Sermon - Lent 1

Mark 1.9-15

“Get Me Out!”

I subscribe to a study guide on the Sunday lessons, which is administered by my good buddy at VA Tech (Pastor Bill King.) This week’s material was actually prepared by the pastor with whom I have visited during our trips to Germany (Pastor Scott Moore.) Scott occasionally writes for the series, which is called “Faith Lens,” and it is always interesting to get the perspective of someone living in another part of the world. We too often assume that the same words will mean the same thing to everyone. This is often not the case. And this week Scott reflected on the appointed lessons, throwing in bits of information from Europe.

Maybe you heard about this. I had not. And evidently it is causing quite a stir. Twelve years ago, in the year 2000, Rene LeBouvier, asked the Roman Catholic Church, in which he had been baptized as an infant, to revoke his baptism. He had grown uncomfortable with the Church’s teaching and he wanted to disavow any association with it. So, he asked to be “de-baptized.” As you might expect, he was told, by the Church, that they couldn’t do that. Not to be deterred, he asked again, and with a second denial. Finally, LeBouvier took his case to the courts. He filed a suit against the Church and in 2011 the French Court ruled in his favor, siting the right of an individual to “revoke their membership” from any organization.

Had any of you heard about this? Seems that it is a trend which continues. Scott noted that in 2010, the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium reported 2,000 requests for “de-baptism.”

“De-baptism”? What would that look like? How would you do it? Who would do it? Would the person making the request return to the font, as a priest or pastor wiped their brow with a sham-wow?

Okay, that is an oversimplification. Mr. LeBouvier was not asking to have the water removed, he was asking for an end to the relationship. He no longer wanted to be associated, in any way, with the Church.

But if that was all he wanted, all he had to do was to simply stop attending, or fail to provide a current address, right? After time, the Church would lose track of him and stop sending newsletters. Give them a few more years and they would no longer write their name on a box of offering envelops and leave them in the narthex for him to pick up. Maybe Mr. LeBouvier realized that there was something more to this whole baptism thing. Maybe he understood, maybe even better than we, that something more is involved here than merely remembering that at some point in time some water was poured over our heads and some words spoken on our behalf.

Something had happened. Something which he (and those other 2,000 folks in Belgium) wanted to undo.

Something happens to Jesus, when he is baptized. If this were a lecture (45 minutes in length) rather than a sermon (shooting for somewhere around 12 minutes) we would need to address the difference between the baptism received by Jesus and our baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus. For now, just realize there is a difference. For now, just remember that discussion where Jesus (not in Mark but in the Gospel of John) says it was necessary for him to receive John’s baptism. Somehow, someway it sets the pattern for water and word to be our entry point to the community which Jesus establishes. Even though Jesus’ baptism differs from the baptism we have experienced, none-the-less something happens to Jesus when he is baptized – something which can’t be un-done, something which changes everything.

Jesus is baptized. He sees the very Spirit ascending like a dove. And he hears a voice from heaven saying to him, “You are my Beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Wow – that is a lot to be happening. But the action does not stop there. Before the drops of water have evaporated from his forehead, that same Spirit which had descended upon him is now driving him out, into the wilderness where for forty days he will be tempted by Satan.

Out there, in the wilderness, with the wild beast, and Satan tempting him at every turn - one has to ask, whether around day seventeen, Jesus began to entertain the notion of asking for an un-doing what had happened to him back there in the Jordan River. What had happened to him was cool, back then. But whatever it was that had happened to him had resulted in a lot of uncomfortable days since then.

The theology of our Church and the catechism which each of you carefully studied during Confirmation Ministry is very clear on this. In baptism God reaches out and claims us as his own. In baptism, we are assured that we never again need to fear the devil or his empty promises. In baptism we are set free from our worry about death. Something happens to us when we are baptized. It is the descent of that dove onto each of us and the whispering (or shouting) into our ear that we are God’s beloved child. Good stuff; great stuff.

Before the water evaporates from our brow we begin to understand that as a child of God it is now our job to tell others the Good News. As one who has been claimed by Christ, we become capable of seeing how far the world has strayed from the beautiful creation which God intends. We find ourselves, driven into a wilderness where self-advancement and self-gratification are given greater attention than caring for the poor and uplifting the lowly. We come to understand and to realize that being claimed by Christ means involvement in the work which Christ came to accomplish.

We may not ask to be “de-baptized,” but we certainly do a wonderful job of ignoring the promises we made to God.

Covenants – such a baptismal covenant – are built upon promises made it both directions. God has made promises to us – and God keeps those promises. All too often, we fall short, on our end of the promise keeping.

I don’t know if there will be a continued increase in the number of persons who will request to be de-baptized. I hope not. It raises far too many complicated, theological questions. But I do think that those who ask to be de-baptized may be more cognizant of what it is that was done to them, one upon a time, back there. They may understand, even better than too many of us, that it isn’t as simple as pretending that it never happened. You can’t just do that.

Neither do I know the degree to which your baptism has changed the events and/or the direction your life has taken. At the risk of sounding judgmental I would say that unless you can identify a few such changes you might have something to think about this week, and something to talk about in your next confession.

Something happens when God’s Word is spoken and God’s will is done. The degree to which it happens in your life, or my life – well, that seems to be (in some odd way) correlated with our willingness to participate.

Something has happened in lives of each and every one of us. During this season of Lent we might look to see what is happening as a result.

Amen.