I will with God's Help

Baptism of Christ, Daniel Bonnell

Epiphany 1A 
January 12, 2014

In case you missed it, today our focus is on baptism.   It’s addressed throughout the readings, and we ourselves will renew our baptismal covenant shortly.   The Baptism of the Lord which we celebrate today is one of the three “epiphanies” or revealings we celebrate during the season of Epiphany.  Like the arrival of the Magi and Christ’s first public miracle at the wedding in Cana, the Baptism of our Lord reveals something to us about Christ, about our relationship with God, and our response to that relationship.

We should know that the story of the Baptism of the Lord is important.  It’s one of the few stories that is contained in all four Gospels, which few stories are.  When a story is repeated by each of the Gospel writers, they all concurred that it was important.  Their telling of the story may be different, but we should take note.

Today we hear Matthew’s account of Christ’s baptism.  In this brief reading, Matthew includes all three persons of the Trinity.  Jesus, God the son is coming up out of the water.  He sees God the Spirit descending.   And he hears a voice from heaven, God the Father, saying this is my Son, the beloved. Three different persons.  One God. All present at this baptism.  Not unlike ours. 

Later we’ll reaffirm our baptismal covenant, which has two parts.  In the first, we are asked some questions about what we believe.  Do you believe in God the Father?  Do you believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God?  Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?    Three different persons.  One God.  All present at our baptism.  Not unlike Christ. 

Our responses to those questions of faith contain the words we repeat every week in the Creed.  

I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ his only son.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the communion of saints.

Because we say these words every week, it could seem like just a repackaging of our weekly liturgy.  Routine.  Something that causes us to glaze over and stop thinking about what we’re doing and saying, both every Sunday, and today when we reaffirm our baptismal covenant.

But what if we could think about it the other way around? Not about the routineness of saying the words every week making today’s reaffirmation routine, but rather the words today making every week special? Our baptismal covenant is really unique and special and weighty and important.  What we’re asked and how we respond are the foundation of our covenant with God.   Baptism is where a bond is created between us and God, a bond that is indissoluble. When you say the Creed every week, realize that those words repeat the responses which establish that covenant. 

When you say those words today and every time you reaffirm your vows, think about that indissoluble bond made with God at baptism. 

When you say those words next week and the week after in the Creed, think about that same indissoluble bond made with God at baptism. 

Matthew’s account of the Lord’s baptism includes a dialogue between Jesus and John.  Jesus comes to be baptized by John.  John protests, and Jesus responds that his baptism done in this way is necessary.  It’s necessary because it will fulfill all righteousness. Fulfilling all righteousness is an odd term, one we wouldn’t use in every day conversation.  Righteousness means more than just saying the right things or believing the right things.  Righteousness actually means acting in accord with divine law.  To fulfill all righteousness means to carry out acting in accord with law.   Carry out.  Acting in. The Baptism of our Lord is all about a response and action.   Just like ours.     

Our baptismal covenant goes beyond accepting a set of statements, or believing the right things, or even accepting Jesus Christ as our personal lord and savior.  Sure, that’s the foundation, but we don’t stop there. 

The part of our baptismal covenant which follows the creedal statements is nothing less than a full menu of ways we are each asked to act or respond.  To teach, be in fellowship, to break bread and to pray.  To repent. To tell the story.  To act and behave in a way that shows the Good News of Christ.  To seek and serve Christ in all people.  To work for justice and peace.  To respect the dignity of all human beings. 

Not only are you asked to commit what you believe, you are asked to act.  You are asked to act.  And you respond that, with God’s help, you will. 

At different times in our lives, God calls us in different ways, seeking  different responses.   At one time in life, teaching may be how you are called to respond.  You teach your own kids, you serve as a leader or trainer.  Maybe you’re called to serve Christ in the children in your life, with the sack lunches and skinned knees.  Starting with Baptism, God is always calling.  We are always asked to respond. 

We are not asked to do everything.  But we are all asked to do something. 

After the Lord’s baptism, you know what Jesus does?  The Spirit leads him out into the wilderness for 40 days.  Jesus, fully human, left his baptism to spend time trying to wrap his head around this relationship with God, what being marked as God’s own means, and how he was to respond. 

Maybe you can’t leave for 40 days to contemplate God’s call.  But at least pause when you respond, or go back and prayerfully consider this immense covenant and how God is calling you to respond in the coming week.  How is God calling you in your Baptism? 

I hear God calling me to respond to seek justice and serve Christ in all people. 

Fifty years ago this week, Lynden B. Johnson declared his war on poverty in his inauguration speech.  At that time, the poverty rate was 19% nationally.  And today, it’s 14% nationally.  While that’s improvement, it can hardly be considered winning the war on poverty.  Unfortunately, things are dire in our community.  In 1969, Lane County had a poverty rate of 11%, which translated to about 23,000 people living in poverty. 

In 2012 the number of people living in poverty has more than tripled, to 76,000, and our poverty rate has increased to 22%, well above the national rate 14%. 

And that poverty level?  The poverty level is about $24,000 per year. 

For a family of 4.

True, there are programs to help families in poverty.  The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP is a program that provides food, formerly known as food stamps.  A whopping 40% of people in Lane County are eligible for Food Stamps because of their low income. That would be good news, except what is offered as assistance is very low.  If you are eligible for SNAP, the per person weekly allotment for food is about $27.

It’s hard to even imagine how difficult that must be, to buy and prepare food a family would eat for $27 per person per week.  To help better internalize that, an interfaith group from around Eugene and Springfield are participating in something called the Food Stamp Challenge. 

Beginning today, anyone who wants to participate is invited to eat for the week on $27 per person.   For a family of four, you’d have a budget of $108. 

Even thinking about eating on a budget of $27 seems daunting.  Grocery shopping, preparing food that kids would eat, and eliminating the impulse food purchases that would blow that meager budget would be also a challenge.  Participating in something like this will provide me real experiences and emotions resulting from poverty, and influence many decisions for the week. It would affect how much time I take for food preparation, food choice, the ability to eat out socially with friends, compromises to buy cheaper processed food, and shop at cheaper less beautified stores.

 

I’m participating in the SNAP challenge because that is where God is calling me, and where I feel I need to respond.

As our Baptismal Covenant asks, “Will you seek and serve Christ in all people?”   My response?   I will, with God’s help.   

If, when you respond to this amazing indissoluble relationship, you feel called to respond in a similar way, join me.

If you are called in another way, maybe to proclaim the Gospel in word and action, respond in another way. 

If you don’t know how you are to respond, spend some time discerning how you are called to respond.   

As we renew the covenant we made with God, as we consider God’s indissoluble bond and our response, I pray we all hear God’s call and respond.  While I will not be able hear, understand or respond to God’s call on my own, as we will say shortly, I will, with God’s help.

Amen. 

Advent 4A

Waiting for Fred

December 22, 2013

I grew up in the same town and the same house with the same friends until I left for college.  Upon returning back home during summer break, my best friend since playpen days and I caught up from months apart while away at college after years together, picking up where we’d left off.  Her new boyfriend was coming to visit her, and I sat vigil with her.  We sat in her bedroom, looking out the window, waiting for his big brown car to drive down the street.  We must have sat there for hours, playing games to keep us entertained.   “He’ll be here within 15 cars”.  “Five white cars will pass us in the next 30 minutes.”  We waited.   And her excitement was so contagious, we were both giddy, waiting for Fred to arrive.    Finally he arrived.   And the arrival was worth the wait.  

Today, we are a few days short of the arrival we’ve been waiting for, counting down.  We’re waiting for God’s arrival.   And yet, it’s hard to  have that same sense of expectation and anticipation, of sitting vigil.  I think part of the reason for that, is that God is so much bigger and harder to fathom than Fred.   We can imagine a college sweetheart driving.   It’s harder to imagine God knocking on the door.  If only we could have a way to understand God’s arrival, to bring to a human scale to the immensity of God entering our life.   Some way to understand this thing that’s about to happen.  

Of course, that’s the whole point of the nativity - God arriving in a tiny human newborn.  Through that very human experience, we catch a glimpse of something on our scale. 

I think it’s interesting that during advent we spend all this time talking about and preparing for this very long-awaited arrival.  Arrivals are something, as humans, we understand.  But honestly, I’m pretty sure God doesn’t need an arrival.  God’s always present, dwelling in is, all around us, before and after us.   If that  is true, why do we celebrate the arrival of God in Jesus every year? If God’s already with us, God certainly doesn’t need to make an “arrival”.   

But we do.

We don’t understand, can’t comprehend God.  So we need God to reenter our lives, like other people enter our lives, year after year.  We need to anticipate his arrival like humans.   Like waiting for Fred.    We’ve all experienced arriving, or waiting for someone we love to arrive.  And that helps us know a little more about God.  Waiting for God to arrive is hard.  Anticipating a birth or the arrival of a loved one is more understandable.  Experiencing the sheer joy after the arrival we know. 

The season of Advent is laden with anticipation of an arrival, and uses a lot of arrival or greeting language. And that’s all for our benefit - to help us understand this immense thing.  Many of our hymns today talk about arrivals or greetings.   Savior of the nations come, by Martin Luther.   Come thou long expected Jesus, from Charles Wesley.  Joy of heaven to earth come down.  Visit us.  Enter every trembling heart.   Also from Charles Wesley.  

God’s arrival through this tiny infant, helps us better understand.  Christ is God.  But Christ is also fully human, arriving like all other infants, with parents who experienced pain, worry, joy and relief.   Those are things we’ve experienced.  And as Christ grew up, learning, teaching, serving loving?   Christ experienced the same emotions and the same worries, pain, joy and relief.  

God entering our lives through Christ is a great step towards understanding this big thing.  But sometimes, even that’s somehow too big, too hard to wrap my head around.  God in a baby?  God, who created the galaxies, and counted the hairs on my head? That God, in a baby? In my head, I understand.  In my soul?  Sometimes I need more help.   

Sometimes I don’t need to understand.  I relish the holy mystery, without feeling any need to understand or be able to rationally explain the hows and whys. I sense God in the immense and in the majesty.  Sometimes, however I need more help.  I need more human, relational experiences to let me glimpse God. I need to understand the story in exceedingly mundane and human terms.    I need these things to help make the imminent arrival of the God child more real.  

Luckily, today’s readings tell of these things.  Today’s readings talk about greetings and tidings.   We all know about greeting each other, and sharing news.  Those are very normal things we all do.  And because of that, they provide more nuggets to understand this mystery.   

The Gospel tells the beginning of the birth story of Jesus.  The section today focuses on Joseph’s part in the story.   Joseph is engaged to be married.   He finds out Mary is pregnant and not by him.  While her perceived infidelity would certainly have disgraced her, it also would have disgraced him.  That’s why he was going to dismiss her.  I can imagine that both of them were confused, and scared, and uncertain what had happened, or what was going to happen. 

And Joseph was a carpenter.    You know the carpenter’s motto, right?  Measure twice, cut once.  Joseph was likely a careful realist.  If I can’t fathom God coming into my life as a baby, can you imagine what Joseph was going through?  He surely needed help making this news real to hear something on a scale he could understand.    
So God brought tidings or news to Joseph in a dream, some of the news pretty fantastical and hard to imagine, and for the practical carpenter, some concrete.   Mary has conceived a child from the Holy Spirit. What would you do with that sort of dream?  Hmm.    But the angel threw in some very practical logistical information for him too.   You are to name him Jesus.  That part is pretty practical, because as the father, it would have been Joseph’s job to name the child, and most commonly with a name steeped in family history.  With that naming counsel, the angel gave Joseph some useful, comprehendible news, in an otherwise larger than life story. 

So the news the angel brought Joseph included the mysterious, as well as the ordinary.  The ordinary may have helped Joseph grasp, or at least accept the mysterious.  God helps us all by speaking to us in ways we need to hear.  We just need to be listening for God, in the still small voice, in the dream, in the tear, in the words of a friend.  God brings tidings to us all the time.  

Continuing with the very ordinary things from today’s readings, let’s look at greetings, at what people say to each other when they meet.  My daughter’s high school Spanish teacher insists that the class responds to her greetings every day.  Good morning class. Good morning.  Fr. Court offers a good morning welcome every week, and we respond.  We know about greetings.   It’s what we people do. 
The second reading today is made up entirely of Paul’s greeting to his letter to the Romans.  Every one of Paul’s letters begins with a similar greeting.  It’s longer than we’d expect, but that’s what people did.   He’d write a letter to a particular community and in the introduction, include information about them, why he was writing them, perhaps something about what was happening in his world.  After this paragraph-long preface, He’d conclude his greeting with his standard opener:  “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  We’ve heard this greeting many times.  And don’t let its familiarity fool you.  This greeting is packed with great messages, and caused quite a stir in Paul’s time.  

During that time, the world as Paul knew it, was pretty divided, between Jew and Gentile.  People identified in one community or camp,  or the other.   And ne’er the two shall meet.  During his life, Jesus came through smashing boundaries and barriers, and asked his followers to do the same, and with this greeting Paul was doing the same.  

Grace to you was a greeting that was familiar to the Greeks and other Gentiles of the time.    Peace, or shalom, was the traditional greeting of the Jews.   In this one simple compound phrase, Paul’s greeting continued Christ’s imperative to take down the walls that divide.  Paul could have, and many would have expected him to have proffered greetings something more like, Grace to you gentiles, and Peace to you Jews, supporting their cultural and societal distinctions and barriers. Perhaps being seen as more culturally appropriate to each.    

Rather, Paul jumbles both greetings together in one phrase, that he repeats, letter after letter after letter.   Grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  With a simple greeting, Paul is speaking very familiar words to each distinct community who heard him.  And he was doing it a way that, like Jesus sounded familiar, and yet not quite.  He acknowledged and used the culturally appropriate and expected greeting for Jews and Gentiles, while also creating greeting that unites despite the differences.  Grace and Peace, from God.  Let’s acknowledge and honor the differences, while celebrating the unity in one God.   

Paul used the simple act of a greeting to support Christ’s values of love, unity, and respecting all.  All that in a greeting!

Like Paul, it’s through the ordinary things we do, through greetings and tidings, we can share Christ’s love.  And like Mary and Joseph, it is with arrivals and waiting that we learn about and experience Christ.  It’s through these ordinary things that we do that we have the chance to unite, and honor, and see Christ in others.   Through these ordinary things, we see mystery, and we experience the holy.

In the readings today, we learn of the ordinary and the mystery.  With God’s arrival in Christ, in a human newborn, the ordinary and mystery are all wrapped up together in that swaddling cloth.   It is through that child, God came to earth to experience our ordinary lives and emotions.  

Through Christ, God experiences the ordinary, and through the ordinary, if we look for it, we experience God.      A blessed and ordinary Christmas to you. Amen