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Sermon 12/12/2025 – All that God Requires

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

The Gospel Lesson                                                            Matthew 3:13-17

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

Sermon Text

Today we gather together to celebrate Christ’s Baptism in the River Jordan. Though we sometimes replace this celebration with an observance of Epiphany, remembering the visitation of the Magi, it is always important to take time to remember that Christ was Baptized. Why is it important? Well, we have to look at the text itself to find out.

As John the Baptist says, it is a strange scenario to see Jesus be baptized. Jesus, who is God, did not cease to be God in his incarnation – just to be fully human alongside his divinity. Yet, in Baptism Jesus receives the Holy Spirit from the Father. The Trinity is always acting in concert with each other, never making decisions without the participation and input of the other members of the union, so this has to be an intentional act. When Jesus comes and is washed, we have to see that Jesus was doing something important. The Spirit gives its power to the God-man, and that Father affirms he is blessed… But why?

Was it just an act? I do not believe so. God is not a showman, although Jesus is a powerful presence wherever he speaks. His power is not in being entertaining or in orchestrating a good scene, it is in his authentic authority. Jesus speaks and you know that Jesus is being true to himself, and therefore showing us the truth of who God is and how God is. To come here and receive baptism, Jesus is doing something that is truly and authentically good, as Jesus says here to John, “it is proper not to fulfill all righteousness.” Jesus is doing something for the good of us in being baptized, and the specific good that this achieves is usually separated into two schools of thought.

The first, and the more general and mystical idea, is that Jesus made all water holy through his baptism. Rather than there being strict requirements for what kind of water someone should be baptized in, Christianity would allow all water to be used to bring people into the Church. One of the earliest texts we have in the Church The Didache, gives us a series of preferences for baptismal waters. The best is cold river water, the next best is warm river water, then a cold stream, then a warm stream, and so on and so forth. All water, even just a sprinkling of water, is sufficient to baptize a person, and availability of that water defines the mode of baptism used. I prefer affusion, dumping large handfuls of water onto people’s heads, but I don’t fault folks for choosing to sprinkle and save the mess.

We are also blessed by this to be able to give thanks for our baptism anytime we interact with water. In washing out face, in drinking a cup of water to start our day, in the rain that falls from the sky… All these thing give us an opportunity to reflect on God’s grace. Wherever there is water there is grace, and wherever there is grace there can be baptism.

The second thing that Jesus did in being baptized, the one that holds more water (heheh,) is that Jesus gives us an example of how to live. Jesus was not washed because he had to atone. The sinless son of God did not need to be washed to be part of God’s family. Yet, Jesus shows us how we are supposed to make our way home to God. Jesus “fulfills all righteousness,” by taking part in all aspects of life that we as sinful humanity must take part in. Jesus is technically exempt from the requirements of faith, being the author and perfector of faith itself, yet he gives it to us as a gift.

Baptism is the starting point of our faith. While many of us in our tradition will have received Communion before our Baptism, it is baptism that properly makes us part of God’s Church. When I gave my baby son the dripping juice off my finger when I took Communion, he received God’s grace in that sacrament, but when he is baptized in six months he will be properly joined to God’s church. It is a position he will affirm when he is older, deciding whether or not he will continue on in God’s family, but it is a gift received directly from God from beginning to end.

In Baptism we are reborn into God’s Kingdom, God’s family, and as such we in the Methodist Church only baptize once. We are born into life once from the womb and we are baptized into God’s Church once. Whether we receive that washing at birth, at six months, and eighty years old, or in the moment we leave this world – our baptism marks that we are part of what God is doing. Baptism reflects that God has been working with us our whole life ahead of our rebirth, that God’s grace is all over every part of our life. When we commit ourselves to the Church, or else our family makes the commitment to raise us in up the faith, we receive a special kind of grace.

Jesus showed us what Baptism means, by showing us that our work continues beyond being washed of our sins in the water. When we join the Church fully, whether in baptism for the first time or rededication of ourselves to God’s will at any point of our life. We like Christ need to take time, periodically, to go out into the wilderness of our lives and prepare for what God is doing. When we study, when we practice righteousness, when we “fulfill all righteousness,” then we do what God requires of us. Still more, it is important for us to show others what it means to live this life. To raise up children to know the love of God and neighbor, to teach them the doctrine of the faith, and to model faith such that they find joy in living within God’s family.

Today we celebrate Christ’s baptism, the washing that set in motion our own entry into God’s kingdom. Let us praise God for paving the way ahead of us, and let us live fully the life we are called to as member’s of God’s divine family. – Amen.

Sermon 11/10/2024 – How Easily we Brag

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Mark 12:38-44

As [Jesus] taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Sermon Text

Pride is one of the most dangerous things that exists in this world. We’ve talked before about how our language does us a major disservice in not separating out, “pride,” as a sinful state of being from “pride,” as having high esteem for something good in our life. I think, however, that the two are more related than even I would like to admit. There is not a huge leap between legitimate feelings of happiness about something good in our lives and an unhealthy fixation on it. Sometimes even legitimate pride become an unwillingness to acknowledge our individual and corporate failings or even our to see our dependency on God.

Throughout scripture one of the most consistent opponents to God’s good work are prideful people of faith. The prophets were usually up against the priests and fellow prophets they had worked with their whole life. Ezra and Nehemiah were heroes and villains in their own time – butting up against other members of God’s people who they did not think had the right pedigree to be part of the exilic community. Jesus most of all is documented as fighting against some of the most important people in the religious community of his day. He opposed scribes, pharisees, and sadducees. These groups were not inherently evil, he did not oppose them out of principle, but because of what they so often let themselves become.

Scribes were the literate in society, and held power as legal recorders and lawyers. Pharisees were the pastors of their day, giving God’s word to the people and instructing them in daily life. Sadducees were tied to the Temple, and they provided a moderating presence – ensuring the Torah was respected and clung tightly too. Yet, in each of these positions, with power and influence on the line, people would often begin to sin simply by investing importance in themselves and their way of being and doing that ultimately only served their own interests. Pride snuck in, pride made them self-interested, and pride led them to destroy their community.

Jesus talks about the scribes in particular in our passage. He says they wear long robes – why does that matter? What do you think a long robe indicates? Besides having a lot of fabric, therefore being expensive to make – long robes make it impractical to do manual labor. To wear one in public makes it clear that you are not someone who has to dirty their hands. Long sleeves added to this affect, and it is widely believed that the “coat of many colors,” which Jospeh wore was meant to show his brothers that Joseph was too good for the maula labor they were made to do out in the fields.[1]

Scribes are also described as praying long prayers in public, seated with the best people in worship and at parties. This is a criticism levied at the Pharisees as well, who are also described as wearing large phylacteries known as tefillin. These boxes containing scripture tied to the wrists and forehead.[2] Jesus is not saying it is a sin to pray, or to dress in robes, or to wear outward signs of faith like the tefillin. The sin came in doing these things for the sake of appearances rather than faith. If you ask me, the average offender probably didn’t realize when the things they had done changed from something they were doing for God and what they were doing for themselves.

As Christians today, we often read these warnings with a quiet nod. We know what its like to meet those overblown, holier-than-thou types. They’re insufferable! There’s no way we would ever do anything like what they do… Unless, we already do it without thinking. Unless we’ve become so accustomed to our faith being a badge we wear to congratulate ourselves rather than a way of life we embody, that changes and challenges us.

Think though, of what Christian culture is so often about. We wear hats on our heads, bracelets on our wrist, loud and proud declarations of our faith. T-shirts convey messages that let people know that we are Good Christian folk. Everything we see on Facebook that tells us we need to share it or else we’re secretly ashamed of God has to be shared! We have to let people know we’re Christian and that we’re not like all those other people in the world! We’re better through our faith, we’re more proper and we believe exactly what we should.

Is it wrong to wear a Christian slogan on a hat, or a bracelet, or a shirt? No, of course not. As long as it’s an actual good sentiment and not something antagonistic or improper. Is it wrong to share a prayer you read on Facebook that moves you? Absolutely not. Like the Pharisees of old, a Christian who shows their faith publicly is doing exactly what they should… Until they switch to showing off to people and not showing up for God. The shift from one to the other can be simple, slow, and yet it consumes us entirely.

How do we prevent that? How do we know which box we fall into? Firstly, I would say that self-awareness is always the first step to proper action. If we are willing to ask ourselves why we do the things we do, we will have a good answer. I’ve written out long posts on Facebook about my strong conviction as a person of faith… and then deleted them. Sermons likewise that I’ve thrown out, because I realized that I was not writing them for the good of God, but out of some strange sense of pride. I wear very plain clothes, only breaking out my clergy outfit when it matters that people know who I am.

True faith, true piety, true holiness that a person can be rightly proud of is self-evident. Prayer in public that comes from a natural belief God listens to our prayers and acts on them will be different than something we do to let the people know at the other tables around us that we’re good Christian folk. Sharing our faith for the purpose of glorifying God will look different than chasing down people and beating them with scripture.

Finally, I think that anything that truly inconveniences us bears the mark of an action that is hard to do out of selfish pride. If you have to give of yourself, and in ways that you truly find unpleasant, but you persist out of love of God and neighbor than it is hard to do that work out of pride. Christ humbled himself to the point of dying on the cross, and did so while actively dreading the terror ahead of him. While we do not face a cross, when we give till it hurts, that is a mark of our true faith.

The widow is at the close of this story, not to give us an excuse to give less to initiatives the Church is working on, but to remind us that there is a proportionality in faith. The widow gives very little to the offering, but to her that offering was a huge part of her livelihood. She felt that coin dropping in the plate, it was a real sacrifice that meant she had to go without. The rich who gave lavishly still had plenty to live off of, they didn’t feel a thing when they cut the cheque. How often are we willing to give till it hurts? Of money, of time, of resources. To do that is to humble ourselves, and to establish that we are doing the kind of work that is without pride, that is rooted in what God would have us do.

Thankless and difficult, that is often what the work that God calls us to do looks like. It does not demand others to look and laud us for it. It is quiet and humble, it does not insist upon itself. While others may see it and praise it, true pious action is often kept quiet. Seek to live a life that is full of God, full of actions that you can be proud of. Yet, do not let your hand slip from the pulse of your work, the authenticity of it, the true reason why you are embarking upon it. Let your piety be true, let your heart be humble, and do away with the parts of you that demands the approval of others. You will find Christ closer than ever in this. – Amen.

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