Two occasions from my first year of college over twenty years ago have remained in my memory. The first was during orientation week when the Vice President for Student Affairs met with groups of students from the new matriculating class. The university I attended was not especially large, but my matriculating class was still probably at least 800 students or so, if not more. When we were gathered in a room with the Vice President for Student Affairs, he then proceeded to call us each by name, without reference to photos or any other documents. At the time, I thought this was an astounding feat, and I still do. I was a shy freshman from a small town in southeast Texas at a major university. It was a vulnerable moment of transition in life, and I felt, in some small sense, valued.
The second instance I remember from my first month or so in college was being in a large sociology class. It was a popular course because of the professor, and therefore the class size of nearly 100 students was unusually large for that particular university. We were seated throughout a vast lecture hall, and this professor did just what the Vice President for Student Affairs had done. He called us each by name at the beginning of one class, without reference to any notes. He had also bothered to learn one additional fact about each of us, such as our hometown or a special interest we held.
Understandably, both these events from my college days have stayed with me. The uncanny capacity for memorization of these two faculty members was a part of student lore. But for me personally, these two stories are important not because of the phenomenal memories of two faculty members but because in a significant time of transition in my life, I felt valued. As one of thousands of students admitted to a university with a competitive application process, I found myself more than just a number. Moving from a smaller high school to a much larger university, I was more than just a statistic. I was a name. I was seen as a unique person.
Now, maybe this seems pretty straightforward. Of course, each of us is unique. Even identical twins have their own personalities, after all. Two music students studying with the same teacher and performing the same technical exercises all play differently; they play their personalities. It is no news flash that our individuality is an established part of what it means to be human.
The problem is that this common knowledge seems to be so easily ignored in society. Sometimes the most basic knowledge is the victim of collective amnesia. So, I ask you this question: do you feel like you are valued? Do you feel like you are called by name as a unique person? Do you feel like more than just a statistic or a number in the world’s vast population?
I believe it’s the extraordinary task of the Church to remind the world of what it has forgotten. That’s why the importance of being called by name is a central theme of today’s feast, the Baptism of Our Lord.
Let’s get one thing straight, though. Today’s feast is really about Jesus. It’s about his baptism, which is different from ours. It’s about his unique status as the Beloved Son of God. But because of all those things, today’s feast is also about us. It’s difficult to talk about Jesus’s baptism without talking about ours. And because of who Jesus is, and because we are baptized into his death and resurrection, we can claim something about our own identity that might seem preposterous if it weren’t actually true.
Of all today’s Scripture readings, it’s the prophet Isaiah’s words that strike me as hitting the mark here. Isaiah’s words were spoken to the people of Israel. In this passage, God speaks to his beloved children, his chosen ones, who are in exile from Jerusalem. They long to be back in their true home. How could they not believe that God had forsaken them in their current state? How could they not equate their misfortune with judgment or God’s wrath?
And into the midst of this state of despair, God speaks tender words that are profoundly personal and moving. To a nation who had been promised so much and given so much but now living in desolation, it would have been easy to think of oneself as just a number, just a number in a large host of people doomed to destruction, just a number in that long lineage promised to Abraham who were to be as numerous as the stars in heaven and the sand on the seashore but who now seemed forsaken. I imagine that the people of whom Isaiah writes felt as if they were drowning in a sea of anonymity.
But then God speaks. And God references the other surrounding nations, whose political affairs threaten to overwhelm Israel. Then the picture screen telescopes into focus on Israel, as if Israel were a singular, unique person at risk of being forgotten among the grains of sand on the seashore. God speaks: You are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you.
Reading and hearing these words, we feel almost as if we are intruding voyeuristically on a personal exchange between two lovers. But the speaker is God, the Almighty, the Creator of the universe. He is addressing his beloved. Yes, God, our God, speaks like this!
And we who have been baptized and adopted into the long lineage promised to Abraham, who find our roots in Israel, who are heirs of the extended promise to all nations, must be moved by God’s words so long ago to his chosen people. We can never go back in time to inhabit their specific circumstances, but we are allowed a glimpse into a delicate, beautiful moment when God zooms in on his people, as if the nation were one single individual. And God tells of his undying love for his children.
This picture window also illumines something of Christian baptism, as we understand it. In baptism, we are called by name and marked as Christ’s own forever. Our baptism echoes Jesus’s very different baptism, where he alone is called God’s Beloved Son. But because we are baptized into him, we have a right to relish God calling each of us by name. We can have no baptism without a name. The name is essential to what it means. A name is essential to our membership in the Body of Christ.
At different points in history, we might wish to linger with different moments in the baptismal rite. Usually, people like to focus on the baptismal promises, with the commitment to respecting the dignity of every human being and committing oneself to justice. But now, in 2022, in a global pandemic and living in a nation experiencing political and civic unrest, I wonder if we might rest for a while in the knowledge that, in baptism, God calls each of us by name.
For how can we not feel like a number? We all live in fear of being one of the 656,478 cases or the 1,524 deaths of the coronavirus reported yesterday. Do you long to be more than just a statistic in the workplace or the recipient of a sterile paycheck? Do you wish to be not just a student force-fed into an ultra-competitive educational system that takes your money and spits you back out into a hungry world? Look how many people are reduced to statistics of injuries or deaths in natural disasters or housefires or gun violence. At this very moment, think of how many of the aged and infirm are at risk of being forgotten and unloved in their solitary homes.
So, right now, I, for one, want to sit for just a time with the good news that I am more than just a number. You are more than just a number. Your worst enemy is more than just a number. You are honored and precious in God’s sight. You are loved. It’s a simple, obvious statement, but do you really believe it?
In this season of Epiphany, as we manifest the gospel to the world, we must learn to claim our God-given individuality and then respect that of others.
You, I, all of us are more than just a blank face in a sea of anonymity. No culture, no acts of oppression and violence, no cruel systems of injustice, none of it can take away this fact. And the good news we are called to share this season after Epiphany is that especially when the world clamors to take our names away, God always comes in Christ to give them back to us.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of Our Lord
January 9, 2022