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I've heard good news and bad news the past couple of days. The good news is that the giving by Americans toward tsunami relief following the unprecedented devastation in South Asia has itself been unprecedented. The bad news is that the level of giving is raising concerns among non-profit organizations in the United States that such exceptional offerings might adversely affect giving to local American needs in the months ahead. This is a twist on the concern you sometimes hear expressed in the Church about ambitious outreach ministries when the parish budget is tight. "Why don't we just cover our own bills here in the parish? Why, Dayle, are you always pushing us toward a strong ministry of outreach, a ministry that reaches out to meet needs beyond the parish? We've got some needs here in the parish. After all, charity begins at home." I'd like to respond to this question by asking two other questions. The first is this: Why was Jesus baptized? Today, the First Sunday after the Epiphany, is the day each year that we celebrate the baptism of Jesus. And it raises the question: Why was Jesus baptized? The author of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus was in every way like us, yet without sin, that Jesus was fully a human being, except that he did not sin. But if that's true, if Jesus was without sin, then why did Jesus submit himself to John the Baptist to be baptized by John with a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sin? And the answer is that Jesus chose to be more than he had to be, because he wanted to do more than he had to do. We've all heard the question, perhaps we've all asked it ourselves, "What do I "have" to do to be saved?" Well, I don't think that's a very good question for Christians to ask, because it's not a question Jesus himself ever asked, or would ever think of asking. Christ, who was with God in the beginning, who enjoyed equality with God himself, who was himself without sin, did not have to do anything. And yet he chose to become one of us Jesus' baptism was the completion of what happened on Christmas Day. On Christmas Day, the One who was with God in the beginning became flesh, was born as a child in the flesh, in order to identify himself with the world of the flesh. And at his baptism, his identification with us was made complete by his taking onto himself our sin as well as our flesh and bone. At his baptism he identified with our sin and death by being baptized for repentance as we are. Jesus' baptism was the completion of his identification with our sinfulness and mortality, a sinfulness and mortality he did not have to assume. He who was equal to God himself, says St. Paul, humbled himself to take the form of a slave, a servant, even to death on the Cross, in order to show us the way of God. Not because he had to, but because he chose to. This baptism, Jesus' most fundamental, most basic, baptism, of which his earlier baptism with water by John was the sacramental sign, was his baptism into a life of sin and death through which he might point for us the way beyond death to life in God. Now here's a question Jesus did ask, a question he seems to think it would be wise for his disciples to ask of themselves. When he was on his way to the Cross, James and John asked Jesus a favor. "Master," they said, "when you come into your kingdom, let one of us sit on your right hand and the other on your left." And Jesus said that that wasn't really his to grant, that only God could grant it, but that he had a question for them. "Are you able, James and John, to be baptized with the baptism with which I am going to be baptized?" Now this was long after Jesus' baptism with water by John the Baptist, so what is Jesus talking about here? What can he mean with this question? He's talking, of course, about his death. Jesus is asking, "Are you able to die as I am going to die? Are you able to die to your selves as I am going to die to myself? Are you able to serve others rather than seeking to be served? Are you able to be a servant, even to death on a Cross?" Well, that was why Jesus was baptized in the first place. He was baptized so that he could serve us, even to death on a Cross. Now, what about us. Why are we baptized? In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul asks: "Don't you remember? Do you not remember that when we were baptized, we were baptized into Christ's death, buried with Christ, brought down into the grave with him, so that as he who took on our sinfulness and death was raised from death by the Father's power, so may we, too, begin living a new life, a different life, the life of our servant, Christ?" And why? So that we may be like him, so that we may be more than we "have" to be and do more than we "have" to do, so that we may live the life and mind of Christ himself. "Have this mind for yourselves," writes St. Paul, "the mind of Christ, who, although himself equal with God, did not count equality with God something to be hoarded and kept to himself, but humbled himself to serve, taking the form and life of human beings; and, humbling himself even more, he took the life of a slave, accepting even death on a cross for us." Have this mind, this life, says Paul. And here's another question pertinent to baptism. It is found in the 13th chapter of the Gospel of John. Jesus is gathered with his disciples just before his death, and Jesus strips off his clothes, down to a loin cloth. He strips down to the dress of a slave, and then washes his disciples' feet, which was the act of service of a slave. The disciples were scandalized. No master, no teacher such as Jesus, was supposed to behave in that way. And Jesus asked them, "Do you understand what I've done to you?" And then he said, "Then do it for each other." "I've done this," said Jesus, "as an example for you, so that you may copy me. I've been baptized into your life of need, so that you, like me, may assume the life of serving the needs of others." And then, as usual, Jesus threw in the clincher: "Now that you know this, blessed are you if you do it." So why was Jesus baptized when he didn't have to be? Because he chose to serve us by becoming one with us, even though he himself didn't "have" to. And why are we baptized? Well, to answer that question, I'd like to invite you to turn to page 304 of the Book of Common Prayer. Here, in our Baptismal Covenant, we find our responses to the questions regarding the significance of our baptisms. Each of us responds to these five questions when we are baptized, and at every baptism. The first question: "Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers?" What this means, simply, is: Will you be faithful about going to church and saying your prayers, faithful in giving thanks for Christ's service to us? The second question: "Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?" Will you, in other words, commit yourself to live a life of goodness? Will you do all in your power to see that evil does not get a foothold in your life? And note how, with this and every question, we say that we will with the help of God, because we know how difficult, even impossible, it is without God's help. The third question - and note here how the questions begin to turn us away from ourselves and even outward from the Church itself toward the world outside the Church: "Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?" Which means: Now that you know the benefit of Christ's baptism for you, now that you know the benefit of his life and his death on the Cross for you, will you choose not to keep that benefit to yourself, but to share it with others? And we respond: "I will, with God's help." Finally, the fourth and fifth questions, which move us even further beyond our concern for our own lives, and way beyond even our life together in the Church: "Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?" and "Will you strive" - and note here that the word "strive" means more than merely to accept; it means "to work for" - "Will you strive for, will you work for, justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?" "We will, with God's help," we reply. And with these questions, of course, we come to the answer to the first question of this sermon: Why do we in Christ's Church continuously call ourselves to stretch beyond what we "have" to do and commit ourselves to ambitious pledges and outreach budgets and all that? Because it is our response to Jesus' question after he had washed his disciples' feet: "Do you understand what I have done to you? Now that you know it, blessed are you if you do it." The first question of our Baptismal Covenant - "Will you go to church and say your prayers, giving thanks for Christ's service to us?" - is only the beginning of our baptismal commitment, of which the end is the fourth and fifth: "Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?" and "Will you strive for, will you work for, justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being." When the Spirit descended upon Jesus at his baptism, the Spirit proclaimed Jesus as the Son of God who brings delight to the Lord and recalls the passage that was read to us from Isaiah this morning: "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights. I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.... I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison, and to release from the dungeon those who live in darkness." This Covenant is the reason Jesus was baptized, and it is the reason we are baptized as well: to be the fulfillment of the ancient Covenant with the people of Israel, to fulfill God's charge to his chosen to be a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to free those who sit in darkness. That's just what people of the Covenant do. When someone dies, people of the Covenant welcome and bless those who mourn, as so many of you did so generously yesterday with the gracious reception you worked so hard to create. And when tsunamis happen, people of the Covenant open their check books as well as their hearts to those who suffer, whether it's at home or abroad. The Church of Christ is to be a light, an example, to the community and the world of what it means to wash each other's feet, an example of what it means to serve each other as Christ has served us, so that as we seek to copy Christ, we ourselves might be an example to the community and the world for them to copy. And that's why Jesus was baptized, and it's why we are baptized as well - so that we, like Christ, may be more than we have to be and might have the power to do more than we have to do, so that we may be all that we can be, with God's help. So it's true, finally, that charity, love, begins at home, but the charity of Christ, the charity of the baptized, never stays there. Christ's Church is the place where we come to be reminded of this. In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. |