Old South Sermons:

Primordial

by Quinn G. Caldwell, Associate Minister

Genesis 1:1-5, Mark 1:4-13

Baptism of Christ Sunday

January 11, 2009

Listen to this sermon

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Will you pray for me?  Lord, may the words of my lips and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.


It has always been a comfort to me that the Bible begins where it does.  There are no tricky narrative moves here, where we find ourselves plunked down in the middle of the action and only later find out what went before (I hate books like that).  It’s not like some Joseph Conrad story where we begin sitting in a bar somewhere listening to a character tell the story of the past (those drive me nuts).  No, I like a Bible that begins where it should: at the beginning, and so if the authors, redactors, and editors of our Bible were here today, I’m sure they would be relieved to hear me say to them, “Good job.”

Our Bible begins at the beginning, the very beginning.  So far back that all the universe is a great, seething mass of chaos.  It’s the time before anything is anything.  In the beginning, there is no difference between light and dark, energy and entropy, matter and antimatter, being and nonbeing.  Even Democrats and Republicans are the same; the universe is completely undifferentiated.  In the beginning, everything is everything else, and even nothingness has no meaning, for something hasn’t been created yet, and all is formless and void, an ocean of chaos.

Well.  Not quite all, for in the beginning, God.

In the beginning, there is One that is not everything else, One that is different from everything else and from nothing at all.  In the beginning, God, brooding over the everything, sweeping over the face of the chaos and seeing that the everything is so undifferentiated, so un-ordered, that it has no meaning.  In the beginning there is this: chaos, which is nothing at all, and God.

So God begins to create.  And God’s prime act of creation?  Order.  Differentiation.  From the chaos, God separates light and darkness.  From light and darkness, God builds day and night, and thus creates time.  You know what happens then: eventually, God will order the world into heaven and earth, land and sea, plants and animals, and on and on until Creation is complete.  The Bible begins, the story begins, the world begins, the universe begins, everything begins when God’s Spirit meets the waters of chaos and nothingness.  From water and the Spirit spring forth order, which is to say, everything.  And standing behind that order, before that order, at the head of that order, in the beginning, God.

And then there was John  Don’t you think that’s what John was reminding the people about?  Don’t you think that John thought that chaos was taking over the people’s lives?  A chaos of nationalism and cosmopolitanism, of greed and politics, of fear and guilt?  Don’t you think that John thought that the people needed a way back to their beginnings, to their home, to God?  Isn’t that what John’s baptism was about: inviting the people into a life where in the beginning, God?

I think so.  And I think God agreed.  I think God looked at the world and saw chaos, as it was before the beginning, beginning to take over again.  I think that God looked down and saw that everywhere, priorities were out of order, and lives were too painful, and hearts were too broken.  I think God saw the chaos of war and imperial domination, of religious exclusivism and judgement, of self-centeredness and self-righteousness.  I think God knew that we were trapped, and that if we were going to get back to our good beginning, back to God, then God would have to do a new thing.  And I think the thing God did was to show up in Jesus.  No longer just brooding over the world, no longer just looking down, but in the world, of the world, swimming in the chaos with us, showing us the way through it.  God tore heaven itself apart to get the message across, ripping the sky end to end to show Godself to us, to remind us that with God as the first thing, the prime thing, we have the chance and the strength to live for a nobler and a higher future than chaos allows.

When the sky ripped open that day and the grace came pouring into the world, it was the same grace that came down on the first day, at the beginning.  The spirit that landed on Jesus was the same spirit that swept across the face of the chaos and gave it order, which is to say, made it to be.

It’s the greatest gift God gives: the ordering power of God’s love.  It’s the same grace, the same water, the same Spirit that poured into this place today and covered Ryan with sweetness and love.  And we promised that we would tell him the stories, that we would introduce him to the ancestors, that we would make space for him to meet God, all so that he might have a way to order his life against the chaos.

Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the chaos is still threatening.  If you walk out the front door of the church and take a right, within three blocks you will pass two different stores designed to make you dissatisfied with your current cell phone and get you another one.  You’ll pass a hair salon that will charge you over $100 to get your hair cut, a store where you can easily spend $300 on a pair of sneakers.  You’ll pass a hotel that you probably can’t afford and another one where they probably won’t even let the likes of you in through the front door.  You’ll pass umpteen bars and a housewares store that pretends to be there to give you what you need but is really there to convince you that your interiors are not as good as they could be.  You’ll pass homeless people asking for your help, and people raising money for “Save the Children.”  You’ll see people crossing the street like jerks, and people driving like jerks.  If you’re lucky, you might see an act of kindness or two.  And you’ll pass a hundred broken hearts that you can’t see.

When you make it home, if you pick up the paper or turn on the news, you’ll be reminded that Israel and Hamas are fighting again and nobody knows who’s right, that the economy is still a mess and that the unemployment rate is rising, that we’re still fighting two wars.  If you flip through the channels on TV, you’ll be able to watch conservative pundits and liberal pundits scream at each other, or B-list celebrities self destruct on “Celebrity Rehab”, or an endless lineup of people more beautiful than you trying to make you feel bad about how you look, or you can watch “Jackass”, or “Keeping up With The Kardashians”, or, well, you get my point.

It’s chaos out there, and, if you’re like me, sometimes it’s chaos in here.  And without a strength and a way to order your life, your priorities, your budget, your reactions, without a way to know what comes first, you can spend a whole lifetime being swept around by the chaos until you are and can accomplish nothing much at all.

There’s a story that’s often told about Martin Luther, the Protestant reformer.  Whenever he felt overwhelmed by life, when he felt despair or confusion sucking him down and away from the joy of the love of God—and he felt this often—he would touch his forehead, where they had made the sign of the cross when he was baptized.  He would touch his forehead, and he would say, “Baptismatus sum”, “I am baptized.”

“I am baptized.”  Not, “I have been baptized.”  Not, “I was baptized.”  “I am baptized.”  It was his name.  It was who he was.  “I am baptized.”  It was his reminder that even as God created the universe by ordering it into being, so God was creating him by ordering his life.  It was God’s gift to him that took him back to the first order, the prime order, the primordial truth that in the beginning, God, and when God is in the beginning, all else falls into place.

In the beginning, God.  And then the truth that Jesus and John added: you are God’s beloved, and through all that has gone wrong, all the stumbling, failings, and well-intentioned mistakes, through all the disorder and mis-orderings, God is well-pleased with you.

We baptized Ryan, and somebody baptized you, because we want him to have the gift that God gave creation, that God ripped open the heavens to give us: bringing order out of the chaos of the world.  We baptized him so that one day, out there, when he needs it, he can say, “I am baptized,” and be saved.

“I am baptized.” And a new order emerges: first God, then everything else.  “I am baptized.”  And God’s order emerges: The poor are more precious than the rich.  “I am baptized,” and my enemy is the one who most needs my love.  “I am baptized”, and showing the beggar on the street an act of kindness is more important than getting to my meeting on time.  “I am baptized”, now and forever, that is my name, that is who I am.

So because today we celebrate the baptism of Jesus by water and the Spirit, because today we baptized Ryan by that same water and that same Spirit, and because today I want you to be reminded of who you are and the order with which God has gifted your life, I want to invite you to renew the vows of your baptism with me.

Friends, stand up.

Now, I know that there are some of you out there who have not been baptized.  We want you to know that we are so glad you are here, we want you to know that God cherishes you, we want you to participate in these vows or not as you see fit—and we want you to know that, should you feel invited to baptism by what we do today, well, that’s in the order of things as well.

Let us renew now the vows of our baptism:

Friends, do you believe that God created all things with a word of order and love?  If so, so, say, “I do.”

Do you renounce the powers of chaos and evil, powers like empire and domination, heterosexism and hatred, self-centeredness and apathy, poverty and violence?  If so, say, “I do.”

Do you believe that in Jesus Christ, God is re-ordering the world into a reign of love and justice, and do you wish to be a part of it?  If so, say, “I do.”

Do you believe that God is more powerful than corporations, that God sees you as more beautiful than any model on the cover of a magazine, that God can undo even what television and the worst Website you ever saw have done?  If so, say, “I do.”

And do you promise, with grace freely flowing through you, that you will seek to live ever more fully as God’s beloved, to see Christ’s new creation everywhere, and to live a life ordered by mercy and charity, gentleness and justice, until you and the whole world be transformed?  If so, say, “I do.”

Friends, close your eyes and touch your forehead.  You are baptized.  The power that ordered the universe is upon you.  You are baptized.  The power that rent the heavens for the sake of the earth is in love with you.  You are baptized, here, and on the street, and at work, and in front of your TV.  You are baptized.  The waters of baptism have overwhelmed you, and so chaos never will.  You are baptized.  It is your order and your name, now and forever.  Amen.

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