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.

When Jesus was Praying

“Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened….” Picture it in your mind: Jesus out there on the bank of the Jordan with all the riff raff, all those people on the margins of society – the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the Roman soldiers, probably the pickpockets, swindlers, and adulterers – all those people who had listened to John, had obeyed John’s call for repentance and change of life, and had come out to symbolically wash away all the dirt in their lives. And there was Jesus among them, in solidarity with them, also going down into the water. It could have been John the Baptizer who had led the ritual that included Jesus, but it also might have been one of John’s disciples, since in the verses between John’s speech, and Luke’s allusion to Jesus’ baptism, we learn that John had been imprisoned by Herod. Whoever it was, after Jesus came up out of the water, he must have moved apart from the throngs around him. As Luke tells us, Jesus then began to pray.

Prayer is an important element in Luke’s writings, in both the gospel and the book of Acts, much more so than with Mark or Matthew. Just think about all the times the gospel of Luke mentions prayer. Right in the beginning of the gospel, John’s father Zechariah is praying when he learns that, although he and Elizabeth have been childless, Elizabeth is to have a son. Moreover, Jesus is at prayer at critical moments in his own ministry. He prays after a day spent healing the sick. He spends all night in prayer before calling the twelve. He has been at prayer, when he confronts the twelve and asks who people say he is. He is at prayer when he is transfigured before Peter, James, and John. He prays before offering the model of prayer that we now call the Lord’s Prayer. He prays in Gethsemane before his ordeal. Even in the agony of death, he prays, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” His earliest disciples follow his example and continue to pray. As we heard in today’s reading from the book of Acts, Peter and John prayed that the Samarians might receive the Holy Spirit.

In today’s reading, we catch up with Jesus just at the beginning of his ministry. The birth stories and Jesus’ visit with the scholars in the temple in Jerusalem are behind us. Jesus is now a fully adult male. Indeed in the verse immediately following the end of the today’s reading, verse 23, Luke tells us that, “Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work.” Having drawn apart some distance from the noise of the crowds, sensing perhaps that his life was about to change, what would Jesus have prayed for? The text invites us to wonder. Would he have prayed for illumination to understand the road that lay ahead of him? Might he have asked God to deepen his trust that God would be with him on that road? Perhaps he prayed for a deeper understanding of God’s self-revelation in Scripture. Perhaps he prayed for discernment as he made his way through the clamor and crowds around him, and for the guidance of God’s Spirit in the choices he would inevitably face. Perhaps he prayed for reassurance. Perhaps he even remembered the verses from Isaiah that we heard earlier and understood that, while these verses originally applied to the exiled Israelites, now they might also apply not only to him, but also to all those who would follow him. And perhaps after all that, Jesus just silently rested in God’s presence.

Of course, Luke tells us none of this. In wonderfully symbolic language, Luke only tells us that Jesus had some kind of epiphany, some “aha” moment, some sense of being in a “thin place,” where the veil between heaven and earth is briefly parted. And in this epiphany, Jesus understood that he was truly God’s anointed one, and that God’s Spirit was indeed at work in him. He knew that he was God’s beloved, and that he was indeed empowered for the ministry and work that lay ahead.

Fast forward to 2016. We have been baptized. We too have been empowered for ministry by God’s Spirit. As followers of Jesus, commissioned to do Jesus’ work in the world, how do we pray? Perhaps as children, we began praying by learning rote prayers, “Now I lay me down to sleep…” or the Lord’s Prayer. Perhaps we learned to say grace before meals or prayers before bedtime. Perhaps we learned prayers in Sunday school or youth groups. Depending on your tradition, perhaps you even learned to pray spontaneously in public.

Of course, for Episcopalians, prayer is what is found in the Book of Common Prayer. We’re a “wordy” bunch, and we have lots of beautiful prayers – the Book of Common Prayer is literally a treasure trove of prayers. Many Episcopalians equate prayer with the Eucharist, or with one of the four daily offices, Morning, Noonday, and Evening Prayer, and Compline. When we learn about prayer, we often learn about the four traditional forms of formal prayer: adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and intercession.

All of this is important, but all this is only the tip of the iceberg of prayer. When we discover more contemplative prayer – you will have a taste of it at our Lenten Quiet day on Saturday, February 20th – we discover that there are many other ways to pray: breath prayer, lectio divina, centering prayer, Ignatian prayer, prayer with icons, meditative journaling, prayer with music, with dancing, with art, even with mandalas, prayer in nature, and the list goes on and on.

None of these forms of prayer, whether formal or more contemplative, are ends in themselves. They are all simply practices that enable us to sense, as Jesus did, that we too are God’s beloved children, that we are God’s beloved daughters and sons, not by virtue of where we were born, our skin color, our family, our wealth, or even our piety, devotion, and generosity, but simply because we have always been, are, and always will be called into being by a God of love. Our prayer too helps us to remember that all are God’s beloved children, not only those of us privileged to follow Jesus’ way. In prayer we too realize that God’s Spirit is at work within us, that we too are empowered for ministry in the world. In prayer, we realize that God lives and works through us. Ultimately, we sense that our lives have a deeper dimension than we realize, and our prayer becomes a way of life that is centered in God.

Benedictine sister Joan Chittister relates a delightful Sufi story. One night a seeker – who could be any of us – hears a voice saying, “Who’s there?” The Sufi seeker answers with great excitement, “It is I, it is I, Lord! I am right here!” And the voice disappears. Years later, the Sufi again hears the voice calling, “Who’s there?” Excited to hear the voice again, the Sufi answers, “It is I, Lord, and I seek you with all my heart!” Again the voice disappears. Finally, years later, the seeker again hears the voice calling, “Who’s there?” And this time the Sufi replies, “Thou Lord, only Thou!” This is prayer: to let oneself be drawn into the mind, heart, and consciousness of God. God may draw us only very slowly into God’s life, but sometimes, in the silence, when we pray without words, we too can find ourselves in that thin place, when we know ourselves to be irrevocably joined to God.

You might be thinking, in our 24/7, busy, busy, noisy world, can we ever really find ourselves in that place? Sr. Joan would say “absolutely.” She’s a prolific writer and a popular speaker, and yet she maintains a contemplative way of life. Her first suggestion to us is begin to think the way Jesus thought. Think about life, people, issues, everyday incidents the way Jesus might have thought about them. Have an attitude of graciousness and welcome for all, and a willingness to put the needs of those around us before our own. And then follow Jesus’ lead in spending time apart, time with God, so that you slowly, slowly begin to see the presence of God everywhere in the world, so that you are conscious of the presence of God and able to let God work through you.

Spiritual writer Henry Nouwen reminds us that, “The One who created us is waiting for our response to the love that gave us being. God not only says, “You are my Beloved.” God also asks, “Do you love me?” and offers us countless chances to say “Yes.”

In these weeks of Epiphany, I invite you to sit with these questions: what do you truly seek? Do you seek illumination and understanding? Do you seek reassurance and courage? Do you seek a deeper knowledge of God? Do you seek to know in your own heart that God’s love for you is real and true?

I pray that God will enable all of us to know ourselves as truly beloved, and with Jesus, Chittister, Nouwen, and all the holy ones, to let God’s love fill all our nights and days.

Baptized in Water

Let’s travel back in memory a ways. I want you to remember your baptism. If you were baptized as an older child or adult, this shouldn’t be too difficult. If you were baptized as an infant and can’t remember your own baptism, then think back to the baptism of someone close to you, or perhaps a baptism in which you participated, or one you witnessed in this church. Where did your baptism take place? Was it outside, perhaps in a river, pond, or stream? Or was it inside, perhaps in a tub or pool. Was it in a church like this one, with a font and pitcher? When you were baptized were you fully immersed, or were you sprinkled on the head with water from the font? When did your baptism take place? How old were you? Who was there? Were you surrounded by family, friends, and parish members? And what did you feel when it was all over? A friend of mine who was baptized as an adult said that afterwards he felt as if he had “the holiest head in town.” Did you feel like that?

We have begun Epiphany tide. You can see the change from the celebratory time of Christmas tide to the growing time of Epiphany tide reflected in the change from the joyful white and gold paraments of Christmas to the calmer green paraments of Epiphany. Epiphany is an important season in the liturgical year. Epiphany gives us the chance to focus on several key occasions in which those around Jesus began to see who he really was. In the gospels of Matthew and Luke we hear of the circumstances surrounding the births of John the Baptizer and Jesus, and in Luke we even hear of an incident from Jesus’ early adolescence. The gospel according to John begins with statements about Jesus identity couched in the language of Greek philosophy. However, the writer of the gospel according to Mark, much of which we will hear during this liturgical year, begins his account with the coming of John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism. This event, at the beginning of Jesus’ work as an adult, is for the evangelist, as it should be us, an important first sign, among many that are to come, of who Jesus really is.

The community to whom Mark was writing learned several things from Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism. First, they learned that what happened to Jesus that day in the Jordan River was not a private event. Jesus did not come out under cover of darkness and have John immerse him secretly. Instead, Jesus’ baptism was a public event, witnessed by many. Second, Jesus slipped into the gathering along the river without any fanfare and was baptized along with many other people. All the others allowed themselves to be baptized as a sign of repentance after confessing their sins. Although we believe that Jesus had no need to repent, he allowed himself to be baptized to demonstrate his solidarity with those around him. In so doing, he experienced all that other human beings of his day were experiencing.

The evangelist’s community also came to realize through Jesus’ baptism – and perhaps through their own – that God’s grace does not come to us out of the air. It is not something ethereal. Rather, God’s grace is always mediated to us through concrete people. You could not get more concrete and down to earth than John the Baptizer: dressed in camel’s hair, eating locusts and honey, proclaiming God’s word. More important, God’s grace comes to us through the things of nature, through water, earth, light, and sky. The evangelist’s community also learned that by God’s grace Jesus was empowered by God’s Spirit and affirmed by God as both anointed ruler and prophet. God’s declaration, “You are my beloved Son,” echoes psalm 2:7, a psalm of David addressed to a king. God’s declaration that God is “well pleased” with Jesus echoes Isaiah 42:1, and suggests that Jesus is also destined to assume the prophetic role of speaking out for and caring for those who are poor, marginalized and victims of injustice. Finally, the evangelist’s community learns from Mark’s account that in baptism God has called Jesus into ministry. Immediately after his baptism, God’s Spirit drove Jesus into the desert surrounding Jerusalem where he wrestled with how to make real the vision which God had given him.

Fast forward twenty centuries. Are there lessons for us, as Jesus’ followers, in Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism? Go back again to your own baptism or that of someone close to you. Like Jesus’ baptism, our baptisms too are – or should be – public events. The Book of Common Prayer, always our standard for appropriate practice, is clear that, “Holy Baptism is appropriately administered within the Eucharist as the chief service on a Sunday or other feast.” The BCP also notes that the most appropriate days on which to administer baptism are today, i.e., the Sunday of the Baptism of our Lord, the vigil of Easter, the vigil of Pentecost, All Saints Day, and the Sunday following All Saints Day. Just as Jesus demonstrated solidarity with his own people, our practice of baptism reminds us that baptism welcomes us into a community, that we are all part of a Body, and that the Christian life is always lived in common – even by monks, nuns, and hermits!

As in Jesus’ baptism, God’s grace is mediated to us through people and things. Some of you may have come from traditions where baptism was only offered to children old enough to consent to it. Nevertheless, most of us did not walk up to a river, pool, or font, and immerse ourselves. Someone brought us to the water, and someone poured it over us. And, of course, God continues to supply us with more grace than we can possibly imagine, through the people around us, through the sacraments, and through God’s good creation.

Perhaps more important, just as God did with Jesus, God also affirms us in our baptisms. God acknowledges and accepts our imperfection, our brokenness, and our incompleteness as God’s creatures. But God also empowers us by God’s Spirit. It’s not so much that we receive God’s Spirit – as people created in God’s image, we already share in God’s Spirit. We have what Quakers call “that of God in every man.” I like to think instead that in baptism God awakens God’s Spirit within us, so that we can then be open to God’s presence in our lives. God also affirms as God’s beloved children. Henri Nouwen, the great Dutch spiritual teacher, tells us that the the spiritual life, our life, is a “life of the beloved.” Pause a minute. Hear God saying to you, “You are my beloved daughter, you are my beloved son.”

And here’s the most important lesson for us. In our baptisms, God also calls us to discern our ministries, to ask how we too are called to help bring God’s reign nearer. And we too are warned that we might end up following Jesus to the cross. Indeed, one writer suggests that we should issue warnings with our baptismal certificates: “This is a passport to places you never thought you would go, to be an emissary of the living God in the desert and the wilderness, to plant seeds of hope and healing and life.”1

Are there concrete ways we can continue the process begun by God in our baptisms? To begin with, we can remember that we have been baptized. Most of you know that there is blessed water in our font. I invite you, as you enter the church, to dip your fingers into it and either touch your forehead or make the sign of the cross to remind yourself of what God has done to you and for you in baptism. I invite you also to remember the anniversary of your baptism. Light a candle, thank God for those who brought you to baptism, and pray for them. Let the Spirit drive you into the wilderness. No, I don’t mean backpacking in the mountains – although for some people, that might be just the right place to listen to God. Find some time, even just a few minutes, for silence in your life. Read Morning or Evening Prayer, or any other material that turns you back to God, and then let God’s Spirit speak to you. Consider a more formal quiet day, a day in which you can join others in learning some prayer practices and awakening more fully to God’s presence. I would even invite you to consider a silent retreat at a convent, monastery, or retreat center – they are not just for clergy! Continue to let God’s grace become part of your physical body in the Eucharist and to allow God to lead you more deeply into God’s life. Finally, continue to pray for a vision of the ministry to which God is calling you. Anne Lamott has a lovely little book on prayer entitled Help, Thanks, Wow. After bringing your needs before God, thanking God, and praising God, add one more word: “how.” Ask God, “How can I continue to know myself as beloved, how can I share your love with others, and how can I follow in Jesus’ footsteps?”

Then trust that God has indeed awakened God’s Spirit within you, and rejoice that God has empowered you to bring God’s love to the world.

1. Diane Roth, “Reflections on the Lectionary,” Christian Century, January 7, 2015, 20.

Baptized in Water

Where is your baptismal certificate? For more than half his life Mario had been homeless.1 Before coming to the church shelter he had lived on the streets of New York. The friends who came to his sixtieth birthday party at the shelter declared that he didn’t look sixty. Mario answered by reaching into his coat pocket and taking out his birth certificate. Yes, indeed, he was sixty years old. Then Mario said, “Wanna see my baptismal certificate?” He pulled it out. The certificate said that Mario had been baptized as an infant in an Episcopal Church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Why had Mario carried his baptismal certificate with him as he roamed the streets of Manhattan?

Why did Jesus come to the Jordan to be baptized by John? This question haunted the early church. If John’s baptism was for the cleansing of sin, and Jesus was indeed sinless, why did he need to undergo John’s rite? More to the point, if John was the Messiah’s forerunner, not “worthy to carry his sandals,” why did Jesus come to John asking for baptism? The account of Jesus’ baptism, as recorded in the gospel of Matthew, gives us some clues as to how the early church began to answer these questions.

After having provided Jesus’ genealogy, some details about his birth, and the account of the discovery of Jesus by the Persian astrologers, Matthew has brought us to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. In his account Matthew suggests that, to begin with, Jesus came to the Jordan in fulfillment of God’s commands. Using water as a sacramental means of purification and repentance was an established rite in Jesus’ time. Indeed, even today, among Orthodox Jews, ritual bathing is required for converts to Judaism and for women at the close of their menstrual periods. By allowing himself to be baptized, Jesus showed that he too, as an observant Jew, was willing to do what God required of him. His response to John’s reluctance to immerse him reflects and exemplifies his humble obedience: “It is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

More important, in undergoing baptism, in being willing to experience all that those around him were experiencing, Jesus joined himself fully to our human condition. He was doing what his people did. Though he himself was sinless, he “inaugurated his public ministry by identifying with ‘the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem.’ He identified himself with the faults and failures, the pains and problems, of all the broken people who had flocked to the Jordan River. By wading into the waters with them he took his place beside us.”2

In the account of what transpired after Jesus went down into the water, the evangelist tells us something even more important. As he rose from the Jordan, Jesus had a vision. He saw the Holy Spirit descend on him. In that moment he knew himself empowered for ministry and commissioned as God’s anointed one. And more: a voice from heaven publicly proclaimed Jesus’ identity: “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Not “You are my Son, the beloved,” as in the gospels of Mark and Luke, but “This is my Son.” If Jesus, the onlookers at the Jordan, the hearers of Matthew’s gospel, or we had any doubts as to Jesus’ identity, those doubts must surely have been dispelled in that moment.

Obedient, in solidarity with broken human beings, affirmed, empowered, and commissioned, Jesus was all that and more as he went down into and arose from the Jordan. And here’s the good news: 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 publicly proclaimed us to be God’s beloved children. And in joining ourselves to Jesus, we too are affirmed, empowered, and commissioned.

Do you believe that you are affirmed by God, that you are God’s beloved child? Believe it! You are. You are loved, and accepted and affirmed by God unconditionally and forever. Yet it’s so easy to forget God’s affirmation of us. As children, we may have difficulty in school and discover that we don’t measure up. As teens we may hear other teens deride our ethnicity, our clothing, our taste in music, or our interest in science. The media bombard us as adults with messages reminding us that we are not sufficiently successful, rich, beautiful, athletic, educated, fashionable, or technologically with it – whatever message will sell the next new product. We may stop hearing God’s voice and forget that we are God’s beloved children. So try this exercise. How would you respond to questions like these?3 Do you think that Jesus might be proud of you, proud of you for trusting and believing in him? Might Jesus be proud of you for not giving up on yourself and others and for trusting that he can help you? Do you ever think that Jesus appreciates that you want him, and that you are willing to let go of all that separates you from him? Do you ever think that Jesus is grateful to you for all the many ways in which you show kindness and generosity to others? Do you ever think Jesus wonders why you can’t believe that he has forgiven you totally, or why you think are not loved?

When we know ourselves as beloved children, we also begin to see that God has declared all of us to be beloved children. There is literally no one who is outside the circle of God’s love, even those with whom we violently disagree. Gene Robinson, the retired bishop of New Hampshire and first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, said of Peter Akinola, the archbishop of Nigeria, who strongly opposed Robinson’s consecration, “By virtue of our baptism, Peter Akinola and I are brothers in Christ and one day we are going to be in heaven together, so we might as well learn to get along here because we will have to get along there. God won’t have it any other way.” When we meet those whom we think are unattractive, lazy, dishonest, or hateful do we forget that they too are God’s children? Do we let our own judgments about people drown out God’s affirmation of others? Most important, do we understand that because all of us have been affirmed by God, with Jesus, we have been empowered by the Holy Spirit and commissioned to be Jesus in the world? Do we realize and accept that we have been gifted with the power and the charge to care for all those for whom Jesus cared, those who are poor, oppressed, in need, and unloved? Do we know that we have been called to pursue justice and peace? Are we willing to take up the charge of creating communities of love and inviting those around us into them?

One wonders what Mario experienced on the streets of New York. Those who glanced at him as they walked by probably saw a bum, a homeless panhandler. Did they decide that he was part of the “undeserving poor,” someone who didn’t deserve government assistance or decent clothes or access to the kind of healthcare that you and I routinely enjoy? Did they even wonder whether local shelters and food banks had adequate funding? As I listen to the stories of people who come to Loaves and Fishes sometimes I ask myself the same questions. Recently another parishioner and I saw to it that one of our regular diners, someone who lives in an unheated garage, had a can of kerosene for the space heater that provides his only heat.

Mario was fortunate to finally find a congregation that recognized him as another of God’s beloved children. They understood that his baptismal certificate was an affirmation of his status as someone beloved of God, someone who deserved their care. They welcomed him into their shelter and into their hearts. They claimed him as one of their own.

As we live out our own lives, can we hear again God’s voice at our baptisms? The waters that washed over Jesus also washed over us. If the voice in your head is disparaging and judgmental, try saying to yourself, “I am God’s beloved child, and with me God is well pleased.” If the voice in your head turns toward another in judgment and criticism, say to yourself, “You are also God’s beloved child, and with you God is also well pleased.” Then accept the Spirit’s power and commit yourself to following Jesus up from the water and out into the world.

1. Based on Patricia J. Calahan, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Gospels, Matthew, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox), 44ff.
2. Daniel B. Clendinen, “Journey with Jesus,” January 12, 2014, http://www.journeywithjesus.net/index.shtml .
3. Adapted from A Glimpse of Jesus: The Stranger to Self-Hatred, quoted in Synthesis, January 12, 2014.

Solidarity, Prayer, Love

“Now when all the people were baptized, and Jesus also had been baptized ….” What on earth was Jesus doing out there getting baptized? Herod had imprisoned his cousin John the Baptizer, so it had to have been one of John’s disciples who was actually doing it now. Why was Jesus taking the risk? Wasn’t he putting himself in danger by associating with the Baptist’s disciples? And he was a respectable carpenter. Why was he hanging out with tax collectors, prostitutes, trash collectors, liars, thieves, and other broken, marginalized people? What did he have in common with all those poor folks in the line for baptism, people who had to repent over God knows what, people who were lucky to have a cloak to throw over their tunics, and who weren’t always sure where the next meal was coming from?

Why did Trinity Episcopal Church, a small parish in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, hold a Harvest of the Arts on November 17th?1 It so happens that the rector of Trinity, the Rev. Dr. Erin Kirby, had spent the year before being named as rector in a small parish near Oxford, England. “There, she had a chance to participate in harvest celebrations – a long-standing tradition in England – and learn how congregations of all kinds can bring their ‘first fruits’ to God.” Rev. Erin wondered what the parallel might be in Shrewsbury, since it was not in an agricultural area. It also happens that Myriam, a woman from a neighboring parish, was teaching dance in Trinity’s parish hall. Myriam is from Haiti and is passionately interested in the arts. One day she told Rev. Erin that she had heard from her mother in Port-au-Prince that many schools have still not completely reopened since the devastating earthquake three years ago. Children and teachers still don’t have needed equipment or even permanent classrooms.

After much thought, prayer, and discussion, Rev. Erin, Trinity’s music director, and Myriam brought together a committee to plan a Harvest of the Arts. On the big day, a youth liturgical dance group performed in the sanctuary, the Trinity church choir sang, a Trinity parishioner organized a parents-and-kids improvisational dance workshop, and neighboring Lutherans charmed the gathering with the humor of P.D.Q. Bach. Led by a candlelight procession, people then streamed into the parish hall, where a local artists’ guild had set up a gallery. The artists agreed to donate 10% of the sale of their artwork toward the Harvest, which was earmarked for the Haitian partner of Episcopal Relief & Development. The event raised $943, a generous amount for a parish the size of Trinity. More important, the event brought together several faith communities in Shrewsbury and helped U.S. Episcopalians to strengthen their bonds with their sisters and brothers in Haiti.

“…when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying ….” Why did Luke mention that Jesus was praying after his baptism? All four of the gospels tell us that Jesus was baptized, but only Luke tells us that Jesus prayed after his baptism. And why does Luke show Jesus engaging in deep prayer seven more times – in the midst of an active and exhausting ministry? And what did Jesus have to pray about at this point? Wasn’t he the Son of God?

Not much is known about the early life of Brother Lawrence, a French Carmelite lay brother, who died in 1691 at the age of about eighty.2 Born into a working class family in French Lorraine, he served briefly in the army. Although he had no formal education, he had a profound sense of God’s power one winter day, when he contemplated a bare tree and realized that soon it would again be in full leaf. Not long thereafter he joined the Carmelite monastery in Paris, where he spent the remainder of his life, about forty years, working in the monastery kitchen. Brother Lawrence would have died in obscurity, were it for a visitor from the office of the cardinal in Paris, a M. de Beaufort. As de Beaufort spoke with Br. Lawrence, he discovered a depth of spiritual wisdom that astonished him. He began to write down his conversations with Br. Lawrence, eventually publishing them in a book entitled The Practice of the Presence of God.

The title neatly describes Br. Lawrence’s spirituality. His goal was to cultivate a sense of God’s presence with him at all times. Wherever we are, he said, whatever we are doing, we should do our work conscious of God’s loving presence. In that way, we can be in prayer or conversation with God, and all our activities become holy. Br. Lawrence thus made no distinction between traditional practices of worship – saying the daily office, receiving the sacrament – and the work that he himself was engaged in, i.e., chopping vegetables and scrubbing pots. Instead, he counseled us to make our own hearts a place for prayer, to which we could return as often as we would like. Most important, he reminded us that our sanctification does not depend on great works, but rather on grounding all that we do in our relationship with God.

While Jesus was praying, “the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” What kind of an experience did Jesus have while he was praying? What did he learn about God and himself when he sensed God’s presence and heard God’s affirmation?

In her book Mystical Hope (Cowley Publications, 2001), Cynthia Bourgeault describes her encounter with Frère Roger Schultz, the founder of the Taizé Community.3 Taizé is an ecumenical monastic community that was founded in 1940 in the Burgundy region of France. Open to both Protestants and Catholics, it is also a pilgrimage site, especially for those who know its chant-filled worship. Bourgeault tells us of her encounter with Frère Roger in 1973, an encounter that led to her own conversion and baptism. She was then a graduate student and had gone to Riverside Church in New York City to hear Frère Roger speak. Moved by his simple words of prayer, she pushed forward with the rest of the crowd to meet him. She recalls: “As the wave of people carried me steadily toward him, my panic increased. What would I say when I actually got there? Would I try to tell him all about myself in thirty seconds? Or the opposite—would I just stand there flustered and tongue-tied, wasting his time?” As the line surged forward, she was suddenly face to face with him. And then something totally unexpected happened, something that changed her life forever. “He simply looked at me, his beautifully gentle blue eyes right on me, and asked with tenderness, ‘What is your name?’ ‘Cynthia,’ I said. ‘Oh, it is a lovely name,’ he said, and he looked deeply into me and through me, into depths I never even knew were there. For the next thirty seconds, I had his full attention – perhaps the first time this had ever happened to me in my life, the first time I had ever experienced what it means to be unconditionally loved.” Bourgeault left that encounter with her heart overflowing with hope. She was baptized the following year. She remembers, “It was nothing he said – just the power of the way he was present, his complete transparency to love” (pp. 96-97).

With Jesus, with Myriam and the folks at Trinity Church, with Brother Lawrence, with Frère Roger, and with Cynthia Bourgeault, we too have been baptized. We too have walked through the water and been anointed with the Holy Spirit. We too are called to stand in solidarity with our neighbors, with the neighbors that live across the street, with the neighbors that cycle in and out of our correctional institutions, with our Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and atheist neighbors, with our neighbors in Haiti, and with our neighbors farther away. With Jesus, Myriam, Brother Lawrence, Frère Roger, and Cynthia Bourgeault, we too have heard the call to ground our work, our ministries, our lives, in prayer, to be conscious of God’s continuing presence with us. With Jesus, Myriam, Brother Lawrence, Frère Roger, Cynthia Bourgeault, and all who call themselves Jesus’ disciples, we too can be assured that God loves us unconditionally, that God has called us all by name, and that we are precious in God’s sight.

In a few minutes, I will invite you to come to the font. I will ask you to renew your baptismal vows. As you do so, remember your call: to solidarity with your neighbor, to prayer, and to trust in God’s love. In the end, there is no more that God asks of you.

1. This story is based on Faith Rowold, “A Harvest of the Arts, for Haiti,” at http://blog.er-d.org/ accessed January 11, 2013.

2. The following is based on Robert Ellsberg, “Brother Lawrence,” All Saints (Crossroad, 2000), 24-5.

3. This account is taken from Synthesis, January 13, 2013.

Down by the Riverside

Why are we celebrating the baptism of Jesus today? Why did Jesus need to be baptized? Wasn’t baptism, at least as John proclaimed it, all about repentance? And why would Jesus have needed to repent? And does it really matter to us that Jesus was baptized? These are real questions, and they are questions with which the earliest Christian communities wrestled, most likely even the community for whom the Gospel of Matthew was written.

To answer these questions, we need to start with what our belief in the incarnation really means. Stay with me here, because I’m going give you a little theology. As Christians, we believe that to be human involves being physical, to be tangible, to have senses. We’re not just souls trapped temporarily in a body that has nothing to do with who we really are. We are body and soul inextricably woven together. As Christians, we also believe that the Word was made flesh in a very particular body in a very particular time and place. We believe that Jesus’ body was just like ours, that even as the Word he had a body that was subject to all the limits and constraints on human bodies from the very beginning to the very end of his life, and as a human being he experienced all that human beings experienced, with the exception of sin.

Ponder this for a moment: all that human beings experienced, from conception to death. Some of you know that in the last few years I have been discovering the beauty and power of icons. Icons, those strange mosaics, frescoes, and paintings to which Orthodox Christians are so devoted, but which most Protestants find so mysterious. Recently I read a lovely book, Ponder These Things, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, about praying with four different icons of Mary. It was Williams’s discussion of the third of these icons, the Virgin of the Sign, that helped me to see the baptism of Jesus in a new and arresting way.

As you can see from your bulletin, the Virgin of the Sign depicts the child Jesus within the body of the Virgin. Mary’s hands are extended in what’s called the orans position, i.e., the position for prayer. It’s the same gesture I use when I pray the Great Thanksgiving in the Eucharist. In his reflections on this icon, Williams suggests that Mary stands for the Church, for all of us who are members of Christ’s Body, and that Christ lives within us and the Church, teaching us and enabling us to live with his life and pray with his prayer. But what caught my attention most sharply as I read about the icon was how Williams related the icon to our understanding of the incarnation, our claim that the Word became flesh and blood and came among us in a real human body. Williams says, “We are pointed towards one of the most mysterious bits of our belief in God’s coming in flesh among us: for nine months, God was incarnate on earth, God was human, in a completely hidden way, as a fetus growing in Mary’s womb. We hear sometimes of the paradox of the newborn Christ child, the divine Word who cannot speak a literal human word; how much more striking the recognition of the Word growing silently in Mary’s body.” (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2006, pp. 44-5). In becoming flesh Jesus the Word of God experienced all that real human bodies, real human beings experience, not only hunger, thirst, fatigue, joy, anger, disappointment, and death, but also the utter powerlessness and dependence on another human being that being conceived, being born, and growing to adulthood entailed.

Fast forward now with Matthew to Jesus’ baptism. We learn from Matthew’s account that Jesus intended to be baptized, that he came from Galilee to the Jordan where John was issuing his call for repentance, in order himself to be baptized. He was the Word made flesh, he was sinless, why did he do this? He did this to experience all that human beings experience, including the need to be cleansed from sin. Unlike him, we are sinful creatures, who need to turn our lives around, who need the sacrament of ritual cleansing to help us do that. Jesus persuaded John to baptize him over John’s objections. Needing no repentance for sin, Jesus nevertheless went down into the waters of the Jordan, in order to be in full solidarity with us. He entered those waters to be in full solidarity with the lost, the needy, the broken, and the broken-hearted, with all those who came to John for healing. He entered those waters to identify with us, to take into his own personhood, our need for repentance. And because Jesus was baptized in water, the water itself became a means of saving grace for all those baptized in his name.

In addition to experiencing the cleansing ritual of baptism for and with us, something else happened to Jesus when he came up out of the water. He was anointed by the Holy Spirit and heard God speaking to him. Through God’s words to him, it was fully clear to Jesus himself, and to anyone else who may have heard the words, that God affirmed Jesus’ identity as God’s Son, and that God fully approved of his human life and the earthly mission which he was about to begin. At the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus was ceremonially anointed by God to take up the ministry for which he was born, as a unique and true human being.

So now, why does all this matter to us? If Jesus is in full solidarity with human beings, human beings are also now in full solidarity with him. Through Jesus’ baptism, the water of baptism becomes a means of saving grace for us. Through baptism God’s grace cleanses us from sin. Through baptism we are buried with Christ in his death, and we share in his resurrection. We are truly made new human beings. And – and this is the most important part – in baptism, just like Jesus, we too are anointed by the Holy Spirit, we too are anointed by God to take up the ministry for which we were born as unique human beings. We too are commissioned for ministry in Jesus’ name.

But – and this is also an important part – your Christian life is neither finished nor complete with baptism. You are still growing and developing as the unique human being that God created you to be. That is why the Church also has a rite of Confirmation. Perhaps Confirmation should be called Commissioning, for that is what it really is, a commissioning ceremony for ministry. For those baptized as infants, Confirmation is the way in which we affirm what was done on our behalf by others, or what we began as children. We make an adult commitment to a way of life more closely modeled on Jesus’ way of life. Most important, we acknowledge that we too have been anointed by the Holy Spirit, that we too have been commissioned by the Spirit, for mission to the world. Ah, some of you might say, I was confirmed when I was twelve or thirteen. In our world, you can hardly call that an adult commitment, can you? My answer is, ”Probably not.” That’s why, in the current prayer book, we have one more rite, Reaffirmation. This rite is a means by which those who want to make another, deeper commitment to the promises made in baptism and confirmation may do so. And, like confirmation, this rite also includes the laying on of hands by the bishop. However, even without Reaffirmation, our Christian life doesn’t stop with baptism or confirmation. Just as Jesus was commissioned for ministry through his baptism, similarly, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we continue to deepen our relationship with Jesus, we continue to develop as the people God created us to be, and we continue to grow in our ability to carry out the ministry God has given us. When we are baptized or confirmed, when we reaffirm our baptismal vows, even when we are ordained, we cannot sit back and say, “Done, finished, I’ve arrived.” At each point, we must claim the unique ministry to which we have been called, for which we have been commissioned, into which we must grow.

Who knew that water could be so powerful? Who knew that a trip to the river or the font could change our lives forever? Who knew that a bishop’s hands on one’s head could empower us for ministry to a world that so desperately needs us? Have we lost our astonishment that the wonderful thing that happened to Jesus at the Jordan also happened to us? One spiritual writer suggests that whether we are conservatives, moderates, or liberals, we’re no longer any fun. Have we forgotten that God has called us, truly called us, into partnership in ministry? Perhaps what we all need is what this writer called “a good dunking like Jesus received, and then to breathe in the fresh air of the Spirit hovering over the waters.”

In a few minutes, we will renew our baptismal vows. As we do, God willing, we will all of us emerge with a deeper sense of God’s affirmation of us as distinct human beings and a clearer vision of the ministries to which God calls us.