Becoming the Beloved (Sermon)

“Becoming the Beloved”

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

1/10/16

         Luke 3 begins with John the Baptist roiling human hearts with prophecy and the Jordan River with baptisms.

“Repent!” he cries.

‘How?’ ask the crowds.

         While tailoring specific answers for specific groups, John remains consistent: Deal generously, fairly, justly, and gratefully with yourselves and everyone else. True repentance is as simple as it is complicated. Most of all it is concrete. It is active and hands-on. Love God. Love neighbor. Do justice. Steward the earth.

‘Could this be the Messiah?’ the crowds ask.

         ‘No,’ says John. ‘A different baptism awaits you at the hands of “one more powerful than I.”’

         Ironically, this Powerful One seeks John’s baptism like everyone else. And like everyone else in Luke’s version of the story, John does not recognize Jesus. Indeed, Luke suggests that not until Jesus sloshes back up on the riverbank and begins to pray does even he begin understand that he is the Beloved. And only in living that life does he fully become the Beloved.

         When people ask what they need to do, John gives practical instructions. But we need more than instructions, don’t we? And to the extent that rigid doctrine gets used to short-leash spiritual growth, we need far more than doctrine. We need a flesh-and-blood guide. And it seems to me that we need this guide to do more than exemplify the life of the Beloved. This guide does the greatest good by freeing us to recognize the Beloved living within us, within the people around us, and within the earth that sustains us. He redeems us by empowering us to begin living that life ourselves.

In the early 1980’s, the Dutch theologian, scholar, and mystic Henri Nouwen sat down with a young New York Times journalist named Fred Bratman. Bratman, a secular Jew, had been told that Dr. Nouwen might provide good material for an article. Thinking “potboiler,” but needing a story, the journalist traveled to Yale University where Nouwen served on the seminary faculty. Nouwen recalls a memorably tedious and uninspired interview.

         When Bratman stood to leave, Nouwen heard himself say, “Tell me, do you like your job?”

         “No, not really,” said Bratman, “but it’s a job.”¹

         What do you want to do, asked Nouwen?

Write a novel, said Bratman.

So do it.

I don’t have the talent.

Sure you do.

I have no time or money.

Excuses, said Nouwen.

No, said Bratman. Reality.

         Come here and write, said Nouwen. Yale loves artists-in-residence. I can make that happen.

         Eventually, Fred Bratman did go to Yale to write. He never finished his novel, but the two men became close friends. After Bratman’s residence, they visited each other back and forth between New Haven and New York. Nouwen remembers feeling overwhelmed by the noise, the pace, the angst of his friend’s harried and thoroughly secular big-city life. Bratman apparently felt something genuine in Nouwen, something he trusted and became willing to listen to.

         During one of Nouwen’s visits, Bratman said, “Why don’t you write something about the spiritual life for me and my friends?”

         Like Bratman earlier, Nouwen balked. He had heard this request before from friends and family members who had left the church or who had never been and never intended to be, associated with any religious tradition. But what could he possibly say into a context so radically different from his own? What authority did he have to speak with such broad and yet specific purpose?

“How [do I do that]?” Henri asked.

“‘Speak from that place in your heart where you are most yourself,” said Fred. “Speak directly, simply, lovingly, gently, and without any apologies. Tell us what you see and what you want us to see; what you hear and what you want us to hear…Trust your own heart. The words will come.’”²

Nouwen finally sat down and wrote what would become his brief but spacious book, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World.

Nouwen recalls searching for a particular word, a word that would remain as a kind of gift to Bratman and his friends. Referencing the story of Jesus’ baptism, he settled on the word Beloved. He had read this word, studied it, preached it, lectured on it. But as he focused on it as a metaphor for spiritual practice, it took on new life.

The phrase “‘You are my Beloved,’” says Nouwen, “reveal[s] the most intimate truth about all human beings, whether they belong to any particular tradition or not…Fred…my only desire is to make these words reverberate in every corner of your being – ‘You are the Beloved…’ Being the Beloved is the origin and the fulfillment of the life of the Spirit.”³

It is a beautiful and gracious book. And it missed the mark.

While Bratman did appreciate that his friend had written honestly and lovingly, the language presumed things alien to him. We are the Beloved, says Nouwen. We are children of God. We are brothers and sisters. This is where he lost his audience. Nouwen realized that he had failed to appreciate just how far apart their worlds were. He had not addressed the most fundamental things like how God language itself affirms our faith in subjective things like sacredness in the world, like, purpose and hope.

Initially disappointed, Nouwen would learn that his book did have transforming effect on many who already spoke the language of Belovedness. In fact, this book helped Nouwen become a kind of guide to many who wanted to follow Jesus more closely into the challenges and possibilities of the life of The Beloved.

Even if we are the Beloved, if we are children of God, and brothers and sisters, writes Nouwen, we still have “to become” these things. “Becoming the Beloved means letting the truth of our Belovedness become enfleshed in everything we think, say, or do.”⁴

Belovedness happens in the often-messy, material, nitty-gritty of life. We become The Beloved by giving water to the thirsty, food to the hungry, shelter to the displaced, coats to those who are cold. We become The Beloved by living gracefully amid selfishness, and peacefully amid violence. We become The Beloved by following Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, may you be always aware of your own Belovedness, and the Belovedness of everyone around you.

And may you be aware of Jesus, The Beloved, guiding you from within and without.

¹Henri Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular Word. Crossroad Publishing, NY, NY, 1992. P. 10. (*All references to the relationship between Henri Nouwen and Fred Bratman come from this book. Only longer quotations are footnoted.)

²Ibid. p. 20.

³Ibid. pp. 26 and 37.

⁴Ibib. pp. 38-39.