.  Gifted kid syndrome is when a child that's endowed with above-average abilities becomes exhausted as a result of too much pressure from unrealistic expectations they set for themselves or others place on them.  The pressure and expectation to always preform above average means that doing so feels like doing the bare minimum and anything less than being the best of the best feels like failure leads to exhaustion and burnout.  Gifted child syndrome happens because a person with above average abilities also gets saddled with above average expectations that no one can realistically achieve.  

I think in churches we tend to have the opposite problem.  The problem we tend to have is that in our faith no one tells us that we are gifted, and so expectations of what we are capable of are low or nonexistent.  No one tell us we are gifted, so it becomes the natural assumption that we are incapable of doing something truly special.   Yet, this morning’s scripture flies in the face of that because this morning’s scripture tells us that if a faithful follower of Jesus then you are gifted.  Verse seven of this morning’s scripture states this explicitly: “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”   All disciples of Jesus have spiritual gifts.  We are all gifted.  The question this morning’s scripture should leave us considering is how then, are we going to use those gifts?

In the bible we have two of the letters that Paul wrote the church in Corinth.  1 Corinthians is very much a letter written to a specific church, in a specific place, to address specific questions.  We know that it was part of an ongoing conversations with the church, because Paul references other letters he wrote them that we do not have.   This had led biblical scholars to believe that this morning’s scripture is the beginning of an answer to the question that Paul received from the church about spiritual gifts.  That is why it begins with verse 1 with the “Now about the gifts of the Spirit.”   While we do not know the exact question Paul was asked, biblical scholars have tried to reverse engineer what the concerns of the church in Corinth were based on Paul’s response. 

In general, 1 Corinthians is written to a church with a lot of internal division.  This church seemed to struggle with taking sides and with keeping an attitude that treated all members of the church as valued and equal.  Based on this morning’s scripture, the question related asked to Paul about spiritual gifts seems to be along the same line, because he is quick to emphasize that no gift is more important than the other and that spiritual gifts are found in all the believers not just the special.

While that is the main point that Paul seeks to make in this morning’s scripture, it is easy for that point to get muted and for us to get lost in the weeds on this scripture.  A lot of energy around this morning’s scripture gets directed to the so-called charismatic gifts such as miraculous powers, prophecy, and speaking in tongues.   The inherent supernatural aspect of these mentioned gifts tends to garner a lot of positive and negative attention, but when our focus is caught up there not only do we miss the main point that Paul was trying to make, but we overlook some of the other lessons this morning’s scripture teaches us about spiritual gifts.  Instead of focusing on the specifically names gifts in this scripture, we can focus on what this scripture says about spiritual gifts in general.  

There are three general lessons we can learn about spiritual gifts from this morning’s scripture.  First, Spiritual gifts are of God, not of us.   As Paul wrote in verse 4, “there are different kinds of gifts but the same spirit distributes them.”  A spiritual gift is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit.   It is the Holy Spirit actively at work in and through our lives.  This means that spiritual gifts are not natural talents we are born with like a good singing voice or that they are skills like throwing a fast ball that can be developed with practice.    Spiritual gifts might work to our strengths, but a spiritual gift is not something we have power over.  It is not something that we can control and pull out of our back pocket like a party trick.

Spiritual gifts are the ways that the Holy Spirit empowers us.  This morning’s scripture was not meant to be an exhaustive list of the ways that the Spirit empowers people.  This morning’s scripture is not the only list of spiritual gifts found in the bible.  Spiritual gifts can, from outward appearances, be quite mundane.  Perhaps those times when we did not know what to say, but we ended up saying the right thing to help or comfort someone was not just dumb luck, but it was the Holy Spirit working through us and using us to make a difference in someone else’s life.  Whenever we do something with the help of God, that would have been beyond our ability without God’s help, then that is a spiritual gift at work in our lives. 

The second general lesson that we can learn about spiritual gifts from this morning’s scripture is why the Holy Spirit empowers us in the first place. It does not matter how common or fantastic the spiritual gift is, they all come from the same source for the same purpose.  Verse six states “There are different kinds of working but in all of them it is the same God at work.” Spiritual gifts exist not to glorify us but to glorify God.  They exist to fulfill God’s purposes.    Spiritual gifts are the way that God enables us to be his hands and his feet.  They are they the way that God equips us to join in God’s mission to bring about redemption on the earth.  Spiritual gifts are the very power of God in us that God uses to transform the world and build for God’s kingdom.  If we wish to experience the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts in our lives then we must be willing to follow and join God in what God is doing in the world.  

The third general lesson about spiritual gifts that we should take away from this morning’s scripture is Paul’s main point. Because it is all the work of God for the glory of God and the purposes of God, no spiritual gift is above any other and to each one a manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.  That means, that you-yes you, are gifted by that God.  It means that if you allow it, then God can use you to do something beyond yourself.   You are gifted, and through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit you truly are capable of making new disciples, you are re capable of tending to the hurts of others, you are capable of enabling someone else’s dream, or you are capable of transforming this world to be more like the kingdom of God where justice rolls down like a river, righteousness like an ever flowing stream, and love is over all. 

Gifted child syndrome is when someone has above average ability and then tries to meet unrealisitic expectations.  There is another phenomenon that happens though, when someone else assumes an individual to be gifted.  This phenomenon is called the Pygmalion effect, and I think this effect speaks to how we should treat spiritual gifts.   I think one of the more fascinating studies that shows this is the Rosenthal-Jacobson study that illustrated what they came to call the Pygmalion effect.  In this study an academic competency test was given to all students in an elementary school.  The scores were not shared with teachers, but the teachers were given the names of some the students and told that these students showed potential from the test to be intellectual bloomers over the school year.  The same test was administered at the end of the school year, and those identified to the teachers as potential intellectual bloomers performed well above the other students.  The thing is the students that were shared with the students were picked at random with no regard to how they actually did on the first test.    The highlighted students were not really more gifted or intelligent than the group.   The difference in performance was less based in the ability of the students but rather based in how the teacher treated them.  Higher expectations lead to an increase in performance.  The teacher believed the highlighted students were better and treated them as such.  The result was a self-fulfilling prophecy where they really did become the highest achieving students in the class and this is the essence of the Pygmalion effects. When someone else believes we are capable of meeting a higher standard they end up helping us reach that standard. 
   
Friends, we can be gifted by God to accomplish God’s purposes on earth.  We should believe in one another that God can use each of us.   As a faith community we should be each others greatest encouragers.  All of us have the capacity to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to truly transform this world, so we treat each other as if we each have the capacity to change the world for the better.  We should believe in each other, and we should encourage one another to take big steps of faith that can make a real difference.   We can expect that God can use us, and in holding one another to that standard.  When others believe that we can do so something then, the Pygmalion effect shows that we are more likely to achieve that standard.  This morning’s scriptures that we can all be gifted by the Holy Spirit, and if we believe that about one another then we are likely to allow ourselves to be used by the Spirit and empowered by the Spirit. 

 So you may you believe that you are gifted.  May you believe that through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit God can use to do more than you believed possible to accomplish God’s purposes.   May you be willing and open to be used by God, and may we believe that those sitting next to us in the pews can be used by God.  May we encourage one another, may we cheer for each other, and may push one another to do incredible things for the kingdom of God.  Through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit may you use your gifts to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  

Scripture:  Luke 3:15-17; 21-22

When you stop and think of all the scientific progress and knowledge that we as a species have acquired it is truly staggering.   Scientists in a wide variety of fields are discovering new things all the time.    While we may not always be aware of or understand these new scientific findings or breakthroughs, I think we are generally aware that there are smart people at the top of their field who are always expanding the boundaries of human knowledge.   One of the things that might surprise us though is that despite all that we have learned, there are some very common, everyday things that scientists are clueless about.   For instance, science cannot explain why ice is slippery.   Ice, as a solid, is not particularly smooth or frictionless.  The best explanation for why ice is slippery is that it has a very thin layer of water on top of it, but science cannot explain why solid water does this and no other substance does.  Science also cannot explain what causes this thin layer in the first place.   Science also cannot explain what makes magnets work the way they do.   Scientists can observe the effects of magnetism, and they can explain how magnetic forces work, but the “why” is a mystery.  In much the same way, gravity is also a mystery because science currently has no good answer for why gravity is.   It is seeking to answer these unanswered questions that drive scientific discovery in the first place.   Isaac Asimov once said, “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries is not Eureka! But that’s funny. . .” 

 Science and faith share a common denominator in that both disciplines are seeking truth, just from different angles.   In the same way many of our spiritual insights come not from flashes of brilliance but from thinking “that’s funny” and asking questions.   The bible is full of all kinds of instances that can make us say “That’s funny... “There are several scriptural stories that we may be familiar with, but when we really start to ponder lead us down a path of asking questions and discovery.   I think this morning’s scripture is a good example of this.  We believe that Jesus is God incarnate.  So, it is funny then that Jesus had to be baptized.   Why did Jesus get baptized?  I think by exploring this question we can gain a better understanding of our own baptism and the amazing grace of God.  

Baptism is one of the oldest Christian traditions.    The book of Acts as well as Paul’s letters mention the importance of baptism as a way of signifying faith and a new life.  There is an ancient Christian document called the Didache.  This document dates all the way back to the first century and contains a baptism liturgy in it.  For as long as our faith has existed, baptism has been part of it.  We often trace this back to the fact that Jesus was baptized, and his disciples went on to baptize.  Baptism is one of the basic building blocks of the Christian faith and the Christian experience.  So, understanding baptism should be important, but one of our primary examples, Jesus being baptized can leave us with some questions. 

The gospels tell us that John the Baptist offered a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  As this morning’s scripture tells us, he used water.  In doing so, he was utilizing a Jewish concept that has roots in the law that God gave the Israelites in the Old Testament.  In that part of the scripture, we find water being used to wash away spiritual uncleanliness.  The physical outward act of washing with water represented an inward spiritual change.  John built on this concept by emphasizing repentance instead of cleanliness.  The idea was the same.  The outward, physical act of being baptized in the water represented an inward change.  For those baptized by John, baptism was a physical act that marked their desire and commitment to turn away from the sins they had been committing.  It was a symbolic act of a fresh start.    

To this day, the idea of a fresh start, of renouncing a life of sin and embracing a life of following Jesus is still part of how we understand baptism. In our United Methodist baptism part of the baptismal vows is to renounce sin and confess to live a new life with Jesus as Lord and savior.  There are some branches of the Christian tree that particularly emphasize this aspect of baptism above any other element of what baptism is.  However, it is in this emphasis that we can begin to say, “that’s funny”, because If the baptism of John the Baptist was primarily about repentance, then Jesus should not have needed to be baptized.  We believe that Jesus is the Messiah.  That means we believe that Jesus lived the perfect, sinless life.   He literally had nothing he needed to repent for.  He did not need to turn away from what he was doing and live differently.  Jesus was not baptized because he needed to repent.  This means while we can find value in baptism representing an act of repentance, it can not be the only reason why we get baptized as Christians.  The baptism of John the Baptist was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, but Christian baptism is to be more than that.  This morning’s scripture gives us two clues to what other inward, spiritual changes the outward act of baptism represents. 

The first clue is found in what John the Baptist says at the beginning of this morning’s scripture.  John the Baptist speaks of Jesus and says that he will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.  When Jesus is baptized and emerges from the water, the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus as a dove.   From the very beginning of our faith the Holy Spirit is linked with baptism.  This is especially evident in the book of Acts.  One of the inward changes that the outward act of baptism represents is the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.  This is demonstrated in our Baptism liturgy.  Right after the water is administered in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit the pastor then prays over the newly baptized saying, “The Holy Spirit work within you, that being born through water and the Spirit, you may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ.”  Baptism marks a new chapter in our faith journey, and it is the Holy Spirit that continues to guide us along the path.

In how we live our lives and in our walk with God, baptism marks a specific time starting point where we are declared to belong to God, and we recognize the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives to make us new creations in Christ.  Baptism is the physical act that signifies and makes the inward change tangible.  However, this change tends not to be a one and done event.  It is a process, where the Holy Spirit working in our lives, molds us and shapes us to be more like Christ.  Being baptized does not prevent us from choosing sin, we can still fall short of the mark.  When we do, then we need to return to God to experience the grace of forgiveness and the grace that entrust God’s Spirit to us in the first place again.   The formal theological word for this is regeneration. The UMC articles of religion put it this way, “We believe, although we have experienced regeneration, it is possible to depart from grace and fall into sin; and we may even then, by the grace of God, be renewed in righteousness.” 

This act of regeneration happens in our lives, because we believe the Holy Spirit is with us and works within us to change us.  The Holy Spirit can work in our lives to improve upon the work begun in our baptism.  As we continue our faith journey the grace of God, the love of God that was declared over us in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can become more real to us and we can better live into it.   Through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, we can become more patient, more generous, or more loving people.  Through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, we can take steps of faith we never thought possible, we can do more than we thought possible, we can meet real needs, and we absolutely can make a real and lasting transformation in the world today.

The second clue as to what kind of inward change that baptism signifies in us is found at the very end of this morning’s scripture.  Here a voice from heaven, attributed to God the Father, states, “You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”  In Luke’s accounting of the baptism of Jesus, God the Father speaks directly to Jesus.  Jesus is baptized, and God then tells Jesus who he is.   This is a fundamental aspect of what baptism should do in our lives.  Baptism, and the fact that we are baptized should inform our identity and who we understand ourselves to be. 

I greatly appreciate, in fact I love, how our United Methodist liturgy sums up what baptism does for us.  Our baptismal liturgy begins with: “Brothers and sisters in Christ:  Through the sacrament of Baptism we are initiated in to Christ’s holy church.  We are incorporated into God’s mighty acts of salvation and given new birth through water and the Spirit.  All this is God’s gift, offered to us without price.”  Friends, the truth of this statement should inform who we understand ourselves to be.   Through baptism it is acknowledge, that God wants us to be part of God’s church.  Through baptism it is acknowledge that God believes that we are worth saving.   Not only are we worth saving, but God believes in us enough that God has invested in us with the Holy Spirit and God believes we are capable of being better versions of ourselves.  This is not transactional; this is not what God provides to us in exchange for worship.  Grace, forgiveness, inclusion into God’s church, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, all of it is a gift, freely given.  It is a gift given out of the great love that God has for us. 

I don’t know if you have ever had the experience of having someone believing in you, someone who encouraged you, told you that you can do it, and inspired you to push yourself to reach the heights they believed you are capable of.  I also don’t know if you have ever had someone in your life who would not give up on you , who would help carry you when you fell and who made sure you had all that you needed to not just succeed but thrive.  If you have been fortunate to have those kinds of people in your life, then you know that when some believes in us and when someone pushes us to be our best, it informs who we are.  We internalize their message and make it part of who we understand ourselves to be.   This is exactly, what baptism does.  A large part of baptism is that it is the ritual we used to acknowledge that God believes in us, God will not give up on us, and that God has entrusted us with all we need to be a thriving disciple of Christ.  Baptism is the physical act that reminds us that our identity who we believe ourselves to be should be informed by what God thinks of us.  

Martin Luther, the great reformer believed this.  When he would wash his face, he would look in the mirror and tell himself, “Remember, you are baptized.”   In fact, when he was discouraged or afraid he would splash water on himself and say, “But I am baptized!”    If you are a baptized believer, then it can be both affirming and powerful to regularly remind ourselves that we are baptized; That we have been claimed for and by God’s love.   As often as we need to rinse and repeat, we can remind ourselves that we are baptized.  In doing so we  remind ourselves that our imperfections, our flaws, and failures do not define us because we have been baptized because God believes in us, God does not given up on us, and that we have the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.   We are defined by the confidence that God has in us to be faithful disciples who can make disciples and transform the world. 
 
​This morning’s scripture can cause us to pause and say “that’s funny” as we consider why Jesus was baptized in the first place.  Jesus was not baptized because he needed to repent.  Jesus was baptized to signify a new beginning as he began his ministry with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, and Jesus was baptized so that God the Father could speak to his identity.  These too are part of the reasons why we are baptized.  If you are not baptized, then may you anticipate your baptism-knowing that the waters communicate God’s gifts to you.  If you are baptized, then may you remember your baptism and be thankful.  May you be thankful that our baptism communicates to us that we are God’s children, that God loves us, and that God believes we can be exactly who God created us to be.