Who Are You? Seeing yourself through a new lens

“The Living Waters” Baptismal Font, FPCE

first in a sermon series, “Confirmation for Adults,” Isaiah 43:1-7; John 1:6-14

The Rev. John Hembruch, D.Min. + January 19, 2020

College Football is a profitable business. I’m not talking about football star Odell Beckham, Jr., handing out cash to players after his alma mater won Monday night’s game. I’m talking about the schools themselves. Several weeks ago, Forbes Magazine featured an article explaining the complicated rules governing payouts from the recent playoff.  For winning its championship, LSU will receive a bit more than $2-million, the rest of its $6-million payout divided among the SEC and its member schools.  This share is more generous than the Big 10, where newer schools are favored for payment over perennial powerhouses like Ohio State. For its appearance in the 2018 semi-final, Notre Dame, which still has no conference affiliation in football, was able to keep its entire $6-million, no sharing required.[1]  

 A more consistent source of revenue is provided by licensing programs.  The section of Ohio State’s website devoted to this topic proudly proclaims that the licensing of its trademarks has generated over $130-million from more than $1-billion in sales.[2]  A lot of people pay good money to show the world that they are Buckeye fans. 

If you visit the online store for the Fighting Illini, then you’ll find you can purchase much more than caps, shirts, and coffee mugs.  For $450, there’s a chrome pub table, and for $600, there’s a Fighting-Illini mini fridge. If you look further afield, there’s a $1,200 love seat with the school’s logo stamped on the back cushions.  For the imaginative and wealthy consumer, there are plenty of creative ways in which a university logo or mascot can be used, including vehicles, boats, entire rooms, garages, or vacation homes decorated in the theme of your favorite team.

Christian End is a professor of psychology who specializes in fan behavior. He offers a helpful label for someone whose fondness for a team must be identified with prominent and expensive symbols.  He calls this person a “high identifier.”[3]  

Hold on to that thought about a high-identifier for just a moment while I tell you about our new sermon series. Today, we begin “Confirmation for Adults,” in eleven parts, running through April, with some breaks built into the schedule. The series is my response to a longing I’ve overheard, “I wish there were a class like that for me.” Each week, the sermon topic will cover similar content.

In class, I ask students to identify themselves in terms like name, age, address, school attended, extracurricular activities, parents, siblings, and so on.  If I were to ask each of you hearing this sermon to identify yourself, then you probably would use similar categories, telling me about your family, your occupation, your special interests and hobbies.

From a pastor’s perspective, one of the interesting things to notice in this kind of conversation is when the dimension of faith appears.  Is it early or late? Does it come up at all? Is faith referred to indirectly, by listing churches attended or denominational affiliation? Or is faith expressed more directly by describing spiritual practices or service activities, perhaps even in language about trusting God or trying to do the right thing during the course of daily activities?  In terms of that opening story I asked you to hold onto, is the person a “high identifier” with Team Jesus?  

In class, I approach the topic of identity gently and gradually. First, I ask students to tell me about churches they’ve been affiliated with, years of attendance in Sunday school, and the reason they are here today in confirmation class.  Then, we move toward conversation about a milestone event that already has begun to shape them, even though they may not remember it: their baptism.  

The students’ homework for this week is to go home and ask questions about their baptism or dedication: When? Where? What did you wear, and how did you behave? Who attended the celebration?

I don’t ask our students the following, but it’s worthwhile answering silently. After your baptism, did your family attend church irregularly, or become more deeply involved? If you received a Bible, was it stored with a tight binding and crisp pages on a shelf, or was it worn and stained from use? In other words, in your life after baptism, were you a low or high identifier with Team Jesus?

Many things could be said about baptism, but for today’s purposes, I remind you that we Presbyterians say that baptism is a sign and seal of God’s faithfulness, not our faithfulness. Presbyterians emphasize God’s role in choosing us for Team Jesus, even before we can choose God, even in the periods when we don’t have the strength to be a high identifier with Team Jesus.

In choosing scripture lessons for today, I was drawn to the text from the 43rd chapter of Isaiah. If you’ve ever read through Isaiah, then you know that the gloom and doom of punishment at the hands of the conquering Babylonians is so severe that they no longer have power to determine the course of their lives.  It’s against that backdrop that God’s steadfast love and mercy is highlighted. “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine.”

This promise is enacted in our baptismal liturgy. As summarized by Pastor Jack Good, “Before the act of baptism, we refer to ‘this child’ … Then comes the … moment when the … pastor takes the child … and asks, “By what name shall we baptize this child?” The parents respond with their chosen name. Only afterward does the liturgy allow for the use of the child’s name. Religiously … that which had no name has been given a name …. Names are sacred words by which we are individualized. Jesus, in baptism, received a new name. So do his followers.”[4] Scripturally speaking, the name we are given, and the identity we share, is the one at the heart of our gospel lesson: “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God ….” 

I’ve titled this sermon with the question, “Who are you?” I want say plainly that one of the most profound and powerful ways you can answer that question is by responding, in whatever words work best for you, “I am a child of God.”  Sometimes, this fact can assert itself in surprising ways. 

William Willimon, former Dean of Chapel at Duke University, is a storyteller who tends to exaggerate in a way that is both humorous and endearing to the pastors in his audience.  My favorite Willimon story is about a conversation with a parent who phoned his office. In an exasperated and agitated tone, the man introduced his concern by saying, “I hold you personally responsible.”  “For what?” Willimon asked.  “My daughter!  We sent her to Duke University to get a good education.  She is supposed to go to medical school.  She is to be a third-generation nephrologist.  Now she has got some fool idea in her head about Haiti, and I hold you personally responsible.” 

Willimon says that the man told him who he and his daughter were.  “I knew her,” he writes, “but not well.  She ushered nearly every Sunday in the chapel.  She also was active in various campus causes and had been one of the organizers of last spring’s mission team.  How could anyone be upset by a daughter like her?” The dialogue unfolded this way. 

“As I said,” the man continued, “she was supposed to go to medical school.  Her grades are good enough.  Now this.” 

“Now what?”  

“Don’t act dumb even if you are a preacher,” he shouted.  “You know very well.  Now she has this fool idea of going to Haiti for three years with that church mission program and teaching kids there.  She’s supposed to be a doctor, not a missionary ….

He said, “None of this would have happened if it weren’t for you.  She became attached to you, liked your sermons.  You took advantage of her at an impressionable age.  That’s how she got so worked up about this idea about being a missionary.”

“Now wait just a minute,” said Willimon.  “Didn’t you have her baptized?”  “Well, yes, but we’re only Presbyterians.”  “And didn’t you take her to Sunday school when she was little?  You can’t deny that.  She told me herself that you used to take her to Sunday school,” he said triumphantly.  

“Sure we did, but we never intended it to do any damage.”  

“Well, she was messed up before we got her.  Baptized, Sunday Schooled, confirmed, and called.  Don’t blame this on me.  You were the one who started it.  You should have thought about what you were doing when you had her baptized.”  

“But we are only Presbyterians,” his once belligerent voice changing to a whimper.  

 “It doesn’t make any difference.  The damage was done before she ever set foot in our chapel. Congratulations, Mr. Jones, you just helped God to make a missionary.”  

“We just wanted her to be a good person.  We never wanted anything like this." 

“Sorry, you’re really talking to the wrong person,” Willimon said, trying to be as patient as possible.  “We only work with what we get.  If you want to complain, you’ll have to find her second-grade Sunday school teacher.  This is quite out of our hands.  Have a nice day.”

When we left the baptismal font long ago, when we leave this worship space each Sunday, there are cultural, societal, and spiritual forces that compete to define our identity. Some are healthy enough. It’s a fine thing to devote ourselves to family, as long as we include the One who is the source of love. It’s a noble thing to pursue a career that advances the common good, as long as we remember the One who is the north point of our moral compass.  Other forces are not so healthy. Sophisticated marketing messages try to convince us to consume new, improved, and more expensive things. Political forces try to sway us toward a particular ideology or party that claims first place in our hearts. Other voices tempt us by saying that personal freedom is the highest good, meaning that we become slaves to narcissistic individualism.    

Who are you?  Are you a high identifier with Team Jesus? Remember that no identity may be more life-giving, more radically counter-cultural, or more powerful to change the world than the simple one you received at baptism. “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.”

ENDNOTES

[1] Kristi Dosh, “LSU and Oklahoma Stand to Make More Than Ohio State or Clemson in College Football Playoff,” Forbes, 11 December 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristidosh/2019/12/11/lsu-and-oklahoma-stand-to-make-more-than-ohio-state-or-clemson-in-college-football-playoff/#49deb6416094 accessed 15 January 2020.

[2] https://trademarklicensing.osu.edu/page/home/

[3] Kathleen Nelson, “Ohio State fans are flushed with success,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 20 August 2005, OT14.

[4] Jack Good, “Naming names: Isaiah 43:1-7; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22, The Christian Century, 27 Dec. 2003, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2003-12/naming-names, accessed 15 Jan. 2020.