1st Sunday after Epiphany--The Baptism of our Lord

1st Sunday after Epiphany Year A—Baptism of our Lord January 12, 2014 This past week, I was privileged to do some of the most challenging and the most rewarding work that I get to do at the diocesan level. I participated in the Commission on Ministry’s discernment committee for people who are discerning a call to the priesthood. The discernment committee, which is a close-knit group with a very high level of trust and relationship, met with the aspirants over the course of 24 hours and spent time listening to their stories and the bits of their lives that they shared with us. I was asked to preach at the opening Eucharist on Tuesday morning, and we used the readings for Epiphany, that we heard here last Sunday. I shared with the group one of my favorite Epiphany-themed poems—T.S. Eliot’s “The Journey of the Magi” which is a poem in which the Magi-narrator talks about the difficulties of the journey they faced in following the star: “A cold coming we had of it, [he begins] Just the worst time of year For a journey, and such a long journey… The Magi-narrator goes on to talk about the difficulties of the journey, the memories—both beautiful and bitter-sweet of all the times they spent at their summer palaces—of the people they have left behind… At the end [he continues] we preferred to travel all night, Sleeping in snatches With the voices singing in our ears saying That this was all folly.” He continues by saying that what they actually found at the end of the journey was “(you might say) satisfactory.” But the closing stanza is what really speaks to me. “All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a birth, certainly We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.” Today on this First Sunday after the Epiphany, we celebrate the baptism of our Lord. Matthew is very clear that Jesus’s baptism is the beginning or the birth of his public ministry, but Jesus’s baptism is also the beginning or the birth of his path toward his death. When we baptize people, we lift up this reality that we are baptizing them into Jesus’s death and his resurrection. We say, “We thank you, Father, for the water of baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.” In our baptism and over and over again in the renewal of our baptismal vows, we remember the connectedness of birth and death, and we are mindful of how they often look quite similar. In some ways we see this connectedness at work in the life of the parish—in what feels like death of old familiar ways, of expectations and how birth of something completely new is coming out of that. It is true that death is terrifying, a hard and bitter agony, and yet, there is so much more waiting on the other side of it. We see this in our spiritual lives and in our lives in general if we take the time to look and examine—how death often looks like birth and birth often looks like death. My family stands at this cross-roads as my husband prepares to move to Hawaii for a three-four month interim at St. George’s Honolulu. It is the birth of something new and exciting vocationally for him which we all support and give thanks for. But is also the death of something very comfortable and familiar, at least for the time being, as the children and I will continue our lives here. Many of you I have talked to are dealing with this spiritually as well. It is in the restlessness you feel in your souls, a call by God that something may need to die in order for there to be new life, new birth. I invite you all to take some time this week to reflect prayerfully on this. What in your life, in your soul is happening that teeters on the fine line between birth and death? How might God be calling you to let go of that which is dying so that you can embrace the new life that comes with birth? How might it be that the birth of something deeper actually feels like a death? Have you given yourself the time and the space to acknowledge and to grieve that death? This is what happens to us in the waters of our baptism. This is what can happen to us every time we renew our baptism covenant—this surrendering to death so that we may discover birth; this looking for birth which leads us to death. Remember this today as we once again reaffirm the promises we have made. Say them with an invitation to God and an openness that welcomes both death and birth. All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a birth, certainly We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.”