Isaiah 43:1-7 Luke 3:15-17,21-22
There is a pretty good chance you know the origin of the sermon title: “Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.” It’s the theme song from the old TV show Cheers.
Set in a Boston bar called Cheers. There was a crew of regulars who appeared in every episode. One of them, Norm Peterson, would always walk through the door and be greeted with a chorus saying, “Norm!” Then Norm would go sit down on his regular seat at the end of the bar. The place where everybody knows his name.
It’s great to have a place like that. On some level, we all long for a place where everybody knows our name.
Someplace where you feel comfortable, where you have friends. It might be a coffee shop, a bar, a barbershop, the YMCA. It is a place where you can come and go freely, where there are always familiar faces, the folks who sort of give the place its character.
You can always find conversation there. You always feel welcome there. No matter where you come from, you are okay; it is a place where you feel at home, where people know your name.
Church can be that place. Where you can walk in and look around to see who else is here, too. Catch up with the ones you haven’t seen for a while. Like Norm, you just might have a regular seat, too.
I think church used to be that place for more people – a place that was at or near the center of their lives. But less now than it used to be. Maybe they drifted away. Or maybe, for some, it never was that place.
Maybe the church wasn’t very friendly and welcoming so they never really got that feeling of being known and accepted. Maybe, at some point, the church felt too judgy. The message that came through loud and clear was a message of judgment without a message of grace, and it started to feel like they weren’t really welcome. Maybe they started to see some ugly interpersonal dynamics, or people started asking them to choose a side in their big argument, and then it just felt like it was time to go.
But the thing is, everyone needs a place where they feel known, like they are a part of a community, where they are welcome. And if it’s not church, it has to be someplace else. This is why we have so many coffee shops, right?
There is a basic human need for connection. You can see it in the way we gather. You can hear it in the way we talk to each other, filling our conversations with phrases like, “exactly,” or “I hear you.” Because without that sense of being known, being seen, being heard by another, we might feel like we don’t really exist.
I regret that church has stopped feeling like the place where you belong for too many people. I am sad that, for so many, church is the last place they would think of when they think about where they are really known and cared for and loved. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be.
When you strip it down to the basics, church is intended to be the place where they know your name, where you are welcome, where you find real community – and you belong.
That is what baptism is.
When we baptize an infant, a child, or an adult, we say that person’s name. And we tell that person, “We know who you are, God knows who you are, and you belong here.” We know your name. And now, we say, you have a new name – Beloved.
It’s pretty simple, but sometimes we make it too complicated. There are many things we think about baptism – some of them are right. But some things are misunderstood:
For example, baptism is not an inoculation against sin or harm, like a protective shield for the body and soul. And when I hear parents refer to a child’s baptism as getting him done, as if they are taking him in for his shots, then I think they are expecting too much and expecting too little of baptism.
Neither is baptism a personal mountaintop experience When people talk about a desire to be baptized again, maybe go and do it in the Jordan River just like Jesus did. Because they feel like they should have the experience. Because it’s an item on their bucket list, right between bungee-jumping and spelunking. Then I think they may be putting too much stock in the feeling.
One more thing: baptism does not expect you to be perfect – and that’s okay. Because if we are assuming that we have to make ourselves good enough to be loved and accepted, we are losing the most essential thing of all – grace.
The gospels tell the story about Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River, and it is a simple story. It was John who baptized him, as he baptized so many others. Jesus approached John in the water, asked to be baptized, and so he was. And when he emerged out of the water a voice from heaven said, “You are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased.
And that’s all it is. This is baptism. It is walking into a river of life, getting dunked in the water of community and love and forgiveness, and being given a new name: Beloved.
It is not the finale, but only the beginning of a life full of meaning and purpose.
It is not an accomplishment, but only a full surrender to the amazing love of God as we find it in the church.
It is not something private, between you and God. When we walk into baptism we are walking into the arms of community, a place where everybody knows your name.
And that is the place to be.
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