On the Plus Side

            Yesterday I read an article in the Huffington Post about a controversy with the Swedish fashion company H&M.  Their new catalog is out, and in its “plus size” section the plus sized model did not look the way that label suggests.  Pictures of the model lit up social media.  People complained that this is one more way the fashion industry gives the message to women and girls that the ideal body size and shape is a size 4 or less.  In my opinion this model is gorgeous.  Tall.  Leggy.  Gorgeous.  I’ve seen other models that look more plus sized (whatever that means) who are also tall, leggy and gorgeous.  According to what I read, the company said the featured model wears the size of clothing that is the industry standard for plus size (14 in the U.S.).  I agree with the growing number of voices that are calling for the fashion industry to drop the plus size designation.  If you’re a model you’re a model, whether you wear a size 2 or a size 14.  But here’s what really got to me.  This plus sized model may be a size 14, but in terms of Small, Medium, or Large, she wears a Medium. 

            Wait?  What? 

            Medium is plus sized?  I wear Medium.  In fact, I worked damn hard to wear a Medium.  I was beyond thrilled the day I walked out of a dressing room in a Medium.  Yet reading that Medium is considered plus sized was that proverbial last straw on the camel’s back of my insecurities.  These insecurities have been on the rise lately, and my initial response was to give into the despair and self-loathing that they bring about.  But something inside me said, “No!  Enough is enough.”  So I took a step back and thought long and hard about my body image. 

            At the CREDO conference and retreat for clergy I attended last May the faculty person for health and wellness, a brilliant and beautiful woman, quoted these three statements. 

           

            How do we exploit creation? 

How do we enjoy creation? 

Do we accept creation with awe? 

            Then she said to substitute the word “creation” with the words “our bodies.”  How do we exploit our bodies?  How do we enjoy our bodies?  Do we accept our bodies with awe?  In my notes from that lecture I wrote, “What would it mean for me to see my body as creation and accept it with awe?”  I remembered this question yesterday, and I realized something.  I have spent approximately 36 of the 48 years I have lived on this earth NOT accepting my body as creation and NOT seeing it with awe.  Instead I have hated my body.  I have wished for any other body type than the one I have.  I have mistreated my body.  I have starved my body one minute and gorged it the next.  I have spent the majority of my life looking in the mirror and seeing nothing but flaws.  That isn’t just time misspent, that is sad.  Horribly, terribly sad. 

            So I asked myself these questions, “What is so wrong about my body?  What is so wrong about me?”  It occurred to me that my questions are wrong.  What I should have been asking all these years, what I should be asking now is, “What is fabulous about my body?  What is fabulous about me?”

            Here’s my answer. 

 

This body begins with an incredible brain.  Someone I love and admire very much described me as being “smart as a whip.”  And so I am.  I can stand in a pulpit and make words written thousands of years ago come alive.  I can open people’s eyes to hope in the most unlikely of circumstances.  I have a heart that’s compassionate and kind.  I can make people laugh.  I’m a good friend.  I’m a good mom.  And in this last year I’ve proven to myself that I am brave.    

And let’s not forget this actual body.  Last night I took another look at myself in the mirror.  Instead of seeing abs that will never be a six-pack and hips that I’ve bemoaned as being too wide and the general sagging and change that comes with life and gravity, I saw an amazing creation.  This body has been fortunate enough to carry and give birth to two incredible kids. I nourished them with this body, cradled them in my arms and carried them on these wide hips. 

            This body is healthier and stronger than it’s ever been.  It’s not a skinny body; it’s a medium body.  And maybe some would consider my medium body to be plus sized, but if that’s true so be it.  I rock these curves!

            What would it mean to see my body as creation and accept it with awe?  I think it’s time for me to find that out.

Water

Matthew 3:13-17

January12, 2014/Baptism of the Lord

            H2O.  Two hydrogen atoms covalently bonded to a single oxygen atom.  That is the chemical explanation of water.  Water is the most abundant compound on earth.  It covers the majority of our planet.  But don’t let the abundance of water fool you.  The water we have is the water we’re going to have.  Unless a new water source is discovered on another planet, the water we have is the water we have.  That’s why we’re encouraged to not waste water, to not pollute water; there’s no new source of water on its way.

The human body is made up of roughly 55 to 78% percent water.  Our brains, our bones, every muscle, joint and ligament has water in it, and we need good, clean, safe water to drink everyday.  We can survive about three weeks without food.  But we can only survive about three days without water.  Water is essential to our well-being.  We, literally, cannot survive without it.    

            Because water is so fundamental to our very lives, safe drinking water must also be a priority.  One of the topics in the news this past week was that a major water source in West Virginia was contaminated by a large amount of hazardous waste dumped into it.  West Virginia’s governor had to declare a state of emergency because of it.  Thousands of people in several counties were affected.  The water was unsafe for drinking, washing, cooking, bathing.  We not only need water for our survival, we need safe water. 

The necessity and the scarcity of safe drinking water is a global issue.  The website water.org estimates that a child dies every 21 seconds from a water-related illness.  Every 21 seconds.  Water related disease kills 3.4 million people each year.  That is almost as many people in the entire city of Los Angeles.   

            Water is life.  But anyone who’s witnessed a flood knows that water can also destroy life.  While the terrible danger and power of tornadoes now holds new meaning for me, floods terrify me.  In the Upper Midwest, the combination of a winter heavy in snow without a midwinter thaw, the expected spring thaw, and about 18 inches of rain in 24 hours means flooding.  When I lived there the phrase, “turn around, don’t drown,” beat a steady tattoo in my brain.    

            Water is life.  Water can bring destruction.  Water is powerful.  Even as it erodes and wears away at whatever it flows across, it also creates beauty.  No picture can do justice to the raw beauty and splendor of the Grand Canyon.  That’s the power of water. 

            Water is powerful, and as a dear friend said in relation to our passage today, “Water: baptize with care.” 

            Water: baptize with care.  Jesus comes to the water, to John the Baptizer to be baptized.  Only in Matthew do we read of John’s reluctance to do this.  Just before this passage, John has been calling the people to repentance, to be washed clean of their sins, their transgressions.  He has promised them that one will come who will baptize them not with water but with the Holy Spirit.  So they need to repent, and repent fast! 

            Then practically in the next breath, Jesus comes to John at the Jordan River.  He wades into that water, asking for baptism along with everybody else.  I can understand why John hesitates to do this.  It would be like Yo Yo Ma, the premier cellist, coming to me and saying, “Hey Amy, would you teach me how to play a scale?” 

            “Uh, Yo Yo, I think you need to teach me; not the other way around.”  

I suspect John was thinking along those same lines.  “You need to baptize me, Jesus.  There’s no way I can baptize you!”

            But Jesus responds, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” 

            “Let it be so now.”  In other words, Jesus was saying, “No, John.  This has to happen now.”  Jesus’s message to John was that his baptism was not something that could wait.  The time is now.  Righteousness in this context conveys a sense of discipleship, more than a moral judgment.  Jesus wants John to understand that the time for his baptism is now, this moment.  It is critical for discipleship that he be baptized.  So John does what he is asked to do.  John is obedient to God’s will, just as Jesus is.  He consents and baptizes Jesus there in the river. 

            When Jesus rises from the water, the heavens suddenly open.  The Spirit of God is seen descending to Jesus like a dove.  It lights on Jesus.  A voice is heard, and unlike the other gospels, we infer from Matthew’s text that everyone there could hear this voice.  It is the voice of God saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

            Matthew’s gospel calls to mind the Genesis story.  The Spirit of God hovered over the waters, calling creation out of chaos.  The Spirit of God descends to Jesus as he stands there in the waters of his baptism.  Jesus is not newly created in this act, but he is confirmed.  His identity is made abundantly clear.  This is my Son. 

Jack Kingsbury, a preeminent Matthean scholar and one of the most frightening teachers I’ve ever experienced in seminary or otherwise, says that the whole first part of Matthew’s gospel is asking the question, “Who is Jesus?”  Now we have our answer.  Jesus is God’s Son, the Beloved. 

            Although ritual baptism had been practiced long before Jesus came to the Jordan that day, Jesus’ baptism signified a change in the understanding of baptism.  Baptism now created a new path for new life.  It wasn’t just the water alone.  It was the water and the Word.  This informs our own understanding of baptism.  The waters of baptism, whether we are sprinkled or dunked, cleanse us.  Spiritually speaking, they wash us clean.  In theological terms, we see baptism as our way of symbolically dying and rising with Christ.  We go into the water and into his death.  We rise from the water and we rise into new life.  Baptism is a sign of our adoption into Christ.  Whenever I baptize someone, I am acutely aware that baptism joins this person with a larger family.  Not only are we born into a family, mother, father, siblings, through our baptisms we become members of the family of God.  Our baptisms are the sign and seal of God’s grace, love and adoption. 

            Jesus was baptized, as many commentators and scholars say, so that we could truly be baptized.  It wasn’t just that he was modeling baptism as a good thing to do.  Jesus, that real human being who was also God incarnate, waded into those waters, and through the power of the Holy Spirit changed them and us. 

            But one big question always rises from this story.  Did Jesus himself need to be baptized?  We are baptized for all of the reasons I mentioned above.  But even as we claim Jesus to be truly human, a real flesh and blood person, we also believe that Jesus was without sin.  There were no transgressions on his part.  He had no need to repent.  John wasn’t making his call for repentance, for turning back to God, to Jesus.  He was leveling those words at the others who had gathered at the river that day.  As I said before, I completely understand John’s hesitation to baptize Jesus.  It should be Jesus baptizing John.  But remember Jesus responds to John by saying the time is now.  Now is the time for this baptism.  Now is the time that we fufill all righteousness. 

            For Jesus his baptism was the confirmation of his identity, but as one commentator puts it, it was also his launching.  His baptism was a key step in Jesus becoming ready to serve.  In southern terms, we’d say that Jesus being baptized meant that he was fixin to go out into the world, to launch his public ministry, to do God’s will.  Jesus waded into the waters of the River Jordan to be baptized because it was time.  It was time to publicly serve God and live out God’s will.

            In a few minutes we will reaffirm our own baptisms.  In this service of reaffirmation we are called to remember our baptisms.  Some of you, like me, were baptized in other traditions, so we are able to consciously remember our baptisms.  Some of you baptized as infants or as small children, cannot.  But the remembering we do today is not so much about conjuring up a memory as it is about remembering what baptism means.  Not just its theological meanings which I’ve listed earlier; but the gift of grace that baptism is and the claim it makes on us.  It is a gift of grace and love, whether we make the promises of baptism for ourselves or if someone makes them for us.  And in our baptisms, in this gift, we are called. 

            In our baptisms we are called.  All of the theological reasons for baptism culminate in that sentence.  In our baptisms we are called to discipleship.  Jesus was baptized as a confirmation of his identity and as witness to his public ministry, and in our baptisms we are called to be disciples, in the name of Jesus and in the way of Jesus.    
            Anyone who’s tried, even just a little, to live intentionally as a disciple knows that this is no easy calling.  It demands everything we have and everything we are.  The phrase my friend used, “Water: baptize with care,” may sound funny, but it rings true.  Baptism isn’t just a sweet rite of the church, nor is it merely something that we do because it is expected.  It is not magic, but it is life-changing.  It is to be taken seriously.  When Jesus was baptized, the Holy Spirit descended and God’s voice identified him as the Beloved Son.  Maybe we don’t see a physical manifestation of the Holy Spirit or hear God’s voice, but we are no less claimed as God’s children.  We are no less called to be disciples in God’s world.  That is serious business. 

            When you come forward to touch the water in our baptismal font, think about water’s power.  You were baptized with this powerful force.  Remember your baptisms.  When you touch the water, think of its necessity to all of life.  You were baptized into this life and the new life of discipleship.  Remember your baptisms. 

Remember your baptisms and give thanks for the life that baptism creates.  Remember your baptisms.  Let all God’s children say, “Alleluia!”  Amen.  

Children of God

John 1:1-18

January 5, 2014

            One of the ultimate tests of coolness in my neighborhood where I grew up was jumping your bike across the ditch.  Let me explain.  The street I grew up on was a dead end and it encompassed a large hill.  My house sat at the top of the hill, and then the street sloped gently downward toward the dead end.  One of the houses on that downward slope was the Hall house.  The Halls were an elderly couple who didn’t seem to mind the multitude of kids in the neighborhood playing in their yard. They had a big ditch where the yard and the street met.  So jumping the ditch meant that you started riding your bike by my house, picked up as much speed as you could, swerved right and rode your bike into the ditch.  If you did it just right you could make your bike jump as you came up out of the ditch and swerved again into the Hall’s driveway.  I have to be honest.  I was a little slow in working up the courage to jump the ditch, but once I finally did it, I was unstoppable. 

            That was just one of the many things that made up the particular flavor of my neighborhood.  Think for a minute about your neighborhoods; the ones where you grew up or the ones you live in now.  Picture the people, the houses, the sounds, the sights, the smells.  Think about your neighborhood and hear these words from Eugene Peterson’s contemporary translation of scripture, The Message.

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish. John pointed him out and called, "This is the One! The One I told you was coming after me but in fact was ahead of me. He has always been ahead of me, has always had the first word."  We all live off his generous bounty, gift after gift after gift.[1]

            “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.”

            Although I’m not always a big fan of paraphrases of the Bible, I have to admit I am captivated by Peterson’s translation of this verse. 

            “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” 

            This sentence in the Greek would read like this.  “The Word became flesh and blood and God pitched his tent among us.”  Pitching his tent or moving into the neighborhood, either way you read it, there is a depth to these words that isn’t conveyed by the word, “lived.” 

            The Word became flesh and blood.  God moved into the neighborhood where we jumped our bikes across ditches and played endless games of Freeze Tag and Mother May I.  God moved into our neighborhood. 

            Commentator Frank Thomas wrote that Peterson’s translation makes him think about the neighborhood he grew up in; a city neighborhood with lots of kids.  A neighborhood where they played stickball, turning the manhole covers in the four corners of the street into bases.  The Word became flesh and blood and moved into that neighborhood. 

            The Word became flesh and moved into my neighborhood, Frank Thomas’s neighborhood.  The Word became flesh and moved into your neighborhood.  The Word became flesh and moved into affluent neighborhoods, where the houses are big and set back from the street, barricaded by fences and gates.  The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhoods where no one goes out at night for fear of being mugged or worse.  The Word became flesh and moved into the barrios and the projects and the upper East Sides, the slums and suburbs.  The Word became flesh and bone and blood and moved into the poorest of poor neighborhoods and the richest of the rich.  The Word became flesh and moved into our neighborhood. 

            What is this Word that John writes of?  Is it the written word, scripture, the summation of adjectives and nouns and verbs that make up the testaments to God’s work in the world?  Yes.  But it’s even more than that.  The Word or Logos is what God spoke at the beginning of creation.  When God said … “let there be light and day and dry land.”  The Word is Life. The Word is the driving force behind the very universe itself.  The Word, the Logos is not just what we read about God, it is the very essence of God.  It is far bigger than we can understand or comprehend or describe.  But think about it.  That Word became flesh and blood and moved into our neighborhood. 

            While John’s prologue to his gospel does not contain a birth narrative as we understand it – a birth narrative that we find in Luke and Matthew – it is still a Christmas story.  It is still about how God’s love, God’s self became embodied in the flesh and blood of Jesus.  God, the Word, that which called the world into being, became flesh and moved into our neighborhood. 

            Why did this happen?  Why did this take place?  What was the point?  I think the answer can be found in the earlier verses.  Jesus, Love Incarnate, came into the world, became our neighbor so that we could become children of God. 

            As we read in verse 12, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” 

            I could go into lengthy descriptions of theological doctrines to explicate this passage; the doctrine of atonement, the doctrine of adoption.  While these are important doctrines of the church, it seems to be that being children of God is what truly defines us.  As one commentator wrote, it is easy to let the descriptions of ourselves become the definitions of ourselves.  We are single, we are married.  We are old, we are young.  We are short, we are tall.  We are strong.  We are weak.  We are employed or laid off or retired.  But those are just descriptions.  They’re not who we are, not really.  Being children of God, as John explains it and as I understand it, means that we are more than just products of biology.  We are more than our circumstances.  We are more than our greatest mistake, our most devastating failure, our most exhilarating triumph.  Being children of God means that we are more than the sum of our parts.  That is the grace upon grace, the gift upon gift we are given.  We are children of God because God loved us so much that God took on the frailties and the vulnerabilities and the weaknesses of flesh and moved into our neighborhoods. 

            God came into relationship with us so that we could be in relationship with God.  So that we could be in relationship with one another.  God moved into our neighborhoods so that we might truly be neighbors.  Perhaps we should keep John’s words in mind the next time we read Luke’s story about the Good Samaritan.  Who is our neighbor?  John tells us it is God, the Word, the Logos that pulled order out of chaos.  That Word became flesh and moved into our neighborhoods, so that we could become children.  Children of Light.  Children of Love.  Children of God.  That is the good news of Christmas, that is the good news of Easter, that is the good news of every day.  The Word became flesh and moved into our neighborhoods so we could become children of God.  Let all of us, all of God’s children, say, “Alleluia!”  Amen.

           

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[1] Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2002)