To Be Baptized
January 9, 2000
Mark 1:4-11/ Acts 19:1-7 

Ally McBeal has a problem and it is not that she is too skinny.  And it is not so much that her show is almost un-watchable these days.   Actually I am really not a television guy. At least I don’t watch regularly any shows that are on. I will  occasionally turn something on that is not a sporting event or a movie. But not very often. But Melanie had great enthusiasm for this show and gave us some tapes of the show. And it wasn’t too bad. In fact I kind of liked it. But I soon noticed that in the shows that I watched there was one theme that kept emerging and has not been solved yet. And that is Ally McBeal’s problem. She can not decide if Mr. Right and Perfect is out there or not and so not being certain she wonders should she wait for him. Or if she should settle for something less than Mr. Right and Perfect.
Of course the problem can never be solved, because, for one, there is no Mr. Right and Perfect (people being people she must at sometime be disappointed with everyone even one she believes to be Mr. Right and Perfect) and so she will always feel like she is settling. This is a losing proposition no matter which way she goes.
It is like so much of life. We long for the ideal but know that to wait for it is foolish so that everything we do and everything that we decide upon is always less than we hoped it would be. If this is how you frame your life decisions you will always feel as if something is lacking.
It seems like there are only two choices. Hang onto ideals that are unrealistic and so unachievable or realistically tone down the expectations so that you will not have to feel so disappointed.
I actually heard a sermon like that once. T he preacher was using his wife and his marriage as an example. He said something like it was and she was eighty percent great. Which is of course, realistically a compliment and a pretty glowing statement about his marriage. But again it means that it is somehow lacking, somehow not quite what it could be, somehow there might be someone out there who is better than his wife. And to me, no matter how realistic that is just seems to be disappointing. (And not very wise on the preachers behalf!)
Why would you understand your life so that it had to be disappointing, or not quite what it should be? It is not that life is inherently disappointing. I do not believe so. Because these are not the only choices. Settling for less or pining for that which is impossible. I tell you I am always suspicious when faced with an either/or proposition. Because I believe that reality is seldom black or white, either or, one or the other, usually there are many more choices. Reality is rarely one or the other.
At least the reality that Jesus talked about and Jesus lived.
The scripture today is about Jesus’ baptism. Now this is something we in the religious biz have construed to be an "either-or" kind of event. You are either baptized or you are not. And in many parts of the Christian world there is a great stigma that goes along with not being baptized. Many if not most Christian sects believe and preach that if you are not baptized you are not fit for heaven. God will not accept you if you have not had the sacred rite performed. (Please be assured that this is not what Congregationalists usually hold to.) This fear about heaven is why we have this tradition of baptizing infants. It grew up because people were afraid that
their baby would die and then not be able to go to heaven because they had not been baptized. Of course this is but a crude superstition. You can find little scriptural evidence to back up this idea.
But Christians have construed this baptism event as some kind of door that once entered made them acceptable to God. And this was something you either are or are not. Either you were Christian or not. As if by being baptized you would have achieved all you need in the eyes of God. But is just is not true. Any more than Ally McBeal meeting Mr. Right would then make her live happily ever after. Both are only beginnings.
Because as we all know there is much more that goes into being Christian than simply being baptized. In fact being baptized as a Christian makes little difference in terms of your status as a child of God. There is no privilege that goes along with the event.
You see being Christian is not like joining a club, even though it looks a lot like it in most churches, even ours. Christian is not a noun it is a verb. So the question is never are you baptized, are you a member of a church, are you counted among the elect but rather what have you done to be a blessing this day? None of us are either/or. All of us are sometimes blessings and sometimes not.
The baptism of Jesus was not an initiation into some heavenly realm but rather the beginning of a ministry; it was the beginning of a process.  And that process is a little different than we might expect. The first thing that the spirit does to Jesus is not to usher him into heaven but rather to drive him into the wilderness. There he would be tempted and tested and readied not for heaven but so that he could grow into his work as the bringer of an entirely new kind of blessing.
This is the key to every either or situation you face in this life. Jesus could have construed this moment, the moment where having been baptized he is ushered out into the wilderness as proof that this God given life was somehow less than perfect.
Isn’t that what we all do when something goes wrong. And if you don’t think that this is like something going wrong please consider that Jesus has just submitted himself to this rite of passage, he as been touched by the holy spirit, her has heard God.   He has had this wonderfully spiritual experience and if this were really of God it would lead to nothing but good things right? Like heaven. Isn’t that what we expect?
When we get real tight with God? Blessings, privileges, good times? Yes and if we don’t receive those things we are left to wonder what did we do wrong. We are left disappointed. And just think how disappointed Jesus must have been. The Son of God with whom God is well pleased is driven out into the wilderness to face Satan.
That seems a little less than the optimum outcome. 
But remember God is not after establishing some privileged class. That is not what God wanted when he sent Jesus into the world. What God was after was growth, maturity, and faith. God wanted to create a group of people who would carry out God’s work, who would care like God did, who would love like God wanted, who would make a difference for the good, for the better. And that takes growth, maturity, and faith.
That is what Jesus baptism was aimed at and every experience that we face in this life. Nothing in this life is ideal that is true but that is not the stuff of disappointment. That is the opportunity for faith, and growth, and maturity. In every thing we face we have the opportunity to grow unto God in a way that truly enables us to become the kind of people that can give to each other in a way that brings the blessings of God to bear.
So for Ally McBeal and every other human being that ever lived there is another choice than despair and disappointment when this life falls short of what we want.
And that is that the seeds of what God wants you to be are taking root right now in your life. They might look like something awful or terrible, or even nothing at all but they are there and come to life by how you respond. The critical moment is how you respond. If it is in faith and trust you will grow and be a blessing. And that is the element that makes this life far better than perfect and gives us all potential to be the blessings God hopes us to be.
In Christ Jesus. Amen.