Baptism of Our Lord   January 8, 2006

    (This is a day we celebrate the baptisms of children of the last year.)

Spitt’in Image             Mark1: 1-8

Mark1: 1-8  In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And when Jesus came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.” 

Jesus comes up out of the Jordan River, having been baptized by John, and the voice from the heavens declares, “This is my Son; with you I am well pleased.”  It is as if God is saying, ”That’s my boy! That’s my boy!”

And so everybody could say about Jesus, “Yup, the spittin’ image of his father; the spitt’in image.”

This font is where the children of Zion were baptized during 2005, all 11 of them.  I have this thought as we remember and celebrate their baptisms: This dear truth, what a lovely law it is, that when something comes alive, it is like the things that brought it into being.  What a good thing that we can trust that when something is born, it is going to be like its parents, like the things that gave it life.  There is a passing on of genes, of DNA, a passing on of image, a passing on of quality, character, because that gives us something to trust, in this extraordinary event of life coming to be, and the way in which we can kind of see the future.

        Let me show you what I mean: in this hand I have some bean seeds..  Now it is a good thing that bean seeds, when you put them in the ground and nourish them, will grow up to be beans.  Bean seeds make beans.  Simple truth, and we trust it all the time.  Wouldn’t the farmer be shocked if he planted bean seeds in his field and he went out one day and found the ground growing pumpkins!  No, it is good that what grows is the spittin' image of its parents, and we can  trust that law.

In this hand I have an egg; see it? (Use your imagination).  This egg is an eagle’s egg.  Now I can tell you how this egg came to be, because it is a wonder, and says something about the magnificence of the eagle.  I don’t know if you know this or not, but eagles court in the air, court on the wing.  Imagine that!  Imagine the eagles on the top of the sky, whirling one after the other, and sometimes rolling over on their backs, and dashing down and rising up on mighty wings.  It is a grand sight!  And then the extraordinary thing; they don’t land before they fool around; what they do is come together right there in the sky; they mate in the sky, and being busy doing that, they fall, so it is in the midst of that trajectory, in the midst of that dash down toward the earth that they must be done soon, before they hit the ground, and then they fly up.  It is a grand, wild way to live.  “On the wild side,” as they say.

So this egg is an eagle’s egg.  It should hatch into a magnificent eagle.  I would be shocked if, when it hatched, it was a snake!  But you see how lovely that rule is, that the baby eagle will be the spittin’ image of its magnificent parents.  And if this is a snake egg, I can assume that it will be a reptile out of it, and it will not shock us.

So see how important it is, that a child be the spittin’ image of its parents?  It is a good thing, that when these parents brought their children to church for baptism, it wasn’t a cat, or a bird.  People bring forth people.  The law holds, dear and lovely.  You look into the face of these children, and you no doubt see the parents image. Spittin image. 

 “Spittin’ image” = You know that phrase?  What is the “spit?”  What does it mean?  Did the papa spit on the child?  Not at all.  I searched it out.  This is the truth, not a made up definition: “Spittin’ image” = it is a southern term, from the old south, what they say not “spittin” but “spirit”  the spirit and image of your father.  The phrase means that you are not only one who

looks like your parents, but you have the same spirit as your parent has.  And I say “how good that is!”  How good it is that I can expect that the child will grow up in the spirit and image of its parents. 

And then I think of my experience as a father; and I don’t know if this is true of you, but all of a sudden that good thing begins to look to me like a terrible thing.  Because I have some things in my spirit that I don’t want my children to have.  And parenthood is a powerful influence to have, isn’t it.  I don’t just mean what you teach from your mouth, but what your spirit is, powerful, to shape a child, and what that child is going to be. 

When I was young, and my mother and father would do things, in the secret of my heart I would say, “I’m not going to do that; I will never do that to my children. I’m gonna stop me from doing that to my children,” whatever it was. 

And then I grew up, and I had children, and you know what?  I did it!  My father’s spirit dwelt in me, my mother’s spirit dwelt in me, even though I said “no” to it, “I don’t want it.”  But I find some times I say “John, don’t do that!  Don’t do that; that is what you were never going to do!” And then the other part of me, the part my children see, I am all red in the face, and I am hollering at them, and roaring, and I am doing it!  That’s why, when I think that my children are going up in the spittin’ image of me, I don’t like the spirit.  Because when they grow up, my spirit may be in them, and it is not a good spirit.  What a sad thing.

What we as parents pass on to our children is a good thing, it is life for them.  But we also pass on to them a shortness of life, a truncated life, with death at the end for them.  When our kids get temperatures of l05 and sweat, and I would say, that’s what I gave my child!? the spit I gave him, that he should live a little while and then die!?

And then when I send them off into this crazy world, and I gave them such a short and vulnerable life, cause I know how short and vulnerable my life in this world is, and I think, that’s the spit I gave to my kids!

Now this is important: what I told you is true, we shape our children into a little good and a little bad.  That is our human spit..spirit.  And they do take our image and our ways

How lovely then, how dear and good then, that the mighty God at baptism, kind of pushed parents away, and the mighty God said to the child, said to the kids,’ “you are my child!  I am your father, I am your parent.”  And from this moment on, something new begins.  Baptism doesn’t end something, it begins something.  In baptism the child doesn’t do anything; it’s just a baby.  The parents don’t do anything at that point.  I didn’t do anything.  God did something.  God wrote in the universe a law, and the law said “This child is mine.  I am this child’s parent, and from this day forward, I have this child in my spit/spirit and image!” 

When we know our weakness, we rejoice in the power of God; when we know our sin, we rejoice to know that God should choose our children, and make them God’s children.

Now, don’t you know, as these children grow up, and know who their adopted father, God, is, that image of God shapes them.  That is a wonder, cause now the father’s spirit is one of forgiveness.  For all the messings we do, cause we still have the spirit/spit of our parents in us, God can slide in, forgive our poor labor, and re-create in those children new spit, new image.  And the life God gives isn’t short, nasty, vulnerable to this crazy world, but the life that God gave the children at baptism is everlasting.

That is the dearness of the act of God in this sacrament we call baptism, that God should say, “OK, Jack, when you grow up, you are my boy!”  And others are going to say that “he’s the spittin image of the mighty God.”

Not just the children, but all of us, as we renew our baptism.

There are two spits that want us.  There are two parents that shape us, and you shall be shaped by one spit or the other.  And one is the God who still is the father, and wants you.  But the other is this world, and the world also is a powerful parent to shape you into certain habits and certain actions.  And they are not lovely, they are hurtful, and killing.  That spirit also wants you.

A few years ago someone broke into my mother’s house, when she lived across the street from Erika and me.  They stole some stuff, and threw stuff all around, and broke things, they destroyed; and somehow they justified in their mind that it was ok to barge into someone’s house and take what they wanted....that somehow they had a right to break violently into another human being’s life, and to rifle that life, and to take the possessions.  Some how they justified that action. People, that is the spit/spirit of the world.  The spirit of the world is an intrusive spirit, that feels righteous in smashing into other human beings lives, whether that means their homes, or their souls or their emotions, or their love.  And once inside, it feels righteous in battering around inside, so that another human being hurts.  But the spirit of this world doesn’t  acknowledge another’s hurt; it only acknowledges one’s one gain.  That’s all! 

And the spirit of this world is intensely theological.  It can justify whatever it wants to do.  And it wants us.  Now, we may not bust windows, but we bust peoples eyes, we bust into people’s hearts, we bust into their lives, and we demand, we say with out pouting, or with our bitterness, or with our anger, or with the stomping of our feet, or with our caginess, or with our tricks, we demand love, we demand the furniture of their souls, we say “you owe it to me!” and then we justify how we are able to reach into these other people, whether they are our parents, or our spouses, or our children, or our neighbors, or our friends.  We are able to justify that they owe to us whatever we are asking for.  And it isn’t computers or i-pods we want of them; it is abject service.  “You must serve me.”  That’s the spit/spirit of this world.

This, people, is why it is so important to remember that God is your parent, and that again and again, that with power through Jesus, God calls us to be God’s children, in God’s spit/spirit.  God’s spirit is what we saw in Christ, who did not attack, did not break into other lives, but to touch and heal.  His spirit was not to be served, but to serve.  If he took anything out of people’s lives, he took out evil spirits.                                                                            

That’s our God, who wants us to be in God’s spit/spirit/image. 

It will shape you; if God is allowed to be your parent, God will shape you into his image.