It's amazing how much power there is in an identity.  We are often driven into our futures by how we are named.  Oh John, he's the athlete in the family, or Mary is the pretty one, or Pete is the slow one, the hyper one, the messy one, the chubby one, the lazy one - you know.  I have twin sons, and when they were young, a certain woman would always walk up to them and say,  "Now, which one of you is the outgoing one?"  Pretty soon, all those descriptions and pronouncements make a mark and shape our sense of who we are and what we are supposed to be and what direction we might go.  WE often take on the identity given to us, or we run a hundred miles in the other direction because we don't want to live up to it.  This is William, he is named after his grandfather who was the finest doctor in the county.  This is Elizabeth, she comes from a long line of Lutheran pastors, and of course we hope she will continue the tradition.  This is Bunny, she is named after her mother's aunt who never said an unkind word about anyone.  Man, it doesn't take long and you are carrying the weight of the ancestors around your neck!

          Then again, imagine what it is to be treated like you have NO identity, no name.  Sometime I will tell you all about Whitetanks Cemetery where the homeless and indigent of Phoenix, Arizona are buried.  On many of the graves there are markers, UKF or UKM --- unknown female, unknown male.

          Sometimes we refuse to be part of giving people an identity.  I sometimes roll my eyes when someone pops over to my dining table and with great energy and enthusiasm says, "Hi, my name is Ted and I'll be your server this evening."  Part of me thinks, "Ted, we don't need to have a relationship, I just want my hamburger."  At a grocery store where I often shop, there is a middle-aged man who is clearly developmentally disabled.  He wears a name-tag, and often tries to crack a joke or be kind of clever, but most of the time, when I am in the grocery store, my sense of humor is lacking.  So rather than seeing him as someone with an identity, I just smile and every part of my body language says, "Can we just get going here."  And by doing that, I have literally refused to let him exist for me;  I have refused him his identity.

           Think of how your attitude has changed when someone actually acknowledges you as a person, with a distinct identity. When Jesus was baptized, he came up out of the water, and his identity was affirmed as a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."  If Jesus had any doubts about who he was, they were laid to rest that day.  In that moment he was identified to all who were listening as the anointed one, the beloved one of God.  At that point his ministry began.  He was named and sent.

          And that is what happens to each one of us as we come out of the waters of baptism, we are renamed children of God, God's own beloved ones, and are sent to tell the world about this One who loves us.  There is power in that naming and in that identity.  We might look to the world to give us an identity, to our parents, friends, children, co-workers --- but we have an identity that is given to us by God, individually and corporately.  We are God's beloved ones, the people of God, the body of Christ. That is who we are.  In baptism, God comes to tell us who and whose we are.  Dan Erlander, in his wonderful little baptism manual for parents and sponsors makes the point when he says, "An infant has served on no committees, has done no great work, and is helpless, needy, dependent and unemployed.  In fact, an infant brought to the water for baptism is a sign of how we all come to God, with nothing, absolutely nothing."

          The identity given by God is the one that will shape and inform our lives forever, and it is given to all of us, the pretty ones, the hyper ones, the athletic ones and the slow ones.  There are no nameless ones in God's family, there are none without an identity.  Baptism is not a sentimental ritual, it is as real as the signing of the adoption papers that bring us into a new family.  In this baptism, we are joined to the death and resurrection of the Christ.  We die to our old selves, and it is a daily dying.  It is our ordaining, the establishment of the ministry that we are sent to do.  God commissioned Jesus with the gift of his identity,  "My son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased", and God commissions us too.  There is nothing that can cancel out or diminish that identity.  It means that we will look at each person as another of God's beloved, that we will see that we are called to treat everyone as though they were wearing a name-tag that says, "God's beloved" -- even the wait staff at the restaurant and the grocery bagging guy at the store.  Being God's beloved calls us to pay attention, to attend to all those out there who are still wondering about their true identity.  Could it change the world if we saw one another as God's beloved ones?   I think it could.

          OF course, having an identity does in no way guarantee a trouble-free existence.  We know that Jesus began his ministry after being identified as God's beloved, his Son, and that ministry led him to death on the cross.  God naming and sending us does not promise that we will not suffer, but it does promise that in all our suffering, God will be with us, God will guide us and use us to make God's love known.  We are who God says we are, and it is no invitation to a lifetime of ease --- as for Jesus, it was the acknowledgement that he was now being brought into Dad's business.

          Imagine your own scenario.  You are a young adult, you always had an idea that your father had some plans for you, but up to now, it was a little vague and you were enjoying a life that you had designed for yourself.  Maybe you have been going to grad school for years, and one day your dad calls you and says, I need you, you are my child, its time for you to take over the family business.  And the family business is one that will often get you into trouble with the politicians and the religious leaders, you will essentially be going in the opposite direction from most of them, and a ton of people will be depending on you.  You will be asked to accomplish great things with only a few inexperienced people to help you, and before you actually begin, you will have forty days to wrestle with the devil, to make some other choices, any of which would be a whole lot easier than dad's business.  Dad will be around, but will expect that you figure most of it out for yourself.  There is no contract, no signed agreement, just a promise that somehow your dad will be with you.  And that is supposed to be enough to carry you through all the times when the whole world seems to hate you, when everything you do seems to upset the status quo.  When anyone tries to challenge you, the only thing you have to say for yourself is that your dad has given you a job to do.  You will have many times of loneliness, and many times when no one will leave you alone.  People will expect you to solve every problem they have, and if you do your job right, you will eventually have to die for it.

          If we really sat down and thought about all that, we might be scared stiff to bring our sweet little babies for baptism, or step forward ourselves for baptism.  But that is the life to which we are joined.  And because we just don't have it in us to say YES to all that, because we come with absolutely nothing, God says Yes to us, and sends us the Holy Spirit who will guide and lead us, and empower us for the work of ministry;  who will work through the community, the church to help us live out our new identity. The Christian story is not only about what Jesus Christ did in his earthly ministry, it is about the Spirit that move over our lives and our adoption as God's own beloved ones.  The family business is now the business of the church, and we are part of the family. As Jesus came up out of the water, the call of God was given, the ministry began, and so it is for us.  We are invited to live fully in this new reality, this new world called the kingdom of God. We are named God's beloved ones, and sent into the world.

AMEN