[Propertalk] revised 1 Epiphany sermon

[robertpmorrison at charter.net]

I think this is the fourth revision, taking the violence in Arizona into 
account -

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY  	       	            THE 
FIRST SUNDAY IN EPIPHANY A
ISAIAH 42:1-9	                          		    	    	 
9th JANUARY, 2011
ACTS 10:34-43				                                                PSALM 
29
MATTHEW 3:13-17			  	

	The mental image I have of Jesus and John on the banks of the Jordan 
is somewhat vague – and it’s coloured by countless stories, and sermons, 
and illustrations – from children’s Bibles to something like Chagall’s 
whirling depictions.
	Maybe this is as it should be. Had either a Matthew Brady set up his 
tripod and camera, or a photographer embedded with the disciples been 
able to come up with anything to which we’ve been accustomed, then we’d 
view Jesus completely differently – pun intended!
	As it is, though, we have to be content with the biased writings of 
people whose goal was to have us accept that this was, indeed, the Son 
of God walking on earth.
	I find this exciting – because every time I hear a story about Jesus – 
biblical or not – it forces me to come to terms with what I understand 
about God. It opens up my imagination. I find that each new story, or 
each repetition of one heard many times, thrills me by leading me on and 
on into newer and greater possibilities of coming face to face with 
Jesus Himself. It compels me to ask myself how much I accept on trust, 
how much I say, “I believe this, even if I don’t understand it.”
	When I hear once again the story of these two cousins wrestling with 
how God is acting in their lives; of John and Jesus debating with wonder 
about who should draw the other into a closer relationship with God 
through the act of pouring water on the other – when I hear once again 
the story of John and Jesus, I’m reminded of the way in which God gives 
us revelation after revelation about what may be accomplished in my life 
– and what may be accomplished in your lives.
	 T.S. Eliot has a marvellous line which illuminates for me what Jesus’ 
and John’s meeting means for us who’re caught up in so many different 
issues today.
	“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s 
words await another voice.” 1
	Eliot wrote about his experience of spending quiet time in the village 
and Church of Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire near Cambridge. He 
experienced a sense of the history of the place where there was a 
religious community established in 1626. Deacon Nicolas Ferrar had 
opened up the community to anyone who needed help. King Charles I 
visited the community. He returned thirteen years later seeking refuge 
after he’d been defeated in battle by Parliamentary troops.
	Shortly afterwards these same forces returned, this time to break up 
the community, whose hospitality to the King proved to betheir undoing.
  	A new voice indeed – one not altogether free from distress and 
foreboding!
	Just as the conversation between John and Jesus.
	They were talking, for the most part, to each other. Both had groups of 
disciples, who were undoubtedly present. But in Matthew’s account of the 
event it’s fairly clear that John and Jesus were the ones whom God was 
nourishing by the encounter. John was being given the first sign that 
Jesus was, indeed, the one for whose coming he and the nation had been 
hoping. Jesus was being given the first recorded affirmation that He had 
a unique role to play in the whole history of creation.
	In Eliot’s “Little Gidding”, I find comments strangely reminiscent of 
what was going on down by the Jordan, and strangely reminiscent of what 
happens when we walk past the baptismal font filled with water today, 
and every day.
	“In concord at this intersection time
	     Of meeting nowhere, no before and after,
	     We trod the pavement in a dead patrol.
	I said: 'The wonder that I feel is easy,
	     Yet ease is cause of wonder. Therefore speak:
	     I may not comprehend, may not remember.'
	And he: 'I am not eager to rehearse
	My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten.
	     These things have served their purpose: let them be.
	So with your own, and pray they be forgiven
	     By others, as I pray you to forgive
	     Both bad and good. Last season's fruit is eaten
	And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail.
	     For last year's words belong to last year's language
	     And next year's words await another voice.
	But, as the passage now presents no hindrance
	     To the spirit unappeased and peregrine
	     Between two worlds become much like each other,
	So I find words I never thought to speak
	     In streets I never thought I should revisit
	     When I left my body on a distant shore.
	Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us
	     To purify the dialect of the tribe
	     And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight,
	Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age
	     To set a crown upon your lifetime's effort.

	There’s so much going on in those few sentences and few glances 
exchanged between John and Jesus. John is looking at the beginning of 
time and finding meaning not only for himself, but for creation and all 
within it. John looks into Jesus’ eyes, then he feels the water 
cascading off Jesus – and he himself is splashed by those waters of 
baptism.
	Similarly, when someone comes to this font here, not only is that 
individual baptised, revealed as a member of God’s family, but 
metaphorically, at least, all the rest of us are touched and reminded of 
the community of which we’re all a part.
	The Rev. Sylvia Miller-Mutia wrote an article the other week in which 
she reminded her readers that “The Miracle doesn’t end at the manger.” 2 
The miracle continues on through Jesus’ life, and on further into our 
own lives whenever we encounter Jesus, whether recognize Him or not.
	The miracle occurs when we respond to God’s invitation to engage in our 
own daily chores, and in our relationships with others, as if we were in 
Jesus’ company, indeed, as if we ourselves WERE Jesus.
	Our lives are intersecting with the life of Jesus continually. Each 
day, we’re invited to discover new words and new actions which will 
demonstrate that we’ve kept company with Jesus in the water. Each day – 
for our own benefit as much as anyone else’s – we’re invited by God to 
accept what God offers us by way of encouragement and support through 
the ministry of someone else. Each day we’re asked to take on some task, 
some project – a phone call, a written letter, a volunteer-hour spent 
with someone, a monetary offering – to this Church, or to someone else – 
each day we’re invited to participate in life with God. We’re asked to 
“Wade in the Water” alongside Jesus, to wade all the way into life in 
all its swirling eddies – because more often than not, THAT’S where the 
heavens open, and the dove tends to frequent, and the pleasure of God is 
almost tangibly felt.
	So where are our lives intersecting with Jesus this morning?  Where do 
we expect to find our lives and Jesus’ life criss-crossing? On the 
internet? In a grocery store? In the middle of a conversation? 
Yesterday, just after lunch, Diana Butler Bass, the author and 
researcher on religious life in this country, wrote in shock, “PLEASE 
PRAY FOR MY FRIEND, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, a Democrat from 
Arizona who was SHOT in the last hour in Tucson as she was hosting a 
‘Congress on Your Corner’ event. Gabby supported Pres Obama and narrowly 
won reelection. She's the mother of two children.” 3
	Over the very public internet – Facebook, actually – Diana’s words were 
about an incident outside the same Safeway where Jane Hogan’s daughter 
shops.
	Information is still coming in, at least it was when I was writing 
this. People will have all sorts of comments, I’m sure.
	We may think that we’re relatively comfortable being this far away in 
Albany. But we’re not. The internet reaches into our homes. TV and radio 
run night and day, sometimes inanely, sometimes profoundly, sometimes 
toxically. We’re encouraged to make instant decisions, often based on 
nothing more than what someone unknown may say in jest, or anger, or 
illness.
	No matter what our age, what our background, what our education, if 
we’re not careful, we can find ourselves being swept along in 
uncontrolled floods of incivility which well up until they burst through 
in explosions. And I use that metaphor of water deliberately. Water can 
give life – without it we’ll die. Yet water can also destroy – I’ve seen 
that on the coast too often.
	Substitute “words” for “water” and the image holds.
	Where DO our lives and Jesus’ life intersect? What do we do with our 
words? What do we MEAN to do with our words? What about our actions? Do 
they contradict or illuminate our words? Do they build up the human 
family’s relationship with God and with one another? Or do they try to 
score points off one another, to belittle, to ignore, to squash? Either 
option is ours to take. All the way through life, God gives us choices.
	A picture sent to me this past week gave me some more insight into what 
John and Jesus may have experienced that day. 4 Both men are standing 
waist deep in water. Both men have their hands extended high, forming a 
“V”-shape over their heads. My first thought was that I was observing 
some joyous sort of greeting, each recognising the commitment to God 
that existed in the other. But then my eyes rose to look at the 
depiction of a Dove over both the men. The dove’s wings formed the exact 
same “V”. John, Jesus and Spirit were in exact sync with one another. 
They were all caught up in the joy of creation and of each other’s 
company. And that is the model for us – to work to make sure that we are 
in sync with both God and with one another. Perhaps not exact duplicates 
of one another, but in another sense we ARE to be mirror images, 
reflecting God in and to the world. We reach out to God; we reflect on 
our acceptance and our vocation; and we reach out to everyone else who 
comes anywhere near us or the water.
	This takes me back to the first line of that part of Eliot’s poem. In 
one way or another we seem to be standing at the intersection of time. 
We’re drawn into concord with one another through the action of God. In 
the spirit of baptism, we’re to forgive, to set aside memory of both 
good and bad. Each moment is completely new. Each moment which God gives 
us is an opportunity to be accepted, to be affirmed, to be encouraged, 
to find out who we are – right now. Not who we were yesterday. Not who 
we may be tomorrow – but who we are right now, today. That’s enough with 
which to be concerned – because other people have needs which we may be 
able to address today.
	What WILL we do with our lives now? Take a look at the water on your 
way to Communion. Does it talk to you of Love, and Dignity, and Justice, 
and Compassion, and Hope? See what it says to you.

NOTES:	

1 	Canto II, “LITTLE GIDDING” (No. 4 of 'Four Quartets') T.S. Eliot 
http://www.tristan.icom43.net/quartets/gidding.html

2	“The miracle doesn't end at the manger” By Sylvia Miller-Mutia 
Episcopal Café 27th December, 2010 
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/daily/family/the_miracle_doesnt_end_at_the.php

3		http://www.dianabutlerbass.com/  See also 
http://www.charter.net/news/read.php?rip_id=%3CD9KKCF400%40news.ap.org%3E&ps=1018

4	See  www.thechurchatnatchez.com click on “Baptism”. “Yellow” picture 
under the word “Baptism”

Robert P Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban
PO Box 1556
Albany OR  97321   541-921-1076 (cell)
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