Homily for the First Sunday After the Epiphany
The Baptism of Our Lord
A Sermon of Dr. Christian Brocato
January 13, 2008
May the words of my mouth and meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength and Redeemer. Amen.
Just after Christmas, I received a phone message from someone whose name I didn't recognize. She had called to report that a friend in St. Louis whom I had known for twenty years had died. She left a message, so I called her to find out what happened. My friend, Harriet, was found on her living room sofa by one of her ten siblings who had to break into a window to get into her house. She had mysteriously died a day or two before and for a reason that the coroner could not diagnose.
Within an hour of that call, I got an e-mail from a friend. It was a beautiful PowerPoint with soothing music and photos of nature. The overlaid text told the story about a man who gave a eulogy for someone whom he loved. He spoke about her birth, her life and her death. He also spoke about her tombstone and the "dash" between the dates of her birth and death. The text said that "the dash represents all the time she spent on earth ..." I could hardly believe the coincidence and the timeliness of the two messages. Later on that night, I thought about this homily and the life of our Lord. We very recently celebrated his birth, and we fairly soon will celebrate his death and resurrection. Perhaps more importantly, we need to think how best to celebrate the "dash" in his life.
Last week, we recalled the manifestation of Jesus to the Gentiles in the anniversary of the Epiphany. Leslie reminded us that the wise men, whoever they were, journeyed from the East and stopped to ask directions on their journey to find the child, Jesus. She also suggested that the visit could have been in the second year of Jesus' life and not shortly after his birth. Indeed, we know very little about Christ's life between his birth and the events leading to his public ministry.
It is an aspect of his public ministry, which is inaugurated with his Baptism in the Jordan by John, that we celebrate today, an important punctuation in the "dash" in Jesus' life, an important aspect of his own journey from its beginning to its end. Scripture scholars tell us that Christ's Baptism was a 'theophany,' one of those very rare events in salvation history in which the presence of God is made manifest in both symbol, in this case, a dove, and also word, the voice of God.
The gospel tells us that "After Jesus was baptized, he came directly out of the water." At that moment in history, the theophany took place, the manifestation of God and the revelation of God, linked to the baptism of the Lord. It was, if you will, a kind of sacred "messianic investiture" in which Jesus received from God the mission for which he had been sent into the world, a mission that directly linked him to the prophecy of Isaiah: "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights: I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations." (Isaiah 42: 1-2) This mission of Jesus, this discipleship of the One sent into the world that we might have life, this mission was made public at his baptism in the Jordan, a day of great significance, not so much for Jesus' sake, but for salvation history in which the covenant between God and humanity would be sealed for all time.
Shortly, we, as a congregation, will re-affirm our own commitment to baptism and then will baptize Zoe, the daughter of Jessica and Mike. She will be initiated into this Christian community which itself is called to discipleship, called into mission, called to live-out the "dash" of time on earth in the very best way that we can. Our tradition calls for Zoe to be clothed as with a new garment of salvation. We will ask God's grace upon Zoe, her parents, her grandparents and her Godparents, Megan and Tom Bridge, grace to help her in her journey to be all she can be as a child of God.
Yesterday in the life of our diocese, twelve women and men received a kind of sacred investiture as well, clothed in garments that symbolize the life of ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church. That ordination and reception Service which took place at Trinity Church, Copley Square, and was an important punctuation in the "dash" of our lives as ministers of word and sacrament. Today, I wear the very same symbols of ordained ministry, stole and chasuble, which I wore for my first Eucharist following my ordination to the priesthood in St. Louis in 1990.
As glorious as the event was yesterday, and it was glorious; it was a moment in history in which the Holy Spirit was called upon to descend upon the candidates to bring to us the grace of ordination to the priesthood, the grace to embrace the call to mission, to discipleship, to live a more transparent life in the Church as public ministers whom we call priests. In one way, yesterday's public affirmation of call and acceptance of ministry is directly linked to Jesus' own public affirmation of call and acceptance of ministry.
In Jesus' case, however, the theologian Karl Rahner, tells us that "there is a uniquely profound 'direct presence to God' belonging to Jesus basic condition'" as he was both Word of God and Son of God. The theophany at his baptism was not so much for Jesus' benefit but for the benefit of the world, the generations of believers to come for whom Jesus' unique example of baptism would forever be the powerful symbol of new life in the Spirit, of new life in the Christian community, of new life in the on-going mission and journey of the people of God.
In 1975, churches in Wales, the Anglican Church, the Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church, and the United Reformed Church signed a 'Covenant of Unity.' That covenant recognized that its partners in faith shared in the same mission, the same work within the Church. It stated: "We intend so to act, speak and serve together in obedience to the gospel, that we may learn more of its fullness, and make it known to others in contemporary terms and by credible witness." Yesterday, we at Trinity made that same commitment to credible witness to God, to God's Church throughout the world and to you as followers of Jesus Christ in the Episcopal Church. You and I make a public credible witness when we come here week after week to listen to the Word of God and to be nourished by the Body and Blood of the Lord.
You, the parishioners of All Saints, have journeyed with me on my road back to public witness as a priest for several years. You have heard me preach about the journey, the ups and downs of that journey, the gratitude I have had and do have for David and Leslie, the members of my discernment committee, my partner Jeff, Don and Keith and our beautiful choirs and all those of you who week after week have seen me in one capacity or another in this parish that we call home. I left public ministry as a Catholic priest in 1999 and have journeyed in faithfulness for these last several years, a journey that finally led me to the event that took place yesterday at Trinity, and I could not have done it without your prayers and support. I am deeply grateful.
But that event yesterday was really not about me or the other newly ordained that included Jon Eden who will celebrate Eucharist here tonight at the 6:00 service or about Chris Wendell or Adam Shoemaker who have also served at one time or another in our parish. The event we celebrate today as Jesus' baptism in the Jordan is also not really about Jesus or John the Baptist. Both events are really about all of us who are called to newness of life in the Spirit, to live lives that are truly in keeping with the message of the Gospel, a message that calls each one of us to discipleship in one way or another, a message that calls us to transformation of mind and heart as women and men committed to living out the Gospel of Christ, as best as we can, each and every day of our lives.
That message is not always easy. It is borne out in us as people who strive for holiness but fail on a fairly regular basis. It is borne out in the checks we write to feed the poor, to clothe the naked, to support the ministry of our parish and our diocese. It is borne out when we are peacemakers in our homes, our places of work, Iraq, Darfur, Kenya, Tanzania and elsewhere and also when we support the Millennium goals of our parish, the diocese and the United Nations.
It is borne out when we carve out minutes or even seconds in our daily lives in transit to work, to pick up the kids at daycare, to run here and there, time carved out for 'self-consciousness' to place ourselves in the presence of the One who loves us without condition, the One who cradles us even when we resist, the One who calls us out of darkness into the marvelous light of His presence. Those times in our lives become for us a "place made by God, a priceless mystery," a "living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God," which may be all we can do in a given day in our attempts to be faithful servants of God.
Our Offertory anthem will remind us today that we are ALL called into a profound relationship with God because we have been "washed, sanctified, and justified in the Name of Jesus." By the nature of our own baptisms, we share in the mystery of God's priesthood of all believers, clothed with the garment of salvation, nourished by Word and Sacrament for this journey, this "dash" in our lives in which the grace of God is merciful, living and abundant.
Let us respond to this mystery of profound love with our very selves, our souls and bodies, a living sacrifice in service to God and to one another in this journey of faith. Amen!