Baptism and Solidarity
Matt 3:13-17
Matthew 3:13-17 (NRSV):
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
John the Baptist is a cousin to Jesus, so presumably a familiar face, if not someone with whom Jesus has a close bond. But in the Biblical narrative, John is also a predecessor to Jesus, a herald of his ministry. If he’d had a microphone handy, he might have said, “friends, please join me in giving a warm Jordan River welcome to…Jesus Christ!”
But even if Jesus is the main act, he doesn’t see himself as above John, above his own community’s rituals, above needing to grow in his perspective on others and himself. This equality with others, this solidarity with his community, this genuine humanity as a person-in-process, is part of what makes Jesus a genuine representation of the Divine.
I want to draw your attention to four things about this text, all of which I just hinted at.
Jesus levels hierarchies and practices mutuality.
Jesus embraces a community’s ritual.
Baptism impacts Jesus’ perspective.
Jesus is a true representation of the Divine way.
Let me say a few words about each of these four claims.
One. Jesus levels hierarchies and practices mutuality. “Me baptize you? No, no, no.” Assuming John is being sincere and not just trying to best his cousin in a game of social deference, then it seems John feels like Jesus has it backwards. John, as recognized baptizer, has some authority, but wonders about the possible limits of his authority, here. This is the same John who says, elsewhere: “one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals.” When John says that, I’m not sure if John gets Jesus very right, or very wrong, in terms of Jesus’s power and status.
The famously surprising thing about Jesus is that, even if people sometimes call him Lord and King, he doesn’t truly mirror the rulers of his time, those other so-called Sons of God, i.e., emperors and kings. I’m sure Jesus knows himself, and yet, doesn’t see himself as above John. He’s not above baptism. He’s not above any person. Jesus, by asking to be baptized, flattens hierarchies, and foreshadows a profoundly egalitarian, participatory world, where people aren’t ruled by any person, but by the animating force of Divine Love.
Jesus tells John, “no man, do it, baptize me…this is how we “fulfill all righteousness.” I often say, here, that “righteousness” is not about a Divine assessment of individual virtue, but about right relationships within a community, our capacity to be rightly related to others. Really, that’s what I think true moral character is about–relationality. “How do I show up for others, whether family, friend, neighbor, stranger, even enemy?”
So for Jesus to say “it would be totally righteous for you to baptize me, cuz!”–in his California surfer voice?–this a vote of confidence in John…as if to say, “you’re the baptizer, man, so baptize me!” but also “we’re the same. No one is truly above or below another.”
And even in relationships where one person has more apparent or natural authority, that authority doesn’t negate the humanity, the autonomy, or the gifts of others. A parent shouldn’t rule their child. A teacher shouldn’t rule their students. A boss shouldn’t rule their employees. A president shouldn’t rule their country, or other countries. A Quaker pastor shouldn’t rule their Quaker meeting. Where are mutuality, equity, inclusivity, and creative collaboration missing from our world and relationships?
And let’s not overlook three important words: “then he consented.” Not “then he did what he was told whether he wanted to or not” but “then he consented.” Even with his reverence for his cousin, we’re told that John had a choice in the matter, which I think underscores how authority does and doesn’t work here. John consents. In a time where people’s homes and neighborhoods are entered without consent, where people’s bodies are touched without consent, where consumers are tricked and taken advantage of without genuine consent, where military action is taken without consent, I think these words ring loudly, today.
Not to mention that one of the most powerful tools people have against Empire, against cruelty being done to us and those we love, is to withhold consent, to say, with our actions, “I don’t consent to that, we don’t consent to this cruel system.” I know it can be difficult to know how to do that, when our lives are so intertwined with that system. But I sense that withholding consent is one way people create social change. Empire, while it at times doesn’t seem to care about your consent at all, does, to a degree, depend on it.
Two. Jesus embraces a community’s ritual. Did Jesus need to be baptized? Some of you were told, at some point, that without baptism, you wouldn’t go to heaven. Are these the stakes for Jesus? No. But he may have needed baptism for many reasons.
Baptism is an initiation ritual, so maybe this was part of his process of saying “I’m ready” and beginning his more public ministry. Baptism isn’t quite a bath, but a dunk in the water might have been needed, and giving people what they need is a holy thing.
If he believed baptism was part of a process of personal repentance, maybe he’d taken stock of his own failures to Love and to live up to the kind of person he wanted to be, and wanted to genuinely do better. Maybe this is an act of humility. Moral perfection is not a claim Jesus makes of himself, no matter how much some Christian theologies put this perfection on him. I don’t think any human, including Jesus, is above saying “I’m sorry, I messed up, I'll do better, here’s how I’ll do better.”
But also, Biblical commentator Robert Mounce says that baptism, in this context, would have been a way of identifying with a movement of national repentance–an act of solidarity (Mounce, New International Biblical Commentary: Matthew, 25).
Many of you are here for sustenance–to be comforted or inspired or just a little less alone. Many of you are here to be with people you enjoy. But for many of you, being here is an act of solidarity–solidarity with others here, and with those you perceive that people here care about. Whether you are having a clearness committee to become a member–one of our initiation or belonging rituals–or speaking into a mic or making the coffee–other forms of initiation or belonging rituals–or even if you’re just here, I think you are identifying with a community that shares your concerns.
How do you identify with a community or movement of Love and justice and peace? What actions indicate that you are part of that community movement? How do you communicate to others and yourself that you are a participant, not just an observer, in that community or movement? What practices or rituals will sustain you as you participate in that movement, and will sustain the movement itself?
Jesus asks to be baptized, recognizing that his participation, his solidarity with his oppressed community looking for liberation and wholeness, might help sustain that community’s hopeful quest toward peace and justice. Perhaps baptism would also sustain him, as he looked back and remembered his public moment, when he said, emphatically: “I’m in. I’m here. I’m with you. What is needed? What can I do?”
Three. Baptism impacts Jesus’ perspective. Something happens to Jesus as he comes up from the water, that wasn’t happening before he went into the water. “Suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him.” What does that mean? What happens to Jesus?
I want to leave that partly open to your interpretive imaginations, but I think we can say that baptism is eye-opening, for him. Perspective-changing. On a very basic, physical level, it makes me think of the experience of splashing water in your face, as a sort of wake-up call. Maybe we all need a jolt, from time to time: not just a one-time but a regular practice that breaks our self-destructive momentum. What do you do when you need a jolt? A reset? What do you do when you need to step out of a complex situation or conversation, and get some perspective or some rest?
I think baptism aligns Jesus with a community, and maybe with his sense of who he is and wants to be. But maybe it also renews him. Refreshes him. Enlightens him. And maybe in that moment of opening, he has clarity: he notices something about who God is, who he is, what that Divine-human relationship entails, and what next steps to take, in light of what he notices.
I think that’s one thing that spirituality does, that being part of a spiritual community does: it impacts what you see, who you see, and how you see.
Jesus sees God’s Spirit descending and resting on him. I wonder if he could also more clearly see God’s Spirit resting on others? When you start to see the Divine in yourself and others, I think it can impact how you live, and especially what you feel and do in response to awful things that shouldn’t be happening to people in whom God’s Spirit resides. Including yourself. “The heavens open” to Jesus, and his perspective expands.
Four. Jesus is a true representation of the Divine way. Biblical scholar Anthony Saldarini argues that to call Jesus a “Son” is not a Trinitarian point, but to affirm that he is the means through which God rules (Saldarini, Matthew’s Jewish-Christian Community, 173).
Remember that Biblical language like “Kingdom of God” and “Jesus is Lord” and even “Son of God” is a counterpoint to Empire. Language that uses the imperial framework of the world but undermines it, speaking to the alternative way of governance, of power, of community, of seeing each other, that Jesus speaks to and lives out. Saldarini says that in the Biblical tradition, a true son of God “helps (their) fellow humans” and “endures unjust suffering” (Saldarini, 174).
Certainly we see that in the story of Jesus. The people have been harmed by those in power; Jesus is here to help, not harm. The people have been persecuted by those who claim the Divine right to rule; Jesus won’t continue that persecution and will in fact be one of the persecuted, not causing unjust suffering with his power but enduring unjust suffering from a place of powerlessness, at least in a political sense. There is certainly a power that arises when people who are being crushed discover their capacity to resist, to survive, and to sustain each other through it all.
Jesus as Son of God, is a trustworthy representation of the Spirit of God, which shows us that this Divine Mystery is not fundamentally Control and Dominance, but Love.
How might these four ideas connect to our word of the year–sustain?
Jesus levels hierarchies and practices mutuality. Why are more inclusive and egalitarian approaches to leadership and community and authority more sustaining to Life than hierarchies and rulers?
Jesus embraces a community’s ritual. What is sustaining about communal practices and rituals? How do they sustain us? How do they empower us to sustain the community and the work it is doing?
Baptism impacts Jesus’ perspective. What kind of vision of who we and who others are and where change is possible will sustain us? What is sustaining about coming to recognize that each of us are the Beloved, that we are the Beloved community?
Jesus is a true representation of the Divine way. That is to say, God is Love. How does Love sustain us? What is the alternative to Love? Why is Love the more sustaining way?
Here are some queries to guide us as we listen for the voice of Love, speaking to us, through us, and through each other. Let me try that again, in a more John the Baptist sort of way. “Friends, please join me in giving a warm welcome to…the queries!”
Queries:
What are sustainable and sustaining ways of organizing our lives together?
What kinds of practices and rituals provide me sustenance?
What way of seeing others and myself will sustain us–all of us?
How can we sustain the ministry of Jesus, right now? Where is that ministry needed?