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| Chinese artist He Qi depicts the baptism of Jesus. |
Lord our God, O Holy One of Israel, to the waters you call all those who thirst, to the feast of your covenant you invite all the nations. As once at the Jordan your Spirit tore open the heavens, and your voice proclaimed Jesus your well-beloved sons and daughters; lead us by your Spirit through the water and the blood, that our love for you may strengthen us to obey your commandments, and our love for one another be the victory that forever conquers the world. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us, your Son who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.
From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.
Some Thoughts on Mark 1:4-11
"Baptize me, who am destined to baptize those who believe on me with water, and with the Spirit, and with fire: with water, capable of washing away the defilement of sins; with the Spirit, capable of making the earthly spiritual; with fire, naturally fitted to consume the thorns of transgressions. On hearing these words, the Baptist directed his mind to the object of the salvation, and comprehended the mystery which he had received, and discharged the divine command; for he was at once pious and ready to obey."
"On the Holy Theophany Or On Christ's Baptism," (4th of Four Homilies) by Gregory Thaumaturgus (3rd century).
"On the Holy Theophany Or On Christ's Baptism," (4th of Four Homilies) by Gregory Thaumaturgus (3rd century).
We are now heading into the season which follows the Episcopal Church's celebration of Epiphany. The first Sunday after Epiphany is traditionally the Baptism of our Lord, and the reading is taken from the Gospel for that year. As such then we see that the baptism narrative is taken from the Gospel of Mark. It actually has three parts to it. The first part is the preaching of John. The second part is the baptism itself. The third portion is Jesus' vision.
The beginning of our reading today falls in the very earliest of passages in Mark's Gospel and it includes the tail end of John's preaching and flows easily into the baptism of Jesus. John the Baptist is preaching that the "strong man" is coming. The combination of Greek words and how Mark opens his narrative make it unmistakeably clear that Jesus is the eschatological (end time) figure that Israel has been waiting to arrive. John's ministry has been to prepare the people and to be a moniker of the signaling the Lord's arrival. In language and clothing, he appears as a voice heralding a new time and a new mission. (You might refer to the post for the second Sunday of Advent to read more about this part of our passage. You may also want to read Joel Marcus' work on Mark, page 163, specifically.)
The baptism of Jesus implies that perhaps Jesus was a follower of John the baptist. Such ideas and wrestlings with who baptizes who are age-old and should not take away from the idea that the incarnation, God in human form, comes and is present with us and that he himself is baptized. I find myself drawn less to the idea of authority and whose student was whose and ever more closely invited to see that as John proclaimed there is a new Way being formed. There is a new structure to the world being made. Jesus and his baptism, like our own baptism is a part of that structure.
The action takes place on the edges of society, in the wilderness, not in the safety of sacred space. And, the act itself challenges us to ask where are we as a church doing the work of baptism? Where are we doing the work of heralding a new structure and a New Way to the world? Are we locked away where only a few can hear or are we out in the world, on the edges, inviting and encouraging people to see that there is a different way a new and every revealed way of being the kingdom of God?
The third part of the narrative today, following the proclamation and baptism, is the vision. Reading through the scriptures we might remember or rediscover Isaiah 64:1-2:
Oh that you would tear the heavens open and come downThe images that are before us also remind us (I think intentionally) of the deliverance of Israel from the army of Pharaoh through the waters of the Red Sea. Certainly, this is part of our own baptismal liturgy. But we know what is coming next... Jesus is to go into the desert wilderness for a time of temptation.
to make known your name to your enemies,
and make the nations tremble at your presence,
working unexpected miracles
such as no one has ever heard before.
The baptism is the launching of Jesus' ministry. It is the first cornerstone of the new structure. It is the first step along the way for every Christian. It is a movement through the waters from sin and imprisonment to freedom and life eternal. There is another image here that is rooted in scripture and repeated in our baptismal formula and that is the death of Jesus on the cross.
Like bookends the beginning of the Gospel offers a vision of the end, wherein here at the baptism the heavens are ripped apart, the spirit descends, and God pronounces that this is his Son. We can compare this to the temple curtain which is ripped apart, Jesus breathing his spirit out, and the centurion making his proclamation. (Donald Juel, Mark, 34-35) Just as Jesus is baptized here in the waters of the Jordan so does every Christian man, woman, and child find their baptism at the cross of Christ.
Today as you look out over your congregation you will see a group of people who more than likely believe that the government is not the way it was meant to work, that power rests in the hands of the most wealthy people in the country, and that the current state of politics promises no change. They sit there also with the knowledge that they work hard and help their community and their neighbors; as do most Christians which Pew research says make up the majority of those who give time and treasure for this work. They are also worried about their future economically and they are concerned about who will take care of them. The holidays are over. Many have returned from vacation needing a vacation and the promises of what the shopping season promised are not what they expected.
It is a lie to pretend that our world mirrors the wilderness world in which John made his proclamation or Jesus was baptized. We live lives in the Episcopal Church that are foreign to most of the people in the rest of the world. It seems to me there are two very real places though in this gospel that hit right in the heart of where most folks are. The Gospel today recognizes that the world is not the kingdom of God and a new time is before us in this instance to turn, change, and make things different. We are the inheritors of God's vision and we are the ones who by walking the Way of Jesus make so transform the world around us that we shall in the days to come experience something new and different. We are a part of this building, Jesus is the cornerstone and we are the living stones being built up into the kingdom of God.
The second thing is this. In a world where not belonging is the norm and secret boundaries divide people clarity about living in the family of God and how you become a member is Good News. In most places you will not be told how to belong. In most places, you will not have the opportunity to be invited to be a part. The "in" crowd is small and not many people are sharing the secret entrance rites. But in the family of God, everyone is a member. In fact, the moment a person recognizes the Grace of God moving in their lives they are "in." Baptism is the public rite of initiation which reminds them and the church that they are already God's sacred possession. They are God's sons or daughters, they are God's beloved, they are the ones upon whom Jesus breathed the breath of life, and for whom Jesus died on the cross. Baptism is the clear sign that reminds us (not God) that we are his people and the sheep of his hand.
That my friend in the wilderness of this world is VERY Good News.
Some Thoughts on Romans 6:1–11
"Lesslie Newbigin once said that if you do not see the kingdom it?s because you are facing the wrong direction."
"Dying to Live," Bill O'Brien, The Christian Century, 2005.
"Dying to Live," Bill O'Brien, The Christian Century, 2005.
"When he spoke of what happened to him on the Damascus Road, Paul never knew whether to call it being born or being killed. In a way, it felt like both at the same time. Whatever it was, it had something to do with letting go."
This passage from Romans is a classic conversation between the Romans and the Protestants even today! Paul is clear God is a lover of humanity and creation. God gives us grace, grace, grace. Christ's death was a final blow that released grace into the world freely. Grace has a simple equation in Paul's writings: the more there is sin the more grace abounds! This is good news, my friends...this is THE GOOD NEWS.
So Paul says, rhetorically, so does this mean that we can or should sin even more in order to receive grace? We need to remember that one of the charges against early Christians and their communities was that they were lawless. This argument posed would certainly lead to lawlessness. Paul's answer to himself is "of course not."
He then makes it clear that through baptism we die to sin and become inextricably linked to Christ's death and his resurrection. We are raised by God and we are made to walk in the world around us in new life. Paul is clear that as we rise up into this new life we are to respond to God's grace with (what one scholar called) "conscience-based ethical conduct." We would not want or desire to respond intentionally to God's love, mercy, and grace with behavior other than that which builds up the body of Christ and reflects well upon the God who saved us.
I believe that Paul was clear to himself - a new life means new behaviors. Just as death with Christ is given so is life and so our lives will reflect this new behavior - our lives will look like the life of Jesus. I think Chris Haslaam of Canada does an excellent job of capturing the Gospel of Paul as laid out in Romans with this "cliff notes version":
I believe that Paul was clear to himself - a new life means new behaviors. Just as death with Christ is given so is life and so our lives will reflect this new behavior - our lives will look like the life of Jesus. I think Chris Haslaam of Canada does an excellent job of capturing the Gospel of Paul as laid out in Romans with this "cliff notes version":
Just as we have been grafted on to Christ in his death, so we too will share with him through a resurrection like his (v. 5). We know that we ceased to be dominated by sin and divine wrath (“our old self”, v. 6) when we were baptised. This removed the effects of our waywardness, our enslavement to sin, but makes us ethically responsible for our actions. This is what baptism does (v. 7). Dying with Christ also includes living with him. Because Christ has risen, he will “never die again” (v. 9) – this is unique, once-for-all-time act, an anticipation of the age to come. And then the answer to the question in v. 2: Christ “died to sin” in the sense that sinless, he died rather than disobey the Father, and in the context of a sinful world. He was raised by the Father (v. 4) in order that he might live “to God” (v. 10, as he has always done.) So, as Christ is the model for our lives, and it is he upon whom our lives are grafted, we too must leave sin behind and be “alive to God” (v. 11) in Christ.The miracle of life with Christ is that though we are never free from sin we are always one step away from complete forgiveness because our God continues to reach out to us with Grace. Paul believes that those who follow Jesus will live an intentional life - though a grace-filled one. Moreover, that the grace received is the grace in-turn offered to all those whom we meet. We like Christ are to be forgiving and grace-filled vessels in the world. It is not enough to live a life full after baptism it is to reflect and be grace agents in the world around us - ultimately, enabling others to discover their grafted-ness into the life of God in Christ Jesus.
OR
Some Thoughts on Acts 19:1-7
"As Mae Gwendolyn Henderson observes, What distinguishes black women’s writing, then, is the privileging (rather than repressing) of 'the other in ourselves.' ...Through the multiple voices that enunciate her complex subjectivity, the black woman writer not only speaks familiarity in the discourse of the other(s), but as Other she is in contestorial dialogue with the hegemonic dominant and subdominant or "ambiguously (non)hegemonic" discourses."
Commentary, Acts 19:1-7, Jacob Myers, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.
"A sermon cannot do everything, but as a congregation celebrates the Baptism of Our Lord, it is an opportunity for the preacher to speak about the many levels of baptism. One can teach, not only about its obligations (as above), but also about baptism's significance as an event where we are incorporated into Christ and, consequently, share his destiny."
It is a curious question to ask what baptism have we baptized into? The baptisms in Acts have been used for a long time to reveal the importance of connectedness with the original mission of Jesus. We might well remember scholarship that seeks to separate the mission from Jesus from the mission of John the Baptist as well.
Liturgical language creates by amplifying meaning and providing a sense of potentiality. In this way the liturgical act is always unfinished as it moves further into the lives and community of those who participate. It is also is never a full distillation of action. We might think of baptism, confirmation, or ordination services. They are certainly liturgical events in the sense that they happen at a given time with a particular group of people. Yet we recognize in our liturgical theology that what has happened has meaning within the backward facing narrative that is active in the present past of the celebration. The action of the meaning making liturgy is one that includes the present future. This continuation of liturgical action and meaning making continues to extend the enterprise into the future, reflecting God’s narrative into the present and into differing contexts. It also continues the work through the extension of liturgical narrative across the life span of individuals adding meaning to birth, life, work, marriage, loss, and death. Liturgy as a meaning making narrative provides a “way of experiencing” God’s narrative in the midst of a lived life. Liturgy is not an individual’s work alone, but is proper to the participation of the whole gathered community.
Let us think how the Eucharist does not stand on its own but has the theological undercarriage of baptism always present in its nature. In her exploratory essay on” Baptism and Bodies,” Andrea Bieler points out that bodies at baptism matter. Historically and expressively what is done to the body in baptism shapes the experience itself. This is true across ancient baptismal theologies in “liturgical texts, baptismal homilies, and personal reflections.” Baptism is a corporeal rite “such as standing naked, anointing, signing the cross, and immersion.” There is a direct connection between the baptismal ritual action, words, and embodiment that echoes the Incarnation of the Word that is made flesh and bone. The human body at baptism is dynamically connected through sacrament of water into the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. In baptism we recognize that it is the human body that becomes the site for salvation. When we consider the baptismal rite of Cyril of Alexandria we see a bodily enactment of Romans 6:6ff. The individual is buried in the waters of baptism with Christ and raised to new life in the full body of Christ, the Church. “In baptism the mystery of the incarnation is celebrated.”
If we turn to Augustine’s theology of baptism we understand that two things arev happening: the Church is the embodiment of Christ that does the baptizing while at the same time it is the body into which one is being baptized. Therefore, it is an expression of two roles. Theologian Luis Vela summarized Augustine’s baptismal ecclesiology:
St. Augustine’s doctrine of Baptism as a sacrament of regeneration and incorporation is wonderful and extraordinarily beautiful. . . . According to the marvelous will of God the Father through the Word, in an action of both the Spirit and the Word, God incorporates humanity [into the life of the Trinity]. . . .Through Baptism, the church incorporates us into the great family of Christians, and she is our loving mother, who through Christ, the living head, structures our life and shares our ministry.
Both Biehler and Augustine help us imagine the reality that the baptismal footprint is always at work in the action of Eucharist, which means it is not a private act. Eucharist, like baptism, cannot take place alone or in the privacy of one’s own home. Just as you are not baptized alone there must always be someone else present, so too with the eucharist. Here again proximity to others – to the gathered church comes into play. The eucharist is an embodied act, it is about consuming, but this happens only when one can receive and participate with others in a community of the faithful. Something is always missing in virtual Eucharist, especially when one person is alone in the privacy of their home: the world and other people. The Christian is always being immersed into community as part of the eucharistic act. It is never an individual act. The person is embodied in the midst of others for the sake of a particular gospel proclamation out and into the world. The eucharist, like baptism, is always enacting a dual action. It is not the individual who blesses eucharist but always the church that does so. It is also the church into which the individual is coming into community as they receive the bread and wine. Matter and spirit, knowing and being, are all connected horizontally in this action with the gathered faithful, just as there is a vertical dimension to the action of eucharist too.
Embodied liturgies make community.
I say all of this because it is not mere apostolic hierarchy that Paul is speaking about. It is not about having the "right" baptism. Instead I propose that it is about Paul seeking to explain that when one is baptised they enter a greater community. It is not enough to be baptized by John for the individual's sake. Instead it is essential to understand that in baptism we are grafted into Christ.
The first thing we must grasp is that liturgy is not merely another action in a series of weekly actions, or even historical actions. It is an action, like baptism that, while including finite participation, is an act by the infinite within creation. Christ’s action in the liturgy and in the Eucharist itself is not a historical act because it is infinite in quality and eschatological in nature. Christ, in baptism and the Eucharist especially, establishes a “visible sacramental fellowship” that is shared during the embodied gathering of humans. I am suggesting that it is in liturgy—where we gather together, sing, read, listen, act, receive, and celebrate in a complex sharing of schemas anchored in creation—that we incarnate God’s narrative and Christ’s visible sacramental fellowship. (See Rowan Williams's work Christ at the Heart of Creation, 56) This is a creative effect of the liturgy. It does not merely provide a word about our condition and nature; it is linked to the hypostatic union of the matter and spirit, being and knowing. Our understanding of the sacraments is that they are a link (physically and spiritually) to the infinite Trinity, and Christ specifically, within that relationship.
Here then we see that baptism is a physical act that both connects us horizontally and vertically with the community of Christ followers today and with the infinite community of God.
[The above notes are taken from my new book entitled The Embodied Liturgy.]
Some Thoughts on Genesis 1:1 - 2:4
"The Spirit who broods over the primordial waters descends on Jesus in the waters of the Jordan and names him 'Beloved.' That same Spirit then drives him out into the wilderness, the wild and wasteland (Mark 1:12)."
"From the very beginning, God has been fully present to everyone and everything in this world. And God is still with us because the Spirit of God still "hovers" and "resonates" over and around and in us all."
"The Spirit who broods over the primordial waters descends on Jesus in the waters of the Jordan and names him 'Beloved.' That same Spirit then drives him out into the wilderness, the wild and wasteland (Mark 1:12)."
Commentary, Genesis 1:1-5, Kathryrn Schifferdecker, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.
"From the very beginning, God has been fully present to everyone and everything in this world. And God is still with us because the Spirit of God still "hovers" and "resonates" over and around and in us all."
"God is Here!" Alan Brehm, The Waking Dreamer.
"In what ways are the writings of an ancient people and their perception of God relevant to us?"
"Writing the Back Story," Russell Rathbun, The Hardest Question, 2012.
"Today's lectionary reading is the first five verses of the chapter, but as a confession, it should be heard as a full piece. Heard in this way, it confirms that God is indeed great and the creator of all things."
Commentary, Genesis 1:1-5, Beth Tanner, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2009.
Genesis revealed for the first Christians the nature of God and God’s relationship to the creation in three ways.
The first is the interpretation of the creative work in Genesis as a revelation of work by the eternal Word. John’s gospel offers a vision of the eternal Word at work in the creation. John’s own prologue echoes the work of God in creation. But specifically (as in Psalm 33:6 “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made), John’s Gospel ties the birth of creation to the eternal incarnation. God as Trinity is not a theological concept that comes along as a historical sorting out of Jesus’ relationship to God. Instead, a Trinitarian theology recognizes and holds that the second person is eternal – the Word is eternal. All things were created through the Word, and without the Word, nothing came into being. This is different than Sophia, or wisdom, it is instead the logos – the spoken, speaking Word that is God. See John’s Gospel 1:4-5 and 7-9. (Richard Hays offers a succinct argument which parallels and mirrors accepted the biblical scholarship, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, 308-309.)
The first is the interpretation of the creative work in Genesis as a revelation of work by the eternal Word. John’s gospel offers a vision of the eternal Word at work in the creation. John’s own prologue echoes the work of God in creation. But specifically (as in Psalm 33:6 “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made), John’s Gospel ties the birth of creation to the eternal incarnation. God as Trinity is not a theological concept that comes along as a historical sorting out of Jesus’ relationship to God. Instead, a Trinitarian theology recognizes and holds that the second person is eternal – the Word is eternal. All things were created through the Word, and without the Word, nothing came into being. This is different than Sophia, or wisdom, it is instead the logos – the spoken, speaking Word that is God. See John’s Gospel 1:4-5 and 7-9. (Richard Hays offers a succinct argument which parallels and mirrors accepted the biblical scholarship, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, 308-309.)
The second is that the unique incarnation of the Word, Jesus, is evidenced in power and master of the elements. Jesus storms the sea is the same God who divides the waters so Israel may walkthrough. Jesus who divides loaves and fishes is the same God who brings manna in the wilderness and water from the rock. Jesus who in his death unites heaven and earth is the same God who parts the heavens and earth.
The third of the three passages is the “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”. When speaking and looking at the coin Jesus uses the word from the creation story. He plays with the notion that God has created all things, all things are God’s. Caesar can believe this or that is his, but even in the end when Caesar lies beneath the earth everything, even Caesar, returns to God. This is a powerful and subtle statement about God having in hand all things.
Sometimes we approach the Genesis passage as if it is a stand-alone passage. But the Gospel authors and early Christians understood it as revealing not only the nature of God and the creation but the place of the eternal Word and incarnation in it. To speak of the creation is to speak of the eternal Words possession of it, and its creation through it. On this Sunday it is a perfect opportunity to find in the creation story a way of unmooring the trinity from boring sermons on doctrine and to weave the creation story into the Gospel in order to reveal the God in through early Christian eyes.
The third of the three passages is the “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”. When speaking and looking at the coin Jesus uses the word from the creation story. He plays with the notion that God has created all things, all things are God’s. Caesar can believe this or that is his, but even in the end when Caesar lies beneath the earth everything, even Caesar, returns to God. This is a powerful and subtle statement about God having in hand all things.
Sometimes we approach the Genesis passage as if it is a stand-alone passage. But the Gospel authors and early Christians understood it as revealing not only the nature of God and the creation but the place of the eternal Word and incarnation in it. To speak of the creation is to speak of the eternal Words possession of it, and its creation through it. On this Sunday it is a perfect opportunity to find in the creation story a way of unmooring the trinity from boring sermons on doctrine and to weave the creation story into the Gospel in order to reveal the God in through early Christian eyes.
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