Message: "It's All About God" by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Patti Lusher)

        

Three Hundred Thousand residents in a 9 county area, or 15% of the people living in West Virginia, have been ordered “Don’t drink the water” since last Thursday because of a chemical spill in their water supply. This could last for several days. Not only can they not drink the tap water, they can’t boil it and cook with it; they can’t bathe in it or wash clothes in it, they can’t even touch it for fear of getting sick because of a chemical spill is Charleston, WV. Hundreds of people have reported symptoms of nausea and dizziness. Restaurants, schools and other businesses have closed. Hospitals have canceled all surgeries except emergencies. 

         They are trucking in water and people are lining up with gallon water jugs for drinking water, for cooking, and so they can get by. But can you imagine trying to get by on the water you can carry home in a couple of jugs? We so take for granted the water that runs so freely from our taps each day.

         We can survive a long time without food, but “Humans can only survive approximately three days without water. We need it for life.”   (source: Karyn Wiseman, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1884)

         Water is crucial to our planet and to our survival. We know that for people in some countries, access to clean water is a matter of life and death on a daily basis. Water is a theme that comes up over and over again in scripture, from the parting of the sea to save the people from Pharaoh’s army to Jesus sitting by a well with a woman in Samaria, talking about her life and the living water that he could give her.

         In today’s scripture, we find the water of baptism. One obvious question to ask is this: why would Jesus need to be baptized?  Even John asks that.  He was the one perfect human. Because he was fully human and fully God, why would he need to be washed clean with the water of baptism? Surely he had no sin that needed to be symbolically washed away with the water of the Jordan River.

         Baptism is also a sign that we are initiated into God’s family. Surely Jesus did not need baptism for that. We just finished reading the stories of his birth – all those angels, the star, the shepherds and the wise visitors from the East. Was there any doubt that he belonged to God?

         But this is also why we baptize. We mark with the water a child, or a teen, an adult, or even someone old, and near death with water and we say: “You are a beloved child of God, marked with the water of baptism and filled with the Holy Spirit. Nothing can separate you from God’s love.”

       When you were baptized you were claimed as God’s own child. We told you: You are enough. Don’t ever let the world tell you that you are too fat, or too stupid, or too slow, shy, or too anything. You are enough, because you belong to God.

         But again, why would Jesus need that? Certainly he knew he was enough! Certainly he knew that God loved him.

         So the story goes, John was in Galilee, by the River Jordan. He was baptizing people. And Jesus came up to him.

¹⁴John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” ¹⁵But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

         Jesus said to him: I need baptism too.

         And as soon as John had baptized him, he came up out of the water, “suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’”

         Now the next thing that happened was Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days of preparation. And then his ministry began.

         You see, Jesus had to do these things in order to prepare to do his work, because the work ahead of him was going to be hard work.

         The work of turning a world upside down (or right side up) takes a deep well of spiritual strength. It takes confidence. This work takes trust in God. For Jesus to be able to stand up for justice, and to bring compassion to the most unlovable, he needed to be ready.

         And so, he needed baptism. He needed the water of baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit. He needed to prepare. He needed to hear God’s voice saying: “With you I am well pleased. So let’s get started.”

         Here at The Village we are starting a new year. We are at a turning point in our life together. I believe we are in some ways, like Jesus, ready to step out and set our little corner of the world on fire. We have gone through our infancy. We have shown that we can survive. We are a church.

         Now we are ready to go. The question is: how will we live out our baptism together?

         This week in our weekly email I invited you to start dreaming about what The Village might be and do in 2014, 2015 and beyond. The Lead Team is making plans for us to do what we are calling “Strategic Dreaming” together as a congregation over the next couple of months. We are going to have some listening sessions. We want to listen to God by listening to what God is saying to each one of us.

         When we gather, we are going to discuss some key questions. We have not honed in on the exact wording of the questions yet, but we are close. It will be something like this.

         First: how can The Village better help you connect to God? We might get at this by asking you to think about some of the experiences you have had at The Village when you have felt really close to God. It might be a memory of a worship experience; or it might be a time when you served and you really felt connected to God because you were living out your call. Perhaps it was in your daily prayer time.  Maybe a friend from The Village prayed with you and in that moment you felt the presence of God. We want to know how we can help you, and more people who are not here yet, dig deeper as we connect to God and grow in our relationship with God.

         Second, we’ll ask: how can we do a better job of building up our relationships within The Village? Part of being a church is having a sense of intimacy with one another, knowing, and being known. When we know one another, we can dig deep to learn together. We can also care for one another and encourage one another as followers of Jesus. We want to know if there are group studies, activities for fun, or others ways we can strengthen the sense of community we have right here among ourselves. We want to hear from you about how you think we can do that, and how you want to be a part of strengthening our Village community. We don’t want you to think of ideas for somebody else to do!

         Third, how is God calling us, as a community, to go out and change the world? What breaks your heart? Because if it breaks your heart, you can be certain that it breaks God’s heart too. What is something you are passionate about that you want to do something about in the world? What can we do as a community so we can have a bigger impact than one of us can have as an individual? Is there something we can agree upon that lots of us are passionate about and that we want to act upon? You see, there are plenty of things that concern us, and we talk about, but it is a whole other thing to give our time and our resources to action. Can we determine one part of this world that God put The Village on this earth to change? And will we put our whole selves into that action for God?

         I get excited just thinking about that one. They are all important: drawing closer to God, to one another, and reaching out into the world.

         When we do these things we are living out our baptism. Jesus was baptized by John in the River Jordan so that he would be prepared to do those things. In his ministry he always took time to pray and center himself with God. He built a strong community around him: his community of disciples. He knew the importance of having a team of people working together and so he cared for those disciples and modeled for them how to care for one another. And he taught them how to go out and change the world. He sent them out to care for the widows and the orphans and to speak the truth to the unjust leaders.

         The starting point was his baptism. In baptism we are claimed by God. Because you see, it’s all about God. In his ministry, Jesus never claimed anything for himself; he always pointed people back to God.

         Baptism is a gift from God: a gift of God’s love to remind us – to make an indelible mark on us with the water – the source of all life. “You belong to me.” We belong to God so that we can be a blessing to the world.

         When we love one another in here [in this community] we are loving with God’s love. And when we go out into the world to change it, we are changing it by the power of God. To me, that makes it not so scary at all. We have God with us and so it feels like we have the power to do anything.

         So we on the Lead Team invite you to dream with us. Let’s dream about what our church can be and do in 2014, 2015 and beyond. Let’s remember that in our baptism we are claimed as God’s beloved children and that means it’s all about God. All that we are and do is for God.

         We have a prayer that we are inviting everyone to pray each day as we enter into what we are calling our Strategic Dreaming process for The Village. There are prayer cards you can take to put on your kitchen table or somewhere else so you can remember to pray every day. Pray for our church that God will give us the vision of who God wants us to be together.

         Let’s pray that prayer together now.

Dear God,

Show us your dreams for The Village. Give us your vision. Let us have courage and wisdom to lay out a path for our church that is bold and compassionate. Show us a way to draw others into our community so they may also know your generous and gracious love. Help us to change the world.   Amen.