Getting Your Story Straight

Al played a game. I know this because I caught him once and I asked him, "What are you doing?"

The game was to ask people questions, take interest in them long enough so they would say their own name.

This is true.  If you talk to someone long enough, inevitably they say their own name.  Get people talking and soon enough you will hear, “So my wife said, ‘Bill, you’re nuts.”  Or “my mom was sweet, she said, ‘Stacy, just come home.’” I don’t play the game, but I do love it when this happens because it reminds me of Al Elmer.

When I met Al, he was about 10 years into his third career.  His first career was a concert violinist.  And then he heard the call and became a pastor. He was the long-time associate pastor of the church in Watertown, New York.  When I met Al, he was now on a third career, a counselor for people in a treatment program as an alternative to incarceration.  Al guided the folks who came through Drug Court.  And he was really, really good at it.  Al’s great gift was how he listened.  It was as if the person before him was a delight, no matter how broken, no matter how undelightful their life was, Al took delight in your words, in your story, in you.

Al started to play the game after he suffered a stroke. The stroke took one of his essential assets as a pastor/counselor: he couldn’t remember people’s names anymore.  Hence, the game.  He would get someone talking, all the while knowing he knew them, sometimes for years, many years, but the stroke locked those names in a box he couldn’t open.  And then, the person he queried would say, “I told myself, Fred, it’s time to get going.”  When this happened Al would beam, shuddered with joy.  It was as if someone broke a chain keeping him from walking free. 

I learned to play the game with Al.  He would come to my office before he got cancer.  Al got a two-for-one deal: a stroke and then cancer.  As if this wasn’t not enough, they both returned to sweep away his hard-earned recovery.  I played the game with Al when he would pepper me for updates on our kids, on Kathy, on my folks.  Each time I would respond by saying, “well, Josh is doing just great.”  When I said his name, Al would flutter with delight.  Each name was a treasurer for him rediscovered.

Near the end of his life, Al slipped into a hard place of despair, he was deeply depressed.  I sat with him on his couch, he was wrapped in layers as the recovery from chemo made him cold all the time.  He looked broken, vanquished. Words came slowly and painfully from him. And then there was a moment I will never forget.  Al expressed confusion.  “I just don’t know why I feel this way.”

I was dumbfounded.  Here was someone who helped guide so many people from despair and brokenness and it was confusing to him.  After he spoke to this some more, I said, “Al, maybe it has to do with isolation.” His eyes narrowed and it was the first time in our visit where he held his gaze on me.  “You are alone, Al.  You are not working the crowd and talking to people.  You're like a plant in a closet.  You're a flower needing light.  Being with people is your energy, your power.”

              The next moment I will never forget.  He thought about this for a long time.  Never occurred to him, a novel thought.  What I realized was, yes, Al played the name game, but his delight was never a game.  He truly took delight in people. 

              To help Al at this time, I came back.  Like he used to stop in my office I stopped by his couch.  I would come and just ramble, tell him all my worries, concerns, needs, struggles.  Kathy and I had just returned from a summer in Malawi.  When you immerse yourself in extreme poverty, the re-entry to opulence and indoor plumbing is tough— had a lot of broken parts.  On his couch, deep in a North Country winter, Al let me dig out the rocks in my heart, fill deep ruts of sadness and confusion.  It may sound strange, dumping all my worries on someone suffering with depression, but for Al, this was gold.  He loved vulnerable people, so I gave him all my vulnerabilities.

              And then, he came back to life. I remember this because it was the beginning of spring and Al was a big gardener. The thawing ground was like a starter’s gun to him.  So, this may have just been the time of rebirth, but while I was rambling away, amidst my ramble, I saw him return to life.  What he said in that moment is a treasure.

I am struggling with my voice I told him.  It felt hollow, disconnected.  The words didn’t match what I was feeling; the images and metaphors felt removed.  “I need to find a new voice,” I said.  Those words were still hanging in the air when Al said, “no.  Don’t change your voice.  I love your voice.  Don’t change it.  I need it.”  And with that, he just returned. He took delight.

The baptism of Jesus you would think would be about water.  But really, it's about a voice and most importantly the voice of delight.

The gospels have different versions of the baptism of Jesus.  Matthew and Mark talk about John not wanting to baptize Jesus.  Matthew has Jesus being baptized not as something he needed but was to fulfill all righteousness.  Mark makes it very explicit that the voice came from above only as Jesus came out of the water.  There is a claim of the heavens being opened and the spirit of God being like a dove.

Luke, while very similar, provides a different view.  The baptism had no fanfare, no heavens opening with the water no image of a dove.  In Luke, Jesus is alone, praying, and then he hears a voice and he says, the spirit was a dove.  Not like a dove, a real bird. 

Each account has slight differences.  There is a sense that the story had been told enough times to take on different flavors.  From the water with lots of people around, alone in prayer. Yet, where they all line up is in the last line, the declaration: this is my son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased. The details about the water differ, but not the voice.

To be a child of God, a beloved, is the basis of our faith, fellowship, theology.  It is the great claim of the Apostle Paul, you too are a child of God, a beloved.  In baptism we are reborn, restored, remade in his image, adopted as heirs of the kingdom of God.  Hence, whenever someone joins a congregation, what we are saying is not only are you welcome as a child of God, but you are a beloved. 

This idea of being a beloved is easy for some, harder for others.  Being welcomed, being accepted, is not equal, nor always obvious.  Counting yourself as part of a family, where you are a son, or a daughter, you may not hear the next line, my beloved, without baggage or struggle.  Sometimes not at all. Sometimes, the first claim, this is my son does not find the second claim, my beloved.  A church can heal this gap.  And, sometimes a church can deepen this wound.

Yet, the most intriguing part of the voice at baptism, is the third claim, the matter of being well pleased, taking delight.  Of the three (this is my son, my beloved, my delight), the last one can be elusive. 

Many years ago, I stumbled across a little story about a man losing his father.  It’s a sweet, poignant reflection of how a son esteemed a father, and found him to be both a champion, an inspiration, but also humble, kind.  The story is called “The Peach Seed Monkey.”  There is one line near the end I treasure.  The author says, “my father died only at the end of his life.”  I like that, hope for that. 

              There is another line though in “The Peach Seed Monkey” I like, and it haunts me. The author wrote, “Life in the ambience of my father was exciting, secure, and colorful.  He did all those things for his children a father can do, not the least of which was delighting in their existence.”

              Not the least of which was delighting in their existence.  That line lingers with me.  I consider it often, to delight in someone’s existence.  And the understatement.  Not the least of which.  Whenever this story comes to mind, I hear the words spoken to Jesus, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I take delight.  And then almost on cue I remember Al, how effortlessly he took delight, how he shuddered with each name, how little he realized that taking such joy in others was uncommon.  It is not the least of things we do. Not sure why but taking delight in people can be elusive.

              There are lots of details, little pieces, clues really each gospel writer brings to their account of the baptism of Jesus.  For Matthew it’s about fulfilling promises, a long play of God, a recognition that this is part of God’s will.  For Mark, this is about overcoming chaos, the water, especially where John was baptizing people was an image of chaos.  He baptized people in the confluence of the Jordan and the Dead Sea.  It was not a metaphor; he stood in place where water was both life and death. 

              Luke lets Jesus hear the words, my child, my beloved, my delight, Luke offers these words in privacy. An intimacy, a seclusion, almost as if these tender words were spoken with a hushed voice, gentle as a dove.  Be it shout or whisper, the three claims are spoken and heard.  You are my child; you are my beloved; you are my delight.

              It doesn't always happen, I know.  But what if our gathering on Sunday morning, our time together in song, in prayer, in silence and confession, what if this time in all its varied details and difference and possibilities, what if our time together comes down one thing: trusting the baptismal words.  You're my child, my beloved, my delight. 

              Of course, you can and should hear these words everywhere in lots of ways.  But what if our time here was to practice these words, learn to trust them, learn how to speak, learn how to hear them? 

              And one last thing.  What if we devoted ourselves to all three?  What if we didn't give up until we have all three? Acknowledging and caring and taking delight.  Do you understand what I mean?  We acknowledge people, some more than others.  But we tend to acknowledge all.  And care.  We want to care for everybody, help any and all in need.  Is it even possible to take delight in each person?

              Life in the ambience of my father was exciting, secure, and colorful.  He did all those things for his children a father can do, not the least of which was delighting in their existence.

              It's a beautiful image of a father. Could a church be such a beautiful image? Is this not the true beauty of baptism?

              Al Elmer had such a great gift.  To take delight in others with such ease.  Especially people convinced they were not a delight to anyone.  I know it may not always be easy to be so curious and kind.  But what a great life you would live if someone said of you, they took delight in so many. Amen.