Epiphany 1 & The Baptism of our Lord, 26-A: Systemic change as ministry

Lectionary: Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17 

En el nombre de Dios, nuestra luz y nuestra vida... 

In the name of God, our light and our life. Amen. 

We are now liturgically in the season of light, of enlightenment. By its very nature, the Season of Epiphany is a season of movement: from one experience to another, one understanding to another.

The word Epiphany means revelation, and it points to that “aha” moment when our understanding has been divinely and suddenly expanded and clarified. The movement in this season is one of transformation.

This season celebrates that the light of Christ, that is to say, the revelation of Christ, is given to us again. Year after year, we receive the gift of insight upon insight, of another profound realization that transforms our experience of our relationship with God, the world, and ourselves.

And when I say, “we,” I mean, we as individuals AND as a people. When we, the church, representatives of Christ on the earth, receive the gift of transformed knowing and experience given to us by the love that created, forms, and sends us, we see the actions in the world around us differently.

The light of Christ enlightens us so that we can see with the eyes of God - a skill that takes time, support, and intention to develop. That’s what the church is meant to provide.

Seeing with the eyes of God means loving all whom God has created – all – even our enemies, persecutors, and those who aim to do us harm. It isn’t easy, I promise, but it is what Jesus commanded us to do in Mt 5:44.

John the Baptist’s ministry was transformative because Jewish people didn’t get baptized – proselytes did. A proselyte was a person in the process of converting to Judaism, and Baptism was a ritual purification for them. Remember, unless one was ritually clean, one couldn’t participate in worship. John instituted systemic change, however, by baptizing everyone as a symbolic act of repentance and forgiveness of sin.

We need to remember that Jesus approaching John for baptism was shocking, as evidenced by John’s confused response. As we look at this story today, questions often niggle in the back of our minds... why would Jesus need to be baptized? From what sin would he need to be washed clean?

The answer was simple, as Jesus said: it is proper, which is suitable, even required, to fulfill all righteousness. Baptize me, Jesus is saying, because God is about to reveal the true and right relationship between humanity and divinity.

The gospel writer then describes how Jesus saw the heavens opening up to him as he came up out of the birth-water of Baptism into a new life. From the opened heavens, the spirit of God descended on Jesus the way a dove does: gently. And a voice from heaven affirmed this intimate connection, revealing what right relationship between divinity and humanity is: the spirit of God co-existing within the human body in a cooperative, symbiotic relationship.

St. Teresa of Avila describes this divine-human unity, saying, "it is like rain falling from the heavens into a river or spring; there is nothing but water there and it is impossible to divide or separate the water belonging to the river from that which fell from the heavens." ("Interior Castle," 235)

Do we believe that? If we do, then no human body should be subjected to abuse, neglect, disrespect, or exile because all humanity exists in this revealed relationship with God. It always was so, but became demonstrably and undeniably so at Jesus’ baptism.

When Jesus served, he didn’t just heal and redeem individuals – he wasn’t out saving us one at a time. Jesus brought redemption to the whole world for all time. His ministry actions led to systemic changes in the church, government, and the hearts of people. Our ministry actions should be doing the same in our time.

Many of you know that I was an advocate for adults and children who suffered domestic and/or sexual violence during the 1980s, 90s, and early 2000s. Back then, marital rape was not considered a crime in every state (not until 1993), and there were no stalking laws until a few years later.

The Violence Against Women Act (known as VAWA), enacted in 1994, represented systemic change, federally acknowledging domestic and sexual assault, dating violence, stalking, and, later, human trafficking as crimes and offering compensation and assistance to the victims. More importantly, VAWA provided funding for community response programs and training for law enforcement and the judiciary to help transform their understanding of and response to these crimes.

What we learned as advocates in those decades was that addressing each criminal act didn’t change much. We knew we had to get upstream, as the saying goes, ahead of where the bodies were falling into the river, to stop the continuing destruction.

Change happened, I’m happy to say, when the entire system transformed its understanding of and response to these crimes. Lately, as I watch the unfolding of the Epstein scandal and the frequent blaming of victims of all sorts, I realize that we still have a long way to go before justice is rolling down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing river, as the prophet Amos said (5:24).

I love the prophets – especially Isaiah. If you read the entirety of Isaiah (or any prophet), you see a transformation of his understanding as his spiritual proclamations transition from anger over injustice to clarity about the divine establishment of a new way of being and the hope that engenders.

God, who spoke creation into being in Genesis, continually speaks a new reality into being, as we hear in Isaiah: “See the former things have come to pass, and the new things I now declare...” In this new reality, the faithful servant brings forth justice as a light to the nations, opening the blind eyes of the powerholders in the existing system, setting people free from darkness and imprisonment of all kinds: poverty, vulnerability, threats and oppression by people in power over them. Systemic change.

Transformed understanding and experience are the fruits of the season of Epiphany, gifts that take us from where we are in our spiritual understanding to where we need to be to be useful to God as co-creators of the new thing God is doing in and among us now. Transformed understanding and experience are the gifts Jesus gave us at his Baptism by John in the Jordan River.

For Episcopalians, the sacrament of Baptism is an outward sign, just as Jesus’ baptism was an outward sign, of the inward and spiritual grace of our union with God in Christ. (BCP, 858) We don't understand Baptism as a form of ecclesiastical fire insurance, that is, as a go-straight-to-heaven card for when we die.

In fact, it isn’t about what happens after our death at all. It’s about how we live.

Our ministry, like the ministry of Jesus, must be characterized by humility, hospitality, mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Like Jesus, we must break bread with foreigners, sinners, curmudgeons, narcissists, and all others who are brought near to us by God.

Boldly proclaiming a new revelation of God’s mercy and forgiveness, Jesus offered all people he encountered, including the religious and governmental leadership that ultimately killed him, forgiveness, which sets us all free from the bondage of sin. So must we.

Jesus generated systemic change by expanding the boundaries of God’s kingdom to include the least and the lost, the outcast and disrespected, the oppressed and the oppressor. So must we.

As I said, it isn’t easy. Thankfully, we do this together, and we have our sacrament of Baptism to guide us on our way.

I invite us all now to stand in body or spirit and renew the vows of our Baptism.

Epiphany, 2025-A: Given to the light

Lectionary: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7,10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12

En el nombre del Dios único, santo, y viviente…. In the name of the one, holy, and living God. Amen.

In Spanish ‘to give birth to’ translates literally as ‘to give to the light”: “para dar a luz”… Isn’t that wonderful? To be born is to be given to the light.

When we baptize a child of God, they are born again, of water and spirit, as Jesus taught us in John 3:3. As their baptismal candle is lit from the Paschal candle, the priest proclaims: “receive the light of Christ…” and we remember the power of this light.

This liturgical action isn’t us giving them a keepsake candle. It’s us giving them to the Light. THIS is being born again, despite what other religious voices may have told you.

We are all given to the Light who gives us the freedom and responsibility to develop, nurture, and steward all of the gifts of God in creation and in one another… to participate as co-creators in the plan of God’s reconciling love. 

If there’s any time we know we are co-creators with God, it’s when we participate in or witness the birth of a child. During the birth there is that moment when the baby passes from the dark, protective environment of the womb, into the light of the delivery room where we stand ready to receive the gift of this new life. In that magical moment, our hearts thrill with the joy of it.

Amazingly, that joy doesn’t fade. Every time we see or hold that baby, that same thrill overtakes us as we marvel at the miracle we are holding: a tiny human, so precious, so beautiful, and the love that binds us is visceral and cumulative. The more we are in each other’s presence, the stronger our bond of love grows.

Today is the feast of the Epiphany, which marks the end of the season of Christmas. One day, I hope we are among the Episcopalians who follow the celebration of Holy Eucharist on Epiphany with the de-greening of the church and a burning of those greens. It’s beautiful symbolism – and who doesn’t love a good bonfire?!

Think about it - to stand in the presence of the great light of an Epiphany fire, and to feel its warmth is to make truly manifest the message of this day. It connects us to our forebears who followed the light throughout their exile, until they arrived at the promised land; and the shepherds who followed the light of a star to find the Christ-child.

It also points us toward our future – a future as uncertain for us as it was for our forbears; a future that requires us to get up and keep moving relying totally on the Light to guide us.

Standing in the presence of the great light of an Epiphany fire connects us to the experience of the magi, who, as Matthew tells us, traveled so far to visit the newborn Messiah, that it likely took them about two years. Two years!

These magi were Zoroastrians, astrologers who studied the stars and interpreted dreams. Matthew calls them magi, the source of the words magic and magician, casting them as sorcerers – definitely not a welcomed group among faithful Jewish people of the time.

According to Zoroastrian belief, every person is connected to a star. This presence of this particular unusual and magnificent star signified the birth of an unusual and magnificent person. It was so compelling to the magi, that they packed up their camels, loaded up their treasure chests with gifts fit for a king, and headed out to Jerusalem to find the person connected to this star.

Although the hymn tells us there were three wise men or magi, all we actually know from Scripture is that the magi brought three gifts – gold, a symbol of earthly wealth and power, frankincense, a symbol of spiritual power used in the anointing of kings and priests, and myrrh, an expensive plant extract used by royalty as perfume and medicine, and to prepare a body for burial.

When we chalk our doors on Epiphany we use the letters C, M, and B which some say refer to the traditional names of the three wise men: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, but these names didn’t turn up until the 5th-century in a Greek manuscript and later in a 6th century mosaic in an Italian church. The letters C, M, and B, actually refer to the Latin phrase, “Christus Mansionem Benedicat” which means “Christ Bless this House.”

Back to the story… When the magi found the Holy Family, their hearts thrilled with joy. Why? Zoroastrians weren’t awaiting a Messiah as the Jewish people were. Neither were they seeking freedom from oppression. These were rich, powerful Gentiles – outsiders to the message and detached from the prophecy being fulfilled.

Mary and Joseph welcomed the magi into their home, violating protocol by doing so, and when the visitors saw Jesus, they knelt before him and paid him homage – an astounding gesture of servitude. In this moment, the revelation of God in Christ brought divine unity where there had been centuries of human division, crumbling the walls that divided the Jewish people from the Gentiles, the rich from the poor, and the powerful from the vulnerable.

Matthew ends this story by telling us that the magi, who believed in the power and significance of dreams, heard in a dream that they should not return to Herod, so they went home a different way, risking retaliation by a politically powerful human.

In our world today, we are so distracted and diverted by electronic voices, but we always have the choice to make time to hear the voice of God for us. Then, hearing the voice of God in a dream or in prayer, we must choose whether or not to heed it, knowing it might mean risking retaliation by human political authority.

It helps that our weekly reunions on Sundays and Wednesdays continually strengthen the bonds of love that unite us to God and to one another as a parish family. Together we can make choices that might frighten us to make alone.

It is often during these weekly reunions that being in the presence of God in Christ brings us to our knees – metaphorically or actually. In the presence of the powerful love of God in Christ, we too can open our treasure chests (again - metaphorical or actual) and freely give gifts that reflect what we’ve been given.

I’m willing to bet that we’ve all had moments when our hearts thrilled with joy. Honestly, one of those experiences would be enough to last a lifetime, but the love of God for us is so lavish that we get these thrilling moments of connection to God and one another often, throughout our lives, and each time they happen, they strengthen the bonds of our love.

The Feast of the Epiphany calls us to remember that the light of God in Christ continues to break into the world and compels us to get up and follow wherever it leads, to do our part as co-creators with God, giving all that we are and all that we have to this Light. Amen.