LISTENING FOR A NEW VOICE

(Preached on Sunday, January 11, 2009)

And a voice came from heaven, AYou are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.@                                                                             -Mark 1:11

 

What voices are you listening to as the New Year begins?

There are plenty of voices of gloom and doom warning of impending disaster.  They blare at us from our newspapers, televisions, radios, and computers.  They are joined by other voices pointing out all the ways we are flawed C too fat, too skinny, too old, too young, too ignorant, too educated, too conservative, too liberal, too secular, too religious, too rich, too poor.  They tell us how we can become healthier, prettier, more successful, more lovable, win more friends.  These voices are so loud and so persistent that it is easy too believe them and live our life according to their dictates.  They lead us directly into a great trap.  The trap of self-rejection.

 

Self-rejection leads to complaints, jealousy, anger, even violence.  Self-rejection leads us to work 70 hours a week to prove we are worthwhile, that we are needed; to gain enough money to buy more things to establish our worth; to receive the accolades of colleagues and bosses and peers and to demonstrate that we are somebody.  Self-rejection leads us to diet all the time; to obsessively engage in fitness programs; to undergo surgery to change our appearance C all to prove our beauty, our desirability, our worth.  Self-rejection leads us to focus all of our attention and our energy on ourselves, our betterment, our improvement, to lifting ourselves up, instead of on building community, helping others, serving the greater good and the truly needy.  And all of this because we listen to the negative voices that surround us and beat us down.

 

But there is a voice speaking to us that has a different message.  It is a positive message, a life-enhancing, life-empowering message for each one of us.  And it is always there, speaking our name, speaking a powerful truth to us about ourselves.  It is the same voice which Jesus heard as he came out of the river Jordan following his baptism.  This voice addressed Jesus directly.  It was an intimate, personal affirmation C not a public-address broadcast of his true identity.  This voice gave Jesus energy and life.  It spoke the eternal truth to him about his being: AYou are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.@

 

That same voice, that same message, is there for you and for me today.  Just as Jesus heard that voice at his baptism, that voice calls to each of us at our baptism as well.  Whether you heard that voice literally or not (and I did not), that is what is being said to you at that moment of baptism.  Baptism is God=s work, not ours.  It is God=s gift, not our achievement.  Baptism is a public demonstration of God=s grace C God=s adoption of each one of us into God=s family.  At our baptism God said to each one of us, AYou are my beloved child, with you I am well pleased.@  Through this adoption we are made sisters and brothers of Jesus, baptized into his life, death, and resurrection, and anointed with the same Spirit.

 

Life has a way of wringing us out and we forget our Abeloved@ identity as adopted children of God.  As we move through the crowds of the city and our huge shopping malls, we do not expect to hear ourselves called the Beloved.  Our driven lives, surrounded by so many loud, demanding voices, make it difficult to hear the small voice that reminds us of our real name.  Yet that voice is there, gently, softly, persistently calling us by our name C a name much more intimate than the name our parents gave us, the name that expresses our true identity.

 

One way to remember that name, our true identity, and be open to hearing that voice calling to us is to remember our baptism.  In the most recent Christian Century, pastor and scholar Frank Yamada reflects on this passage and sums up the renewing power available to us by remembering our baptism.  He writes: AWhen I remember my baptism, I reach back to hear the voice that speaks to me out of the waters, the voice that proclaims to a world of conflict that we are all >very good= and claims us all as >beloved.=  The Spirit moves in and out of our busy lives, and there are times when I recognize the Spirit=s hovering presence beckoning all to a different order, to a new creation.@

 

This is the glorious good news Jesus came to announce.  It was the message affirmed to him over and over again in his life, AYou are my Son, my Beloved; with you I am well pleased.@  And his mission was to share that message with everyone else.  To remind us that life is a gift.  That each one of us is unique, known by name, and loved by the One who fashioned us.  Unfortunately, there is a very loud, consistent, and powerful message coming to us from our world that leads us to believe that we must prove our worth, our beloved status, by how we look, by what we have, and by what we can accomplish.  We become preoccupied with Amaking it@ in this life, and we are very slow to grasp the liberating truth of our origins and our finality.

 

Henri Nouwen reminds us: AYou and I don=t have to kill ourselves.  We are the Beloved.  We are intimately loved long before our parents, teachers, spouses, children and friends loved or wounded us.  That=s the truth of our lives.  That=s the truth I want you to claim for yourself.  That=s the truth spoken by the voice that says, AYou are my Beloved.@

 

As the world measures those things, Jesus didn=t accomplish much during his lifetime.  He died as poor as he was born.  He died a failure.  He and his followers did not have great success.  The world is still in darkness, full of violence, corruption, oppression and exploitation.  Still Jesus was God=s beloved Son and he lived his sonship among us as the only thing that he had to offer.  That was his assigned mission.  And that was enough.  For the truth of life is that we have been put here for the purpose of receiving God=s love so that we can respond to that love with love.  That is all we are here for and it is enough.  That is my mission and yours.  Believing it and living from it is true holiness.

 

I have always had real difficulty fully embracing and living this truth in my own life.  It is not that I don=t believe it.  It probably has something to do with the way I was raised; and how my parents before me were raised; and how their parents before them were raised; going back who knows how far into my family history.  I have always struggled with self-rejection and self-acceptance and with fully embracing the truth that I am Abeloved@ by God.  It took most of my sabbatical time to achieve a greater ability to just be and not constantly drive myself to achieve and prove my worthiness.  But I did experience moments of letting go and fully embracing God=s love for me and God=s gift of life, time and the world around me.  It is a much healthier place to be and a much happier way to live.  Here are some simple suggestions I offer for your consideration which I found offered me some success in remembering the truth of my baptism and helping me to better hear that voice of God calling me ABeloved.@

1. Seek to deepen your awareness of God=s presence in your life.  Enter each day and move through each day fully expecting to encounter God, looking and listening for signs of the holy C in beautiful palm trees rustling in the breeze, in a friend=s laugh, in the satisfaction of a well done task.

2. Enjoy as much beauty as you can.  Rejoice in it!  Waste time festively with your loved ones and/or your friends.  Take a long loving look at a child or an older person.  Walk on the beach.  Go to a museum and savor the art.  Listen to music.  Play with reckless abandon.  Go to church and just bask in the glory of God.  Appreciate the beauty all around.