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The First Sunday after the Epiphany
January 7 , 2007
Delivered by Reverend Sandra Stayner
Isaiah 42:1-9
Acts 10:34-38
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Today is all about baptisms. Christian communities all over the world will mark and remember the Baptism of our Lord as they baptize new members into their local community, just as we will later today. I have always loved reading the descriptions in early Christian manuscripts of the way baptisms were performed in the early church because they were in some ways much more dramatic than the practices we have now, especially in the Episcopal Church.
Early in the 3rd century a Bishop called Hippolytus wrote a fascinating manuscript called The Apostolic Tradition in which he describes the baptism of new Christians in this way.
"The bishop, his clergy and the elect proceed to the place of baptism (which could be at a place where there is running water, like a stream or waterfall, or a large bath or tub in a room separate from the church) while a litany is sung. There the bishop consecrates the waters of the font by invoking God to send the power of his Holy Spirit into it for the sacred purposes about to be accomplished. When the baptismal party arrives at the place of baptism the bishop prays over the water. Then the elect strip, loosening their hair and removing all jewelry. Each candidate next renounces Satan and is anointed by a presbyter with the 'oil of exorcism' saying, 'Let all evil spirits depart far from thee.'
Then the candidate descends into the water where another presbyter (priest) and deacon await. It seems that the presbyter in the font, lays his hand on the candidate and asks whether he or she believes first in the Father, then in the Son, and then in the Holy Spirit in the holy Church.
Each time the candidate responds, 'I believe,' the assisting deacon immerses him or her.
After the third immersion the candidate comes up out of the water and is immediately anointed, still wet and naked, with the 'oil of thanksgiving' with the words, 'I anoint thee with holy oil in the Name of Jesus Christ.' The newly baptized are then dried and dressed, .and after this let them be together in the assembly..
The initiation of the newly baptized reaches its liturgical peak in the presentation and reception of the newly baptized within the gathered assembly of the Faithful. This event must have resulted in a huge surge of sentiment among the whole gathering as the neophytes - still damp, oily, fragrant and dressed in new garments - were presented to the church by its bishop." (The Shape of Baptism: The Rite of Christian Initiation, by Aidan Kavanagh p.62)
We still present those who have just been baptized to the church.
If they're babies I, as the Bishop.s representative in this congregation get to carry them out into the congregation for everyone to see face to face.
I will never forget the moment we lifted my son Matt up after his baptism. He was a year old when he was baptized and as we raised him up everyone clapped, and he smiled a huge smile and clapped back.
That's really what baptism.s about. It's the realization that we are part of a community that has dedicated all that it is and all that it is to become to love - God's love.
This is a place where all people are given the opportunity to experience and live out an extraordinary depth of love, an extravagant love that might seem crazy to some. Can you imagine a place where people are willing to forgive those who hurt them? A place where the most vulnerable . the elderly, the poorest of the poor, children, people with disabilities . are not only received and welcomed, but sought out for the unique gifts they have to offer?
That's what God's kingdom is like - a place where people are safe to become all that God created them to be.
When I was working at Christ Church in Greenwich we had an enormous plant. We had to have 3 full time sextons just to maintain it. The church was on the main street running through town and we were all familiar with an old woman who every day pushed her shopping cart up the street to the library where she would spend the day. She had set up a pretty regular schedule for herself. She would walk past our church, stop and lay out crumbs for the squirrels on a wall just up the road, walk a little further to the Y W C A where she could take a shower and wash her hair.
Then she'd go on to the library where she seemed to spend most of her time.
Someone in town had provided her with a room in their basement where she could live and she seemed pretty content with her life until that person decided to move to Florida.
One of the woman.s friends approached us to see if we could find a place for her at the church. After a great deal of discussion we decided to make a room for her next to the sexton's office.
It was a lot of work to get her to the place where she felt comfortable enough to move in, but she did - eventually.
Every night she would park her shopping cart just outside the door to her building and every day she'd set off to complete her schedule picking up soda cans and turning them in for the deposit she would get. We soon discovered that that was one of the ways she supported herself, and eager to help some of us would drop off extra any soda cans we found during the day in her cart...that is until the sexton put a stop to it. She was so shy that she would not speak to many people. But she had come to trust the sexton who was a wonderfully kind guy.
She trusted him enough to tell him that she didn.t like people putting their old soda cans in her cart because she needed to collect her own cans - that was her job. As I listened to the sexton gently encouraging us not to do things for Ann that Ann would rather do for herself, I realized that in all my efforts to be loving to this strange woman, I had not yet learned to be respectful enough of who this woman really was.
I saw her as a person who needed help, but I didn.t have the sensitivity to find out what help she actually wanted from me. Instead I had barreled in with my great boots on and tromped all over her.
I will always be grateful to Ann, who lived out the rest of her life in the room in the basement of the church, because she taught me a huge lesson. Through Ann I began to realize that her presence and the presence of many others who were in some way different from the rest of us was not about our being kind to her or them, it was about our need to learn to respect the dignity of another human being, lessons that would in the end enable us to be more loving in our relationships to each other as well.
The church is a place for us to learn to love as God has loved us. These children who are about to be baptized will learn to read and write when they go to school.
They'll learn about algebra and geography. They'll become experts with the modern technology. But they'll learn to love as God loves as they are immersed in the community of God's love even as they have been immersed in the baptismal waters today.
Martin Luther said that "baptism is something that is done in the church in a day but takes the rest of our lives to complete." As we remember Jesus' baptism in the waters of the Jordan River let us once again commit ourselves to allowing the reign of God's loving-kindness as it becomes a reality in our midst.
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