Homily for the First Sunday After Epiphany/The Baptism of Jesus
Homily for the First Sunday After Epiphany/The Baptism of Jesus
January 8, 2012
At this time of year, we celebrate the Epiphany, the revelation of God to the world in the person of Jesus Christ. We recall the journey of the wise men, or magi, who came from far away and exotic places, mysteriously called out of their familiar and comfortable worlds and compelled to go on what could only be described as a spiritual journey – a pilgrimage – inspired, maybe haunted, by a dream and a hope of finding the secret, the source, the meaning of life.
They chose to go where God called and led them. Their symbol is a star – the star being their calling, their guiding light, their vision, their belief in the presence of the divine.
They become for us a kind of metaphor, of how life is a pilgrimage if we are able to open our hearts to it and allow ourselves to be guided by the Spirit. Clever and wise as we may be, we cannot contrive our future, and typically we end up where we would never have expected. The wise men ended up in Israel – the land of Judah. Their spiritual journey led them to a small, backwater town in rural Palestine, and to a child who had so little importance that he didn’t even rate a room at the local hotels.
The Epiphany is a powerful image of the great of the world being drawn to the helpless and obscure, and finding their lives transformed by the process. Usually, as we know, it’s the other way around – the poor and the weak obliged to kneel before the powerful.
Personally, I will know that kingdom of God is near when I see CEO’s, bank presidents and generals kneeling down before some child – perhaps in Africa or the Canadian Arctic – when we see the leaders of the world reverencing the poor and the helpless, and making them a priority, and not just making politically correct promises about protecting the future well-being of the world’s children, but, like the magi, offering significant resources that make possible a new way of life.
Epiphany reminds us that God’s call may pull us a long way out of our comfort zone, and introduce us to foreign places, people and ways of perceiving, and completely change the direction of our lives.
Remember, the original word for the Church was EKKLESIA. It meant “those called out.”
Mark’s Gospel begins with the account of Jesus’ Baptism at the hands of John the Baptist. John’s call was not a comfortable or conventional or convenient thing – John was a harsh and wild character who probably looked like a cross between a homeless person and a hippie; he was part old-style prophet and part wild-eyed visionary. He wasn’t inviting people out for a comfortable treatment at the spa, or afternoon high tea. John is more like a street fighter who challenges people – calls them out — to a fight, but his fight is not a physical one – it is a battle fought within, on the level of the spirit. John challenges people to do battle with their false selves — to depart from selfishness, injustice and unethical behaviours – to take responsibility for their own choices — and to begin over again.
It was a message addressed to people whose lives had been caught up by forces beyond their control and urged them to face into their problems – encouraged them to believe they could find the power to overcome their weaknesses and compromises. It was a harsh and uncompromising message, but it drew people like the Boxing Day sales at the mall.
It is the message the Church offered from the beginning, and it has been repeated in a million ways, from 12 step groups to psychiatrists: change is necessary, change is possible.
At the end of my first year in seminary, we took a course that required us to spend four days on the street – an experiential way of realizing how the other half lives (or maybe the other 99%). For two weeks prior, we didn’t shave, and we put together the shabbiest wardrobe we could. We ended up in Regina, at a place called the Marian Centre, run by a Roman Catholic order. One of the volunteers there, a very kindly older woman, assuming I was what I seemed to be – a street person – stopped and looked at me perceptively and said “You can do better than this.” I was profoundly touched by the compassion of this woman whose heart could go out to the wayward and the lost in that way, and it remains for me an insight into the way God sees us.
“You can do better than this” That is a call both to the individual and the whole society, and by the grace of God we discover the potential that is hidden, buried, apparently dead, within us, and we come to life in the Spirit.
In an oppressive time – of tyrants and foreign occupation and demeaning compromises and betrayal of people and principles — John’s Baptism became a sign of a new age dawning, of something momentous about to dawn.
Maybe we seem as strange and unusual as John as we stand here in our strange clothing, calling people aside – calling them away – calling them out — from the pursuit of status and material things, to pay attention to the call to align our lives with the life of our Creator – a call toward clarity and integrity of life – and to be baptized in the water as a sign of our need for cleansing and our willingness to make a drastic change.
Baptism for me recalls both the adoring gaze of the wise men upon the infant Christ – and also the call of John to depart from our sinful ways.
The font stands at the door of most churches — stands there like a sentinel –– stands there like John the Baptist, and says: this is not for triflers – this is not a spa — Christianity is not for those who choose the easy and expedient way through life. The Font stands there as a reminder of the call of God to lead the new life, but also of the transforming love of God which makes the new life possible.
Baptism opens the door into a new way of being. God always provides a way to return – a way of renewal. Harsh as John’s message may have sounded, renewal was the aim in what he was offering, and John knew he was looking for something more. Jesus, the one who was to be that way of renewal, accepted John’s baptism as a sign of his solidarity with all the ordinary people of the world who recognize their need for God
Jesus journeyed with the people who came to John acknowledging their faults – people who came to express to God that they were sorry about the way they had been living and wanted to change – and Jesus stood there as one of them, as a fellow human being, apparently making the point that his gospel and his way of life were not just for the elite but intended for all people – that in the crunch Jesus would stand with us and not against us. The Christian spiritual tradition assures us that God in Christ still journeys with those who can acknowledge their poverty of spirit and in humility and hope open themselves to the power of God to transform
In an age which is very dismissive of religion (and many other institutions, including family), it is instructive that Jesus did not consider it beneath him to join with the many who came seeking Baptism. The Gospels also record him attending synagogue “as was his custom,” and speaking to his disciples in terms of creating the Church as an extension and continuation of his ministry.
“You are my son – the beloved” – that designation was not something he clung to like a miser. Like the magi, he offered his gifts of compassion and care to all who called upon him. This is the reality that Christ shares with all who come to him: as we become one with him, we become children of God.
Like the wise men – like those who responded to John’s call to join him in the renewing waters of the Jordan – may we hear ourselves being called out — called out of everything that deadens and dulls and deflects our lives from their true purpose – called toward the promise of the new life – and may we become free to offer the gifts we have been given so the light of Christ may shine throughout the world.
The Rev. Grant Rodgers+
Prayer: Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen
RCL appointed readings:
Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29 Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11
