Isaiah 42:1-9
Sermon, Baptism of the Lord, Year A, January 12, 2014 St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Bexley, OH January 12, 2014 The Rev. Susan Marie Smith, Ph.D. Isaiah 42:1-9 Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 29 Matthew 3:13-17
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.
Isaiah 42:1-9
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. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed [RB: perseverance, endurance: stability] until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching. Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, 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. I am the LORD, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them. RB = Rule of Benedict
1
Acts 10:34-43
Then Peter began to speak to them: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ--he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."
Matthew 3:13-17
Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." Sermon Prayer:
Lord, help us to live into the grace and spiritual power you lavished upon us at our Baptism, that we may become more and more like you. Amen.
I. Introduction: Matthew’s account of Jesus’ Baptism How much water was there at your baptism? The River Jordan in which Jesus was immersed is not a very big river. But it was enough. And it isn’t just water you need for baptism: it’s Spirit. And “just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’" Now, in Mark and Luke, the voice from heaven speaks to Jesus, and says, “YOU are my Son, my beloved: with you I am well pleased.” But Matthew is talking to us. And what’s interesting is that he uses the very same words used at the Transfiguration, when Peter, James and John accompany Jesus up the mountain. Jesus is so luminous they can hardly look upon him. A bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said exactly the same words we hear today: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”; and then adds, “Listen to him.” It’s almost as if the Transfiguration, which we’ll hear about the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday, is a kind of second baptism. The stories show that Jesus’ experience of Baptism, and the mountaintop experience of Transfiguration, changed him, kind of like tuning a piano, 2
tuning him more and more toward God’s ministry, God’s way of being. It’s strange, too, because through these experiences, Jesus became not only more God-like but very much more fully himself—an intimate offspring of the loving, healing, forgiving, out-pouring God. The promise is that the same will happen to us: baptism begins a process of becoming more and more like God, more and more attuned to participating in Christ’s ministry—transfigured into God. I just wish it were that simple for us: Jesus is baptized and starts his God-like ministry. I wish when we baptize a baby, or child, or teen-ager, or adult—that voilà, they would be able to be peaceful and loving no matter what. They’d get bullied on the playground, or get a bad grade-even get fired from a job, or be publicly accused for something they didn’t do—and never be mad or vindictive, never be depressed or isolated or hard to live with. But we know it’s not like that. On the surface, baptized folks look just like everybody else. So what difference does it make? II. The Call in our own Baptism and the Challenge of Mimesis A. The story of Jesus’ baptism teaches us about our own baptism: God is pleased with us. Our presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, says that what God said to Jesus at his baptism, God also says to us: You are my beloved child. With you I am well pleased. My mentor, a priest in Kansas City, the Rev. Dr. Bill Beachy says, “It’s important to hear God say, “with you I am well pleased,” because we often are NOT pleased with ourselves, and we therefore believe God cannot be pleased with us, either. People then fall into trying to earn God’s favor.” B. When we are not pleased with ourselves; we are not pleased with others; and we hurt. Often we are NOT pleased with somebody else, either. In our anger and self-righteousness, we can want God not to be pleased with the other person (as we are afraid God is not pleased with us)—and then we can imagine God siding with us against that person. We can want God’s favor in our anger at another person—and when we’re really upset, we can imagine that God would want us to hurt or punish them. A colleague of mine served several parishes in California. One day a man, we’ll call him George, called totally distraught: he had just discovered that his wife was having an affair. He could hardly talk. She invited him to come to her office. By the time he got there, he had moved to anger. Why wouldn’t he? He had been betrayed; the integrity and trust of their marriage had been violated; his sense of self was now rocky; his ego came out swinging. The rage ascended, mixed with his unspeakable grief and disbelief. “What in the world am I going to do?” he practically shouted. What would you do? Let me tell you what a friend of mine in graduate school did. She told him he had to leave the house that night. She changed the locks on the house and put it up for sale. She hardly spoke to him; she arranged for a divorce. She soon married someone else. The End.
3
She said to me later that there are three things folks usually do during a mid-life crisis: go to graduate school, buy an expensive new car, or have an affair. As she put it, she had done the first two; he did the third. From her angry, hurt perspective, hers were justified; his was not. C. “Mimetic theory” calls us to be intentional about who and what we imitate. There is a French theologian, René Girard, a retired professor from Stanford, who spent his entire career trying to understand why people, even those who follow a loving, forgiving God, are so inclined to act like my friend, cutting people out of our lives, dismissing them, “unfriending” them. Girard noticed that people tend to imitate the behavior they receive. He called it “mimetic theory” because we’re like mimics: if, as children, for example, we are included in the family conversations, as if our thoughts matter and are interesting, we will grow up likely to take other people seriously and treat them with respect. On the other hand, if we are abused or neglected, then unless we are introduced to a different model we could imitate instead, we are likely to treat others with the abusive pattern we experienced. “Mimetic theory” explains much of the violence in our world. When George experienced the shock and betrayal of a broken marriage covenant, his first instinct was to cause his wife the same hurt she had caused him. It seemed justified, fair, right. And we can identify with George. I sure can. But we who are baptized, have in fact been introduced to a different model: we hear stories every week of Jesus who did not cut people out of his life, even when they wanted to kill him. The profound Grace of God gives us the chance of caring for others even if we were NOT cared for ourselves. And when we imitate Christ, we have life. So after George asked my colleague what in the world he should do, she did not advise him to imitate what my friend in graduate school had done. Rather, George’s priest called him to the Grace he had received at Baptism, which meant not imitating the way he had been treated by his wife. Instead, she opened up for him a Christimitating path. She paused, and did that inner listening for a moment. Then she said, “Go to the nearest florist, and buy two dozen roses. Then go home, and get down on your knees, and ask her forgiveness for whatever it is that you did that led her to have an affair.” Out came the rage! “She doesn’t deserve it!!!” George almost shouted. “Of course she doesn’t deserve it. But if you can find it within yourself to go to that vulnerable and humble place, the inner place where God’s Spirit abides, the place where Grace can enter in and reconciliation can be started, you may find your marriage deepen to a whole new strength and intimacy you could never have imagined before.” It was outlandish. Unexpected. Outrageous. Completely, stunningly, Christian. Counterintuitive—but compelling, humble, honest, hopeful. Strange. He did it. And his marriage was transfigured. III. Renewing the Grace of Baptism: imitating Christ by the power of the Spirit. Today we remember and renew our Baptism. And fittingly, our Adult Formation Committee is offering our annual film with lunch after church today, and has invited a guest, Betsy Hansbrough, who has studied René Girard, to help 4
us interpret film, and life, in terms of intentional growth away from blind imitation of whatever happens to us, toward conscious imitation of Christ. It is conscious imitation of Christ that we covenanted for at baptism, and which leads to life, and redemption, and the glory of blessed, full humanity. Stay today and see Lars and the Real Girl, or find it on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Our youth will reflect theologically after the film today and next Sunday over lunch; adults are invited back at 9:15 next Sunday and the Sunday after to reflect together, to deepen in Christ. For baptism is not magic. It does not automatically guarantee we will be perfect human beings. But it is the beginning of a journey of maturing in Christ. It is a covenant with God in which we promise to grow, in order to follow Christ’s non-vengeful way, and to open ourselves to the Spirit’s unspeakable Grace—the Grace that gives us the relief and peace of deep fulfillment, unquenchable joy, and eternal love: the Grace that will transfigure us. Thanks be to God!
“If I am willing to serenely bear the burden of being displeasing to myself, I will be a pleasant place of shelter for Jesus.” --St. Therese de Lisieux (Jan. 2, 1873 – Sept. 30, 1897), French discalced Carmelite nun.
The Rev. Susan Marie Smith, Ph.D. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church of Bexley, Ohio
5
Psalm 29 Matthew 3:13-17
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.
Isaiah 42:1-9
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. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed [RB: perseverance, endurance: stability] until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching. Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, 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. I am the LORD, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them. RB = Rule of Benedict
1
Acts 10:34-43
Then Peter began to speak to them: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ--he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."
Matthew 3:13-17
Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." Sermon Prayer:
Lord, help us to live into the grace and spiritual power you lavished upon us at our Baptism, that we may become more and more like you. Amen.
I. Introduction: Matthew’s account of Jesus’ Baptism How much water was there at your baptism? The River Jordan in which Jesus was immersed is not a very big river. But it was enough. And it isn’t just water you need for baptism: it’s Spirit. And “just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’" Now, in Mark and Luke, the voice from heaven speaks to Jesus, and says, “YOU are my Son, my beloved: with you I am well pleased.” But Matthew is talking to us. And what’s interesting is that he uses the very same words used at the Transfiguration, when Peter, James and John accompany Jesus up the mountain. Jesus is so luminous they can hardly look upon him. A bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said exactly the same words we hear today: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”; and then adds, “Listen to him.” It’s almost as if the Transfiguration, which we’ll hear about the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday, is a kind of second baptism. The stories show that Jesus’ experience of Baptism, and the mountaintop experience of Transfiguration, changed him, kind of like tuning a piano, 2
tuning him more and more toward God’s ministry, God’s way of being. It’s strange, too, because through these experiences, Jesus became not only more God-like but very much more fully himself—an intimate offspring of the loving, healing, forgiving, out-pouring God. The promise is that the same will happen to us: baptism begins a process of becoming more and more like God, more and more attuned to participating in Christ’s ministry—transfigured into God. I just wish it were that simple for us: Jesus is baptized and starts his God-like ministry. I wish when we baptize a baby, or child, or teen-ager, or adult—that voilà, they would be able to be peaceful and loving no matter what. They’d get bullied on the playground, or get a bad grade-even get fired from a job, or be publicly accused for something they didn’t do—and never be mad or vindictive, never be depressed or isolated or hard to live with. But we know it’s not like that. On the surface, baptized folks look just like everybody else. So what difference does it make? II. The Call in our own Baptism and the Challenge of Mimesis A. The story of Jesus’ baptism teaches us about our own baptism: God is pleased with us. Our presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, says that what God said to Jesus at his baptism, God also says to us: You are my beloved child. With you I am well pleased. My mentor, a priest in Kansas City, the Rev. Dr. Bill Beachy says, “It’s important to hear God say, “with you I am well pleased,” because we often are NOT pleased with ourselves, and we therefore believe God cannot be pleased with us, either. People then fall into trying to earn God’s favor.” B. When we are not pleased with ourselves; we are not pleased with others; and we hurt. Often we are NOT pleased with somebody else, either. In our anger and self-righteousness, we can want God not to be pleased with the other person (as we are afraid God is not pleased with us)—and then we can imagine God siding with us against that person. We can want God’s favor in our anger at another person—and when we’re really upset, we can imagine that God would want us to hurt or punish them. A colleague of mine served several parishes in California. One day a man, we’ll call him George, called totally distraught: he had just discovered that his wife was having an affair. He could hardly talk. She invited him to come to her office. By the time he got there, he had moved to anger. Why wouldn’t he? He had been betrayed; the integrity and trust of their marriage had been violated; his sense of self was now rocky; his ego came out swinging. The rage ascended, mixed with his unspeakable grief and disbelief. “What in the world am I going to do?” he practically shouted. What would you do? Let me tell you what a friend of mine in graduate school did. She told him he had to leave the house that night. She changed the locks on the house and put it up for sale. She hardly spoke to him; she arranged for a divorce. She soon married someone else. The End.
3
She said to me later that there are three things folks usually do during a mid-life crisis: go to graduate school, buy an expensive new car, or have an affair. As she put it, she had done the first two; he did the third. From her angry, hurt perspective, hers were justified; his was not. C. “Mimetic theory” calls us to be intentional about who and what we imitate. There is a French theologian, René Girard, a retired professor from Stanford, who spent his entire career trying to understand why people, even those who follow a loving, forgiving God, are so inclined to act like my friend, cutting people out of our lives, dismissing them, “unfriending” them. Girard noticed that people tend to imitate the behavior they receive. He called it “mimetic theory” because we’re like mimics: if, as children, for example, we are included in the family conversations, as if our thoughts matter and are interesting, we will grow up likely to take other people seriously and treat them with respect. On the other hand, if we are abused or neglected, then unless we are introduced to a different model we could imitate instead, we are likely to treat others with the abusive pattern we experienced. “Mimetic theory” explains much of the violence in our world. When George experienced the shock and betrayal of a broken marriage covenant, his first instinct was to cause his wife the same hurt she had caused him. It seemed justified, fair, right. And we can identify with George. I sure can. But we who are baptized, have in fact been introduced to a different model: we hear stories every week of Jesus who did not cut people out of his life, even when they wanted to kill him. The profound Grace of God gives us the chance of caring for others even if we were NOT cared for ourselves. And when we imitate Christ, we have life. So after George asked my colleague what in the world he should do, she did not advise him to imitate what my friend in graduate school had done. Rather, George’s priest called him to the Grace he had received at Baptism, which meant not imitating the way he had been treated by his wife. Instead, she opened up for him a Christimitating path. She paused, and did that inner listening for a moment. Then she said, “Go to the nearest florist, and buy two dozen roses. Then go home, and get down on your knees, and ask her forgiveness for whatever it is that you did that led her to have an affair.” Out came the rage! “She doesn’t deserve it!!!” George almost shouted. “Of course she doesn’t deserve it. But if you can find it within yourself to go to that vulnerable and humble place, the inner place where God’s Spirit abides, the place where Grace can enter in and reconciliation can be started, you may find your marriage deepen to a whole new strength and intimacy you could never have imagined before.” It was outlandish. Unexpected. Outrageous. Completely, stunningly, Christian. Counterintuitive—but compelling, humble, honest, hopeful. Strange. He did it. And his marriage was transfigured. III. Renewing the Grace of Baptism: imitating Christ by the power of the Spirit. Today we remember and renew our Baptism. And fittingly, our Adult Formation Committee is offering our annual film with lunch after church today, and has invited a guest, Betsy Hansbrough, who has studied René Girard, to help 4
us interpret film, and life, in terms of intentional growth away from blind imitation of whatever happens to us, toward conscious imitation of Christ. It is conscious imitation of Christ that we covenanted for at baptism, and which leads to life, and redemption, and the glory of blessed, full humanity. Stay today and see Lars and the Real Girl, or find it on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Our youth will reflect theologically after the film today and next Sunday over lunch; adults are invited back at 9:15 next Sunday and the Sunday after to reflect together, to deepen in Christ. For baptism is not magic. It does not automatically guarantee we will be perfect human beings. But it is the beginning of a journey of maturing in Christ. It is a covenant with God in which we promise to grow, in order to follow Christ’s non-vengeful way, and to open ourselves to the Spirit’s unspeakable Grace—the Grace that gives us the relief and peace of deep fulfillment, unquenchable joy, and eternal love: the Grace that will transfigure us. Thanks be to God!
“If I am willing to serenely bear the burden of being displeasing to myself, I will be a pleasant place of shelter for Jesus.” --St. Therese de Lisieux (Jan. 2, 1873 – Sept. 30, 1897), French discalced Carmelite nun.
The Rev. Susan Marie Smith, Ph.D. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church of Bexley, Ohio
5
