<html><body><div>Somehow, Part 1 was sent to eternal darkness for moderator approval.</div><div><br></div><div>Let me try again. It should have gone there as it wasn't that big a file...</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>THE
EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY (a)</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>ISAIAH
42:1-9<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>ACTS
10:34-43<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>8<sup>th</sup> JANUARY, 2017</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>MATTHEW
3:13-17<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>PSALM 29</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>One of the funnier captioned
pictures I saw last week was one of Jesus standing in the river with John the
Baptist. John says to Jesus, “And the Godparents are… ?”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><sup>1</sup></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Episcopalians can sometimes get hung
up on some of the details of the moment. We <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>DO</u></b> want to know who the Godparents are. We expect there to
be at least one person, preferably two or three people to follow through after
the Baptism and to assist the newly baptised on her or his journey.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But wait! In the Baptismal Liturgy,
don’t we <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ALL</u></b> respond
affirmatively to the question, “Will you who witness these vows do all in your
power to support this person in her or his life in Christ?” Don’t we <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ALL</u></b> then join with the baptismal
candidate “and renew our own baptismal covenant”?</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Who stood with Jesus, then?</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s an interesting question and,
actually, one of greater significance that the number of disco angels on the
head of a pin.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Who stands with Jesus?</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It puts me in mind of the question
He asked right at the end of His life when He’d quieted down the unruly
disciples who’d been so angry that James and John got the opportunity to ask first
for the best suites in heaven.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Can you be baptised with the same
baptism with which I am baptised?</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This here is the beginning of Jesus</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Public ministry. He’s spent twenty-five plus
years doing we-know-not-what, but He was preparing for this moment with, I
presume, a mixture of confidence and apprehension; a mixture of elation and
concern. What would happen? Would He feel anything at all? Would it make a
difference? Would His life be changed and, if so, would it be for the better?
All sorts of questions as Jesus walked down the river bank and into the water.
All sorts of questions for which He wasn’t sure there would be any answers. Yet
He kept walking.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>He must have been walking for some
time. Yes, it was a pretty small country, but people there and then only made
lengthy journeys for the important religious festivals.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>MUST</u></b> have been something of great significance, then,
something into which He must have put a lot of thought. This wasn’t something
to do on a day when there weren’t any more bowl games in TV.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So Jesus stood there beside His
cousin, waiting, with all the others around, for that moment when He’d begin this
new stage of His life’s journey. It was a personal act. He made a conscious
decision to be there – in the same way that God made a conscious decision to
take human flesh; in the same way that Mary made a conscious decision to accept
God’s request.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Jesus made this conscious decision
and joined hundreds, if not thousands, to make a commitment to God, to dedicate
His life, along with all those others, to taking on and making visible the
dreams of the prophets.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yes, it was a uniquely personal act,
yet it was also an intentionally communal act. Together, all those people came
as one to listen to John, to respond to him, to offer their lives for service..</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This was God walking among us. This
Jesus, standing in the river, was God, yet it was God submitting to interaction
with and for human beings.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The humourous illustration I
mentioned aside, another picture that made a great impression on me was the one
in which a human hand is shown at Jesus’ baptism.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>I don’t
think we can hear or see often enough that God doesn’t push any magic buttons
to make something happen, or coerce people into compliance. Throughout the
history of the interaction between God the Creator and humans, there has always
been the element of choice. We believe that we are here, even in 2017, because
of the life-giving of God. But we believe also that we have the ability, the
right, the responsibility, to choose as to how we interact and fo-operate with
God.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Of course, we pray, constantly, I
hope, for God’s guidance. We can listen; we can intuit; we can ponder
everything we’ve heard and seen about the ways in which God seeks to engage us.
Yet, at every step along that route, we may decide not to participate, not to
go any further, that it[‘s more than we can bear or do. And God doesn’t clip us
up the side of the head and say, “Rethink that, won’t you!”</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>No! God asks, from the visit to Mary,
then to Joseph, down to the moment when Jesus considered going to see John, and
walked into the river – God asks for our voluntary cooperation.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Thus it seems important for us to
see that human hand participating in the recognition of what Jesus’ name means
and what His earthly mission is all about.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>At every step in life, God has
issued an invitation. God has said, “Will you participate with Me? Will you
work with Me? Will you help yourself and others to discover what it means to be
one of My children?”</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And being a child of means being an
actor on the human stage wi5th God. It means standing in rivers; it means
walking in malls; it means driving in traffic; it means phoning, or writing, or
visiting. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ALL</u></b> of life, says
God, is active, not passive. Everything is done <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>WITH</u></b> us, not to us.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>WITH
US</u></b>. Hear that again: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>WITH US</u></b>.
It reminds us of what we’ve been trying to digest into our lives for the past
couple of weeks. Remember the words of the prophet?” “… the young woman is with
child and will give birth to a son whom she will call Immanuel … a name which
means ‘God-is-with-us”.” <sup>2</sup></span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><sup><br></sup></span></p><p style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background:white"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><sup><br></sup></span></p>
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