Soaked A Sermon by Jeff Carlson St. Pauls UCC, Chicago January 8, 2017 The Baptism of Christ

Transcription

1 Soaked A Sermon by Jeff Carlson St. Pauls UCC, Chicago January 8, 2017 The Baptism of Christ Matthew 3:13-4:1 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? But Jesus answered him, Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness. Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Last week, a man named Keith Witter from a small town in the northwest corner of the Pacific Northwest posted a comment on the St. Pauls Facebook page. He wrote: We just found a certificate of Baptism in an old book. Dated 1918 from your church. Embossed and hand signed by Rev. Pister. To a Nora Louise Huber who was born on the 7th of September of the same year. If there are any relatives still around we would be more than happy to send it their way. Or to the church; whatever works. Thank you for the time. There aren t any relatives of Nora Louise Huber around here that I know of. I replied that he could send it to the church and we d place it in our archives for safekeeping. So, the certificate is on its way home. Mr. Witter added: It is interesting how things travel across large miles in books. Especially old things. After we received Mr. Witter s message I went to the archive room next to my office and pulled the 1918 St. Pauls Bote from off of the shelf. Bote is German for messenger, and it was the name of the church newsletter at the time. Sure enough, in the October 1918 Bote I found this item: By Baptism, the following were admitted into fellowship with God and the Christian community. And at the top of that list was Nora Louise Huber, daughter of Olie Huber and Mabel Mairs. I don t know what ever happened to Nora, or any details about her life. But I do know that in September 1918 she was named a beloved daughter of God, baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, into the life of Jesus and into the care of St. Pauls Church. And the truth of her baptism must have stayed with her, or with someone who loved her, because someone held on to that certificate long enough for it to travel to a small town in the northwest corner of the Pacific Northwest. 1

2 We need to hold on to our baptisms. We need to remember them. I don t mean the day, month and year but the fact that you have been baptized. That s because no truer words have ever been spoken over your life than at your baptism. The baptism of Jesus is his first public appearance as an adult. There is almost nothing written about his youth. We d love to know the details about his childhood, adolescence and teen years, but for the Gospel writers, those details aren t important. Instead, we meet Jesus at the point in his story when he hears the words he most needed to hear: You are my Son. Beloved. The delight of my life. St. Paul wrote that when we are baptized we are baptized into the life of Christ. So at our baptisms God says those same words to each and every one of us: you are my beloved child, the delight of my life. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas wrote: The story of Jesus is not simply one that is told; it must be enacted. Through baptism we do not simply learn the story, we become a part of the story. Throughout our lives we are given, or we claim for ourselves, a lot of different labels: Liberal, Conservative, Straight, Gay, Queer, Smart, Stupid, Consumer, Middle- Class, White Trash, Handicapped, Fat, Ugly, Jock, Wimp, Success, Failure, Whatever. Whatever label has been stuck on you, there is only one that matters most: beloved child of God. Notice, as soon as Jesus hears those words he is immediately driven into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. Do you believe in the devil? I do. I ve met him repeatedly throughout my life. What does the devil do? He tries to get Jesus to doubt the truth of his baptism. Remember the story of the temptation in the wilderness? The devil says repeatedly, If you are the son of God. If you are the son of God. That s what the devil does. The devil tries to get you to doubt the truth of your baptism. Remembering your baptism prepares you to meet the devil, armed with the truth of who you really are. You have to claim the truth that you are beloved. No one can do that for you. And you have to claim the truth again and again. Baptism is personal. At our baptisms we are named, not numbered. Baptism claims you as a unique and precious son or daughter of God. But at the same time, baptism is deeply communal. We are baptized into the Body of Christ, which includes everyone sitting around you. 2

3 In baptism, we come to know that we are not alone. We are part of a family of multiple mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, grandparents and brothers and sisters, people who promise us their love and will have our backs. Baptism blesses us as individuals while at the same time saving us from autonomous individualism. In September 1918, along with Nora Louise Huber, there were 14 other children baptized at St. Pauls. Halfway down the baptism list is another name, Walter Hage, Jr., son of Walter Hage and his wife Edna. I leafed through the pages of the October 1918 Bote and came to the list of members who had died the previous month. It was long. 34 names are listed, and the list ends with to be continued next month. Halfway down the list, the name Hage appeared again. The entry reads: Edna Hage, the wife of Walter, died September 28 th aged 26 years and was interred at Rosehill. Walter Hage, Jr., son of Walter and his wife Edna, died Oct. 12 th, aged two months and 16 days. The young mother died and her babe was christened at the funeral service. Two weeks later the child followed the mother into the Homeland. There is so much grief contained in those few words. With a baptism and a burial in the same day, St. Pauls held the Hage family in her arms. When I read that entry, I remembered something was the year of the great influenza epidemic. Young women like Edna were especially hit hard. The pages of the 1918 Bote are filled with obituaries of young adults. You became sick and in a few days you were gone. Nora Louise Huber was baptized in a very difficult year at St. Pauls. Along with the flu epidemic, the United States was at war. By the end of 1918, 300 young St. Pauls men were stationed around the world. Along with the baptized, the married, and the buried, their names were listed in each issue of the Bote. In 1918 St. Pauls was a congregation of recent German immigrants. America was at war with Germany. German Americans were under suspicion, accused of being unpatriotic, disloyal, collaborators with the enemy. Out of fear and anxiety, many German- American churches stopped having worship services in German, and removed all German language from their newsletters in order to try to prove their loyalty to their suspicious neighbors. That didn t happen at St. Pauls. Though the pages of the Bote drip with patriotism, the German service continued and the Bote kept on printing its German section during the war. I don t know why our church leadership chose to do that, but I m glad they did. In your baptism God claims all of you. God claims you in all of your uniqueness and soaks you in love. In baptism, we learn that American is not our primary identity. Our primary identity is beloved children of God. Throughout the war years, the Bote was sent to each of those servicemen, wherever they were stationed. The paper always affectionately refers to them as our boys. St. Pauls had claimed them at their baptisms and still did. And our boys often write back with gratitude for that monthly reminder of home. The letter of serviceman Fred Peters appears in the 1918 Bote: I visited a little church in Trenton, N.J., and 3

4 the services were very good. Still it made me realize what a wonderful church Old St. Pauls is. If all the boys of St. Pauls here and over there feel as I do, I am sure that when the war is over, they will be seen there very often. Best wishes to all the people at St. Pauls. In 1918 we also find the names of the first two of our boys lost to WW1. Private Fred Uebel, baptized at St. Pauls May 11, 1890, died aboard the SS Kroonland on October 15 th. Sgt. Robert Vogt, baptized at St. Pauls March 20 th, 1892, killed in action on Oct. 4 th in the Battle of Bois Chaume, France. Despite all of the pain and loss of 1918, it was also a year of celebration. It was the 75 th birthday of St. Pauls Church. There was a special service for the anniversary, but the celebration was subdued because of the financial stress the church was under. Contributions were down because of anxiety about the war. But there was another celebration for which the church pulled out all the stops: the 50 th birthday of the Uhlich Home, the orphanage we founded during the Civil War. It was located just a few blocks away at Armitage and Burling. The church put on a fantastic banquet for the orphans and the staff. There was music and dancing, a professional whistler and a ventriloquist. The Bote writes: Just you ask the boys and girls and they ll tell you that it was just the finest and best entertainment that ever was. There was a delicious dinner and the Uhlich boys and girls were the guests of honor, waited upon by black- coated waiters who had strict orders to see that the children were properly served. And finally, there was a Uhlich 50th Anniversary Worship Service. At the end of the service, the Bote notes: A touch of sacred beauty was added by the sacrament of Baptism, administered to four children who had recently been admitted to the Home. The members of the Board came to the altar and assumed the duties of sponsorship and Irene, Otto, Marie, and Elmer received their Christian names. That s what a church looks like when we remember our baptisms. Orphans are called by name and made a part of the family. Young men facing the terrors of war know that they are not forgotten. From the deep joy at the baptism of a baby to the deep grief at the death of his mother, our congregation surrounded each other with love, cared for the sick, encouraged one another to keep the faith. Our world has changed a lot since Nora Louise Huber was baptized at Old St. Pauls, but I am struck with how similar things are. We live in a time of fear and anxiety about the future. We re not in a world war, but conflict and terror abound in the world. Nationalism, militarism and propaganda are on the rise. German immigrants aren t suspect anymore, but other immigrants are. Young adults are dying in our city at an alarming rate. The epidemic isn t the flu. It s gun violence. And yet, and yet Uhlich is still here. Its name is now UCAN, and it will be 150 next year. We won t be hiring a professional whistler and a ventriloquist, but next Sunday we ll march for peace on behalf of UCAN. The UCAN kids no longer live in Lincoln 4

5 Park, but they are still our boys and our girls. Don t imagine for a moment that we can ignore the violence in this city because it s not happening in our neighborhood. UCAN now resides in N. Lawndale, so N. Lawndale is our neighborhood. We need to rally around our UCAN youth even more than we did 100 years ago. Everyone in our country knows about the violence in Chicago, whether they live in the northwest corner of the Pacific Northwest or at the tip of Florida. If your relatives are like mine, they ask you, Is it safe to live in Chicago? Reach out to your friends and relatives, wherever they live, and say: We need your help. Our city is in deep trouble. Can you help us? Sponsor me in the Polar Peace March and support an organization that is doing real, solid work in reducing violence in our city. Yes, UCAN is still here, and Old St. Pauls is still here, and we ll be 175 next year. We don t know what joys and sorrows are ahead of us in But I do know that babies will be baptized, and we will promise them our love. Some of us will get married, and we ll celebrate together. Some of us will die, and we will grieve together. The start of a new year is a fine time to remember our baptism. Baptism keeps you grounded in who you truly are. Baptism gives you security. Baptism frees you from ideologies that dehumanize and marginalize. This is a new year for us to live out the promises we make at baptism: to love each other, support each other, encourage each other, build each other up, bring out the best in each other. This is a new year to remind each other once again of the truest words ever spoken to any of us: You are beloved. 5