Baptism

by The Rev. Dr. Max Lynn
SCRIPTURE READINGS Mark 10:32-45, Galatians 3:23-29
Transcribed from the sermon preached on AUGUST 14, 2022

TBehold, thou desirest truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart…wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Not long ago I met with a person who said she had a voice that was tormenting her. So, in order to get a better understanding of this torturous voice, I decided to employ a bit of Internal Family Systems Theory. You have heard me talk about Family Systems theory. Internal family systems is similar but a bit different. The idea is that each of us has a several voices in our head, each with their own identity, their own personality. Now this is not to be understood as schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder. This is not necessarily a disorder but a way at looking at any person’s mind, normal or abnormal or somewhere in between. Each of us talks to ourselves and one voice talks to another. The voices tend to originate at certain nodal points in our lives when something big, traumatic, or significant happens.

So, let’s say we are five years old and get yelled at for spilt milk. And maybe we get spanked, and a little part of us goes off deep in our mind and hides, gets timid and shy and afraid of making a mistake. In order to avoid such wild, dangerous behavior from our parent again, we may internalize their voice too, to stop us or warn us ahead of time before our real parent hits or ridicules us again. So, the timid and afraid girl forms in our head and sticks there at that age. Even though we get older, we still hear the voice of the five-year-old. And we also have the voice of the parent, or the voice that represents the parent.

Or maybe we have parents super worried about how the world perceives us and the family, how we dress, how we talk, how we do in school. So, we might develop a piece of us who wears a mask and pretends everything is ok. Or maybe there is also a rebellious slob, the one who refuses to care what others think and wants to wear ripped jeans, no bra and stomp in the mud and eat ice cream downed with Budweiser

Now they aren’t just negative voices. We might have the loving, supporting nurturing voice that tells us we are loved and special. Or we might have done something great and been praised for our strength and skill. So, we might have an athlete/ hero or the sharp, inquisitive student, who loves to learn as a big personality and voice in there too. Or maybe it is a beautiful, sexy, playful, and creative animal inside you that feels like a talking dolphin. Or maybe we have an encouraging and protecting brother or sister who makes us feel safe and have fun when you make a tent house with bed sheets and the rest of the world fades away.

The idea is that certain voices tend to take over at certain times and may control us in unhealthy ways. So, what we would like to do is to first identify the voices and consider the events when we first heard them, and what they demand or need. We want to encourage and empower the good voices and become conscious and gain control over the problematic ones.

So, I inquired this woman who was this voice that was torturing her. Was the voice male or female? How old? What was its name? She said it was a male adult voice and his name was The Judge. And who was the judge judging? She was a young girl named Purity.

This person’s Purity was in fact related to cleanliness and moral purity. My version was the Jock Hero, a Buzz Lightyear or King David type character. Yours might be a little different but essentially it is the best and perfect you according to you and the Judge.

This tug of war between Judge and Purity is exactly what Paul is talking about in Galatians. This is why we need the Gospel. We have this voice in our head who is the judge, the custodian, the disciplinarian, the one who represents the law, perfection, and purity. Then we have that part of us who desires love and acceptance and recognition from this judge and thinks if we work hard enough, diligently, and carefully enough, we can get it. Miss Purity in us works desperately to be Purity, the perfect exemplar of purity. But the judge is super strict, super critical, an ominous voice judging us, withholding love and acceptance, and handing down punishment. No matter how hard we try, we are not quite good enough. So, we either try super hard or procrastinate. The Procrastinator may be another voice. The procrastinator says two things: 1. You can’t do it so why try? Or just the opposite. Well, if I would have done it, it would have been perfect. Perfectionists are often procrastinators. Behind the cynic is a disappointed idealist.

Now from the biblical point of view, there is probably another voice in our head. The rebel, Satan, the Prodigal Son or Daughter whose voice inside of us tells us “to hell with trying to please the judge”. Just indulge. Eat that fruit and be free. Get your inheritance now and go to Vegas. Get all the power and pleasure you can while you can. Snag the babe Bathsheba and send her husband off to the front line. Don’t worry about what others think or feel. Don’t worry about truth or integrity or justice or purity, just do what you feel like doing.

The problem with the rebel, besides their apparent lack of concern for others is they are often stuck to the judge. They react impulsively when they sense the judge. The judge’s voice is still prominent even though they say they don’t care and act the opposite. The sure way to get the rebel to sabotage themselves is to play the judge and tell them how to be or what not to do. Judge them as racist and they will scream, “build a wall.”

I suspect many of us have some form of the following voices or personalities in our head: The Judge, Purity or the Hero, Depression (shame, guilt), and the Rebel. Now what we hope and pray for is that Jesus will join our internal family system.

Galatians 3: 23-29
[23] Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. [24] So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith.
[25] But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian;
[26] for in Christ Jesus you are all sons and daughters of God, through faith.

The problem with the law is that it always follows a problem. People act in a certain way and a law is laid down to stop it. We need laws, laws help us function as persons and as a society. But there is an endless number of ways people can sin, so there is no way to have enough laws. In fact, we are so sinful that if we are powerful enough, we create some laws to justify our sin. What we would hope is that we might have a heart, an internal voice, the Holy Spirit who could lead us to do and say what is right whether or not there is a law there to tell us or judge us.

But Christ comes to Purity and the Rebel and says, I love you as you are. All you have to do is invite me in. Recognize your deep desire for love and acceptance and acknowledge that you haven’t been able to be pure enough or perfect enough to get it on your own. Acknowledge where you have hurt others. Acknowledge where you have hurt yourself. Acknowledge those feelings of guilt and shame and failure. It is at the spot where you recognize you need help that you will discover help has been there all along. Knock and the door will be opened.

All you have to do is have faith. You are already forgiven.

It is thought that Psalm 51 was written by David after Nathan confronted him for his adultery with Bathsheba and then sending her husband to die in war. Convicted of his sin he confesses:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy steadfast love; according to thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
[6] Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
[7] Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
[8] Fill me with joy and gladness;

By faith we receive baptism, and our sins are washed clean. When Jesus comes into our internal family system, he washes everybody, all the voices and personalities in our mind, including the Judge. When Jesus becomes the primary voice in our head, he gets the power from the judge and gives it back to us. Not to Purity or Buzz Lightyear, but the real us, our ego, our soul. So even when that voice of the violent judge comes up, we can say, “Oh hello old Judge, I forgive you too. I still hear you, but I am not going to fight to please or rebel against you anymore. You don’t have that power over me anymore. Jesus is my Lord, and he loves you too. “

As part of my ordination process the Committee on Preparation for Ministry sent me to see a psychiatrist. One of the criticisms this Judging psychiatrist had was that I wasn’t dressed well enough. This angered me because I had new clothes and had just returned from Guatemala where people were happy to have any kind of clothing at all. I expressed my anger to my therapist saying, “Why would they make such a big deal out of such a trivial thing as clothing?” My therapist saw my anger and asked, “Why is it such a big deal to you?” He had a point. If I was going to be free, I would have to forgive the judge. If it was a trivial issue, why was I getting in a tug of war about it. By grace, we can just let go of the rope.

And the Rebel: well, when the Rebel dies to sin and is reborn, he or she will have some goodness and truth too. Maybe the judge was off a bit, so the rebel wasn’t all wrong. When the Rebel inside of us is washed in baptism, he or she won’t jerk us around on impulse, but they might have something to say about institutional injustice or bad religion, or about creativity or fun. Maybe we can have some fun, not to rebel but because God wants us to have fun and know joy.

It is amazing how much pleasure fantasy is attached to rebelliousness, crime, and punishment. Satan wants to convince us that doing what is wrong is what gives pleasure. OOOh you’re bad! Is so often said as a turn on. Of course, in grace we can have fun and be playful, but when a tug of war with taboo becomes compulsion and addiction, we can be sure the rebel is not free of the judge, and the judge is probably a twisted version of God rather than the true loving God. In these cases, both our internal rebel and our judge need to die in baptism and be reborn with Christ.

If God loves us and adopts us and cleanses us from our sins, the ashamed and guilty parts can come out of hiding. After they get a good washing and a hug, they may have parts of them, feelings, perhaps a softness and vulnerability that can be integrated into a healthier us. Maybe there is some creativity and depth of color they can help us with. Anger can come out of hiding too. Anger is forgiven and loved by God. Maybe when anger can come out to be washed, it can help speak to us about boundaries, about saying no, about standing up for ourselves and others.

In grace we can integrate our personality, balance it out, not let it jerk us around so much. When we let Jesus direct our inner conversation, when Jesus in our center, we can love and forgive those other voices. On the one hand we no longer give them so much power to drive us impulsively and unconsciously, and on the other hand since we are free and no longer afraid, we can listen to their voices to see what they may have to contribute. There is no part of you, no voice in your mind, no matter how deep that God cannot wash and forgive with love. All our parts have to trust and risk death in God’s waters, to be reborn.

I kind of went off on a psychological perspective, but I will finish with a quick review of what Baptism does and symbolizes.

Baptism is described as dying and rising with Christ. The power of sin drowns under the water, and we come up as from a womb into new life in Christ. We die to sin and are resurrected with Christ and are born again.

Baptism is also pictured as a washing of sin from our lives. We confess and repent of sin, and we are washed clean.

Baptism is our incorporation into the Body of Christ. We are no longer solitary individuals but adopted into the family of God. Those things that divide us in the world, race, ethnicity, class, and gender are not deciding factors in who is in and who is out. In this new society we are neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male, or female for we are all one in Christ Jesus. With this vision and this hope, with the power of the Holy Spirit which comes into us by grace, symbolized in our baptism, we are to work with Christ and walk in the Way of Christ to bring love, forgiveness, peace, and justice in the world.

Baptism is a sign of God’s coming reign. As God brought order out of the primordial chaotic sea at the beginning of Creation, so we await once again, with the whole groaning creation, for the peace and justice of God to reign finally and fully.