"Called to Resist, Called to Love"

Reference

Matthew 3:13-17

Sermon Summary

Jesus arrives not at seats of power but at the river’s edge, deliberately entering the margins where the wounded, fearful, and forgotten gather. Standing in the Jordan, Jesus refuses exemption or distance; baptism is shown as a radical solidarity with vulnerable bodies rather than a retreat into law or empire. That act reframes baptism as more than ritual memory: it names who a person is before the world declares them disposable and calls those baptized into costly public fidelity—renouncing fear, selfishness, and injustice and committing to courage, truth-telling, and communal care.

The collision between divine solidarity and contemporary systems of dehumanization is made urgent by the recent death of Renee Good in ICE custody and the ease with which excuses replaced accountability. Such incidents expose a pattern of selective outrage and the cultural inclination to measure whose lives merit defense. The baptized vocation, then, includes an ethical refusal to accept compliance as holiness, a refusal to hide behind obedience when systems are weaponized against the vulnerable. Baptism summons a prophetic posture: to resist tyrannical structures wherever they grind people down and to insist that dignity precedes legality.

This calling carries practical consequences for ecclesial life. The community is urged to move beyond nostalgia and cautious preservation into deliberate boldness—welcoming those displaced by closure, stewarding transitions, and sustaining ministries that align with baptismal vows. Love here refuses silence; compassion is not neutrality that tolerates injustice. Anger and grief are validated as faithful energies when they are refined into sustained courage and stubborn love, held together by the mutual support of the body.

Ultimately, baptism reorients hope: the Spirit descends, water names the beloved, and despair does not hold the final word. The baptized are sent armed not with certainty of ease but with a vocation to walk together—mourning losses, resisting cruelty, and building practices that live as if every person bears God’s image. In prayer the community asks for wisdom, steadiness, and a courage that acts, not out of bravado, but out of love that will not let injustice stand.

Key Takeaways

1. Baptism chooses the river margins Baptism is not a retreat into respectability but a deliberate identification with those at society’s edges. It refuses theological insulation and models a holiness that stands where wounds are confessed, where systems are most visible, and where courage is costly. This choice reframes spiritual identity around solidarity rather than status. [00:10]
2. Refuse compliance with unjust systems Obedience to law cannot be the final ethic when the law is used as a tool of oppression. The baptized are called to discern when legal compliance perpetuates harm and to practice prophetic nonconformity rooted in God’s justice. Resistance becomes an expression of fidelity, not rebellion for its own sake. [01:36]
3. Beloved identity precedes worldly judgment The vision at the river—heavens opening, Spirit descending, a voice naming “beloved”—places identity before verdicts of society. That naming grants dignity independent of citizenship, productivity, or public approval, and it supplies the moral imagination needed to defend those deemed disposable. Remembering that origin sustains action when institutions fail. [08:35]
4. Resistance is an expression of love Refusing tyranny is not optional for the baptized; it is part of loving one’s neighbor. Love here requires truth-telling, public courage, and sustained communal support, not sentimental quietude. When grief and anger arise, let them be refined into persistent care that seeks justice and restoration. [09:49]