[Propertalk] 1 Epiphany c rcl

[Robert P Morrison]

This has been revised three times, and may undergo another one, but here's what's printed.


THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY   1 EPIPHANYC RCL: THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD
ISAIAH 43:1-7	    10th JANUARY, 2010
ACTS 8:14-17                         PSALM 29
LUKE 3:15-17, 21-22

	Two quotations intrigued me when I read them last week. The first is longer, but let me summarise it.
	“The old joke goes that a physicist was granted one wish by a benevolent genie. His heart’s desire? A frictionless pulley.
 	“Engineers know that real-world pulleys have friction. They know that theoretical calculations are just that: theoretical. The real world requires adjusting the theory—sometimes even scrapping it in favor of a better one. The same should be true in economics. 
 	“Economists (too wrestle with theory and reality and have to deal with whether this tension produces side effects. … In such a world, you don’t have to ask yourself questions about justice, sustainability, or morality. You just need to know your own preferences, to know how much money you have, and to know the prices of all the things you might want to buy.  …
 	“In the case of economics, we’ve allowed the useful fictions of theory to become our dominant mythology.” 1
	Essentially, Rusty Pritchard, the writer, suggests that theories cannot exist in reality. Somehow, they have to be modified by and with the every-day situations and experiences for which they have relevance.
	The second, much more succinct, quote is from G.K. Chesterton who wrote that, “The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.”  2
	From the first quote, what jumps out at me is the comment about assuming that “people have perfect information …., that there are no side-effects … on third parties …, (therefore you don’t need to bother with spending time on) justice, sustainability, or morality.”
	None of us has perfect information, though. This means, then, that every last one of us has to wrestle with what is just; and what is sustainable; and what is moral. It’s an horrendous task, because our own prejudices and fears inject themselves so readily into every aspect of our lives, often without us being aware of it at the time. Later on, of course, we may be struck by the harsh way we talked to someone; or the corner we cut when we picked up, say, a newspaper and came away with two for the price of one; or the way we used our position or authority to place ourselves to better advantage over someone else. Later on we may cringe at such memories.
	Maybe that’s what filled John the Baptist’s listeners with such expectation. Maybe, recognizing some, if not all, of their shortcomings, they were both intrigued and relieved to think that God’s Anointed One would come into their lives personally to bring freedom and energy so that they could live without worries. Possibly what they hoped for was some sort of a “frictionless pulley”, that would relieve them of the responsibility of having to monitor their behavior for improper motivation and action.
	Then, one day, Jesus came to John, was baptised in the river, was identified as being God’s Son – and the people were given a first-hand view of God at work in their midst.
	The problem with issues of justice for all, and sustainability for the planet, not to forget morality, is that it can be so easy to get hung up on our own ideas about what they are. As one example, we refer to justice for all whenever we recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The only problem is that there hasn’t been a time in the history of the United States when ALL HAVE received justice in all its fullness. Not that other societies have been any better.
	The difficulty about comparing theory to reality seems to me to be that it’s only in theory that we don’t have to worry about the ideals up to which God hopes we’ll live. But none of us lives in theory – ALL live in reality. THAT’S why we have to be aware, constantly, of where we stand in relationship to God and to one another. And that’s why Jesus stood in the cold water of the River Jordan in front of His cousin, John. Jesus was identifying with us completely. Jesus was presenting the image of what God desired. Jesus was showing us just what justice, and sustainability, and morality looked like – but not from afar. From the middle of the river, Jesus invited everyone to join Him and so to take on His life, just as He’d taken on ours.
	Last Thursday afternoon I visited a friend in jail. And I found myself being startled again and again. I don’t know whether or not any of you’ve been on the “other side of the glass”, but I’m sure you can picture the situation. Two people facing each other through a thick glass window, speaking on a phone to one another, able to make hand gestures, yet somehow completely disconnected from each other.
	Last Thursday I sat in a chair and looked through that glass, but while I saw reflections on the clean, polished surface of the bullet-proof window, I kept looking at my friend and being convinced that I was looking at myself.
Maybe it was because he was approximately the same height and build. Maybe it was because our hand movements seemed to be similar. Maybe it was because both of us had the phone headset against our ears on the same side – I can’t really tell, but what happened several times in the course of our visit was that I saw myself sitting there in that orange jumpsuit. And it was disconcerting, to say the least. I wondered why I was there; what I’d done; how would I get out; or would I get out? Why WAS I there?
And, after a while, as I drove home, I thought about the Gospel, and Jesus standing in the river, and, somehow, I imagined myself standing face to face with Jesus, pretty much as I’d been just a few moments previously; thinking about myself in an orange jumpsuit and looking for that wonderful image of Jesus as he brought theory into reality. Jesus demonstrated the possibility, if not of a frictionless pulley, at least of a way to make God’s desire come alive, to make God so excited that a declaration is made that THIS is God’s Son, the Beloved, who gives God enormous pleasure.
So what do I see where I gaze into Jesus’ eyes, and His face and hands, and notice the water gently cascading down His Body?  I see the THEORY of Love transformed into the REALITY of Love. Somehow, Jesus, standing in the water, has brought the two together. What some might think of as impossible, Jesus makes happen in such a way that the excitement, the pleasure, the anticipation of the mission that lies ahead of Him becomes available to me – and to you.
All of a sudden, the glass wall is down. Whatever barrier I may have felt
between myself and God has disintegrated in the rush of water. Jesus calls me, Jesus calls you, Jesus calls everyone to stand in the water with Him and to feel not just the cleansing but the strength which it gives us. Jesus calls us to Baptism to discover our unity – not uniformity – but unity with Him and with God; such a powerful unity that can enable us to take this image and this story out to others, if only we will. Jesus, standing in the water, invites us to bring folk to discover how Jesus’ coming into the world, and into the water, can reach and transform us no matter what our concern or predicament.
	A recent book about the Church’s mission opens with the paragraph: “A classic 1970s study on the demise of railroads concluded that they went out of business because they thought the business they were in was railroads.  It wasn't. The business they were in was transportation. Likewise, churches may decline or die when they think the business they are in is church.  It isn't. The business they are in is God's mission in the world.” 3
              What does this say to us then?	
What does this say to those like my friend who are imprisoned in one way or another? It talks about the possibility of renewal that can grow from even bare cement floors and walls and iron bars. It talks about the possibility of renewal that can grow into relationships stretched with tension. THAT is what the water surrounding Jesus says to us this morning.
Jesus, standing in the water, reminds us of our mission to mirror justice, and sustainability, and morality, and to make these real in people’s lives. Our mission is to give God’s people hope. The mission given us by the water-soaked Jesus is to help everyone see how God can and will renew everything by drawing us closer to the Son. All we need to do is to pay attention.
	And all that this takes is recognition that, as Chesterton wrote, “The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul”, a new soul that comes to everyone through standing with Jesus in the Jordan; standing with Jesus wherever justice, and sustainability, and morality are to be found.

NOTES:

1 	“The Value of Nothing” by Rusty Pritchard ePistle 5th January, 2010 ePistle at esa-online.org Evangelicals for Social Action
:http://www.esa-online.org/Article.asp?RecordKey=2F8131CF-1556-44BF-8A18-957239860803  OR http://tiny.cc/p695f
2 	G. K. Chesterton
3	“The Missional Church and Denominations: Helping Congregations Develop a Missional Identity”  edited by Craig Van Gelder. Eerdmans, 288 pages $26.00 paperback. Thanks to The Rev'd Dr.Elizabeth Kaeton motherkaeton at gmail.com   Chatham, NJ for calling my attention to this.

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Robert P. Morrison
Lincoln City, Oregon, 97367

541-921-1076