First Sunday after the Epiphany – Year B (RCL) 2009
Genesis 1: 1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19: 1-7; Mark 1: 4-11
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, Portland, OR
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Genesis 1: 1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19: 1-7; Mark 1: 4-11
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, Portland, OR
Sunday, January 11, 2009
THE FONT OF ALL OUR BLESSINGS
Let us pray: God of love, even as Emanuel our God with us entered into the waters of new birth to submit to your desire to be baptized and fully identified with us – you draw us into the water and pour out your abundant gifts of grace manifest in that font. The water, we know, is a sign of your love and promise. We know also that it is the vehicle from which you have chosen to shower our lives with your blessing. Help us to remember the power of this life giving water every day that we may turn from our sin, receive the power of your forgiveness and utilize the gifts of your Spirit to sanctify our lives and serve you in joy and fulfillment. We pray all these things in the name of the one who took our nature upon himself, and in whose name we are baptized, Jesus the Christ. Amen.
(SUNG) COME THOU FONT OF EVERY BLESSING, TUNE MY HEART TO
SING THY GRACE. STREAMS OF MERCY, NEVER CEASING
CALL FOR SONG OF LOUDEST PRAISE. TEACH ME SOME
MELODIOUS SONNET, SUNG BY FLAMING TOUNGES ABOVE.
RAISE THE MOUNT, O FIX ME ON IT, MOUNT OF GOD’S
UNCHANGING LOVE.
Life is beginning to settle back into the natural rhythm of everyday experiences as we move from the festive season of Christmas into the enlightening experiences of Epiphany in our church calendar and into the “bleak mid-winter” in our secular one. I for one enjoy this rhythm between the secular and the sacred in my faith journey. It is often true that when our hearts are tuned to the nature of our world around us – our spirits can tune into the nature of the love of God who surrounds us in our very being and fills us with the power of God’s love poured out in abundance in the lives of those who claim the ministry of the Christ and look to carry that ministry into the world – those of us who claim discipleship in the name of the Christ and who struggle to understand what the nature of that discipleship means in our everyday experiences. For many of us who were baptized as infants within the first few months of our lives the power of that symbolic initiation into our lives as disciples – with the outward and visible sign (water and blessed oils) of the inward and spiritual grace of that sacrament may be missing some of its power. That is in part why we are often stirred to the core of our spiritual selves when we witness that sacramental action in community as we welcome the newly baptized into our midst with the words “We receive you into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood.” Our baptism then is in reality the service of ordination for each one of us into the priesthood of all believers – and is the most profound and important of sacramental actions that mark us as God’s children and heirs. This is the blessing for which we have gathered to give our thanks this morning. The blessing of the waters of our baptism which have equipped us for the work to which our God has called each of us. With many gifts, the One Spirit has called us each to new life in Christian community. That is the power of this font. That is the gift which we have been given in Emmanuel – God in whose epiphany we have been given new life as that God dwells among us.
We reach this first Sunday after the Epiphany refreshed by the memory of God’s ultimate gift given in the Christmas story, Jesus the Holy One, God’s beloved. In the Gospel account from the Author of Mark’s telling of the Good News we hear of Jesus’ encounter in the river Jordan with the Baptizer John. John, we are told is proclaiming that “the one who is more powerful than I is coming after me – I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” That, in fact, is what has happened for us – we have been baptized in that Jesus’ name with the Holy Spirit; and with that baptism we have been made priests of God’s kindom made manifest among us. That is quite an awesome gift and quite and awesome responsibility don’t you think? That reality in our lives – that we have been claimed by the Son of God, freed from the sting and power of death and made heirs of God’s eternal kindom is why we gather again and again around this holy table to share in the gifts of bread and wine which Jesus left for us a memorial of our redemption in his name.
(SUNG) HERE I FIND MY GREATEST TREASURE; HITHER BY THY
HELP, I’VE COME; AND I HOPE, BY THY GOOD PLEASURE
SAFELY TO ARRIVE AT HOME. JESUS SOUGHT ME WHEN
A STRANGER WANDERING FROM THE FOLD OF GOD; HE, TO
RESCUE ME FROM DANGER, INTERPOSED HIS PRESCIOUS
BLOOD.
The foundations for the Gospel narrative around the actions of the Baptiser John in the river Jordan are found in the creation narrative from the book of Genesis. In that narrative God creates the earth from a void where water, wind and fire come together. Each of those elements has power of its own – and enough power to destroy all that with which it comes in contact. God however harnesses those powers for good and causes them to work in conjunction with each other through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is that Spirit which we witness in today’s recounting of Jesus’ baptism and which we believe has been given to each of us in our own baptism so that we too might be claimed as God’s beloved with whom he is well pleased. The author of Mark’s Gospel is forthright in the declaration that Jesus of Nazareth is God’s Son. That statement is made boldly at the beginning of the narrative; here in the baptism narrative Jesus hears the words of the Father naming him and calling him to the purpose of his ministry on this Earth. Mark’s author wants us to be clear that Jesus is God’s Son in a way that no other of the great prophets of Israel could claim to be. Jesus was to be both the recipient of and the dispenser of God’s gift of the Holy Spirit. The Greek translated here as “descending like a dove on him” is perhaps better translated as “into” him so that the Spirit of God becomes a very part of the nature of this Son of God – and Jesus will impart that gift to those who come to believe in his ministry. John says he will baptize with water and the Holy Spirit and indeed that is the gift with which each of us was infused in our own baptismal covenant whenever that event happened in our lives.
We are told that the baptism of John that was drawing hoards of Jews out of the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem into the wilderness was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Our term “repentance” has a much stronger image in the Greek word “metanoia” which is seen as a change of mind or a total change of direction. John was calling on the people to change their direction and return to the way of righteousness and repentance. Into this mass of humanity hearing the call to metanoia – comes the most righteous prophet of God and after descending into the rebirthing waters of the Jordan river – rises to carry out his mission and ministry by preaching throughout all of Galilee, healing the sick, proclaiming the good news or Gospel of salvation and adoption to restore humanity into right relationship with God and to bring about the coming of God’s kindom among them. It is this metanoia that intrigues me in this baptism of John; this call to change my mind, to change my direction and seek the things of higher purpose. A story is told from the Native American tradition that helps to illustrate this concept with more clarity and power than I can, and I’ll share it with you:
This Native American Coyote story describes a poor man who had a dream or vision that there was a place where everything is perfect. You might say that this was heaven. He had been told that this place was visible to all who had accepted a life of humility and complete service to their community. The poor man felt very humble, especially since he had no real possessions, but he felt that he must set out on a journey away from his present life and community in search of this perfect place.
He set out the next day at dawn. He walked and walked the entire day, and when evening arrived, before he had found the perfect place, he set up camp, took out his meager meal of bread and a flask of water to satisfy his hunger and thirst. He gave thanks, ate the bread, drank the water, and then he removed his sandals and placed them facing in the direction he was headed so he could continue his journey the next day. Then he went to sleep.
While the poor man slept that night, Coyote came and turned his shoes around so that they faced the direction from where the man had come that day. When the poor man awoke, he put on his shoes, and began to walk again. While he walked all day, he thought about this perfect place, this heavenly city. When it was nearly dark, he came to a place that looked strangely familiar. He walked down a street, turned a corner, and saw a somewhat familiar dwelling. He waited outside the dwelling until its inhabitants came out to greet him and invite him in. When they did, he entered and was given warm clothes and a warm meal that was so delicious he could not remember the last time he had eaten so well. He was received with such hospitality that he felt as though he was a member of a family he had known his whole life.
After much talk, singing, and praying, the whole household offered the poor man their best bedding. He thanked them and laid down to sleep thanking Creator God for the abundant blessings shared with him. He could not help but think that this was, indeed, a perfect place, a heavenly place. How could there be another more perfect?
(SUNG) OH, TO GRACE HOW GREAT A DEBTOR DAILY I’M
CONSTRAINED TO BE! LET THY GOODNESS, LIKE A
FETTER, BIND MY WANDRING HEART TO THEE:
PRONE TO WANDER, LORD, I FEEL IT, PRONE TO LEAVE
THE GOD I LOVE; HERE’S MY HEART, OH, TAKE AND
SEAL IT; SEAL IT FOR THY COURTS ABOVE.
This is what our journey into baptized life is like. Baptism is our glimpse into the Kindom of God right here and right now – we so often look for the “truth” in our lives by seeking outside of ourselves and the truth of this story is that by experiencing the metanoia of our relationship with God – by turning around and beginning anew we discover that the truth lies within our own communities of faith and relationship. That is the true miracle of the gift of God’s Holy Spirit given to us in our baptism – to help us understand the power of God’s redeeming love and the ability to hear the whisper of our Creator “You are my Child, the beloved, with you I am well pleased”.
No comments:
Post a Comment