I arrived at St Paul’s, Grinnell, to find a lot of hopefulness and excitement about the new ministry with the people of St Paul’s and their new Rector, Wendy Abrahamson. St Paul’s barely squeezed in their Pageant this year as the families with children were away over Christmastime. So with my visitation only a week after Epiphany, they asked if it would be okay to have the Pageant when I came. They also invited Donna and me to participate. Of course, I was a shepherd and Donna an angel. It was a lot of fun. The narrative script had actually been written by the children from their own session of telling the Christmas story with the Rector earlier. So everything was in the children’s phrases, including Gabriel’s announcement that the birth of Jesus was a bigger deal than the coming of Peter Pan! The manger scene was something out of the prophet Isaiah’s prediction with a dressed up lion sitting down with a lamb, and somehow also a dressed up fox!
It wasn’t as great a stretch as I thought to move forward thirty years and address the baptism of Jesus. I used his act of identification with us that His baptism foreshadowed as a way of acknowledging Christ’s entry into our story. In turn, I said that He invites us into His story of life and death and life again. The Church was gracious to have breakfast with Donna and me before the service. In the formal conversation we spoke about the Young Adult ministry, especially as they are a congregation on the edge of Grinnell College. They have asked that I make sure my next visitation happens when the school is in session so that the students can be present. I was surprised, too, to learn that Grinnell is also a popular spot to which people retire. There are two extensive retirement communities and the Church reaches out to them in hospitality and ministry.
During the service, I confirmed a young man who had come into the Church through the recovery ministry of the Deacon Kevin Emge. Kevin is exploring expansion of the recovery worship services into Newton as part of a Central Chapter ministry. The Central Chapter has worked well together these past two years. As each congregation moves into a more settled and stronger place in their individual fellowship, the effort for them to continue to work together as a Chapter must be more intentional, especially as it was a sense of mutual need that spurred them to come together two years ago.
Sermon at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Grinnell, Iowa - 12 January 2014
(Readings for The Baptism of Jesus: Isaiah 42:1-9; Acts 10:34-38; Matthew 3: 13-17)
Anticipating participation in the Pageant this morning brought back memories of the many we have enjoyed over time. My most memorable role was during Seminary days when I dressed up in my pin stripe suit, put on some floppy ears, and a tail and became the “ass of Wall Street,” and father to my daughter who played the donkey for Mary and Joseph. It was a satirical role which I think was too subtle for the audience. Little did we know that we were performing during the days captured in the latest film “The Wolf of Wall Street”, set in the mid-1980s. Donna also reminded me why our pageants were so memorable—because she was the director.
We’ve all probably played our part in the Christmas Pageant; and if not the story remains as strong and as tireless as ever. At St Barnabas’ we held two pageants—adding a gathering with the wise men at Epiphany as they went to see Herod and finally the holy family whom we tucked away in the church nursery. It’s fun to break out our amateur dramatic side. Bishop Pates recently wrote in the Des Moines Register how Christmastide is an occasion when time stands still; so whether it is December 24 or January 12 we portray a timeless story that “works.”
All of it, of course, was told from hindsight. No one knew much of its significance at the time. Today we leap forward within minutes to a time thirty years later, to a grown up Jesus, nevertheless burdened with the symbols which we have just acknowledged:
• The unique nature of his conception
• The Name He carried which would become a Name above every name
• His three-fold purpose laid out in the gifts presented by the magi: gold for his Kingship; frankincense to designate his priestly role; and myrrh to signify that his would not be an ordinary death, but one full of meaning for the salvation of the world.
• And finally, the simplicity of the context for all of these things: the stable, the manger, witnessed by the poor shepherds – all contrasting with the transcendent glory of the angelic host!
It sets a story at the heart of our salvation, and it is one we are invited to share with others even as we share in it ourselves. This is how the early Church presented it as we see in the reading from Acts this morning. This is one of the earliest sermons of the apostles that even though stylized reveals that they saw their duty as telling the story of Jesus.
They spoke of how God anointed Jesus who went about doing good and tackling the devil where He encountered him. God was with Him, and that even as He was put to death, God raised Him from the dead. This was his story and they were the witnesses of it all who—like the special few on the hillside in Bethlehem—were insignificant and yet special or chosen. They ate and drank with Him and they recognized Him to be God’s judge, the standard by whom humanity would be judged, and as such also the giver of forgiveness to those found in the balance, wanting. Jesus fulfilled the promise of God to the people of Israel in Isaiah that former things have passed away, and behold, God is making all things new.
Into this story we are brought as believers. Each of us, on our own terms and ways, retell the story from our own experience since receiving Jesus as both Judge and Savior. This past week I attended a Conference on Human Trafficking in Davenport. Many of the attendees were people who, as social workers and medical personnel, wanted to learn the signs of potential trafficked people who might cross their path. Through St Alban’s Davenport, and their grant from the Alleluia Fund, an Episcopal priest, Becca Stevens, was the key note speaker and, as is her custom, she was accompanied by a couple of survivors of trafficking who gave their testimony. Two words were key to their survival—love and sanctuary. Becca has opened up homes for such an experience of healing where people can live free of charge for two years while also learning a trade and becoming economically self-sufficient. God is not overtly preached to them but it shown to them through the lifestyle offered in the homes of caring and safety. The young women had passed from hell and back at the hands of other human beings who claimed to be family, but sold them for profit. “Love heals” has become their mantra. And it takes time, but the survivors begin to see that God has come to be with them in this process.
These are extreme experiences. And yet we all plunge our own depths and fight our own demons and are surrounded by the potential of that which can imprison us or keep us sitting in darkness. And yes, at such times God’s Name may be the furthest from our minds. God, however, deals in death and resurrection—former things pass away and new things appear. There are times to see the angels and the symbols that point us to God. The question is whether we will be bearers of such truth—tellers of such a story—a story of light in dark places; hope in despairing times; forgiveness when we have failed; of living life in the company of a God who makes all things new.
In his own story Jesus did not need to be baptized—John asked “Why, Lord, I need to be baptized by you?” And Jesus replied: “That all righteousness be fulfilled.” His baptism was the foreshadowing of His death—by which “He who knew no sin would become sin,” as the apostle Paul reminds us. In other words, Jesus was identifying with us in being baptized. He underwent repentance with us. His baptism was His first indication of being one with us, of our story becoming His story.
And so He invites us now to embrace His story in return—to be bearers of the story of Jesus and to share its good news as we live. Thus His righteousness fulfills our righteousness.
We know how to do this. Actors enter into the lives of others and bring them alive for us, just as the Pageant has done. And which of us has not met someone so in love with another that they tell us all about them so when we meet them we say: “So good to see you. I feel that I already know you?”
We enter into the life of Jesus so He may become real to others and that the things He did—the blind seeing, the oppressed of evil delivered, the penitent forgiven—all become reality.
The apostles were not dependent upon just knowing the story of Jesus. I believe that they carried Him in their hearts. I believe that His presence was with them even as they spoke. So they did not give a distant story of history but in the telling transmitted the living reality. That was the goal of the disciples – to tell the story of Jesus so that people would find themselves feeling that they had already met God. And let me tell you, it works—for even today, the same story telling goes on and it is like He is in the room which indeed He is! God is with us even as we tell His story through Pageant. Thanks be to God. Amen.
