Beloved       Isaiah 43.1-3; Luke 3.21-22. 11 January 2004

What's in a name? We all have one. Our names could have been anything. If my cousin hadn't been born first Mom tells me I would have been David. My name is Lawrence and everyone including my mother has called me Larry from day one. After I grew up and could think for myself I asked my Mom why she couldn't have named me something cool like Balthazar or Wolfgang but by then it was too late. My name is Larry. It's who I am. As you know when we baptize a little one we always ask what name has been given. The name is a significant part of the action of baptism. Baptism is a sign of God's grace reaching out to us since forever and claiming us, holding us, showing us where we belong. In the expression of this gracious love that claims us before we even know our name, our name is known to God because it has been spoken for us in the midst of God's people in the presence of God. When the great prophet Isaiah speaking for God says these unforgettable words: I have called you by name, you are mine we have the language of God's heart defining the simple but profound reality that we belong to God. What does it mean to belong to God?

According to the prophet it does not mean that we will have special privileges. We will still have to pass through the fire and through the waters. We will, in short, in the living of this life on earth, suffer and die but we will not do these things alone or without meaning. The words of God spoken clearly and simply by the prophet continue incredibly to say: You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you. What would it mean to us if we heard that, really heard that? Who among us does not long to hear that with all we fear, with all the dangers and heartbreak of life around us and before us, that as fragile and temporary as we all are, we are precious in the sight of God, honored and loved. When we belong to God we belong to love. We are loved so that we will love. I am not just making this up. Love one another as I have loved you were the very words spoken by the one we call Gods' Son who speaks from experience for it was he who has loved us as he himself was beloved by God the Father and Mother of us all. If this sounds a little too fluffy for you I would simply remind you where love took him. We are profoundly comforted by the news that we are loved by God for only such love can save us but we are also profoundly challenged for this love asks much of us. Everything, in fact. The only love you get to keep is the love you give away.

It is not coincidental that at his baptism, Jesus is called the beloved. It is not just a word. It is a name, a name that describes who he is and consequently who we are for we who choose to follow him are him now. As the word in Isaiah has already clearly said, we are beloved, each of us.  In Christ we are the community of the beloved.

Henri Nouwen wrote a little book called The Life of the Beloved as a response to a friend who asked him if he would write something about the spiritual life addressed to secular people. The result was interesting because it turned out that the book was most appreciated within the church itself which didn't surprise me so much knowing that secularization is not just something that has affected non-church goers. Quoting Annie Dillard who writes, God used to rage at the Israelites for frequenting sacred groves. I wish I could find one. Martin Buber says: "The crisis of all primitive mankind comes with the discovery of that which is fundamentally not-holy, the a-sacramental, which withstands the methods, and which has no 'hour,' a province which steadily enlarges itself." Now we are no longer primitive; now the whole world seems not-holy. We have drained the sacred grove and snuffed it in the high places and along the banks of sacred streams. We as a people have moved from pantheism to pan-atheism. (Teaching a Stone to Talk) There is little doubt in my mind that there is something missing in this post-modern world, something important that cannot be regained by simply continuing along the path we are on now. There is another word I read recently that is related to this and takes it a step farther. Not only have we drained the sacred grove there are consequences to removing the sacred from our environment. Rabbi Michael Lerner writes, There can be little meaning to our lives if we don't stop this rush to fear, military aggression, environmental devastation, and spiritual emptiness that we are presently seeing. (In Zion's Herald May/June 2003)

This is a little off the subject but is anybody but me outraged and shocked at what is happening to the food we eat? This week it was salmon which is good for you to eat except for the abnormally high toxic content. They are telling us that we should cut down to less than one serving a month. Other agricultural products are shot up with hormones and pesticides and who know what else. What are we doing? Is nothing sacred?

Nouwen's book says it seems to me that we are all sacred. The book is about what we are talking about today, starting with the idea that we are beloved. We are sacred because we are beloved. We are sacred because we belong to God. We are from God and of God. Belonging  to God means that we do not belong to anything else that the world wants to tell us is  more important, more necessary. Many things will attempt to define us and claim us in this life. Whether it's consumerism, nationalism, fear, hatred, you name it, (whatever controls who we become and what we do) maybe just the idea that we belong to nobody but ourselves or the idea that nothing really matters anyway, the fact that we belong to God simply means that we not controlled by forces that want to use us for their own purposes without regard to who we are. It means that we can be a part of the world we live in without be enslaved to it. As Nouwen put it, That truth will allow you to receive the gifts you receive from your society and celebrate life. But that truth will also allow you to let go of what distracts you, confuses you, and puts you in jeopardy the life of the Spirit within you. When we belong to God there is one other thing we also belong to and that is each other. Mother Teresa said one time, If we have no peace it is because we forgotten that we belong to each other.  

Nouwen's little book describes the life of the beloved in four parts. As you will se the four parts closely parallel the life of the Beloved Son and as you may also perceive the four parts describe very well the sacrament. I don't think is a coincidence. In any case the life of the beloved is first taken. That is to say we are chosen by God. This does not mean that we are chosen over others. It means that we are chosen for others. Indeed everyone is chosen. That is why we are here in the world. God has chosen us to be here. But not everyone is aware of this and not everyone who has heard is willing to accept it. After all being chosen means also to be claimed. It means that we are loved so that we will love, claimed by God so we will know who we are. It simply means that God has chosen to love us. As those who know we have been chosen we live our lives out of gratitude. This is very important. The beloved life begins with a gift and with gratitude.

The second part is Blessedness. We are chosen and we are blessed. Every one of us has gifts to bring to the world. Most of us I am afraid are more aware of our inadequacies. We hear more criticism than praise but one of the tasks of the beloved is to offer blessings to people, to pay attention, to see the Spirit of God working in others, to tell them, to look for something good and to recognize it and declare it.  Just this week one of you offered me a blessing. It was a great encouragement to me. When we bless one another we heal the wounds of our brokenness, we experience our belovedness.

The third part is our brokenness. We are taken, blessed and broken. We are all broken in one way or another. Nouwen says our brokennes id as unique to each of us as our blessedness. As the beloved we are not afraid of our unique brokenness. Indeed we learn that from it can come blessing. Nouwen recounts an experience of its own to illustrate: I recall a scene from Leonard Bernstein's Mass that embodied for me the though of brokenness put under the blessing. Toward the end of this work, the priest, richly dressed in splendid liturgical vestments, is lifted up by his people. He towers high above the adoring crowd, carrying in his hands a glass chalice. Suddenly, the human pyramid collapses, and the priest comes tumbling down. His vestments are ripped off, and his glass chalice falls to the ground and is shattered. As he walks slowly through the debris of his former glory - barefoot, wearing only blue jeans and a T-shirt - children's voices are heard singing, "Laude, laude, laude," - "Praise, praise, praise." suddenly the priest notices the broken chalice. He looks at it for a long time and then, haltingly, he says, "I never realized that broken glass could shine so brightly."

We are beloved in our brokenness because in our brokenness we learn what love is. We learn also who we are. 

Finally the fourth part - we are given. Taken, blessed, broken, given. Remind you of anything? Just as we take the sacrament we are the sacrament. The life of the beloved re-sacramentalizes the world. Nouwen says that in fact it is only when we realize our givenness that we can fully understand our chosenness because we are chosen in order to be given. Life is meant to be lived for others and not just for ourselves. And we have come full circle. We are loved so that we will love. It is not a complicated idea. What is complicated is the way we respond to the idea - first, of being loved by God, secondly of loving God's creation. We are not so sure of the first and we are overwhelmed by the second. Nevertheless this is who we are. We realize who we are when we say yes to God. Do you remember the time the risen Christ took Peter aside, the same Peter who had failed, who betrayed his Lord in his time of need. He took Peter aside and asked him simply, "Do you love me?" Peter said yes. Perhaps it is when he, with a broken heart, had the opportunity to confess his love and say yes to the risen Christ, that Peter finally understood how much God through Christ loved him and how much such a love could overcome. In the community of the beloved the answer is simply yes. Our name is who we are.