Matthew 3:13-17 [NASB]

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Then Jesus *arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him. 14 But John tried to prevent Him, saying, I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me? 15 But Jesus answering said to him, Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.Then he *permitted Him. 16 After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and [a]he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and [b]lighting on Him, 17 and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, This is [c]My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased. Have you ever been loved despite who you are? Im not talking about those who mask their hatred for you under the claim that they love the sinner but hate the sin. Im talking about that subtler sort of discrimination where someone tries to love you by denying who you are that backhanded compliment that often gets voiced as I dont think of you that way. In other words, my stereotypes are quite well intact, thank you very much, Im just not going to apply them to you. This sort of backhanded compliment also frames the experience of those of us who are disabled and who dare to succeed at anything in our lives. The disability movement talks about this phenomenon as the supercrip stereotype. The media picks up on stories of people with physical or mental limitations who succeed despite the odds and overcome their disability. Sometimes this is shown through the evening news highlighting the grand accomplishments of disabled people like Aaron Fotheringham a young lifelong parapalegic who does backflips on his wheelchair at the skate park. Sometimes this is seen in smaller inspirational stories about people with disabilities who never let their disability get them down. You would not believe how many people think they are complimenting me when they tell me that they forget that I am partially sighted, because I get around so well and :dont act blind. (Whatever that means). Unmentioned in these inspiring stories is the underlying, often unconscious, disabling assumption that physical, mental, or emotional difference is a tragedy that should normally render us miserable, pathetic, and worst of all in our capitalist society unproductive. Sentimental heroes are made out of the disabled, because we are unable to believe that people whose bodies and minds work differently could otherwise be real honest to goodness boring people. In the process, we construct another disabling barrier to participation in community by communicating that those of us with different bodies cannot be a normal part of our community because we are so tragically different. The disability movement emphasizes that it is society, not our bodies, that disable us. While the experiences of being sexual minorities, gender minorities and the experience of being disabled differ in important ways, we share in common the experience of exclusion from community. In different ways, we have all experienced a society that seeks to police our bodies through shaming us, discriminating against us, and excluding us from full participation in society. The underlying message to all of this is you need to either become like us, or you cannot be one of us. Todays passage finds Jesus and John the Baptist disagreeing about what it means to be included in the community of Gods people to become one of Gods. Jesus comes to John the Baptist seeking baptism as a representative of Gods people to demonstrate Gods acceptance

and love for Gods people. This queer choice by Jesus to participate in a sinners baptism bewilders John, in the process exposing Johns assumptions. You see, prior to this encounter, John believed that dirty sinners, and those whose bodies made them ritually impure through sex, menstruation, and other sorts of embodied difference (i.e. being human) required that one be washed clean by the waters of baptism in order to join Gods people. Knowing this, we can understand why John receiving this request from a person he clearly regards as holy would confuse him. Believing that baptism existed to fix broken people so that they could become worthy of entering Gods presence, he could not fathom why someone like Jesus the one person whom he did not see as tragically broken and unworthy-would need to be baptized. Jesuss response to this, as seems to be so often his custom, is rather cryptic. His baptism is appropriate and necessary in order to fulfill all righteousness. The idea here is that Jesus, through his baptism, is enacting Gods will for right relationship. What is happening in Jesuss baptism is the way that thing should be and will be. This is the way of right relationship with God and neighbor that we find in the reign of God -- in the kingdom /queendom of God that Jesuss ministry opens up for us. The radically transformative event that happens in Jesuss baptism comes in the words of God from heaven. Those words where God reiterates about Jesus what God had previously said about all of Gods people this is my beloved child in whom I am well pleased. The divine pyrotechnics of the heavens opening up, the Spirit descending, and God speaking can make this entire event seem otherworldly. It would be a mistake, though, if we let the spectacle of Jesuss baptism distract us from the truth of what God says to Jesus and what those words mean to us. Here, it is important to realize that this is not a private event between God and Jesus. Some commentators have erred in assuming that the baptism of Jesus highlights Gods unique relationship with Jesus, as if Jesus alone was Gods beloved Child. Now, I do not mean to deny that Jesus has a unique relationship with God -- his heavenly parent whom he called Abba. There are other places in the bible that emphasize the unique identity and role of Jesus as Gods only begotten child, but thats not whats happening in this particular passage. Scripture consistently uses the language of Gods child (or the son of God, as many sexist translations unfortunately put it) to refer to Gods people and their royal representatives. Gods people, in whom God delights, whom God has delivered from slavery to sin, addiction, and death, are the audience to whom God speaks when the heavens open up at the baptism of Jesus. In todays passage, when we see the heavens open up and hear God declare This is my child, whom I love; with whom I am well pleased we should hear God saying the same to us. Along with Jesus, we are Gods beloved children in whom God delights. As God speaks these words to us alongside Jesus, we are reminded that this is not the first time that God has declared Gods love for Gods beloved children. Lets turn for a moment to Jeremiah 31:20, our other scripture text for today, a scripture that would have been immediately brought to mind for the original readers of the gospel by the words God spoke at Jesuss baptism. you are my dearest child, the one I love best. Whenever I mention your name, I think of you with love. My heart goes out to you; I will have rachamim. English really cant do justice to rachamim the Hebrew word that our English bibles usually translate as mercy. Rachamim shares a common root with the Hebrew word for wombit means the compassionate, embodied, love and safety of the womb.the mercy a mother should naturally have for her child. An embodied love. A stubborn and faithful and enduring mercy. This is not a love that we have to prove ourselves WORTHY of. This is a love that is rooted in the deepest parts of Gods person. This is a love that does not

discriminate. A love that does not grow or diminish based on performance. A love that does not need to be impressed by obedience or performance, and that cannot be frightened away by difference or anything else in all of creation. This is a love that does not judge. This is a love that loves us as Gods children purely because we are Gods beloved children. you are my dearest child, the one I love best. Whenever I mention your name, I think of you with love. My heart goes out to you; I will have rachamim. Thus says Adonai. Thus says our God Really, we should just end the sermon there. That love says everything, if we can only attend to it. But if youre anything like me, we can get really good at ignoring Gods voice. Its hard to hear Gods voice to us, as Gods beloved, and to live in that truth, because knowing we are beloved changes everything. If we all are Gods beloved. If I am Gods beloved child and so are you and so are you. That should transform how we relate to each other. Our identity, value, and place in the community of Gods beloved is not determined by our physical appearance, our abilities, our sexuality, our gender identity, or any other variable that is a part of who we are. I am not a figure to be pitied as a fat, blind, gay man. I am a child of the living God. I do not have to do cartwheels for you or act like the perfect student, child, parent, or Chirstian to demonstrate that I am worthy of love despite who I am. I am a child of the living God. I do not have to overcome that identity, I do not have to be pitied in that identity, I do not need you to overlook that identity. I, Darren McDonald, partially sighted, fat, leather pervert, am a beloved child of the God who made me, who knows me, who loves me, and who DELIGHTS in me. This is not a love INSPITE of my sexuality or INSPITE of my visual impairment or INSPITE of my fetishes. This is the love that birthed ME into being. This is the love that dreamed me into existence as the beautiful and beloved creation that I am. This is the love that gives me the strength to live out my life in this world as the person that I was made to be. It was this love that gave Jesus the strength to live life as an outcast whose questionable parentage kept him marginalized. It was this love that Jesus extended to other outsiders, knowing that they were also Gods beloved children. It was this love that enabled Jesus to face those violently oppressive disabling institutions that sought to silence, and that in the end crucified, him. As followers of Jesus, we are called to first find ourselves within the love of the God who made us, who knows us, and who loves us as Gods beloved children. When we find ourselves rooted in the power of that love, we are freed from the demands of society to perform to their expectations. Ultimately, the only evaluation that MATTERS is the evaluation of the God who made us and who loves us as we are. That God does not need us to be supercrips, or the perfect queer parents. That God does not pity us. That God delights in us, as we are, as Gods beloved child. As we recognize that we are ALL Gods beloved children, we can work to resist those barriers to participation in community that dehumanize Gods children. We can resist those attitudes that we encounter, within our selves and within our world, that call some people more worthy of admiration and love than others, that mark some as superheroic and others as pitiful, that see others through stereotypes and social norms rather than through the love of God for Gods children We can also work to transform those institutional barriers that keep people from fully participating in society. Outside of church, we can ally with each other in working for social justice for all people, refusing to get ensnared in single-issue politics that disregard injustice done outside of our rainbow bubble. Inside the church, we can also work for justice, knowing that this is an old relatively inaccessible building that can disable some in our

congregation. Beyond this, we can work to insure the full participation of all people in our congregation, remaining vigilant to insure that all people and all voices are truly welcome at this table. Beloved, hear the words of God to you.you are my dearest child, the one I love best. Whenever I mention your name, I think of you with love. My heart goes out to you; I will have rachamim. Thus says Adonai. Thus says our God. May you know, now and always, that you are ONE of Gods beloved children. And so is the person next to you. Amen.