Yesterday, we opened our doors during the Women’s March on Madison. It’s something we’ve done before—in 2011 and last year, during the Latino Day of Action. In response to people’s questions yesterday, including a TV reporter, I replied, “It’s what we do; it’s who we are.” Continue reading
We are in the season after the Epiphany. It varies in length depending on when the date of Easter, (and hence Ash Wednesday) falls. This year is relatively lengthy as Easter falls on April 16. The word epiphany comes from the Greek and roughly means manifestation, revealing, or showing. Usually it is connected with an appearance or manifestation, presence if you will, of the divine. In the Christian context, the feast of the Epiphany is the celebration of the magi coming to worship the newborn Christ at Bethlehem, although in ancient and Eastern Christianity, the Epiphany also connects with Jesus’ baptism, which is in part why we commemorated his baptism last Sunday, and with other miracles, like the Wedding at Cana, when Jesus turned water into wine, and as the gospel of John says, “revealed his glory.”
This season is a time when we celebrate and reflect all of the ways God is present in the world, in the glory and goodness of creation, but especially in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. And although this is the year in the lectionary cycle when we read the Gospel of Matthew, on this Sunday, as in every year on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany, we read from the Gospel of John. That makes sense in a way, because the themes of John connect very well with the themes of Epiphany, and nowhere is that more true than in this first chapter—the first 18 verses of which we heard on Christmas Day.
In today’s reading, we get John’s interpretation of the relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist, as well as the story of the call of the first disciples. Coincidentally, this past week I was reading two books that I purchased as possible subjects for Lenten study this year. Both of them began with a discussion of this encounter between Jesus, Andrew, and the other disciple as a way of getting at the meaning of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
You may recall the story of Jesus calling the first disciples from the synoptic gospels, especially Mark. Jesus is walking along the shore of the sea of Galilee. He sees Peter and Andrew, James and John repairing the nets on their fathers’ fishing boats. Jesus says to them, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of people.” The four get up, leave the nets, the boats, and their fathers behind, and follow Jesus.
There’s a completely different dynamic here in John’s gospel. In the first place, Andrew and the other disciple (We never learn his name, by the way) are already disciples, but of John the Baptist. John and his followers come across Jesus in their wanderings, and John points Jesus out to them, saying, “Look, there’s the Lamb of God who will take away the sin of the world!” The next day, the same thing happens, and two of his disciples, follow Jesus. Jesus asks them, “What are you looking for?” And they respond oddly, by asking “Where are you staying?” To that question, Jesus answers, “Come and see.”
“Where are you staying?” What kind of question is that? What might the disciples learn about Jesus by staying with him for the day? To understand what’s going on we need to put this question, and the event itself, in the context of John’s gospel. Staying… to use the traditional language of the Authorized Version, to abide… is one of those themes that is repeated throughout the gospel. In fact, we heard the theme sounded already in John’s testimony about Jesus. When he reports that he saw the Holy Spirit come down like a dove, he says that “it remained on him.” In today’s gospel the words is used at least four times in quick succession. Much later in the gospel, in the lengthy farewell discourse that John puts in Jesus’ mouth at the Last Supper, he says, “Abide in me as I abide in you.”
These two questions, “What are you looking for?” and “Where are you staying?” get at the heart of what the Gospel of John understands by discipleship and the nature of faith. More than that, these two questions, and the understanding of discipleship they open up, invite us to a new understanding of what it means to follow Jesus in our present day.
Discipleship is a word we use a great deal in the church but is easily misunderstood or distorted. Indeed, to the extent that it is a grounding metaphor for the Christian life, it can be as misleading as it is helpful. For one thing, we often think that faith, our Christian life, is primarily concerned with knowing a certain set of ideas, or holding a certain set of beliefs. But note that Jesus did not ask Andrew and the other disciple, “What do you know or want to know?”, or “What do you believe? He asked them, “What are you looking for?” Or perhaps, “What do you want?”
Posed in those terms, Jesus’ question gets at the very core of our being, our deepest desires and hopes, who we are and what we want to be. It’s a question of identity
And the question Andrew poses to Jesus in response, while seemingly unrelated to Jesus’ question, is very much of the same nature. “Where are you staying?”
Andrew’s question is an expression not of a desire to receive a set of instructions, or learn a set of doctrines. Andrew wants to be with Jesus. He wants to stay with Jesus so that he can experience the relationship that Jesus offers him. By abiding with Jesus, by staying with Jesus, Andrew will begin to experience the abundant life that Jesus talks about throughout the gospel.
Thus for John, discipleship is about relationship, not right doctrine or the transmission of a body of knowledge. Discipleship is about being in community with Jesus, and with others who seek to follow Jesus. And there can be nothing more important than that, being in community in these uncertain and frightening times.
We have been experiencing a great number of shocks to our worldview over the last months. Many of us are confronting the fact that we are living in a very different nation than the one we thought we were living in. Institutions that used to function and create stability seem to be out of whack—like the news media. Old alliances are collapsing and being reshaped. We are afraid of what might happen to our healthcare and our planet. Many of us wonder whether we will lose basic rights that we hold dear or for which we or our parents or grandparents struggled mightily. Christianity itself seems to be on the brink of collapse in the US, and with so many conservative Christian leaders preaching a message of hate, we may not even want to be called Christian anymore.
In all of this disruption and disorientation, negotiating a path forward is perilous. We’re not quite sure what to do, how to act, how to be in the world. Here’s where this gospel reading offers a model. Relationship—abiding with Jesus. In the first place, we are called to open our hearts and our lives to deepening relationship with Jesus Christ, and through that relationship begin to experience and to live in the presence of God’s love for us. To open our hearts to Christ’s love is to begin to know the love of the God who became one of us and loved us and the world so much that he gave his life for the world.
And as we open ourselves to Christ’s love, experience Christ’s love, abide in Christ’s love, we also will begin to open ourselves to those around us, to others who experience that love of Christ and abide in that love.
All of this is quite abstract and you may think it has little to do with our daily lives. But I wonder. In the midst of all that we have to do, do we take time to be with Jesus? Do we take time to be fully present to our loved ones? Do we really know our fellow members of the Body of Christ in this place? What might it be like for us to nurture deeper relationships with each other and with Jesus Christ in the coming months? What might it be like for us to take the time to get to know one another better, to listen to each others’ stories, to their hopes and fears? By nurturing those relationships, with Christ and with each other, not only would we be strengthened for the journey but the world around would catch a glimpse of the possibilities of new life in Christ’s love.
There’s a story behind my name—a story tied up with my family and roots, and it’s a story and a name with which I’ve always struggled. It’s not just that my surname is both awkward and uncommon—should it be pronounced Greezer or Greizer—or, heaven forbid, Greaser. BTW, I had a German prof in college who took great delight in addressing me as Herr Greaser…
It’s a German name, so it’s Grieser, of course. And while it may be rare in Wisconsin or worldwide, my hometown was full of Griesers. My grandfather, great-grandfather, and great great grandfather all had lots of sons who had lots of sons, and most of them stayed in the area. At least back home, they know how to pronounce it.
But there’s also the matter of my first and middle names. My parents wanted to call me Jon, but they wanted my initials to match the initials of my deceased grandfather—so DJ—but in my case the D stood for Dale—my father’s first name. So growing up, I was Jon, even though at least two other Jon Griesers in my elementary school, which led to infinite confusion. For example, I once wore a pair of prescription glasses for a week that was meant for one of the other Jons.
That particular confusion came to an end when my fifth-grade teacher, calling the roll on the first day of class, saw my first initial and promptly named me DJ. The name stuck and by DJ I was known until I graduated from college. That brought its own set of confusions and challenges—the inevitable question—are you a DJ?
So I’ve struggled with my first name and when I’m dealing with doctors or business or what have you, if I identify myself as Jonathan, they won’t be able to find my record. And then there’s the whole issue of my surname which is uncommon, unattractive, and confusing to pronounce.
Names are funny things, and we’ve just learned this week that our nation’s political polarization extends to preferences for naming babies. Apparently there are different lists of the most popular name in blue states and red states. Perhaps like me you’ve struggled with the name your parents chose for you, or you struggle with the surname that you carry with you.
The story of Jesus’ baptism is puzzling and problematic on several levels. In the first place, while the synoptic gospels all tell some version of the story, there are significant differences. Remember that the gospel of Mark was probably the first of the gospels to be written, and that Matthew, which we are reading in this year of the lectionary, draws heavily on Mark as a source. But Matthew changes Mark in some important ways. Only in Matthew, for example, do we have the dialogue between John the Baptist and Jesus, in which John protests saying that Jesus should baptize him.
More significant is another slight change. In Mark, after the baptism, the voice from heaven says, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” In Matthew, the voice says, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” In other words, in Mark, the voice seems to be speaking directly to Jesus, naming him as God’s Son; in Matthew, the voice speaks to John, and or to the crowd, identifying for them who Jesus is.
In these different accounts of Jesus’ baptism, we can see early Christians struggling to make sense of this event. It’s a problem for them for a couple of reasons. First, of course, is the obvious one. The gospels tell us that John baptized people for forgiveness of sins—baptism was a symbol of repentance and amendment of life. But if that was the case, why would Jesus, who presumably being divine was without sin, need to be baptized?
The second problem is perhaps less obvious but equally troubling among the first followers of Jesus. That he was baptized by Jesus implies that John somehow had as much, or more, authority than Jesus. We know from other stories in the gospels, and from the book of Acts, that there was something of a competition between followers of Jesus and followers of John, and it didn’t strengthen the position of early Christians in this controversy that John baptized Jesus. We can also see that as time goes on, there’s an attempt to erase the act of Jesus’ baptism. Thus, in the gospel of John, while we read about John the Baptist and learn of encounters and conversations between Jesus and John, if you look carefully, you will note that no where is it stated explicitly that John baptized Jesus.
All of that is of historical interest, but the story of Jesus’ baptism is not important only for the problems it presents to the gospel writers and perhaps to us; it is also important for the meaning the gospel writers attach to it. Although the voice from heaven says slightly different things in Matthew and Mark and may seem to be addressing different audiences, the message in both instances is quite clear, that Jesus is God’s Beloved Son.
To state the obvious, Jesus’ baptism is about his identity, making clear who he is. It’s not coincidental that in both Matthew and Mark, the very next event recounted is Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, which was about Satan testing Jesus’ identity.
This is where Jesus’ baptism connects with our own baptisms. In our baptisms, we become children of God. As I remind you regularly, when I make the sign of the cross with the oil of chrism on the forehead of the baptized, I say, “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”
In baptism, we become sons and daughters of God. In baptism, we claim our identity as Christians. That identity, that belonging to God, cannot be taken away by anyone or anything. I’m not even sure we are able to renounce that identity, even if we want to. Our identity as Christians, as beloved of God, is a reminder of who we are, a reminder of our value and worth, in the eyes of God and of the world.
It’s a message we need to hear regularly, in a world in which there are so many other claims on our identity, challenges to our identity. We need to be reminded that we are God’s, that we are beloved of God, especially now, when there are many who would deny the value and worth of so many of us—that because we are not white, or male, or heterosexual, that because we were not born in this country, our lives matter less, our hopes and dreams are worthless. We are all beloved of God.
But don’t take it only from me. Right now, I would like you to turn to your neighbor, introduce yourself if you don’t know each other’s names, take your thumb and make the sign of the cross on each other’s foreheads, and as you make that sign, say, “You are God’s beloved child.”
That, my friends, is the meaning of baptism. Let us claim it, and let us claim our shared identities as God’s beloved children.
Today is an odd day in our liturgical calendar. It is New Year’s Day, and most Americans are slowly waking up, arousing themselves from a late night welcoming in the New Year. They might be settling in to watch the Rose Parade, or making final preparations for the final games of the NFL regular season that is about to get underway, rooting for their team to make it into the playoffs.
In our liturgical calendar, January 1 is known as the Most Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, or the commemoration of the circumcision. Although we don’t usually have a Eucharist on this day, it is traditionally an important feast, commemorating the gospel story we just read, Jesus’ circumcision on the 8th day after his birth. In spite of that, and in spite of the fact that today is the 8th day of Christmas, our minds are not really focused on the continuing celebration of Christ’s birth, we’re thinking about a lot of other things and to recall this story from Christ’s infancy seems little more than a distraction.
Today ushers in a new year and many of us are glad to see the end of 2016. In fact, there’s a hashtag on twitter #worstyearever that has chronicled the various calamities and tragedies we experienced in 2016. We’ve seen the passing of a number of cultural icons—in popular music: Prince, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, George Michael. Just this last week, the deaths of both Carrie Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds. The terrorist attacks of 2016 which were so shocking as they occurred but have been forgotten as new attacks and new horrors grab our attention. And we forget that for all of the suffering and shock of attacks like Brussels and Orlando, Kabul, Bagdad, Mogadishu, even Istanbul have suffered such attacks on a regular basis.
For those of us who are struggling to make sense of political events here in the USA or in Great Britain, worry about the future of the planet, our nation, and civic community, 2016 was more than a shock—it has upended our sense of who we are as a nation and a people. The old story of progress, that we are moving toward greater inclusion, diversity, openness and tolerance, has given way to a new story. We may be only in the first chapter of that story and we’re not sure how it will turn out. Importantly, we’re also not sure where we fit into this new story. Some of us, many perhaps, wonder whether this new story is one in which we will have a part to play, whether this new story will write us out of the narrative.
While we are happy to say good riddance to 2016 and to the hashtag #Worstyearever, we are full of apprehension about the future.
It may be helpful for us to think again about the importance of our Christian faith in this context, to think again about the God in whom we profess our faith and whom we believe we see most clearly in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. All this may give us direction as we negotiate the uncertainties of the coming years.
It’s natural to be fearful, to lose hope in the present context—whether we are thinking of our individual situations, or the world as a whole. It’s easy to imagine a bleak future, that our lives will not get better, and that the lives of our children or grandchildren will not see the economic prosperity, peace, or security that we have experienced. Indeed, we see signs of such change all around us.
But it’s important to remember that as Christians, we put our hope and faith, not in our own futures, the futures of our descendants, or even our nation. We put our hope and faith in God, a God who rules history in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
As Christians, we put our faith and hope in a God who intervened in history by becoming incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, a God who entered history in weakness and vulnerability, a God who by entering history, changed history.
We have experienced the power of that change in our own lives, in our baptisms, and in the ongoing transformation of our natures in the newness of life brought about by relationship with Jesus Christ. We know that newness of life but we also know the fragility and tentativeness of that change.
We experience in our own bodies and in our own lives the tension between what St. Paul calls the “already” and the “not yet.” We know salvation, but we also know sin. We experience redemption and forgiveness, we struggle with our ongoing sin and brokenness.
As it is in our own lives, so too with the world, with history itself. Jesus was born into a world of suffering, evil, and oppression. He suffered the full brutality of that evil and oppression in his crucifixion. But the life he lived, the death he suffered, were vindicated by his resurrection on the third day, and in that act, we experience the fullness of God’s power over death, the grave, and evil.
The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are key to helping us as we journey through these uncertain and possibly dangerous times. To bear Christ’s name in these days, as we all do by virtue of our baptisms, to bear his name in these days, is to claim allegiance to the one who died for us, died for the world, died because he loved the world. To bear his name is to share in his suffering but also to share in his love. To bear his name is to bear witness to the God who loves the world. To bear his name is to bear witness to the God of history, the God who rules over history. To bear his name is to deny the power of evil and oppression, to challenge it wherever it appears.
To bear his name, to bear the name of Christ, is to put our faith in him and in his love.
We may very well be in a moment of great world-historical significance. We may be in a moment where the church, Christians, are being called to witness and to faithfulness in ways and to an extent few of us have ever witnessed. If that is the case, and it may be that we won’t know it for some time to come, we will need to draw on all of our resources of faith and prayer, and the deep bonds that tie us together as the body of Christ.
We don’t know. We don’t know what the new year holds. Our world, our lives are full of uncertainty. But there are things we do know, things of which we can be certain, on which we can rely. We know that God is here with us, in Jesus Christ, in Word and Sacrament, in the fellowship as we gather. We know that God is the God of history, that in spite of all evidence to the contrary, God is at work in the world, creating, making things new, bringing justice and peace. We can be certain that in the end, God will reign.
Thanks be to God.
Preaching Grace on the Square 