The First Sunday after the Epiphany, January 10, 2010

The Rev. Dr. Katharine C. Black, preaching
Isaiah 43:1-7
Psalm 29
Acts 8: 14-178
LUKE 3: 15-17, 21-22

This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. AMEN.

"When Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

Epiphany is the season when, each week, in each Epiphany liturgy, someone, some group, some set of people, recognizes Jesus as God's son, the beloved. In this first week, the Holy Spirit marks out Jesus as God's Son, and a voice demonstrates that identification in words. Jesus, himself, learns and recognizes that he is God's beloved. We celebrate that Jesus is marked as God's own, but in a similar way we celebrate today that we are also marked, as Christ's own, in our baptism. We renew our own vows together, saying them back and forth together.

Yesterday at the splendid, well-done, diocesan priest ordinations, Mally Lloyd gave advice to the ordinands, under the title: Be a Priest. Then she listed five ways for them to be good priests. As she spoke she outlined the relationship between a priest and his/her people. That outlines also what we do here together.

This week a deputation from St. John's will go to the Bishop with a business plan and more, to demonstrate a way for us to go on serving each other and our communities. Our relationship with each other is indeed a part, although not every, way, we live out our baptismal vow.

We aim to seek and serve Christ in all others, continue in the apostles' teaching, the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers, to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ, to strive for justice and peace among people, and to respect the dignity of all people. Part of the way we do that together is in our relationship together. Michael Ramsey wrote that a priest's role was to stand before God with the people in his/her heart. Think of the way we enact that together. It used to be that when the priest faced east, the priest faced the same way as the people, in effect saying prayers as one of the people, in behalf of them. Priests would pray aloud with the people having them in heart. Now priests face the people, carrying God's heart towards the people. In that configuration, I try hard not to say the people's "Amen," leaving that agreement of what I've said, rightly, to the people alone. In both liturgical arrangements and patterns, priests serve as mediators between the Holy One and the people.

The ordination service yesterday began with St. Patrick's Breastplate, and I always am profoundly uneasy with that hymn at ordinations. We are each bind ourselves to the strong name of the Trinity in our baptism, and people being ordained are not more bound, don't bind themselves extra, aren't bound extra or more to that name.  Singing that hymn sounds as though ordinands are the only ones specially so bound, but neither our theology nor our practice suggests that that's our belief. The blessing I do at the end of the service, whatever words I say, is not my blessing. I am not specially bound to the Holy name of the Trinity. I always have one hand on the altar, and the other raised to bless. The blessing comes from the altar where we share in the body and blood, the new covenant, and our salvation. It is at the altar where we are fed for our journey as a foretaste of the eternal banquet. It is from there, that place of our salvation, that the blessing to all of us comes, Ordination sets priests apart to prepare that simple meal and to offer the blessing, but it doesn't make priests more, better, or other bound to God, than anyone else who is baptized. I both demonstrate and remind myself of that by anchoring myself to the altar while I offer the gesture that ordination allows me to do. Similarly when I pronounce the absolution I hold on to the subdeacon beside me. I join myself to another baptized person to remind us all, that I am not special or different, but that on the one hand I'm authorized to offer this absolution, on the other hand I am just a baptized person claiming God's promise to forgive us each and all.

Mally's advice included these five suggestions: for the first couple of years of being a priest, wear the collar to proclaim publicly that here is a person set apart for hope and promise of God' love and care. Second she told them to preach the Gospel, to ask for feedback, not necessarily of the "nice sermon" comment at the back of the church, but to ask for suggestions, feed back, and other in email, conversation, or other form, including what people need to be hearing as well as comments on what they do hear. Third, she reminded the six ordinands to take care of themselves. She suggested a day a week and a week a year for retreat, and to see both a therapist and a spiritual director.

One of your great kindnesses as a parish and as individuals is that you help me try to observe this self-care. You limit emails when I'm on vacation, and you begin to welcome me back before I return. You think it is part of your relationship in this parish to support and protect me, as well as to stretch, counsel with, and be companions with me. We do this mutually, but we each get to be as much ourselves as we can be, together.

Mally reminded us that Peter Gomes observed about that there were three things about himself he couldn't change: his color, his gender, and his personality, and that he could only preach from there. You honor that in all the priests who come here. You do not expect us all either to match each other or to match you. You permit and enjoy our variations. You have preferences, but you understand that we are different and seem to enjoy that personal expression offered as the best each of us can do, with and for you.

Fourth, Mally reminded priests to understand how connected people all are, to each other and to the planet. She explained, in that context, the sacredness of priest's absolutions and blessings. Finally, she reminded the ordinands of John's report of Jesus and Peter's conversation of "Do you love me?" "Feed my sheep." She told priests to love their people, and that, too, is the essence of our relationship here. She reminded all of us that there were always some hard-to-love folk, but that the core of the relationship between priest and people is to care for and about their community, each other and all people.

All priests, and I would guess, all of us who are baptized, experience great swinging dichotomies of feeling humbled and exalted, shamed and proud, and so on, in the face of the mercy and forgiveness offered to each of us in our baptism. I'd guess the ups and downs or the scale of the oscillations between worthiness and unworthiness may be more dramatic for priests, but the same shape for all us baptized folk. We miss the mark, and yet always we are forgiven and we find a new mark to reach for.

In our trust and work together, we try to feed all the sheep Jesus lights up for us in our path. Some of them are here, some are in Saturday/Sunday's Bread, some are at the concerts, or in the occasional presentations. Singing in the choir to provide beautiful music is as surely a form of sheep-feeding as is greeting people, providing coffee hour, doing the books, giving money, making posters, detailing the materiel of the liturgies, baking bread, listening avidly, showing up, and actually sharing in the communion-are all forms of sheep feeding. Each of us is involved in the feeding, as feeder and fed.

When Jesus was baptized, a voice came down from heaven, saying that Jesus was the Son and the Sprit was well pleased with him. As each of us reaffirms our baptismal covenant we declare we are among the baptized. We affirm our promises to serve all God's people, to feed all God's sheep. Luther considered therefore that the baptized were the priesthood of all believers. We all share in Jesus' priesthood, in his baptism, whether we're priests or not.

The best part of the ordination though, was Mally's charge to the ordinands at the end of the homily. It was a charge not given to me at my ordination, nor one given often. It is one you here have given me and demonstrated in a variety of ways. It's one we'll attempt to convey to the Bishop when we see him. The epistle read at yesterday's ordination was "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice." Listening to, sharing in, living out, thinking about, understanding the Gospel is the essence of what we do together, so our primary response must be to rejoice. While it's true that we sin, feel guilt, know shame and embarrassment for our own failures and limitations, the Gospel promises mercy, forgiveness and welcome with Jesus. There is no understanding of the Gospel that makes sense other than to rejoice. We can never earn worthiness other than what we are given as God's treasured creation. The only response to our own creation, this glorious world's creation, God's mercy and loving kindness, God's promise of our salvation through the life, death, and resurrection or Jesus, is to rejoice always and repeatedly. When we experience that Jesus at his baptism was acknowledged as God's beloved, and that we are similarly loved at our own baptism, we should shout for joy. To mire ourselves in gloom because we're human and we sin is to miss the generosity and mercy that is the eternal verity of God the Creator's relationship with the created. The only response to God is to rejoice. In the Word, both read and preached, in our gathering, in the confession and absolution, in sharing of the bread and wine, in the prayers, in our baptism, in all of it, in each of it, God's profligate presence for us shines out. Rejoice. The baptism of Jesus lights our way to follow him and engage with others. We are showered with grace on grace. As we are all part of the priesthood of all believers, we join in saying, Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice: Good News.

© Katharine C. Black 10 January 2010