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Wendy Witt

“A Baptism of Power”
December 4, 2011

Sermon – 2011-12-04

POUR OUT YOUR POWER

POWER
Power is a word we Christians, and especially we Christians who attend church on a regular basis, have come to regard with something approaching scorn. At the very least, it makes us squirm and feel uncomfortable.

Power is somehow regarded by us as “bad” or “evil;” something we who profess faith in Jesus Christ are to avoid at all costs. We have been taught to honor and revere Jesus meek and mild. We cling to the beatitude that tells us that the meek are blessed for they will inherit the earth.

We are drawn to pictures and images of Jesus as the gentle shepherd, as the one who calls the children to him and tenderly holds them on his lap.

We know well, and often memorize, the stories of Jesus who welcoming and making room for the outcast, the marginalized, the lonely, the broken hearted.

We treasure and at times cling to the stories of Jesus’ healing the sick, the lame, and the blind. That is the Jesus we in the church have been taught to know and love, to worship and serve, to follow and model.

What does power have to do with being a disciple of that Jesus? Nothing you might be tempted to say, but let’s take a close look.

Today’s reading is our initial introduction to Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. You will notice in this season of Advent and Christmas that there are no stories about the birth of Jesus in Mark. Mark begins when Jesus is an adult, about to launch his public ministry.

Today’s lesson has John out in the wilderness baptizing people “for the forgiveness of sins.” People are flocking to him. Then as now, we have a profound need to be forgiven and to be assured that our sins have been washed away, that we have been given a clean and fresh start. So out to the River Jordan they trekked to be baptized by John. And they thought that they were done; that that was all they needed. They thought that religion was EXCLUSIVELY a private matter: getting right with God. John’s baptism assured them that they were in good standing with their God.

But no sooner had they come up out of the waters, then John says to them, in effect: you think this is good? Just wait. There is so much more yet to come. I am only the preview of something much greater.

Then he says, “I baptize with you water for the forgiveness of sins, but one more powerful than I is coming, and he will baptize you with the POWER of the holy spirit.”

John’s baptism may well have been enough if faith were exclusively a private matter between the individual and God. John’s baptism was important and necessary. But it was not enough. Our faith is not just a private matter. It has a decidedly public side to it, too. To engage the public side of our faith requires a different kind of baptism; a baptism of power; the baptism of the Holy Spirit that only Jesus can give.

There’s that word: POWER. When Jesus comes, he will baptize us with POWER. We will be filled with the POWER of the HOLY SPIRIT.

In our communion ritual, as we bless the elements of bread and cup, we pray:
Pour out your POWER on these gifts of bread and wine that they may be for us the body and blood of Christ, so that we might be for the world the body of Christ redeemed by his blood.”

If we are to be that: if we are to be the BODY OF CHRIST redeemed by his blood for the WORLD, then surely we will need and indwelling of his Spirit and his POWER in order to faithfully live out that calling.

POWER it is a word we in the church need to get comfortable with because it is at the very heart and center of our calling as disciples of the living Christ. If we are to do what Jesus did: advocate for the children; welcome  the stranger; fight for the powerless; feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless; if we are to defend the vulnerable, care and provide for the least, the last, the lost, the lonely, and the littlest among us ~ we will need to be people of power.

Now what exactly is POWER? Why does it evoke such strong emotions within us? Why do some of us feel repelled by it and others are compelled by it?
Power is what allows us to act. It is that force, individual and collective, that allows us to act on what we most deeply believe and value and to come together to work for a greater good.

Without power, we are passive victims of what happens TO us, we are not shapers of our own destiny or future let alone shapers of the world and culture around us.

In the UMC, our mission statement tells us that we are to be disciples of Jesus Christ, for the TRANSFORMATION OF THE WORLD.

That requires, my friends, that we be people of power. We cannot transform our lives or our communities, let alone the world, without POWER.

Remember the beatitude I quoted earlier about “blessed are the meek?” Well Jesus will also tell us:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.

Reading a book: “Jesus’  Plan for a New World,” by Richard Rohr and it is an extended commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, of which the Beatitudes are a part. In regards to this pronouncement, Rohr writes:
•    Most Bibles to this day will soften this Beatitude: “hunger and thirst for what is right”  or for righteousness are the more common translations. That’s a softer, more religious message. The word in Greek clearly means “justice.”

Rohr points out that the concept of justice is exactly halfway through the Beatitudes and at the very end again:
Blessed are those who are persecuted for the cause of justice; the kingdom of God is theirs.

It’s a couplet, saying: This is the point: To live a just life in this world is to have identified with the longings and hungers of the poor, the meek, those who weep, those who seek and work for justice for all.

This identification is already a form of social justice. But to act on that identification requires us to be baptized with power. Baptism is BOTH a spiritual/private and social/public and political act. We need BOTH and we will be called on over and over again to use both ~ in our personal and in our public lives.

If we are to be disciples of Jesus Christ committed to transforming the world around us ~ not just the spiritual lives of those around us ~ but the social, economic, and political world as well, then we will need power in order to be able to do that.

Along with Reverends Blackwell and King, I attended the Chicago Leadership Prayer breakfast this week. Mayor Rahm Emmanuel spoke to us. In fact, he more than spoke to us, he challenged us. Most of the 650 people in that room that day were people of faith ~ Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist. Clergy and laity. We were all there because we take our faith seriously and want to use our faith to reshape the world around us. Mayor Emmanuel said that we in that room all want the same things, we are all steering in the same direction, that there needs to be a partnership between pulpit and the political arena.

That as we combine forces around a shared vision and a collective mission; as we find that common ground on which we can all stand we can transform our great city for the sake of our children! That is a challenge to claim our power and to use it to create a culture that gives our children hope, that assures them they have a future!

So … if we are to be faithful to our calling as disciples of Jesus Christ . . . and if we are to carry out the mandate to transform the world around us according to his teachings and example . . . then we in the church need to get comfortable with being people of POWER.
So today, once again, we pray: Pour out your POWER on us gathered here and on these gifts of bread and wine that we are about to receive that we might be for the world the body of Christ redeemed by his blood.

Amen.