1 Epiphany (B) 2018: Monty Python or The Gospel of Mark?

For a preacher
today is a gold mine.

Light,
light and dark,
night and day,

the first day…
(Gen. 1:1-5)

“Like the water
of a deep stream,
love is always too much…
In its abundance
it survives our thirst…”
(Wendell Berry)

The moment
he came out of the water,
Jesus saw God’s spirit…
and Jesus heard a voice,
“You are marked by my love.”
(Mark 1:4-11)

Talk about a bonanza of juicy metaphors,
opulent images, and
elegantly exquisite ideas.
Wow!

I want to wax eloquent
and launch into some poetry
that dances like goose down
in the light beams above water.
But I have been grounded.

Today is the annual commemoration
of the Baptism of Jesus.

Now, the old-time Episcopalians
and former Roman Catholics,
think that Epiphany –
and this is the beginning of the Season of Epiphany –
is about magi and frankincense and myrrh.
Look back there on those Epiphany banners
and you will see the traditional images of Epiphany.
But then the Revised Common Lectionary,
just a few years ago (twenty-six to be exact),
changed the subject of the liturgical season
to begin with baptism
and emphasize ministry.
It is not about three kings at all.

So, if we don’t celebrate the Feast of Epiphany
on the actual date of January 6^th,
or once every three years catch the story
on the 2^nd Sunday after Christmas,
we skip over it altogether.

Today is focused on the baptism of Jesus.

The British comedy troupe, Monty Python,
perfectly captured the Church’s fetish with baptism
in the satirical movie, “Life of Brian.”

The main character, Brian,
pretends to be a prophet in the mold of Jesus
as a way to escape Roman soldiers
who are chasing him.
But in the course of the pretense,
he attracts an ardent crowd
that pursues him everywhere because they believe
he is the real deal.

At one point, Brian is scurrying away
when he drops a gourd someone earlier
had thrust into his hands.
Ecstatic at the turn of events,
a woman picks up the gourde
and declares that it must be an omen or sign
directly from the prophet.
This re-ignites the zealous madness of the crowd
and they rush after Brian all the more franticly.

Desperate to escape their fever, Brian runs away,
but in his haste loses one of his sandals.
The crowd of course, believes that Brian
has dropped one sandal on purpose,
and that it is a also sign.

Now this new event ignites a conflict
between the gourde worshippers
and the sandal worshippers.
But the sandal worshippers,
almost as fast as they form,
split into two factions:
Those who think
everyone should now wear one sandal,
and those who look down their noses
at the silly single-sandal wearers,
and scoff that the sandal
is merely a metaphor
pointing to a deeper, cosmic meaning.

I do not wish to belittle the ritual of baptism
because it is the one act that nearly all Christians
everywhere in the world, embrace.
But of course, we embrace it with conflict
just as the crowds in “Life of Brian.”
Some insist that without it, an eternal hellfire awaits.
Other demand that is be done
completely underwater or it is null and void.
Still others, insist that it is a baptism of the Holy Spirit
and water has nothing to do with it.

And then there are those who scoff that baptism
is merely a metaphor pointing to a deeper,
cosmic meaning.

Let’s look at what the Gospels have to say,
and go from there.

John the Baptist and Baptism
are treated quite differently in the earliest Gospel, Mark, than they are in the last Gospel, John.

With forty or fifty years between them,
and with totally different audiences,
there is a clear evolution in the baptism story
between Mark’s Gospel and John’s,
with Luke and Matthew marking
a kind of mile-post between them.

Here is what I mean.

In Mark, as we heard today,
it is clear that people came to John the Baptist
confessing their sins and getting baptized
as some kind of ritual cleansing
in the Jordan River.
Mark does not make clear
that John the Baptist recognized Jesus.
Nor does Mark make a clear connection
between “the one” John the Baptist predicts,
and Jesus, being “the one”.

Mark describes the event
as a private religious experience:
Jesus comes up out of the water,
and Jesus sees the heavens torn apart
and Jesus sees a dove descending
and Jesus hears the voice of confirmation,
“You are my beloved.”

A decade or so down the road,
and in different geographical and cultural settings,
Matthew and Luke evolve this story
until it becomes a very public event:
John the Baptist declares Jesus is “the one,”
and the crowd sees the dove
and the crowd hears the voice.
There is no room for doubt
in Matthew’s and Luke’s rendition.
For them, the baptism of Jesus was a miraculous event and it proves that Jesus is “the one.”

Christianity evolved
from Paul
to Mark,
and through Matthew and Luke.
It traveled its way from Judah and Galilee,
up the Mediterranean through modern-day Turkey,
hopscotching its way toward Rome.
As it did, like in the “Life of Brian,”
only without humor,
it addressed and answered
different questions in each location,
and organized itself around different concerns
depending upon what was locally important.

By the time Christianity catches up with
the author of the Gospel of John,
and his community
living and worshipping where they did,
the baptism story raised some thorny issues
that required still more evolution of the story.

For John and his community,
as the baptism story was received
from Mark, Luke, and Matthew,
it was a dark problem, arising
like a dead arm poking up out of a grave.

You see, as time went by
those that followed the Jesus movement
began to claim Jesus was perfect.
He was no ordinary human, they said,
but in fact, he was without sin.

That is a big claim,
and it contradicts the very human Jesus
that appears in Mark –
the one that goes to the Jordan River
confessing his sins.

In fact, the idea that Jesus submitted himself
to a baptism for the forgiveness of sins,
became such a scandal in early Christianity,
that the last Gospel written – John’s Gospel –
does not even record Jesus’ baptism.

Think about that.
In the last Gospel, the Gospel of John,
it does not actually say that Jesus was baptized.
It quotes John the Baptist as declaring
that Jesus is superior to him;
and declaring Jesus to be the Messiah.
The Gospel of John
refutes the idea that Jesus was baptized
for the forgiveness of sins or anything else,
and emphasizes that John the Baptist
was merely an opening act
for the main superstar, Jesus.

To summarize then,
Mark is not the same story
as Matthew and Luke,
and John different from the other three as well.
It is not just a matter of a few stray details either.
In fact, these four different stories
about the baptism of Jesus,
are four different manifestos
portraying four different views of Jesus.
They range from a grown man
who has a religious experience at his baptism (Mark),
to an eternal God, begotten not made (John).

I do not think it matters
which one we uphold,
any more than I think it matters
whether we are sprinkled or dunked in the water.
It does matter that we recognize
there is more than one perspective,
and that the differences begin in the Bible,
and right from the very beginning.
It is a liberating recognition
that we too can hold different perspectives
and share the same community
around the teachings of the same prophet.
But much, much more importantly –
down underneath the four different stories
with their different perspectives –
is something we need to recognize.
It is not about what we believe,
it is what and how we practice baptism.

Christianity is a practice,
rooted in ancient wisdom
bubbling up from the Exodus
and distilled through Jesus.
Christianity is a practice,
not a creed or a sermon or a ritual.
Christianity is a practice of ministry
not merely organ music,
bread and wine,
and prayers.
Christianity is a daily practice
of baptismal ministry
rooted in ancient wisdom.

Down underneath all the stories
is the love of God
that looks out over the fresh new Creation
and declares it is “good.”

Down underneath all the stories
is the love of God
declaring that you and I are beloved,
and so are the people we mistrust, fear, and hate.

Down underneath all the stories
is the love of God
that begs us to practice it.
To practice the love of God
as it has been given to us.

So, we are a community
with a spiritual practice
inspired by the wisdom of Jesus.

It is a practice to love:
to be loved,
and to share love.

Over the weeks of Epiphany
we will dig into the nature of our practice
a little bit deeper,
and hold it up for one another
so that we might become yet more practiced
in the art of loving, Jesus-style.