The Rev. Bonnie Malone
January 7, 2007
The First Sunday after the Epiphany
Baptism of Our Lord
This sermon is also available in audio
I love people watching. People watchers love spots where they can blend into the background and observe; airports are good.
As many of you know, a group of Calvary folk have just returned from Honduras, and as a part of our travels we spent quite a bit of time in airports. I can tell you from recent experience that if you want to see real characters, you should check out the customs lines at entry to Tegucigalpa Honduras, or at Houston Intercontinental.
I kid you not, in Honduras we found ourselves waiting behind two lederhosen-wearing Swiss visitors. What brought them to Honduras? Why were these little sets of overalls necessary for their time there? Who knows?
And on the way back we saw the most unusual US citizens, the most memorable were the 6-foot-high, dreadlock-wearing, Anglo-looking couple, scarfing down a monster-sized Mexican flatbread as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks, all the while running to the customs line. Who knew that dreadlocks, when given the correct series of knots and ties, might resemble a giant beehive?
At moments like these, while I try in vain to keep the most inward of smiles, that song from the Doors plays in my head:
People are strange,
when you’re a stranger,
faces look ugly
when you’re alone.
When you’re strange,
no one remembers your name,
when you’re strange,
when you’re…strange.
[But the truth is that I love strangers.]
Sometimes combing through the scriptures is a little like stranger watching at an airport. For instance, if we weren’t so used to this John the Baptism guy, we’d have to admit he’s a little weird. He’s wearing camel’s hair and eating unusual things like locusts and digging into bees’ nests to get to his wild honey. He lives and sleeps in the desert, preaching unorthodox thoughts about the end of the world, the coming of messiahs and so-on. If I use my imagination, I can see a crazed-eyed, wild-haired man, sticky from honey, with a dusty face and missing teeth.
Strange though he was, to Jesus John was just a relative. Luke tells us that their mothers were very close. We don’t have much information about how much time John and Jesus have spent together since their births. Surely Jesus had heard about his cousin, maybe in whispered tones among the extended family. “What about Elizabeth’s boy? Did you hear what he’s doing now?” In today’s scriptures they gather at the Jordan River, as if strangers, one preaching, the other receiving a baptism of repentance.
The fact that they gather at the Jordan River is significant. In the scriptures the Jordan River and its tributaries are places of border crossing, of new beginnings, of name giving, of new covenants. John and Jesus are doing something groundbreaking here.
Before going to Honduras, I worried how our trip would go. American kids can be so spoiled, I thought. I shuddered at the thought of my kids turning up their noses to the cuisine, refusing to say hello and so on. In Spanish, Erika, our host, would say over and over again “Es Ninos.” “They’re kids.”
During our vacation bible school we learned that children (and people) are the same everywhere, no matter what border or language separates them. Some kids throw tantrums, some are independent, some smile or pout or get pensive more than other children; some never know a stranger, others are shy. All need parents and love and consistency.
I don’t know how it is that I romanticized the children in Honduras last year, but this year, watching strangers meet, our kids and theirs, I realized more deeply how much we are all the same. This was especially true on New Years Eve, when our teens and their teens, unable to speak but a few words in each other’s languages, danced the night away, teaching one another slick moves and naughty words.
This seems poignant right now because we live in an age where we are taught to fear strangers. Take the backlash over the use of the Koran during the swearing in of the new Muslim senator, for instance. We remain fearful of what we don’t know. Our kids could really teach us something; that strangers are children of God, just like us. If people in Honduras or Russia love their children too, maybe all sorts of different people aren’t so different, fundamentally.
When meeting a stranger, one of the first things we do is introduce ourselves and inquire of the person’s name. In Spanish we ask, “Como s’amo?” (or “how do you call yourself?”). We call ourselves whatever names we are given as children by parents or relatives, or eventually, by friends. But I believe we also are given another name. I would like to imagine that God says to each one of us, no matter our quirks or differences, “I call you beloved. I call you my child. That is your name. Beloved child.”
The girls at the Civil Rights Museum: sitting in the middle of the bus.
Yesterday we entered the Season of Epiphany. The Season of Epiphany is a season of revelation, of shining through, of mystery and of wonderment at the curiosity of God’s presence. This Sunday we recall how God reveals Jesus as his beloved son. And as we baptize our own we learn how, through Jesus, each of us will become God’s beloved. But Epiphany is also the season of strangers, and border crossings, starting with the wisdom from afar—wisdom from the middle East, actually—the wisdom of the magi. These strangers were the first to recognize Jesus for who he was.
During this season of Epiphany, my prayer for us is the discovery of God in unexpected places, the recognition of God’s beloved children in strangers.
Copyright ©2007 Calvary Episcopal Church
Gospel Reading:
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." Now when all the people were baptized, and 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." NRSV (New Revised Standard Version)