Deacon Michael's Homily for the Baptism of the Lord - January 8-9, 2021
Here's my homily for the Baptism of the Lord.
You can find the readings on which this homily is based linked HERE
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Since becoming a deacon in 2010 I have had the privilege of ministering at many baptisms
…and have also had the joy of preparing many of the parents for the baptism of their first child.
These baptisms are happy, with a lot of pride and joy and optimism and smiles.
But they are also an opportunity for the parents to contemplate the aspirations that they have for their child
..and how Christian faith and life in the community of the Church can embody and enable the realization of those aspirations.
In preparation I ask the parents to think about these.
What kind of person would they hope their child would grow into in say 15 or 25 years?
What values, sensibilities and understandings do they hope would be guiding their lives then?
How can the Christian faith, especially their own, play a critical role in making this happen?
We review together privately the words of the Rite of Baptism
…focusing on words they will be called to personally and publicly respond to on the day of their child’s baptism
…when the Church directly puts it to the parents in this way:
“In asking for Baptism for your child, you are undertaking the responsibility of raising him or her in the faith, so that keeping God’s commandments, he or she may love the Lord and neighbor as Christ taught us. Do you understand this responsibility?”
All these questions have some parallel for all of us in light of our own baptism.
What aspirations do we have for our own faith and spiritual lives?
What values, sensibilities and understanding do we hope are guiding our lives right now?
How is the way we are living our faith right now helping make this happen, or not?
What aspirations do we have for the life of our church and our own community here at Saint Jospehine Bakhita, not only now but 10 or 20 years from now?
And how is the way we are living our faith together right now helping to make this aspiration a likely reality, or not?
These are critical questions especially right now
…when the church and people of faith like you and I are experiencing serious challenges.
There is much riding on our answers.
This day, when we recall the baptism of the Lord himself
…is an opportunity to reflect on our own baptism in relation to these questions.
Jesus was baptized by John before there ever was a church.
This scene at the Jordan is a Jewish story in which John the Baptist was preaching a baptism of repentance,
…calling people to change their ways and be more faithful to the covenant.
John, with his baptizing, seems to have riffed off of the household purification bathing rites of the Jews, taking it public so to speak,
…making this public purification rite a part of a public call to repentance.
…a public point, where the baptized was call to thereafter follow a different more faithful path.
“That was then, this is now. Change your ways. Make a fresh and more faithful start.” he is telling the people.
Jesus subjects himself to John’s Baptism to unite himself to those who accepted this baptism of repentance.
In Mark’s Gospel, just after John baptized him, Jesus embarks on his own public ministry with the words:
“Repent and believe in the gospel.”
He is saying “Change the way you are living, believe and live as I will show you.”
To change means to be different, and to be seen as different, and to stick out by virtue of that and not be afraid.
To gain some inspiration for living up to our own aspirations as disciples and as a church, it is good to recall our Christian ancestors in the first couple of hundred years after the the Resurrection
…who lived at a time of explosive growth in their own number
…growth that was fueled by others observing their lives and wanting in on it.
So, how were they different?
They were charitable and open, there being neither Jew nor greek, slave nor free, male of female who wasn’t welcomed on their path of joyful repentance.
They took care of each other, those among them who needed help, the poor, widows, orphans, the stranger.
They cared for the sick, especially in times of pandemics.
They valued human life and rejected violence, aware of what their Master had suffered and what he called them to.
The rejected lax and hedonistic sexual practices and infidelity as contrary to the life God called them to.
They placed a high value on the truth and telling it.
Many showed great courage in the face of persecution and even death.
The world hasn’t changed so much since as to make these examples any less attractive, or irrelevant.
Our challenge these days is to find the ways we can live as disciples and church in our time in a manner that is similarly different and attractive.
Instead of reciting the Creed today we are going to renew our own baptismal vows
…just like the parents do on the day of their child’s baptism.
As we do, try to imagine just how, by affirming such things, we might be called to live differently.