Jeremiah 20:7-13
Romans 6:1b-11
Matthew 10:24-39
So, you have been baptized into Christ Jesus, do you feel different? Different than what, would be a good question. Do you feel different than before you were baptized? For those that were baptized as an infant, that would be something to hear wouldn’t? Baptism is a changing from the old self centered, inward focused, all about me to the new self, outward focused upon others, not self.
Okay, so those of us who have been baptized as infants and children, probably cannot say there is a difference before or after the baptism. What we can say is if we have been living out the new self, learning to follow Jesus. Being a disciple is about learning. The term disciple means to be a “learner”. A disciple is not the master, but continually learning. This means that we make mistakes; we are not perfect but can only look towards a day when we will receive perfection in our resurrection in Christ Jesus.
Jeremiah cries out against God and complains of how unfair he has been treated by those he prophesies to as well as what God has done to him by enticing and overpowering him to speak out against the people that mistreat him because of what he tells them that God has said. Jeremiah, a prophet is different than disciples, yet he is also not perfect. In the reading today, Jeremiah complains against God, against his persecutors, he wants to hold back, not proclaim the word of God. He cannot hold back, he is compelled through a burning fire shut up in his bones to speak. This desire Jeremiah says God has put in him.
Jeremiah wants to remain with the old self, one that is focused upon him, doing what he wants to do not what God wants him to do. He cannot be this way, he has already taken the step out of the darkness and into the light and must speak what God has put upon his heart, what God has called him to do. Haven’t you felt that desire to speak, speak what God has told you to speak about, what you know is the truth? I have and it can be feel like I am all tied up in knots, I am excited and scared, I just want to jump and click my heals but I also don’t want anyone to see or hear me.
Upon a baptism, you might hear “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” The light of Christ in us shines in the darkness of our sinful self, guiding us to our new self in Christ. As humans, we are imperfect, fallible and commit sins.
It is the grace of God in the death and resurrection of God’s Son, which we die to sin and are reborn new in Christ, in our baptism. The sins of the past and the sins of the future have no hold upon us. We have our own Exodus through baptism but even then we still wander in the wilderness. Our failures to shine do not condemn us but does that we mean we should give up and let sin rule us or as Paul asks in the Romans text, “Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? 2 By no means!”[1]
As Lutheran’s we often use Grace as our out. It is the grace of God through the death and resurrection of Jesus upon the cross that saves, not our works. Yet if we do not attempt to live a life, responding to what God does, then do we not just live a life full of abundant “cheap grace”? What Jesus did, was far from cheap, it was costly. The costly death that we are united in and ourselves die in, the old self, and the life we have in the resurrection of Jesus, to our new selves, demands us to respond.
The response that we have can take so many forms, the response centered upon Christ, to serve others before ourselves. How about a doctor who takes on patients knowing they will not receive payment or payment in livestock instead. A Lawyer who takes on cases that they will never receive payment for but knows the person being represented needs their assistance. A person who chooses to change jobs, maybe one very high paying, to something that pays very little but sees a need, feels compelled to respond to the need. There are so many examples of what the world tells us we should do, which are contrary to what God wants us to do. It is not about I, number one, but about everyone else.
As we heard in Jeremiah, the burning put upon us by God, to respond does not mean we will not be persecuted, or mocked or as it says in Matthew even have out bodies killed. What to fear more is not following the light and responding instead in darkness. When we are tempted and temptation happens daily, from small temptations to large, when we respond in darkness to the darkness, then not only is our body destroyed but so is our soul. Not by God but by us in following the tempter from hell.
Grace abounds for us, baptized in Jesus’ death. The love of God abounds in the grace that is showered upon us in the death of the old self and the creation of the new self. We are no longer enslaved to sin but freed of the bonds of sin. Baptism is more than a rite of passage, it is a new identity and when we embrace the new identity even in our imperfection, then we become more of our identity. It can even seem like that old saying, fake it until you make it. How we act, how we respond, what we do shapes us to who we are and will be.
We must trust in our new identity, our new self. In our baptism, we either belong to Jesus or not. There is no partial belonging. We do not just belong to Jesus on weekends, not just Sunday. Jesus has more than part time custody He has full time custody. That too means that our bodies, our checkbooks, our votes, our property, all we are, all we do, our entire being belongs to Jesus.
The old self was about us, the worldly ways, look out for number one, ourselves. The new self is responding to Jesus in our new self, not because we must but because a burning desire that needs to be unbridled and let loose. It is in the new self that no matter the challenges, no matter the demons, we belong to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior to be united in death and united in life, because we can never die again. Death no longer has dominion over Jesus and therefore has no dominion over us. Our new self is calling us to respond to the love of God in Christ Jesus.
[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ro 6:1–2.