“You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.”
The social scientist, Brene Brown, in her book
“Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for Belonging,”
speaks eloquently about how
we are innately wired to be in community.
We are not wired as human beings to be alone.
In fact, she quotes neuroscience that testifies that
we need community at the core of our being
and that our body knows this and gives off warning signals otherwise.
She gives a very colorful illustration about how
when our body is hungry, we have hunger pains.
These hunger pangs signal to our body that our glucose levels are low
and that our body needs food before damage will happen.
Or that our body will give off the signal of thirst
as a reminder that our body needs water
before any sort of damage happens to our body.
In fact, she says our body gives off “pain signals”
to any part of the body in danger of tissue damage.
The body is warning itself
that it needs to either stop that activity or
to change the activity to not do any more damage to tissue.
She said that loneliness is a signal to the body that we need connection.
We need community now.
And if we do not, there will be some damage
that will be done to our body as in the whole body, mind and soul.
It is a powerful illustration that we do not just desire community
but that we need community and our body knows it.
Loneliness is powerful signal reminding us we need connection.
Who among us would not agree with that?
Up until the pandemic, we might have questioned it
but since the pandemic all of us have experienced
that need for connection and community.
Being alone not necessarily means loneliness.
We can be alone but we can be perfectly comfortable
because we know we have a connection through family and community.
But we can also be in a crowded room and be lonely
because we do not feel the connection.
This term of “connection” is what Brene Brown says is this longing;
it is the beloved community that we long for,
that we yearn for;
our body yearns to belong to a meaningful community.
Of course, just being part of a community is not necessarily a good thing
because we can be part of communities, if you would,
that can be damaging both to ourselves and to you society.
We saw that example in the Capitol just this last week
and just because they are belonging to something
does not necessarily mean that they were doing good.
That is an example of community gone awry.
We need to make sure we follow the right community
and seek the right connection.
What we celebrate today in the Baptism of the Lord
is the community of the Body of Christ.
We follow Christ and are members of that community.
The early Christians really found Jesus’ Baptism a bit of a scandal;
because remember John the Baptist,
and we hear it in today’s very short reading,
was in the desert baptizing a Baptism of repentance,
“Turn away from sin
repent and believe in the Lord.”
Jesus, submitting to that, was a struggle
because they really did not quite know what to make of it.
It is recorded in all the gospels
so they knew that they could not avoid it.
What they really needed to do was to think and reflect
about what was happening here: “Why was Jesus doing this?”
Jesus was ushering in a new Baptism:
a Baptism of the Holy Spirit;
a Baptism into a community and not just away from something.
This is what Jesus does.
We have this very powerful, dramatic scene
that as he comes up out of the water that
God the Father speaks and the Holy Spirit descends upon him and says,
“You are my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.”
The ultimate Trinitarian formula right there before us.
So what are we to make of all this?
Jesus is reminding all of us that
when we get baptized we become children of God.
We become adopted sons and daughters of God.
And he says to all of us at our Baptism:
“With you, I am well pleased. You are my beloved child.”
We become part of this community that we call the Body of Christ.
And we yearn for it in our spiritual bodies;
we yearn for the connection with God.
That is why it is so important when we come to the table,
the one table each Sunday,
we believe in the one Lord,
the one Baptism
and the one Christ.
And what we say is that we, yes,
we yearn to belong but also by being part of this community
that beloved community of the Body of Christ.
Then we become what we receive.
We become the Body of Christ once more.
Even though we might be at home because of the pandemic
and not actually able to receive the Body of Christ
we still ascent to being the Body of Christ by our “amen”
and even more popwerfully when we, here in person, we say it.
So whether at home or here in person
when we say, “Amen” to the Body of Christ,
which you say verbally yourselves by watching and being here,
we are saying “yes” to what we receive;
that we promise to become what we receive,
the Body of Christ once more this week.
Yes, we yearn to belong.
But belonging to a community also has responsibilities
and that responsibility is that we become
the very hands of Christ and the very feet of Christ;
and that what we do in this beloved community of the Church;
we promise to be that community for one another.
And I don’t just mean our immediate nuclear family,
which we know we need but also the wider community
of this community here at St. Simons
and all the different communities around the entire country
and the world that gather as the Body of Christ, the Church.
That is what we say when we become baptized.
So what is our responsibility?
What does that actually mean for us?
It means that we need to be welcoming in the way
that Jesus was welcoming;
that we get baptized into what Jesus has done
and we need to do as Jesus did.
Not just say, “I believe.”
The easy part is saying I believe.
The harder part is actually walking through what we believe;
is actually being what we believe - following Christ.
We are called to be welcoming to
those especially who feel disenfranchised.
Those who are on the peripheries.
The broken. The wounded.
The people who find it hard to see themselves as loveable.
We promise to be the beloved community to them.
To welcome them.
To love them.
And to do all that we can.
We all know that we need community.
The Church, the Body of Christ that we claim to be
is a unique community, a community of true belonging
that says that Christ is at the center in the One Lord;
in the One Table; in the One Jesus Christ.
Today, in the midst of so much division in our world;
in the midst of so many things that want to pull us apart
and make us individuals, we want to bind together as community.
We want to be what we claim to be,
the One Body of Christ
believing in the One Lord at the One Table;
we become what we receive.
“You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.”
