There’s no need to muddy the waters, they’re muddy enough as is. . .
I once read an article in a magazine on how the automotive industry is changing. One interesting statistic that caught my eye was that only about five percent of 4wd SUVs are ever taken off-road. The fact is, apparently you are more likely to find a 4wd vehicle in a Starbuck’s parking lot than on a muddy off-road trail.
Now I don’t know if they still make it, but some years ago, somebody came up with the idea of Spray on Mud, and they put it on the market for those who feel a little guilty about not living up to the commercial image for their off-road vehicle. You could fool all your friends into thinking that you’ve been on a wild nature ride when in reality your Chevy Suburban spent most of the weekend at the mall.
I think most of us would like to avoid the mud if we could, not only the mud off-road, but the mud that life can throw at us from time to time. Unfortunately, I just don’t think it’s possible for Christians.
The Jordan River in the south, where John the Baptist chose to do his best work, is notoriously muddy. The Jordan starts out in the north as a bubbling spring and flows through the rolling green hills of Galilee, deep and clear, but by the time it crawls through the Judean desert, some eighty plus miles to the south, it is often a shallow, gooey ooze of mud.
Jesus traveled way off-road to get down to that river. People ask all the time, Why did Jesus need to be baptized? I’m not sure he needed to, but he certainly wanted to. He desired and chose to step into the muddy water because God’s people were already standing in it. These people were standing in expectation of a divine embrace.
Perhaps you remember the little girl who was asked in her Sunday School class what the three gifts were that the Magi brought to Jesus, and she answered, Gold, Circumstance and Mud.
Jesus’ baptism symbolizes our God being willing stand with us in the muddy circumstances of life, and no matter what, no mud will be thick enough to ever separate us from that love. As it turns out, the followers of Jesus are called to come to where Jesus is, and Jesus is standing knee-deep in muddy waters. Our best gift to God really is our willingness to wade in that same mud, not to appear shinier than our neighbor.
Now, the fact is, you can fake-mud it; you really can. In fact, fake mudding has been around in the church for a long time. We fake-mud every time we strain our dynamic faith down to a drip of static doctrines, or package all of it in the wrapping paper of a single issue and tie it up with the bow of a narrow interpretation of the Bible. We fake-mud every time we draw lines of division in the sand with the sharp edge of righteousness instead of erasing lines by loving and accepting the un-loveable and the unacceptable. Jesus forgave his executioners, and we have a hard time forgiving the waiter when he forgets to put the dressing on the side.
We fake-mud every time we hold up proper liturgical form ahead of the act of becoming Eucharist for those outside the walls of the church who may never experience proper liturgical form anywhere.
Following Jesus means that we will walk through some uncomfortably muddy water. When Jesus left the Jordan, he didn’t seek out Herod or the religious elites. He sought out lepers, thieves, tax collectors and every other reject that the proper doctrine, orthodoxy and liturgical form of his day told him he must avoid in order to remain squeaky clean. He did so purposely, if not blatantly, in a time when such action would certainly invite death.
That is the very reason I will always be a Christian! But I must admit to you that the more I come to know Jesus, the more I worry if it’s even possible for me to follow him fully. However, because of grace, I will keep on trying!
To follow Jesus means going way off the conventional road when it comes to how we love God’s people, even if the conventional road has the imprimatur of fond and widely-held tradition.
The Holy Eucharist we celebrate each week symbolizes the off-road activity of Jesus Christ. It symbolizes the willingness to be broken and given for others, to pour out our very life for others, and it symbolizes a banquet without barriers, the kind of banquet that Christ would serve on some muddy off-road trail.
Many churches this week will take an opportunity to renew baptismal vows. This is done as a prayer to God offering our desire to wade into the muddy waters with Christ and with the people that we know Christ would seek out and love.
You see, at Christmas, God engaged the world. At Jesus’ Baptism, a marriage took place. Each of us enters that marriage, that partnership, in a unique and sacramental way when we are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We are then ordained for something better. We have been named and claimed, all while standing in the real mud of life.
Thank you! A very good sermon.
Thanks Bill and Happy New year.