Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17
The Rev. Candice B. Frazer
Every so often, when Steve and I are watching tv, he will flip through the channels while I’m reading a book or playing with my phone and stop on Joel Olsteen. Now Steve doesn’t particularly like to watch Joel Olsteen, what he enjoys is timing me to see how long it takes for me to realize what is on the television and start ranting. I’m not sure why Steve thinks this is funny—maybe my predictability in how I will respond, or maybe simply because he just wants to “get my goat”—but every time it happens, I am reminded of the number of people
this modern-day snake oil salesman has harmed. Granted Joel Olsteen is not spreading a message of damnation—at least not overtly—but his brand of “Christianity” (and I use that word loosely) does just as much damage as any hellfire and brimstone preacher might do. He might not be scaring you into salvation, but he is trying to sell it to you.
Christianity is not defined by the Prosperity Gospel of the Joel Olsteen’s of the world. Just because you believe in God and pray faithfully doesn’t mean your life will be one of ease. There is absolutely no truth to the message, “God will make you wealthy if you give me $10. $10—that is all it takes to know the prosperity of the Lord.” Not only is there no truth to those claims—they are offensive to God, to me, to every Christian on the planet, every saint who has gone before, and every saint yet to be. Our God is not a prosperity god. Nowhere in scripture does God promise us an easy life or even a wealthy one. We get the exact opposite of that message. Over and over again we are told that we will suffer but we can endure it through Christ who is our strength and our salvation.
This message of prosperity is the lie we tell ourselves because we think that is what will make us happy or fulfilled or important or powerful. But the Prosperity Gospel is anything but a truth. Joel Olsteen sits on a throne of lies, and the reason his gospel is so harmful is because it reinforces a transactional relationship with God that says, “If I do this, then surely God will do that.” And that relationship doesn’t center on God, it is centered on us.
God does not want a transactional relationship with us. He is not some big investment banker in the sky looking to capitalize off of our prayers or praise of him. Instead, God invites us into a transformational relationship with him. A relationship in which we grow together, a relationship that resembles more a partnership than a hierarchy, a relationship rooted in covenant.
The most basic understanding we have of the covenant of God is that which he offered to the patriarchs, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” Even in these most simplistic terms, we find that our relationship with God has nothing to do with transactions. God does not define terms or limits; he simply defines relationship. The covenant is the invitation that we are offered—take it or leave it. Those of us who are willing to enter into the covenant are offered an invitation to transformation and that invitation begins with our baptism.
(Later) This morning, we will baptize little Malin Hill into the covenant. In so doing we will reaffirm our own Baptismal Covenant, professing our faith in the Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and affirming with God’s help our intention to worship at church, to resist evil and return to God, to evangelize by being bearers of the Good News., to seek and serve Christ in one another, to respect every human being. And though we affirm these actions of our faith, we bear no expectation or agenda that by doing so we win any greater favor with God. We don’t have too.
We know that before anything else, God sees us as his beloved children—not sinners in need of redemption. What we are doing this morning in the baptism of little Malin is not about saving her from her sins—we have no power to do that whatsoever. And besides that, Jesus has already done that for us. What we are doing, is reclaiming and reminding this child and all who witness her baptism today, that she is a beloved child of God and there is nothing she or anyone else can do to change that.
We are all beloved children of God—that is the whole point of God’s covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. That is the covenant Isaiah alludes to this morning—the covenant God has given his people, “a light to the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring the prisoners from the dungeon.” We are the blind; we are the imprisoned. The kingdom is all around us and yet we do not see it. The temptations and distractions of this life imprison us to choices that ostracize God and one another so that we seek things like prosperity instead of peace and joy. The psalmist this morning alludes to the covenant when he declares that God will “give strength to his people; the Lord shall give his people the blessing of peace.” And, in return, all we must do is cry, “Glory!” Peter invites Cornelius the Centurion and his household, Gentiles and a Roman soldier no less, into a relationship with God by introducing them to the covenant on his visit to Joppa, “God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who knows God and chooses God is part of God.” And now, Jesus at the river Jordan, also reinforces the covenant simply through his baptism.
Jesus is baptized by John not because he is a sinner in need of redemption but because of his and our belovedness. His baptism is proper and fulfills righteousness because it is an outward and visible sign of the covenant God made with his people so long ago—before history, before the nations, when the earth was young and humanity had yet to establish the civilizations of the world. It is a sign to us as to God’s faithfulness and we participate in it as a reminder and reassurance of our own faithfulness.
We do not define Little Malin as a sinner in need of redemption. She is a beautiful daughter of Eve and beloved child of God. She has bright eyes and a precocious smile. Her questions and words reflect a wonder of the world that is grounded in joy and curiosity. There is nothing about this child that needs forgiveness. Her baptism is not about sin, it is about righteousness. It is about the perfection of a covenant that God has established with his people and that we, as the church, continue to engage in as we grow and welcome more and more into the body of Christ.
On that day by the river, John hesitated to baptize Jesus recognizing him as the one who is to come, the anointed one, the Messiah. Yet, he consents when Jesus reminds him that it takes both God and his people for this covenant to exist. And in that moment when God and his people renew that covenant with one another through baptism, the heavens open and the Holy Spirit descends like a dove and the voice of God replies, “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” I think God says that every time a new member of Christ’s body is baptized into the faith, “this is my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”