The first reading was from Isaiah 43:1-7.
The holy gospel according to Luke (3:15-17, 21-22).
15As
the people were filled with expectation,
and all were
questioning in their hearts concerning John,
whether
he might be the Messiah,
16John
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.
17His
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.”
21Now
when all the people were baptized,
and when Jesus
also had been baptized and was praying,
the
heaven was opened,
22and
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.”
The gospel of the Lord.
-----
Today we celebrate not only Jesus’ baptism, but ours as well
because in your baptism, God joined you to Christ. As you were submerged in water or it was poured over you,
God joined you to Jesus in his death and as you came back up or were dried off,
you began a life-long journey joined also to Christ in the resurrection.
After a person is baptized, pastors of many denominations
proclaim them sealed by the Holy Spirit and mark them with a cross on the
forehead. As they do this, God’s
own words echo in theirs, saying “You are my child, the beloved; with you I am
well-pleased.”
That is what God is up to—always. In our baptisms, God claims us as God’s own and names us all
“Beloved Child.” The gift of grace
is that God loves us before we ever have any hope of earning it. God chooses us and loves us and there
is nothing we can do about it!
Since we cannot earn it and we cannot lose it, all we can do
is respond to God’s love. That is
where our vocation comes from. It
comes as a response to God’s love and the gifts and abilities God gives us. Where the gladness of God in our hearts
meets the needs of the world around us.
Some of us live out our vocation at work, doing a job we get
paid for and doing it as well and lovingly as we can. Some of us work our day jobs so that we can live out our
vocations in other ways. Some live
out our vocation in our volunteer work—here with the church, filling backpacks
with food and snacks, at school or at the library. There are countless ways that we can live out our vocation
through our volunteer work. Still
others live out their vocation in caring for children and future
generations. Nurturing children in
life and faith.
And chances are we don’t just have one thing that we do that
we can mark as “vocation” and be done—mission accomplished. Many of us work at jobs we get paid
for, raise children, and maybe even find time to volunteer. Or maybe volunteering as a family is
living out our baptismal calling, our vocation, with respect to family and service in the community.
No matter what your vocation, it is a life-long thing. God continuously gives us new
opportunities to live into our baptism, to respond to God’s love for all of us
and all of creation. Vocations
come and go in our lives, they change just as we change in our understanding of
God’s love for us and in our ways of responding to God’s love.
And baptism is just the beginning. As God promises in Isaiah, God will be
with you—is with you now! Through
the waters and the flames, God will be with you. As that hanging on the wall points out, and as you all know
so well, God’s baptismal promise is not that life will be easy, God’s promise
is to be with you through it all.
As God claims us in baptism and calls us beloved. God is well-pleased with us just as we
are and God knows us deeply. As
John says, Jesus is ready “to clear his threshing floor,” but first God is
going about digging away the chaff and finding the kernels within the stock of
wheat—the kernels of our truest selves, made together in God’s image.
Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire, giving life to
the kernels of wheat that make us who we are and burning the chaff that has
protected those kernels and yet is no longer needed. The chaff that is meant for protection, but can turn into
walls that we put up protecting ourselves from others, keeping our heart and
our most vulnerable thoughts and feelings safe. Then Jesus comes in, separating away the chaff and burning
it, sending it back into the world, and caring for those kernels of wheat,
pouring the Holy Spirit out on us in baptism.
We are baptized once, yet each day we have the opportunity
to renew our baptismal covenant with God—through the water that washes our
hands and face each morning, or our dishes or vegetables at night. The snow outside or frost on our
windows can be our reminder of God’s baptismal promises. And as we daily die and rise, renewing
our baptism, God continues to separate the chaff, which surrounds and protects,
from the kernel of our truest selves.
That kernel of abundant love—God’s whole being—is poured
into us. In our baptism we receive
God’s grace and our response to that comes in how we live. Our baptismal calling is to live into
those kernels of God’s abundant love in all we do.
It looks different for each of us, but our vocations connect
us with the world, they connect us to something bigger than ourselves, serving
a greater purpose. They bring out
our kernels and foster love in this world. So as we continue our Epiphany practice of "glimpsing
God," this week we'll be praying where we live out our vocation. It can be where we work or volunteer or
spend much of our day.
Take five minutes to stand or walk slowly and look around
your work, your home, or the place you volunteer, praying "God, show me
how you are at work." and "God, show me how you are calling me."
and "God, show me how you are calling us." Feel free to do this
in more than one place as many of us live out our vocation in more than one
place or way. Then take a minute to jot down any notes you might have and
share them (via email, phone call, or note) with me this week or with everyone
next Sunday on the posters that are set up.
God showers you with love and grace at your baptism. The gift of vocation is that it is your
way to respond to God’s love.
Thanks be to God.
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