Baptism of the Lord, Year B

I don’t know about you all, but the New Year started off busy for me!  The quiet peace after Christmas lasted just past Boxing Day into the 27^th, wherein I read an entire book in a fit of self-indulgence that was wonderful, and then the reality began to set in, that if I am to take a vacation later this month, I had better start getting ready—ready for Annual Meeting next week, ready for our History Day later this month!  Lots to do!  And somewhere in the midst of it all, I began to lose the center of what it was all about in the lists and attempts to cram in tasks.  I began to think about how exciting but also how overwhelming it is to be in transition sometimes—in times of personal transition as well as times of institutional transition, such as the time All Saints finds itself in, now. 

Because while the parish is in transition I am also aware that I am here as an interim and none of us knows how long that will be.  How to make the most of our time?  How to focus and do a good job of this work of transition?

It is interesting to note that all three passages today exist in transitions—Genesis is the transition right that the beginning, Acts shows us transition at the very founding of the church, while many folks were still trying to get their heads around some concept of what being baptized and following Jesus was about (as if we aren’t still trying that), and Mark shows us a moment in the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, when he is about to transition into his public role.

Yet, or perhaps because of this, the passages today call us back to that center and focus. 

Beyond the seeming chaos of what creation has become now—so many infinite possibilities, such whirling magical promise and yet such awareness of so much pain in the world—it all began, we are told, ever so simply.  With water, light and dark.  If you have ever seen the Godly Play story for this, you know that it mostly consists of some square pieces of cardboard with very basic color schemes, and the story is told very slowly, with great reverence.  Such simplicity.  The center of our created existence.

And every time we bless the baptismal waters, in which we remember the River Jordan in which Jesus was baptized so long ago, we bless them remembering how the Spirit moved over the deep in creation.  We sing the song of our origins. 

One commentator I read this week, Donna Schaper, talked about how the passage in Genesis, as well as the image of Jesus being baptized, brought her back to a sense of grounded-ness.  She said that we could do well as 21^st Century North Americans to remember that we all occupy a specific space and time and to try our best to live within that space and time.  She talked about the almost pagan (“pagan” in the sense of being connected to the earth) sense in the creation story that simplifies things and grounds us. [1]   

It’s not that living in a global world cannot be exciting at times, but in transition as well as in the transitory nature of modern life, we sometimes need to remember our roots and, more so, Schaper says, the fact that God created us. 

If we have true reverence, which will entail remembering our human limitations, we will not take on the needs of the whole world so much as those needs that are somehow pressed into our sphere of influence.[2] 

This thought reminded me of how hard it was, at the beginning of the week, when I received so many phone calls about rental assistance.  So many requests were way beyond what we could do at the moment.  “We are a modest-sized community,” I said, “let me show you this resource, or that…” And I came home feeling a failure until Alene reminded me that it was Christ’s job to save others, not mine.  That I must help as I am led and able, on behalf of the church, but that I was not able to do more than my part.

I expect all of you have had moments wherein you had to see the limits of your own efforts and give a problem up to God.  This didn’t mean giving up.  It just meant remembering who God was, and who you were, in the big, all-of-creation, scale of things.
I saw a quote the other day, which went something along these lines: “we cannot do much to affect all of the areas that we might help, but we can do a little to spread light and kindness to those with whom we come in contact.”[3] 

This led me to think that we as Christians, who hear daily from presidential candidates about how far our national sphere of influence should extend, must try to do good where we can. 

This reach might end up being across the world, as we have done in purchasing several wheelchairs and nineteen mosquito nets to benefit folk in Africa, Latin America and Asia in the past couple of months. But it can also be a reminder that sometimes we need to scale back our efforts in order to hear the Spirit’s guidance.  For me this circles back to images of creation and baptism, as I remember that Jesus is the Savior, not me, and that in being properly reverent to my God, I can do my best to help those with whom the Spirit puts me in contact, when and how I can, without losing sight of my trust that God is busy saving all of creation.

In the waters of baptism, we remember our promises—to serve Christ and see human dignity in others, to remember the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, and more. 

But we are also reminded in the grounding practice of our worship and sacramental tradition that God is busy doing all of this on a grand scale.  So we can do our part, in our corner of the world, and sometimes that awakens us to the need of a neighbor across the world, but we can also remember that we are baptized into the church—we are not lone rangers!  We are part of a community that does God’s healing work, and sometimes that healing work will work us to the bone, but most of the time if we really listen, the Spirit has something specific for us to do. 

This is true of churches.  I should know.  I am here as an interim, with a very specific focus on the work of transition, and yet my office is full to the brim with promises of projects that we might be able to do together. 

Some of it will get done while I am here, some of it won’t.  If I listen, the Spirit will tell me what to prioritize.  The same will happen with this parish.  You will see what you must nurture, and that will feel as right as that image of a dove descending, of a voice crying, “You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased (Mark 1:11)!”

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[1] Donna Schaper, “Pastoral Perspective: Genesis 1:1-5,” FOTW Year B, Vol. 1.

[2] Ibid.

[3] As seen on a noticeboard at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Eagle Rock, CA.