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Mark 1. 4 – 11 Baptism of our Lord |
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Epiphany I| January 11, 2009 | Year B RCL |
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St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Yardley, PA
© The Very Rev. Dr. Daniell C. Hamby |
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Epiphany I 09
i 11 Mark 1 1-4 Celebration of New
Ministry for Jack Zamboni |
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Mark
1:4-11 John
the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance
for the forgiveness of sins.
And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem
were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river
Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s
hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild
honey. He proclaimed, “The
one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop
down and untie the thong
of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with
the Holy Spirit.” In those
days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the
Jordan. And just as he was
coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit
descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” |
About five miles out of
Milledgeville, Georgia you come across the Oconee River.
It is a major waterway in the state
Running from northwest to southeast
It is wide and shallow in some places
and narrow in deep in others
It twists and turns,
To look at it on the map, it
looks like the back of a snake.
But near Milledgeville there
is a wide, shallow place
And it is the place where some of the churches go to
baptize their members.
Of course, outdoor baptisms can only take place in warmer
weather
Which means late spring until early fall in that
part of the world
Usually near to Easter.
I have a picture, somewhere,
of an African Methodist Episcopal Zion congregation
With their pastor, a certain Mr. Davis,
At the annual baptizing….
There is a group of folks standing on the banks,
dressed to the nines
The church mothers have their heads covered in
amazing hats
Some of them wear African garb… others are dressed
in white, head to toe.
To one side, under a picnic shelter sit the doings
for dinner after the service
And you can be sure there are baskets of
fried chicken,
And bowls of green beans, cooked with
side meat, and
Gallons of potato salad and of course,
sweet tea….
And maybe just one chocolate cake.
Down in the river stands
Preacher Davis in a long white robe
He has on fishing waders underneath it
And around him are two or three church deacons,
there to be of assistance
And standing in a line, awaiting their turn
Are all of the candidates,
The men and boys are dressed in navy
blue pants and white shirts and red ties
The women and girls are wearing white
dresses, white shoes, white pocketbooks.
One by one they will be led
down to the river by the deacons
And in a deeper pool of water, where the current is not too
strong
Preacher Davis will ask each one of them: “What do you believe”
And each of them will answer in a loud, and
confident (if trembling) voice
“I believe in Jesus!”
And he will then take a white
handkerchief
Cover their nose and mouth
And ease them
backwards into the pool
Until the water
covers their head
And the darkness of
the river surrounds their soul
And the cold water of
the Oconee penetrates their body
I Baptize you….he will say
And I raise you up to a new life in
Jesus.
And everyone laughs when the
poor candidate comes up
Sometimes sputtering and coughing or sneezing water…
Sometimes with a crazed look in their eyes
Sometimes with the look of abject and
total fear in their eyes.
And on the Bank everyone
claps and sings
“Take me to the water…take me to the water….take me to the
water to be Baptized.”
It’s not in the Hymnal 1982.
I am told, that once upon a
time, many years ago,
On Baptizing Sunday,
The air force decided to test one of its new
fighter jets
The kind that go faster than the speed
of sound….
The Jet would fly about tree top height, screaming fast
Until it reached the velocity the test required
And then pull straight up.
So, on Baptizing Sunday, that year, about a quarter mile up
river from the shallows
Yonder came the fighter jet.
Preacher Davis was in the middle of
baptizing
And here came this sound….a banshee out
of the skies
And at the precise moment the jet got to
the middle of the river
The sound barrier was breached and there
was an enormous boom
The sun caught the underbelly of the
airplane so that it gleamed
and even though most of the people were smart
enough to know what happened
there were one or two who said:
that’s what it was like when
Jesus was baptized….
A great thunder from
heaven….a great light….God’s approval of what was going on.
I know we don’t often think
of it this way,
But the Church, and especially the early church, has always
thought
That Baptism was a dangerous business.
A dangerous business.
For one thing, you never know
what might be lurking in the river,
Waiting for you when you go all the way under.
Laugh if you want to,
But it is not an accident that the Psalmist speaks
of
“The Great Leviathan” which thou hast
made for the sport of it
A whale the size of this church
Which could swallow a man
whole, and spit him out on a shore.
In today’s Epistle reading from Acts
There is a whole discussion about John’s Baptism
for Repentance
And then Paul’s follow-up baptism “with
the Holy Spirit.”
And did you hear what Luke says in the
text
They were baptized by Paul, in
the water, and filled with the Holy Apirit
And all began
speaking in tongues.
Speaking in tongues.
Wow. I’ve never done
that.
I’m not sure if I
want to.
But to be filled with
the Spirit…..WOW.
Maybe dangerous because of
what happens immediately after Baptism,
In Jesus story….remember….he is driven into the wilderness
Where he lives for 40 days and 40 nights…..nothing
to eat.
Only himself and the Holy Spirit to deal with
And it all ends with the face of evil, and the
temptations
To grandiosity, to wealth,
And the temptation to abandon any sense,
any sense at all
Of his mission as the bringer
of God’s Realm and Rule.
Doesn’t sound too dangerous to us, I guess
At least not until you begin listening to what
Jesus says
About forsaking self and taking up a
cross
About giving your time and energy and
creativity
To everyone in the world who
is lost and forgotten
Hungry and lonely
Homeless and hopeless.
Doesn’t sound too dangerous at all
Until you find yourself cheek by jowl
with the powers and principalities of the world
Which use innocent people’s
money for usury and theft
Ruining lives and
futures and families…
Doesn’t sound too dangerous
Until you wonder what it might be like
To walk into the corporate
board room of, say, PECO
And ask: why do you shut off
the electricity
On single mothers
with children
Who can’t pay their
bills….and have no hope of paying their bills….
When it is thirty degrees outside.
Oh….it is a
business decision….a business decision.
Well that
must make everything OK,
When it is
good business.
Baptism doesn’t seem so
dangerous until you realize
That the purpose here is to both draw us together and to
provoke us to leave here
To go into the world as Christ’s representatives
of a new order
An order in which the poor are offered good news
In which the lame can walk, the blind can see
An order in which the rich are cast down from
their thrones
And the haughty are sent away empty handed…
Dangerous, because every one of us here, who was once
baptized
Even if we were three weeks old and don’t remember
a thing about it
Dangerous because we also were filled
with the Holy Spirit
And marked as God’s own
forever
An indelible mark, an
invisible mark,
A mark made manifest
by the simple gesture of embracing a weeping man
Who has
just been told that his job has ended
He’s
fifty six years old.
He
has never been unemployed in his life
It
is Baptism that will hold him….
It
is Baptism that will succor him
It
is Baptism that will comfort and help him
Because
every one of us in this room
Who
are baptized as well
Who also have been
sealed with the oil of Gladness
Everyone of us is that man’s
sister or brother
And we will treat him with care and love
and respect
We will love him with the compassion of a
community
We will surround him with the gladness of God’s church.
Baptism is a dangerous
business because it doesn’t ask us if we want to be a Christian
It, rather, drives us out
into the world
Where we discover early on,
That we must live as a follower of Jesus Christ
Or become one of the mumbling masses who
only have eyes
For one more thing……that we
can buy…..for $39.95, if you act now.
Today you celebrate a
milestone in the life of St. Francis Church
You do not so much begin a new ministry
As much as you continue the ministry that has been yours
all along
And you do it with a new Vicar.
Forgive me for taking a personal
privilege and saying how fortunate I think you are
To have this brother joining
you in your ministry.
He is exceptionally good at
all that he does,
And I know him to be a man of
deep faith.
What you do today, I believe,
is to embark together in a Baptismal journey,
A journey marked by fellowship, prayer, breaking of bread
and Apostolic Teaching.
A journey signified by repentance and conversion of heart
A journey which seeks that of the Christ in everyone
Which proclaims in word and example the Gospel of
the Christ
A journey which intentionally includes
Working for peace and for justice
And for the dignity of every daughter or son of
God.
But you set out on this
journey, not alone,
You do it together with your new Vicar,
And you do it with the God who has called you to
be church
The God who has called you to be priest and people
together
The one God who has invited you to join in
ministry.
And what kind of ministry
will it be?
I pray God it will be a ministry of the heart.
A ministry in which you touch one another with compassion
A ministry in which, as one of the women theologians say:
You listen the Gospel out of each other.
A ministry in which you are collectively the Body of Christ
Broken for the world….agents of reconciliation,
heirs of salvation.
A ministry of the heart.
I stumbled on a story awhile
back about a little boy that had
something wrong with him.
The child lived in rural Georgia , not far from the Oconee
river,
To the naked eye he was as normal a boy as could
be
But he couldn’t play hard, or do simple
chores,
He got winded easily…
So his parents took him to
the children’s hospital at Emory University,
And the physicians did their tests and measurements
And came back to his parents with devastating
news:
The boy had a deadly defect in his
heart,
And if it wasn’t surgically
corrected, he would surely die
But the surgery was so risky,
that if he had the surgery
There could be no
guarantee that the child would survive
And even if he did,
well….you know.
There was the usual family
consult about it
And at the urging of the physicians, they then went to the
child’s bedside
To ask what he wanted to do….
And the little boy, with as much courage
as he could muster
“Of course I want to have the
surgery.” He said.
And his father blanched, and
his mother cried.
But, said the child, look.
When you cut open my heart, I
already know what you will find.
“and what is that?” the
surgeon asked?
“Jesus. You will find Jesus.” The surgeon smiled his professional surgeon
smile.
“of course…of course, he
said.”
Over the next few days as all
of the arrangements were made
The little boy told virtually every nurse and doctor and
orderly and janitor
Anybody who came into his room
That they were going to cut open his
heart
And when they looked inside,
they would see Jesus.
So the day of the surgery
came.
You can imagine what it was like when time came to go
through the doors
Where the parents couldn’t go.
He waved….the boy….he smiled….
When the surgeons got into his
little heart
They found that the damage to the heart muscle
was more extensive than they had thought.
The chief surgeon found his eyes filling with
tears as he did his work
Even his hard, protective layer of
objectivity, couldn’t contain what was happening.
Seven and a half hours later,
He walked out in his powder blue scrubs, and found the
boy’s parents
They went into one of those little rooms
And the news..was mixed.
They had done their best, it was worse than they
thought,
It was now up to the little boy, said
the surgeon
Only time would tell, he said
And then, he hesitated a
second and said….maybe it was all up to God.
Hours later, the kid started
coming out of the Anesthesia
And as instructed the Recovery Room nurse paged the Surgeon
And he was standing there when the little boy
opened his eyes.
The child could hardly whisper from the
tube that had been put in his throat.
The surgeon looked at the boy and smiled
“I think you’re going to be all right”
He said.
“What did you find in my heart?” the
little boy asked him….
And the surgeon….stopped silent for a
split second….stuttered
His eyes filled with tears, and his voice full of
emotion said
“Jesus….that’s what I found in
your heart.” [1]
Years ago, old Reinhold
Niebuhr wrote a little book called Justice
and Mercy
Everybody has forgotten it now…just like they have forgotten
old Niebuhr
But in Justice
and Mercy Niebuhr writes:
“When we talk about love, we have to become
mature or we will become sentimental. Basically love means being responsible,
responsible to our family, toward our civilization, and now by the pressures of
history, toward the universe of humankind”[2]
At the risk of being
sentimental,
I
would say that love has something to do with Baptism and Baptismal ministry
Giving way to Jesus who invites us to join him
Jesus who lives
in you and me Right here….
The most important
gift that we get in the water of Baptism.