Seek and Serve Christ in All Persons

Celebrant: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? People: I will, with God’s help.

On the morning of January 2, students and faculty arrived at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati to find a swastika painted on the entrance sign to the campus. For 140 years, HUC-JIR has peacefully co-existed with its neighbors. Those who saw the swastika, both Jews and non-Jews, instantly recognized it as a reminder of the profound evil visited on Jews, gays, gypsies, disabled people, and other marginal groups during the Holocaust. The next day, about twenty-five people gathered at the sign in freezing temperatures. Many of them were members of Call to Action, a progressive Roman Catholic organization. Faith Kemper, the organizer of the event said that her father had fought in World War II, and that for her the swastika represents leaders who are power-hungry and hateful. She was joined by several members of her St. Monica-St. George Parish, whose church is on nearby McMillan Avenue. One carried a sign that said, "We support our Jewish neighbors."

Reflecting on the vandalism at HUC-JIR and other similar events, another participant wondered whether the recent presidential campaign had suggested that such acts were OK. Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley said, "I am deeply offended and disturbed by these actions. The City is committed to using all of our resources to bring these criminals to justice. As we work to build a more welcoming and inclusive City, we will not stand for this intimidation." Alan Dicken, a Disciples of Christ pastor, went further. In a letter dated January 5, Dicken reminded his fellow Christians of what their response to such acts of vandalism should be: “I can reach out to those who need to hear a gospel of love and acceptance,” He wrote. “I can do my part to show the world that the Christ that I follow, who for the record was Jewish, [was] a leader of love and a prince of peace. I can listen to my friends who are rabbis and leaders in the Jewish community and respond in ways that they feel would be helpful and supportive to them. It may not seem like much, but it is a hell of a lot more than doing nothing. Doing nothing gives permission for this culture to continue.”

Twenty-eight hundred years before the events at HUC-JIR, an Israelite prophet reflected on the state of his people. They were no strangers to violence and desecration. Their holy city of Jerusalem had been overrun by the Babylonians, and their sacred temple had been destroyed. The elite of the country had been forced into exile, while the peasants were left to scratch out a living in a drought-ridden land. And yet, as the prophet reflected on the fate of his people, he heard God whispering a new message to him, one of hope, rather than despair. He heard God promising that the community would have a new leader, indeed that the whole community would be a leader among the nations. Led by the new leaders, they would be loving servants, who would treat all with gentleness and compassion. They would follow a leader who would “not cry or lift up his voice,” who would “faithfully bring forth justice,” and who would help them to be “a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.”

Eight centuries later, another prophet reflected on the state of his people. Like his forebear in faith, John beheld a people suffering under the oppressive rule of both the Romans and their local collaborators. He saw religious leaders focused on punctilious observance of sacrificial ritual and not the welfare of ordinary people. He called people of all walks of life to change their way of life. To reflect their commitment to change, he invited them to undergo a traditional Jewish ritual of cleansing, through immersion in flowing water. Into this scrum of people gathered on the banks of the Jordan, walked an itinerant rabbi from Galilee, who asked his cousin John to administer the ritual cleansing to him. As the writer of today’s gospel tells us, John demurred. He knew there was something special about his cousin. But Jesus insisted. “Do it,” he said. “God’s work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism.” So John did it.

As Jesus came up out of the Jordan, he experienced a deep sense of acceptance by God, a sense of God’s affirmation of him as God’s own beloved. He knew himself to be empowered for ministry by God’s Spirit. Almost immediately after his baptism, God’s Spirit drove him into the Judean hills for a period of reflection and discernment. During those weeks in the wilderness Jesus knew that he had to forego all forms of coercive power. Reflecting on the Scriptures that he knew so well, i.e., the Hebrew Scriptures, he came to understand himself as the leader foretold by Isaiah, as the one who would not break a bruised reed or quench a dimly burning wick, who would bring forth justice and release those in prison. In his first recorded sermon in the gospel according to Luke, Jesus reminded his hearers of those words of the prophet. He read from the scroll of Isaiah, “God’s Spirit is on me; he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor, Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind,
To set the burdened and battered free, to announce, “This is God’s year to act!” Then Jesus said, “You’ve just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place.” The evangelist even echoes Jesus’ self-description. Further along in the gospel of Matthew, the evangelist uses this very passage from Isaiah that we just heard to describe how Jesus was doing what God expected of him.

Since 1963, volunteers in the Simon Community in the UK have been ministering to homeless people on the streets of London. They provide two houses with shelter for the night and a day center to connect homeless people to available social services. In addition, every night volunteers carry flashlights into the dark corners of the streets to bring soup and sandwiches to those who, for whatever reason, do not want to come to the shelters. Young and old, representing all ethnicities, church members and non-members, these volunteers seek out the needy in derelict buildings and back alleys, on the streets, and under bridges and overpasses. They keep in touch with the latest news on the streets, and monitor how many people are sleeping outside at different times of the year. They also keep in close contact with as many people as possible, and respond as far as they can to people’s needs. They recognize that each homeless person has different needs, but to all they offer hands of friendship and welcome without judgement. Many of the volunteers work with the community fulltime. They receive room and board but no stipend. Why do they do it? A volunteer named Joe Bailey described why he marched with the community in support of help for the homeless. “In the face of diminishing availability of support accessible to vulnerable people,” he said, “we see the effects of austerity measures run deeper and deeper into society, and it can make us feel helpless. But albeit a small shout out in protest, there is hope in the work that we do, and we are not alone in our dedication to offer support to those who need it.”

My brothers and sisters, the waters that rolled over Jesus have also rolled over us. We too went down into the Jordan with Jesus, and we too came up out of the water with him. The baptismal font is our River Jordan. Whether we were brought to the font by someone else, or whether we came of our own free will, whether we were immersed or sprinkled, Jesus was standing beside us as those waters flowed over us. As we rose from the water, the Holy Spirit descended on us, and God proclaimed us to be God’s beloved sons and daughters. In joining ourselves to Jesus, we too are affirmed, empowered, and commissioned. And we are called to model our lives after his.

It is still God’s year to act – perhaps even more urgently now than in many other years. With Jesus we too are called to embrace Isaiah’s vision of compassionate leadership and a just and peaceful world. We too are called to remember and celebrate our solidarity with Jews, and also with Muslims, with Hindus and Buddhists, with all people of all faiths and no faith. We too are called to resist any attempt to demean, harass, or persecute people of any community, even if they are wearing a yarmulke or a hijab. We too are called to seek out the least, the lost, and the left behind, and to minister to their needs, whoever and wherever they are. We too are called to love God, love ourselves, and care for all those – all those – whom God has called beloved.

Celebrant: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? People: I will, with God’s help.