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“We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.” (Colossians 1:28)
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| 1/10/10 - 1st Sunday after the Epiphany: the Baptism of Jesus - Luke 3:15-16,21-22 |
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| Written by Mark Giroux | |
| Sunday, 10 January 2010 | |
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2.69 MB | Download MP3 | Open in popup window | Listen now:
I looked up the word "clueless" to see if it fit me. Let me tell you a story from my past. The old-timers of St. Mark's have heard this, of course, but it may be profitable to bring it up again today. Back in 1982, I lived in Chicago with my wife and my baby son. We missed our families at the holidays, of course, but that year, twenty-seven Christmases ago now, we were lucky enough to journey back east for the holidays. On Christmas Eve, we were staying with Paula's parents. My in-laws live in the hills above Corning. We had become Episcopalians not long before that, and I wanted to go to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. My wife stayed up at the house with her parents, and our baby. I drove down the hill into Corning. It was about 11:30 on Christmas Eve, and it was a dark night. I drove along Church Street in Corning, and came to Christ Episcopal Church, a beautiful stone building. There were lots of cars parked along Church Street, so I had to drive a couple of extra blocks to find a spot for my car. Then I scurried into the stone church entrance. Two smiling ushers handed me a service leaflet and a candle. Hot dog! Hand-held candles during the liturgy! I went to a pew and sat down, hoping I was not in some member's spot. I caught my breath and started to warm up. I looked around. It was odd - I noticed that my pew did not have a kneeler. Kneelers are those hinged affairs under your pews with cushions for kneeling. This church didn't have them. Now, my home church in Chicago was very high church, very Anglo-Catholic. I had heard that the Episcopal Church in Corning was what used to be called "low church," which means that they lean to the Protestant and informal side of things. But I was surprised they would not even have kneelers. Then I saw that there were no Prayer Books in the pews. That REALLY bothered me. I'd become an Episcopalian because I love the liturgies of the Book of Common Prayer. If Christ Church in Corning did not even use the Prayer Book, I would be unhappy. Then, slowly, light started to rise in my clueless brain. I looked at the service leaflet and read these words on the cover: "First Presbyterian Church of Corning." I was in the wrong church. In the dark, on a street I did not know well, I had gone into a church one block away from the Episcopal Church. So I went back to the door and handed my candle to an usher. I said, "Would you please hold this for me for a minute?" I went outside, walked a block down the street and went into Christ Episcopal Church, which had Prayer Books in the pews and kneelers underneath. Nothing against the Presbyterians - my mom is one of them, after all - but I really wanted to attend an Episcopal Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. I wonder if that usher is still waiting for me. How can someone go into the wrong church? Have you ever been that clueless? I bet not. Still, the whole thing was an interesting experience. It was an awakening. I woke up and thought, "What am I doing here?" That really might be a good description of what the spiritual life is about. We come to those moments unexpectedly when we wake up and ask ourselves, "What am I doing here?" My experience in the wrong church was perhaps a light-hearted parable of such an awakening. On a deeper level, we all can have a moment - or many moments - in life when we wake up and ask, "What am I doing here?" Great religious leaders seem to have such moments. The Buddha meditated under a famous tree, and then had an experience of enlightenment. Even his title, "The Buddha", means "the one who is awakened." Moses on Mount Sinai had such an experience, as did many other Jewish prophets. Muhammad is said to have had such an experience in a desert cave. But of course, I want to consider Jesus at his baptism. This, for him, must have been one of those moments. He heard a voice from heaven saying, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." New Testament scholars think this was a powerful awakening experience for Jesus. And after this experience, he went out into the wilderness for that 40-day vision quest. The gospel writers tell these stories about Jesus to lift him up in our eyes, but also to give us patterns and models for our own lives. We can wake up and realize that we, too, are children of God, children of a compassionate Creator, children of the One Jesus called "Abba, Father." We wake up and ask, "What am I doing here?" And when we have the answer, "I am a child of a loving God," we can lead lives which serve others the way Jesus did. Now, today is a perfect day for a baptism. It is a delight to baptize Nicholas Blaise today. He has been charming me since his birth, and there have been lots of Sundays when he's cracked me up by grinning at me at the altar rail. There is a definition of baptism in the back of the Prayer Book, in the section called "an Outline of the Faith." It begins with these words: "Holy Baptism is the sacrament by which God adopts us as his children..." Nicholas is a child of Dalya and Oliver, of course. But Nicholas is also a child of God. As he grows up, I hope and pray that he will have many moments in his life when he wakes up and asks, "What am I doing here?" and realizes he is God's child. Because that makes all the difference. I hope that each of you will have many moments in life when you wake up and ask, "What am I doing here?" and realize that you are God's child. Because that makes all the difference. I hope that I will still have many moments in life when I wake up and ask, "What am I doing here?" and realize that I am God's child. Because that makes all the difference. God's children know that they are loved. God's children know that they are blessed. And God's children know that they are cared for. That makes all the difference. God's children love others. God's children bless others. And God's children take care of others. That makes all the difference. Now, I don't recommend that Dalya and Oliver teach their children that awful prayer so many of us know: "Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." What a scary prayer to teach a kid! But if I was praying with a child who was using that prayer, I would like to hear that prayer re-arranged like this: "If I should wake before I die..." In that version, it's not such a bad prayer. I hope each of us wakes BEFORE we die. I hope each of us wakes up and asks, "What am I doing here?" And I hope each of us realizes that we are one of God's children. Because that makes all the difference. God's children know that they are loved. God's children know that they are blessed. And God's children know that they are cared for. That makes all the difference. God's children love others. God's children bless others. And God's children take care of others. And that, dear friends, makes all the difference. |
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