Still Wrong-er-er After All These Years

The Holy Gospel According to St. Matthew the 3rd Chapter

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him.

John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 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. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Have you ever been wrong?  As the saying goes, I thought that I was wrong once... but I was mistaken!  Actually, that’s not true.  I am wrong on a VERY regular basis.  All you have to do to confirm that is talk to my wife or my kids and they will tell you how wrong I am and how often I’m wrong.  In fact, the older they get the more wrong-er-er I seem to become!

When I am wrong, I try not to be too hard on myself.  Now, I don’t try to be wrong or even mistaken, for that matter, but it seems to happen anyway!  But on the up side, being wrong does put me in with some very good company.  We’ve read about two of that good company in the lessons today.  Look at Peter.  The whole second lesson is Peter telling everyone that he had been wrong before, but has now gotten things straightened out.  It took a vision, three Gentiles and a conversation with God, but in the end, Peter did finally get things straightened out.  He finally understood that God shows no partiality, God doesn’t have favorites... God loves all... and all means all!  

Then, in today’s gospel lesson, John the Baptist was wrong too.  He believed that he had no business baptizing Jesus.  Maybe he thought Jesus should be the one baptizing him or maybe John thought Jesus didn’t need to be baptized since he didn’t have any sins that needed forgiving.  But, it turns out, John was wrong and really did need to baptize Jesus after all.

So if by being wrong I find myself in the company of people of faith like Peter and John the Baptist then I’m not too worried and you know why?  Because I too have been baptized!  Neither of them had horrible things happen to them for being wrong; no wrath of God, no fire raining down from the sky, no brimstone or locusts, tsunamis or hurricanes or anything.  What this Gospel lesson tells us, is that with Jesus arriving on the scene, punishing people with all those Old Testament style punishments for being wrong is simply not the way God works anymore!  

Since Jesus arrived in the world, God has decided to do things a new way.  God now handles us being wrong, not by raining hell fire or with bad weather, but by loving us anyway, opening up heaven to be with us through every mess, thick and thin, good choices and bad.  When God sent his Son and the Holy Spirit, that was our clue that God was doing things in a whole new way.  

If you’re like me and tend to mess up and be wrong on a pretty regular basis, the fact that God now loves us in spite of our regular wrongness is really, really good news.   On the other hand, there are people who think they don’t ever mess up and some of those folks really don’t like the idea that God has gotten out of the raining down hellfire and smiting business.  They are the kinds of folks who figure God is angry all the time, sending tsunamis and hurricanes and tornados to punish the world for not hating the same people they hate and not yelling loud enough at the same things they like to yell at.   I’m sorry they’re that angry all the time but the truth is, even though they don’t like it, God’s still doing a new thing.    

Even when I think that a person or a group or a thing is really, really, really horrible.... and I have a list, believe me.... even when I think someone is being horrible and would really, really like God to do some serious, old fashioned lightning bolt and hellfire smiting... God just doesn’t do it... because no matter what I want, God doesn’t work that way anymore!  And really that’s for the best, because sooner or later I would mess up who needs smiting just like I mess up everywhere else in my life.  

So, take a look again at the lessons and see how God does work now.  In the second lesson, God talks with Peter in a vision, convincing him to think in a new way.  In the gospel lesson, Jesus talks to John and quietly and gently tells him that this is what they need to do in order to do things God’s way.  When Jesus comes up from the water the heavens open, the Holy Spirit comes down and God says, “This is my son, I really, really love him and I especially like what he’s doing and the way he’s doing it.”  

John was wrong.  Before Jesus talked with him he couldn’t imagine that God was giving up the good old ways of smiting people with hellfire, hurricanes, lightning bolts, and nasty skin diseases.  But, with compassion and understanding, Jesus convinced him that God was doing things in this new way, through his Son, the beloved.  When we are baptized, we too are baptized into God's new way of doing things.  That new way calls us to try to follow in God's footsteps and give up trying to get back at people who have done us wrong and instead live a life of forgiveness, love and compassion.  Even if that means getting things wrong some times and even if that means being taken advantage of from time to time. 

Martin Luther said that this new way calls us to sin boldly!  In other words, we’re supposed to try and do what God calls us to do... try and love others, have compassion for others, try to care for the least and the lost and the last of our world and not be afraid that we might not get it right.  We are supposed to be bold in what we try!  We can afford to be bold now because we can be confident that God would rather us try and end up getting off track than to never try at all in fear that we might mess up along the way.  God loves us when we get it right... and God loves us even when we get it wrong.  Just like Jesus, you and I are God’s beloved children no matter how far we get off track.  And not if, but WHEN we do get off track, God will gently lead us back to the right path just like God did with Peter and John.  

When you and I were baptized we are baptized for a purpose...part of that purpose is to tell the world that God is no longer in the business of sending horrible weather or anything else to punish people... that’s just not how God works anymore!  God is now into loving and caring and gently leading.  The other part of what we were baptized into is to live our lives and try to treat others in the same way that God now treats us... in the ways of love, compassion, generosity and grace rather than the ways of revenge and punishing.  You and I are called both to tell the world that God is doing things in a new way AND live our lives in that new way so that with God, you and I transform the world into the world God wants it to be... a place of love, compassion, grace and peace.  

So, it turns out that I can be wrong.  I try to be right... I really do!  But even when I try to be right, sometimes... more often than I like.... I end up being enormously wrong... and I am absolutely sure (even though I don’t want to be) that I will be wrong again!  Not because I try to be wrong but because I’m human!  BUT... even though I’m a fairly messed up human, I am also a baptized human… which means I'm a beloved by God human… a child of God... and so are you.

You and I have been set free to take those risks, boldly doing what we believe God is calling us to do, and even if it turns out later we didn’t quite get things 100% right... because God opened up the heavens at our baptisms and sent the Holy Spirit to each of us, we can be assured that God will keep loving each and every one of us anyway... and while I’ve been wrong about a lot of things in my life, I am 100%, absolutely positive that I am not wrong about God’s infinite, unconditional, unlimited love for you and for me and for all of creation.  Amen.