"CHOSEN FOR LOVE"
a message by Rev. Dr. Bruce Havens
Coral Isles Church, U.C.C.
January 12, 2025
Luke 3:15-22 NRSV
15 As the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16 John 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 strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His 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.”
18 So with many other exhortations he proclaimed the good news to the people. 19 But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, 20 added to them all by shutting up John in prison.
21 Now when all the people were baptized and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22 and 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.
Do you remember your baptism? Do you remember if you were baptized, and if so, what does that mean to you? Has it had any effect on your life? Do you realize it means you were chosen for love?
This morning’s reading from the Gospel of Luke seems kind of disjointed. Seems like 3 different scenes. In the first scene we are told people are looking for a Messiah – a king - and ready to choose John. John squashes that talk in his own inimitable way. The second scene pops up to talk about the current ruler, Herod. Now, no one was confusing Herod with the Messiah, even though Messiah means “anointed” and was considered a synonym for “king.” Luke tells the story to include the point that Herod did horrible things including jailing John. He doesn’t mention he has him beheaded, as Matthew’s Gospel does.
In the third scene apparently everyone has been baptized, including Jesus. In this scene the Holy Spirit comes down as gentle as a dove, the symbol of God’s peace. We get a voice declaring just loud enough for everyone to hear: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Loud enough to know, Jesus is God’s Beloved.”
Jesus came into a time when people were searching for God’s leadership and direction. They wanted a “Messiah,” meaning one anointed by God to be their King. Herod certainly was not that, even though he held the title. He was a vain, violent, manipulative man holding his throne not by God’s calling, but by ways like many human leaders. Luke tells us that into that chaotic scene came Jesus, and he WAS God’s anointed. And so into this political and religious context comes Jesus and God proclaims “you are the beloved one, with you I am well pleased!”
The third scene tells us explicitly that Jesus is God’s Beloved. What’s interesting is that no other Gospel puts the voice of the Holy Spirit in the second person singular: YOU. Luke says the voice from heaven says, “YOU are my child, my Beloved.” I think Luke puts it this way to tell us that not only is Jesus God’s Beloved, YOU are. He’s telling YOU, your baptism proclaims a truth that makes all the difference in your life, or should: you were chosen for love. Just like Jesus. Being baptized means God spoke to you and said, “YOU are my beloved,” just like God did to Jesus. You may not remember the voice, but it is still true.
A preacher, [ Rev. Dr. Michael Brown, day1.org, Jan 13, 2013 ], talked about a a leader in his church. The preacher knew the man to be an “example of all things good and decent and helpful. His wise faith gave guidance to the whole church, and his commitments gave leadership. But, the man told his preacher he had not always been that way. He said that as a young man, in his own words, ‘I was always looking for trouble. And if the trouble were really bad, I’d look for it twice! But then,’ he said, ‘I met Elizabeth--a kind, sweet, moral, smiling girl who loved me no matter how big a scoundrel I was. And little by little, because I wanted to live up to her love, I became less and less a scoundrel. Finally, we married, and I’ve spent my whole life trying to make her as happy as she made me.’ The preacher said, “Then he said something I have never forgotten. He said this: ‘The truth is, Elizabeth loved me into loving.’
That’s what God wants to do. If you have been baptized, that was a starting point for God to proclaim YOU are God’s beloved. You and I then have the challenge to let God love us enough that we become loving. There are enough wanna-be Herods around. We need more wanna-be lovers. We need more people willing to count on the power of love, rather than the love of power. Most of us here have so little power it doesn’t matter if we love it. But what would change in your life if you started loving others enough to love them into loving? And I mean even those who aren’t very loving themselves? There’s a challenge, huh?
Just this past week we have been remembering the life of a man who had more power than Herod. He was President of the United States awhile back. He was probably more famous for building houses. That same preacher I quoted before told another story about a man he knows who “volunteers working on Habitat for Humanity houses every year. He’s quite a gifted carpenter. He can get twice the work done in half the time it takes most people. Some years he works on five or six Habitat projects, but he has made both God and himself a promise that he will always do at least two. He’s honored that commitment for over thirty years. When asked about the source of his passion for that ministry he said, “after returning from Vietnam, he struggled to readjust. He had no close family, so he drifted ... town to town, job to job. The one thing he did have was a talent for carpentry, so he could usually find a building site that needed an extra hand. Finally, in a small Midwestern town, he signed on to help build six moderately sized and affordably priced houses. He told the foreman that he would be happy not only to do carpentry but also to provide security, bringing his sleeping bag with him and spending the nights on site. So he did that, house by house.
The owner of the company was impressed by the man’s abilities and commitment--and he was also aware that apparently he had no other place to sleep. So, at the close of the project, almost a year in the making, the business owner took the man aside and said: ‘I want to thank you for what you’ve done. And I want you to stay on with the company.’ Then he handed the man a set of keys and said: ‘The sixth house we built is yours. Take it.’ ‘But I can't pay for it,’ the carpenter said. His employer answered: ‘You'll find a way.’ ‘My volunteer work,’ he told his pastor, was ‘how I have repaid him. At least twice a year I put a roof over the head of someone else who needs it, just as he did over mine.’”
We aren’t all great carpenters. But we can all love. God made us that way. We are all are chosen by God - for love. If you want to recapture your baptism and its meaning, let me suggest you can start by loving others the way you wish God would love you. The more you do that, I promise, the more you will feel loved by God. The way we own and honor our baptism is to love others. You and I were chosen as God’s beloved to love others in God’s name. If you want to remember that blessing in the flesh, so to speak, after the Alleluia I will wait up front in case anyone wants to hear those words again, and have a splash of water put on you, so you can better remember and recommit to your baptism. This isn’t a rebaptism, because we don’t do that, but a remembrance of that sacrament if you wish to do so.
Baptism matters because it symbolizes that you are God’s Beloved. The Boss, God, chose you, asks you to stay on with the company, to be part of the family. YOU are God’s beloved, chosen for love. You want to remember your baptism? Start loving others. And it will work, because we don’t have to love with our own love. We can love them with God’s love, and God’s love never fails. AMEN.
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