BAPTISM OF THE LORD

Everything that happened to Christ lets us know that, after the bath of water, the Holy Spirit swoops down upon us from high heaven and that, adopted by the Father’s voice, we become children of God. (Cathechism of the Catholic Church, 537)

The voice of God the Father made itself heard over Christ at the moment of his Baptism, so as to reach humanity on earth by means of him and in him: “This is my Beloved!” He did not receive this title for himself, but to give its glory to us. (Cyril of Jerusalem)

It is serendipitous that this feast, these readings should fall on this, my last official Sunday substituting as acting pastor. Fr Mike will be covering next Sunday and next week, and then Fr Mark will be home from his sabbatical. I begin my work on the road again as of Friday; I’ll still be living here for at least another year but I will be resuming my old balance of hermit, preacher and wandering musician. These six months have been for me my most intense period of priestly ministry; as you know I was formed as a monk and even though I was ordained for the community I had very little pastoral ministry outside of presiding at Mass with scattered frequency and occasional confessions. So first of all thank you for sharing your home with me these months. Thank you for being so respectful, kind and hospitable, attentive and receptive. Thank you for trusting me with your stories, your joys and your pains, your laughter and your tears. It has been nothing but a joy and an honor to be your priest these months.

The reason it’s serendipitous for me that we celebrate this feast is that from the beginning, back to my homily for my first Mass after ordination, what is contained in this feast is what I think the priesthood is all about, and not only that, but what I think church is all about. This is the story that I read and preach on at infant Baptisms. One of my elders told me once that every priest really only has one homily, the rest are all just variations on the theme. I think I actually have two, but if I had to choose only one, this would be it. So hear we go:

What I find most remarkable about this story is what comes right after it. Right after Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan, he is going to be led by the Holy Spirit into the desert. And then after that he’ll begin his earthly ministry. All three of the synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) record it that way: Baptism, desert, ministry. I tend to think of the desert experience that follows the Baptism, those forty days of fasting and prayer, as Jesus’ rite of passage, his initiation ritual, if you will. But he can’t do it, or at least he doesn’t do it, he doesn’t face the desert until he has experienced what he experiences in the Jordan.

What does he experience in the Jordan? This one very important thing: He hears his Father say, You are my beloved one!

Remember, God had revealed himself in the desert to Moses in the burning bush, and what did he say his name was? I AM! We believe that God and Being are the same thing; Thomas Aquinas will interpret this to mean––Deus es ens. God is Being; God is I AM! Well, in the Jordan the Father gives that I AM to Jesus. He says to him, You are! You are Beloved! You are my delight! You are powerful! You are precious! You are free! You are so beautiful! You are! Breathe! Thunder! Be! The Father loves Jesus into being, and Jesus has such an awareness of himself as beloved that he can take that I AM as his own. And he is able to say “I am the way. I am the truth. I am the light.” And six times in the Gospel of John (once while he is being led away to death) he says simply I AM! The Father gave him not just his own existence; he gave him I AM! Being itself.

My dears, we cannot face the deserts in our lives until we have this. We have religion all backwards. We keep thinking that if we just obey the rules, follow the Laws, if we just behave right God will love us. Well, what’s the point in that? If that were true what would we need God for? Love is not something you earn! That may be something we have learned from our parents, or from our schools or from television, but truth is we cannot earn God’s love by doing something. Right behavior doesn’t come first. Love comes first. It is God’s love that is the power behind right behavior, the power behind the ability to live uprightly. St Paul says (Romans 7) that our real self agrees with the Law of God, but we do not do what we want but what we hate, but it’s not really we who do but some darkness that lives in us. Laws have no power, rules have no power! Moral exhortations have no power! Just as Paul tried to tell the Jews, the Law has no power! Neither does knowledge––otherwise why would so many people keep doing things that lead to their death, like smoking, overeating and drugging themselves to death. Law has no power to save. Thinking has no power to save. Love has power. Knowing that we are beloved, precious, beautiful––that’s real power.

And Jesus passes that I AM on to us. At our Baptism, we hear, “You are! You are Beloved! You are so beautiful! You are my delight! You are powerful! You are precious! You are free! You are!” Thing is, we don’t remember. We can’t really hear it. And so we spend our lives walking around, looking in store windows and reading books and staring into each others’ eyes asking over and over again in a thousand different ways, “Am I? Am I smart enough? Am I pretty enough? Am I young enough? Talented enough?” Why? Why do we not have a sense of our own dignity? Worse than that, why can’t we give it to each other? Why can’t parents pass it on to their children? Do they not have it themselves? Why are we so afraid to tell each other how beautiful we are? Do we not have it in ourselves? Does it hurt me so much to tell you? Can I not see it in you, because I can’t see it in myself?

It is because Jesus knew his Father’s love, knew his own dignity as a son of God that he was filled with the Holy Spirit and could face the desert––and we too can be filled with that Holy Spirit and face our deserts too, because that is our dignity as well, grafted onto the vine. It is because Jesus knew his Father’s love, knew his own dignity as a son of God that he could heal the sick, walk on water, raise the dead––and we can do even greater things, Jesus says, because that is our dignity as well, “as the Father loved me so I have loved you.” It is because Jesus knew his Father’s love, knew his own dignity as a son of God that he could walk amidst the poorest of the poor, the lepers, the homeless, the prostitutes and drunks and not feel the slightest bit squeamish or worried about his ritual purity––and we too can lay our lives down for the world, if we are secure in our own dignity as well, that every hair on our head counted.

The baptismal font is a reflecting pool, and Jesus through the church drags us to the banks of this pool and says, "Look: there is my reflection and there is yours. This is who you are: the image of God, a capacity for the Infinite! This is who you are: a temple of the Holy Spirit, a well-spring of life giving water, and you can have the same relationship with the Father that I have! This is who you are: the Beloved One. This is who you are: God's son, God's daughter, the One in whom the Father delights! This is who you are: an heir of the kingdom, the glory of God. This is who you are! This is who you are!"

This is what we can do and be for each other. This is what being church could be and should be––the place where we hear over and over again the story of our dignity as children of God, as Beloved, and then be able to look into each others’ eyes with the eyes of God, and reflect back to each other not our projections, not our needs, not what we wish the world and each other to be, but to reflect back “You are the Beloved.” And that would be power for us to build a world of justice and peace, one heart at a time.

This is what you have been for me these past six months. You know, this is not the easiest time in history to be a Catholic priest. My first official time presiding at Eucharist here at Holy Cross was Ash Wednesday, and unbeknownst to me a photographer from the Santa Cruz Sentinel showed up and wanted to take my picture for the next days paper, and I didn’t want him to do it, because I knew what he didn’t know, that the day after that the report was going to appear in the paper on just how wide reaching the sexual abuse scandal in the church was. It was a lot easier being an anonymous hermit monk. The chickens have come home to roost on a deeply problematic system that is not going to be easily healed by covering it with cassocks and clericalism or by pushing it underground and not talking about it. And besides the victims many more innocent people are getting caught up in the wake of the scandal that has rocked our church these years. Another of my close friends recently was accused of a preposterous sexual allegation a week ago, immediately removed from public ministry and had his face broadcast on the nightly news.

People in ministry have their own moments struggling with the efficacy of the institution and hierarchy and bureaucracy of the church, and many times wonder if it wouldn’t be better to get out of the system and go be a social worker instead. Why do they stay? When I was in the monastery I often wondered why so many of my diocesan priest friends like Fr Mark stayed––it seemed so difficult for them and so lonely. Now after two years wandering around the world preaching and singing, and six months serving here as your priest I know, I know why we stay. For you. We stay for you!

Because you are so beautiful, and we want to make sure someone is here to tell you.

cyprian 10 jan 05