Jan. 10, 2015
Isaiah 43:1-7
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Tiki Barber, the former running back of the New York Giants, was on the radio the other day defending comments that he made about the now retired (or resigned?) coach of the Giants, Tom Coughlin. Tiki said his comments were taken completely out of context by a news paper that wanted to sell papers by creating a stir. He had nothing but the highest regard for his former coach, whom he insisted ultimately made him a better player. Then, he admitted that their relationship has never been all that strong and he told a story about a disagreement in the locker room that lasted 20 minutes and got pretty ugly. The conclusion to his story is what stuck out for me. He said, “Football is a simple sport. Things work and things don’t work. When things are working you do them; you stick with them.” His former coach didn’t share his philosophy, which was the reason for their argument.
Tiki gave me some food for thought as I went into the office. On the one hand, he’s right. Stick with what is working. Certainly, don’t do what’s not working. It’s pretty simple. On the other hand, what “works” may be the result of the threat your team poses when it is able to execute a multiplicity of options. Plus, is it really so “simple” to get 11 amped up men to work together in a coordinated way to advance the ball when 11 other equally amped men are working to stop them? That’s probably, actually, fairly complex.
It is this mix of simplicity and complexity that has been on my mind. You might argue that Christianity is characterized by the same dynamic. I can pretty easily get bogged down in the complexity of it. We know we can’t save ourselves. We can’t earn our way into God’s good graces. Love from God is gift; we know this. It is called grace. On the other hand, we are supposed to be good people, right? I mean, God expects that of us. Isn’t that, to some extent, one of the requirements? But then, how good are we expected to be? Where exactly does God draw the line? I would argue that consciously or not most of us color our faiths to some extent by managing this complexity. (I once knew a woman who brought a lemon meringue pie to everyone who visited the church. She did that and countless other saintly deeds. She was an amazing and wonderful person, a beautiful model of faith. And, she admitted to me that she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that she needed to do these things in order to earn God’s love.
And, it’s not just action, of course. There’s also belief. Belief is a big part of it too, right? Christians believe! But, what exactly do we believe? Do we all believe the same thing? Even if we all say the same thing, even if we all say we believe that Jesus is the son of God, what do we mean by that? Is Jesus God’s son in the same way that Charley is mine? Does that mean that Jesus and God are related, but distinct? Does it mean that Jesus is God’s son, but not God incarnate, not the God who was, “pleased with us in flesh to dwell,” as we sing at Christmas? Is he not the Word of God made flesh, the second person of the Trinity? But, if we say that he is God – if he is our Emmanuel – how can we say that he was human, one of us, really with us? …What do we have to believe? Or, do we not have to believe at all? It feels complex. But, ultimately, I believe there’s also a great simplicity to it.
Water is a big part of our scripture passages today. It’s in our Psalm, and in the reading from Isaiah, and of course it is there again in Christ’s baptism. Water is a common and powerful image throughout scripture and points us ultimately to the complexity and simplicity that exists within God.
Water exists with God in the pre-existence that is there before God creates the world. The book of Genesis tells us that God separates the waters from the waters as God crafts the world into being. The primordial waters part, the chaos of the deep is contained, as God forms order. The image is mirrored with Christ’s baptism. The waters part and the new creation – salvation – emerges.
Water and God go together in the bible. I once had a spiritual coach with whom I shared my confusion about a repeated dream that I often had. I would be on the beach as the ocean waters built and built into massive swells that came rolling in. Usually, I would escape them or end up somehow just out of reach. Once, however, I was swimming off the shore when the waters rose. I saw myself from up above, a lone person rising and falling in an endless, massive sea. “What does this mean?” I asked my coach. “Why do I keep having these dreams?” “What does Carl Jung say about this sort of thing?” He said, “Usually, dreams like this – waters like this – are an invitation to go deeper into the mystery of God.”
God is the water, and God is with the water, and God has power over the water. Chaos and mystery and the deep unknown all swirling around together in God. And yet, water is also pretty simple. We manage it, and use, and rely on it, every day. It is a simple, basic necessity of life. When we want flavor to what we drink we don’t ever pick water. In fact, I usually have bubbles in the water that I drink because water is just too plain. It is not complex at all. And, that’s why it is the perfect symbol for God.
This eternal, mysterious, endless, transcendent, incomprehensible, Force, – this holy, unfathomable, immeasurable, dynamic, uncontainable Reality – says, “I know you. I have called you by name. I am with you. You are mine and I am yours. You are my child: my daughter, my son, my joy. And, I love you.”
God doesn’t make us special, in the sense that we are compared to anybody else. Rather, God makes us sacred. In the end it is fairly simple. What is very very big becomes little so that we who are little might become big. What is sacred has made us sacred, has called us sacred, and invites us to live a life that is sacred.
I’ll tell you, I fail daily to fully accept this invitation. I forget that the people around me are miracles, that they are known and called by name too. The answer, however, to that forgetfulness – a problem we might call sin – isn’t to earn our way out of it. Rather, the answer is to hear it again: the simple, unchanging truth: “You are my son; you are my daughter, my beloved, and in you I am well pleased.”