 |
| Icon from the Baptismal Site in Jordan |
Lost
was a television phenomenon from 2004-2010. It was the fantastical story of a group
of people who survived a plane crash on a remote island somewhere between
Australia and the Americas. It was Gilligan’s Island without the boat and the
comedy. The twist and turns of the mythical world kept viewers guessing. The
survivors discovered a group of people native to the island who lived in a
village protected by a giant electrical fence. They looked and sounded like
Americans, but they were driven by different motives and their goals were
clouded in mystery. The survivors labeled them as “The Others.” Lost is, of
course, a fictional environment, but that doesn’t mean that the “Others” are so
far fetched. We know it is wrong, but humans like to clearly label people based
on religion, politics, philosophy, learning style, geography or any number of
other categories.
It is the deep down prejudice and stereotyping that lives
deep with our soul. We know it is wrong, but we struggle to overcome it. We are
unwilling to risk our own safety (physical and emotional) by being open to the
others in our life. I am convinced that as people of faith, this struggle is an
important hurdle in our development as people of God and that struggle is
brought forward at this time of year, if we are willing and able to face it.
Faithful people mark
holidays not because God needs them to celebrate, but because remembering the
lesson or the discipline helps us grow in spirit. On Christmas I preached about
the challenging discipline of accepting gifts. A quick summary is that it is hard
to admit that we have needs that we can’t handle on our own and Christmas is
about doing just that: opening our heart to the great gift of God to the world.
I pointed out that the challenge of Christmas is to embrace God’s gift as a
needy people.
Christmas is a short
season. Two days ago, the Church celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany. Here at
St. Patrick’s, we celebrated with a Kindergarten through Grade 8 worship
service here in the nave. In some parts of the world, Epiphany is more like our
celebration of Christmas because the main characters, the wise men, are
remembered for bringing gifts. In our part of the world, Epiphany is a holiday
that is often forgotten, lost in the aftermath of Christmas. I was on the phone
with long-time member of St. Patrick’s John Nicholson on Friday morning. John
and his wife Marnie own a flower shop in Arlington. I asked John if there was a
rush on Epiphany flowers. He said, “unfortunately not.”
How does the Epiphany holiday
grow our faith?
We discover the
spiritual challenge of Epiphany by exploring the wise men (or kings, or magi), the
central figures of the Day of Epiphany. They are featured in a few short verses
in the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. We really know nothing about
them other than where they came from (The East) and why they were in Judea
(following a star supposedly predicted in ancient prophetic messages). At that
last bit, we might consider them crazy or definitely unsophisticated. As we
know, stars are far away suns, similar to our own sun that are millions of
miles away and are governed not by prophetic messages, but by the rules of
science. If Irv Lindenblad were alive, he could explain the science of the
stars and why they do what they do. I am going to leave that to your further
study. So these ancient star followers (who we call wise) may not seem so wise,
today.
If we can overcome the
dilemma of modern skepticism, we can reflect on a deeper truth at the heart of
this story. A truth that is not historically based, or science based, or in any
way objectively based. It isn’t about if a unique astronomical event occurred
over 2000 years ago above the town of Bethlehem. I’m talking about a truth that
is faith based, a truth that provides a deeper understanding of God.
At the heart of the Epiphany
story, is the understanding that the wise men were from a different land.
Today, that does not seem so counter cultural. We can travel around the world
in no time at all. We can get on a plane, a boat, a train, or even a car and
travel great distances. It is not unusual to meet someone from the East or the
West, the North or the South. We know what they look like and their basic
philosophy and culture. But when the story of Jesus’ birth was told, that one about
Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem, a small town in the hills of Judea,
where Mary gave birth in a stable and laid her son in a manger. Back then; it
was outside of normal to encounter people from far away lands. It usually meant
that there was going to be war. As a result, people were skeptical of the “others.”
They might even have feared or hated them. And there is my point, we still have
that mistrust, that fear of the unknown that exists in those we label as “the other.”
The theological truth
expressed in the Epiphany story is that people from a distant place can be moved
by God just like we can. Jesus was more than a gift to a certain people in a
certain place at a certain time. Jesus was a gift to the world. That means that
those “others,” the people who have lived in different places and have a
different faith background (or no faith background at all) are still revered by
God and embraced by God as God’s children. They may understand it with a
different lens, but they are all part of God’s world. The truth that sits at
the heart of Epiphany is to remember that God loves all people and is the God
of all people. Not just those who believe in a certain way, but everyone,
everywhere.
This is a challenging
discipline because we like to feel safe in our own world, with people who think
like us and have the same interests. It is easier to call those like us the
blessed and those outside of that group as the others. We, often, don’t even
take the time to get to know them and find out why they think or do differently
than we do.
The challenge of an
Epiphany people is to see that wrong just might be right and that those others
(the ones who are of different faiths, or different political parties, or from
different cultures, or different philosophies) are still people loved and
embraced by God. And if they are loved and embraced by God, than we are
challenged to come to love them, too.
So, during this season
after the Epiphany, we are called to share the light of God with people different
than ourselves (whether they are from the East or the West, or Muslim or
Jewish, or Republican or Democrat). God loves each and every one of them
equally. That is why I find it so important that we worship with an open table.
Anyone and everyone can join us for worship (not just those who make a certain
commitment, but all people are welcome to share in God’s love in this church).
There may be others who disagree with that open hospitality, but, for me, that
is the truth of Epiphany.
I have spent a lot of
time talking about Epiphany and very little time on the Gospel lesson for
today. That is not because it isn’t important or even that it was the gospel
lesson about a month ago, but because understanding the theological challenge
of Epiphany is important to the understanding of baptism. On this, the first
Sunday after the Epiphany, we always celebrate this important moment of Jesus’
life. A moment retold in each of the four Gospels as the beginning of Jesus’
public ministry of teaching and healing. But we mark this event not because it
happened near the time of Jesus’ birth (he was approximately 30 years old when
he was baptized), but because the baptism is an Epiphany event. Like I said
earlier, faithful people don’t celebrate to make God happy, but to recall in
our own lives a fundamental truth or discipline that helps us grow in faith.
If you took a poll of
Christians asking what baptism is, my guess is that some would say an
“initiation into the Christian faith.” That is good as definitions go. There
are others who would say that baptism is joining the family of God or even the
way to salvation.
I don’t think that is
fair to God. If we are working at the spiritual discipline of Epiphany that
asks us to recall that everyone is loved by God (there are so many biblical
stories that speak to this truth. Its not just the wise men from the East),
then how can baptism be exclusionary. It’s not like Jesus was the first to be
baptized by John, Mark tells us that people were coming from all over the
countryside. Baptism is not for God; baptism is a sign and commitment that we
make about how we choose to live our life. Are we willing to live into these
general principles:
1. To
continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread,
and in the prayers
2. To
persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return
to the Lord
3. To
proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ
4. To
seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself
5. To
strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every
human being
Baptism is about
bringing God’s people closer together. It is about committing oneself to grow
in Spirit with God’s help and with the help of community. A community we
(Christians) know of as Church. There are others who have come to know God in
synagogues, mosques, and temples. They may be different in the holidays they
celebrate and in their practices, and scripture but we can’t label them as “the
others” and then ignore them or live in fear of them. All people are children
of God and we are called to learn from them and to know and love them. That is
our call through our own baptism and it is what we learn from the life and
teaching of Jesus who is a great gift to all people.
Let us struggle together
to overcome the fear of the others in our lives. It is a challenge that is at
the heart of our spiritual growth and development. We can’t do it alone, we
must depend on God and our fellow seekers in faith. This season after the
Epiphany points us out into the world. Accept that challenge and find a way to
open your heart to all people.
Let us pray…
O God, who has made of
one blood all the peoples of the earth, and did send your blessed Son to preach
peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people
everywhere may seek after you and find you, bring the nations into your fold,
pour out your Spirit upon all flesh, and hasten the coming of your kingdom;
through the one God, now and for ever. Amen.
The
Rev. Dr. Kurt Gerhard (kurt@stpatrickschurchdc.org)
St.
Patrick’s Episcopal Church (www.stpatrickschurchdc.org)
January
8, 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment