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Sermon for the First Sunday after EpiphanyJanuary 12, 2003St.
Luke's, Jamestown
by
The Rev. Susan A. Williams
TEARING
DOWN THE WALL I
remember quite vividly the night of (It is not a date of particular infamy for our country.) Standing in front of a television set in the student lounge General Seminary, I, and about 20 fellow seminarians, stared at the screen as hundreds, perhaps thousands of young Germans were tearing apart the Berlin Wall. It was an unforgettable sight. With the potential for violence and police clearly ready to move in, nothing like that happened: instead officers and military from both sides of the divide stood by, keeping the peace, as a cement and barbed-wire testimony to mistrust, separation and oppression was physically dismantled by those who had a new vision
for a unified A
few years later, Eric and I were visiting our various relatives in and had dinner with my aunt, uncle, and their house guest:
a teacher from I’ll call her Renate, which I think is close (my memory is getting fuzzy…)
Not long before this trip to the
was in under the ever-watchful eye of her government, something she said she had got used to. Now a whole new future lay before her – and, astonishingly, a whole new past lay behind her. She told us that over the last months she has been re-learning German history, her own history, a life spent with the Cold War; the totalitarian government of the East had made up its own version of world affairs since World War II ended
and Can you imagine, discovering at age 40 that most of what you’d been taught was wrong? It boggles the mind. All that Renate knew about world politics, and about her own country, was tainted – often the “facts” were outright lies. Tearing down that wall had torn down the barricade of misinformation, also, and she and her fellow East Germans, had to adjust in a myriad of painful ways. Still this teacher was full of energy and enthusiasm for the task, soaking up everything she could on her travels to inform the new reality of her existence, equipping her to teach a new generation of German students, ones who could learn the truth without fear. *** The tearing-down of barriers lies at the heart of our Gospel, too, as St. Mark begins his account of the truth, the amazing news of Jesus and the freedom only he can provide. We
meet him at the coming to be baptized by his cousin John. Here was quite a sight: dressed like the prophet Elijah in camel’s hair, eating locusts (those are grasshopper-like bugs, in case you weren’t sure) and shouting for people to repent and wade into the river, John was drawing a crowd of city-folks who had hiked for miles in order to experience this prophet first-hand. John baptizes them in the river – full immersion method, no dainty sprinkling – all the while announcing that someone greater is still to come. Yet when Jesus finally arrives, we are not told of any conversation at all with his controversial cousin. Mark’s Gospel keeps it simple: Jesus is baptized. And as soon as that happens, “as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him” – the word actually is, into him. Then comes the voice from heaven – and in Mark’s telling of it, Jesus is the only one who hears it: “You are my Son, the Beloved: with you I am well-pleased.” Just what is going on here? Clearly this is a MAJOR EVENT in the Bible. Accounts of Jesus’ baptism appear in six books of the New Testament: all four Gospels, plus the Book of Acts and Paul’s letter to the Romans. Jesus’ birth and childhood only appear in two sources, by contrast. His baptism is apparently a bigger deal, of central importance to the new Church, although each source describes the event a little differently. What stands out for me in Mark is that line about the heavens: whereas Luke and Matthew say they “opened” to permit the dove and the voice to come down – (and here I tend to envision those sliding glass doors at the mall: swish open, swish closed) – in Mark’s version the heavens are ripped apart – like this: (cloth). The only other time Mark uses this word[1] is when Jesus dies upon the cross
and the curtain of the It is a strong, violent action. Permanent, too. As bookends of Mark’s story, these shredded barriers carry huge meaning: The separation between God and his creation is ended; east meets west, divine meets human, the truth is in the world and everything is changed because of that. From this point on, like Renate having to relearn German history, now humankind will have to do the same, on a global scale and a personal scale. No more could anyone claim that God does not care for his creatures, does not understand them, does not communicate with them; or that God is mostly interested in us following his laws, judging us from a safe distance and perhaps zapping us from time to time. No, the barrier is down: God is loose in the world!
He will not stay confined to the sacred atmosphere,
be it heaven or he will not make us play guessing games about what the truth really is. God’s intrusion into the world brings a power hitherto unknown;
not the fire on top of nor even the great Spirit hovering over the waters, comes close to the wallop of the Incarnation. And at his baptism, Jesus is reassured that this is so: “You are my Son, the Beloved,” he hears. And before he even does a thing about it, God tells him, “I am well pleased with you.” But then the Spirit drives him out into the wilderness: No lingering in the moment, there is work to do. Can we hear this story with fresh ears today? We do not have a baptism to celebrate, but in a moment we shall reaffirm our own baptismal promises anyway. Because it’s important to do so. Why? Because, like Renate and the people of and so many other places in the world today – we, too, have been fooled by the lies of our culture, lies that tell us real power lies in human hands, God doesn’t really care what’s going on in the world, or maybe that all he cares about is that we play by his rules; lies that say the barrier is still in place. Tune out those voices for a moment and hear again the great RRRIP! God is loose in the world. We cannot hide from him, or from our own identity. Relearn your history: you were never separated from God, unification took place nearly two thousand years ago.
The covenant was made in Jesus Christ, and renewed with each baptism, and each Eucharistic banquet. At the font God proclaimed to you: “You are my beloved child. With you I am well pleased.” Before you did anything, God loved you. God was pleased with you. And his Spirit keeps wanting to push you out the door and into the wilderness, to get going on this job of being the Body of Christ. That’s also what this is all about. Not sitting here in church but getting back out there, nourished by Word and Sacrament in order to be Jesus in the world. The barriers have been torn in two so that God can fill us and turn us loose on the world, through the living presence and power of Jesus. There is a story that our Lutheran friends like to relate, a true story I’m told, that their founder Martin Luther used to wander the streets when he was feeling particularly discouraged or despairing. And as he walked he would say to himself, over and over again: “I am baptized. I am baptized. I am baptized!” Perhaps
other pedestrians crossed to the other side of the strasse to avoid running into a muttering whacko; and you or I might do the same. But try his mantra some time, and see if it works for you. Try it with me right now: I am baptized. I am baptized. I am baptized… And you are God’s beloved child, adopted through water and the ripping open of the heavens. The walls are down. Unification is reality. Praised be the Lord! |
410 North Main Street, Jamestown, New York 14701Phone (716)483-6405 * Fax (716)483-6406 * stluke@madbbs.com |
