Lectionary Notebook for Matthew 5:13-16

 Thoughts on the Gospel Reading
5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
See TEXT below Matthew 5:13-16


The Lectionary Gospel reading for Sunday calls upon the church to consider our current footing as a partner in the Jesus-way of walking in the world.

In this text the Master challenges his Hebrew hearers to live faithfully to their calling as GOD'S chosen people, and by extension this text also falls to his twenty-first century followers as well. We too, somehow, must faithfully fulfill our calling to be salt and light within an increasingly desperate world at war with itself. The church, if it is at all to be church, must give itself away in order to bring glory to the Father in heaven. This text, therefore, puts the church on the spot. Here we are pointedly asked, is the church, is our church, faithful to the Gospel?

Please note that we are here building upon the foundation we laid in last week's homily on the Beatitudes, when we identified those powerful promises of blessing as an occasion to allow Jesus' words, and that of the Jesus-follower Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to demand from the church a final and full allegiance to the Christ, and not to ecclesiastic survival.

This idea is critical, and in point of fact may be the most important means by which the church will return to the ways of the Christ instead of the futile exercise of standing vigil at the death of Christendom. And make no mistake, Christendom -- and by that I mean the structures that prop up the church within the culture -- is dying right before our eyes. This is so very evident that all one needs for proof is to discuss the current challenge of being church in the West with someone say, over fifty years old, someone who has been "in church" a long time. By asking what has changed with church you quickly discover just what has been lost and how this loss is felt viscerally. But what you also discover is that much of what is lost has little to do with the Gospel walk of life, a walk that lives out redemption and reconciliation before the watching world.

The dispute I am describing, which is clearly active within the church and within our  own hearts, is grave. In a time when we see our beloved church institutions fading with the sunset zenith of modernity, the bias to save our churches -- our positions of social power, our properties and buildings, our job security -- is actually the impulse and addiction that is most preventing us from the incarnational plunge that the gospel of Christ demands. Here the questions are stark: Will we as church give up all to follow Jesus? Will we offer our blood and treasure so that the church truly becomes salt and light? Will we as church seek our own glory or GOD'S?

Spoken in terms of the text, what is at stake is the question of hiding the light of the of the Gospel --  the living presence and continuing incarnation of the Christ -- under the bushel of worldliness. That is to say, if the church operates out of fear -- fear of what we may lose -- then defeat is present already. And, if the church continues to live out a faith which has been locked away into the dead thought-forms of a distant and past generation, then the salt of the Gospel, at least in the West, will increasingly be trampled under our own feet.

The term worldliness is here chosen with great care, but it should be noted that in this context it means something considerably different from that of the religious fundamentalist. Within the lexicon of this message, worldliness is a sustained willingness by the church to identify with ways and means of our American manner of life, and then to call this gospel. It is succumbing to the selfish values that surround us and somehow finding in Jesus a way to justify this stance. It is allowing the culture of greed and self-absorption to take over within the church, so that we offer the Christ a nod and a wink and not our very lives. It is cultural captivity.

Said differently, a gospel which costs the church nothing is no Gospel at all. A gospel which merely reinforces ones own political agenda -- either from the left or the right -- is not the Gospel of Christ. A gospel that has as its primary purpose institutional survival in the face of a steep social decay that everywhere confronts us, has nothing whatsoever to do with the, “Come, follow thou me,” from the lips of Jesus.

To repeat part of what I shared last week: What the church faces here are the very serious questions of incarnation: Will the church offer ourselves for the world?  Will the church suffer (and this is the correct word) the loss of all things for the sake of the Christ?  Will the church forgo our own peace, prosperity and safety for the sake of this world? Will the church abandon our own rights for the sake of the another? Knowing that only GOD can change the world, will the church become deeply part of that world (taking the unantiseptic risk) in order that he may do so? Will the church stand beside the outcasts and the weak, those who have no champion, no alternative and no way out.  Will the church center ourselves on the call of the Christ and go where we are sent? And finally, will the church station ourselves against violence, and even willingly suffering persecution for the sake of the Christ who called us?

Here, I am reminded of the crowd jeering at the cross and saying:“He saved others, but he cannot save himself.” Yet, in this poignant moment of the cross, to save others he must not save himself. This was the entire point of the Gospel. And it is now the church’s moment to walk this same lonely road of self-denial (“take up your cross”) and to suffer the wounds of sacrifice (follow me).



Matthew 5:13-16
Jesus said to his disciples:
“You are the salt of the earth.
But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?
It is no longer good for anything
but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
You are the light of the world.
A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;
it is set on a lampstand,
where it gives light to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your heavenly Father.”

Lectionary Notebook for Matthew 5:1-12

 Thoughts on the Gospel Reading
4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
See TEXT below Matthew 5:1-12

This Sunday's Gospel reading from the Lectionary brings to us the famous teaching of Jesus commonly called The Sermon On The Mount. Here Jesus takes to the mount in the position of the new law-giver and offers to his hearers the outline of his new covenant, which may be characterized as the walk of a new humanity.

These words have inspired and challenged would-be disciples through the centuries, but the question here at the beginning of the 21st century is rather simple: Can they do so again? Can these words inspire us? Or are we past listening? Does this teaching even have anything much to do with us?

At first, this seems to be a simple question of interpretation -- What is meant by what is said? What are we (those of us who live now) to make of Jesus' words?

But the dilemma is deeper rooted. At this late date in Christendom -- given the straits of constriction through which the Christian faith in the West is now passing -- does this teaching have anything relevant to say to us? Can Jesus' teaching touch his disciples who live a world with unheralded greed and war and violence and decadence? Is there any use moving toward what seems to be an ancient life-posture that seemingly offers defeat from the outset in a culture at war with itself?

Of course, my answer is yes. These teachings are relevant and speak deeply to us.  (What did you expect me to say?)

They are relevant because in his teaching from the Mount Jesus opens wide what may be called the "narrow way," or what Bonhoeffer called the "Cost of Discipleship."  Here, in a surprise move, Jesus' teaching turns inside-out the values of the Western world and challenges us to a new way of seeing, a seeing that cuts the pride of life, the prestige of possessions and the esteem found in position, slicing it away through a call to action. Here Jesus calls into question all systems of the American culture that rip away the humanity of people by telling them they aren't good enough or pretty enough or rich enough. Here he punctures the world of conspicuous consumption and presents instead a life based upon sacrifice and moral realism.

Think of it in this way: The world is a desperate and lonely place where those-that-have medicate away the pain by what they have and by what they have makes them, and those who have-not medicate away the pain by other means. It was that way when Jesus spoke; it is that way now. The culture cues us to use people for our own ends and abuse the humanity of the one in front of us in order to meet our own needs. But in the sermon Jesus offers a different way, one that places premium on the other.

I mentioned Bonhoeffer because he is quite helpful here. I am convinced that his experience at the edge of the moral abyss -- where the West was locked in a deadly battle to destroy itself -- is instructive for our own time as well. In a book compiled from his correspondence while in a Nazi prison entitled, Letters and Papers from Prison, he writes a special piece called "Thoughts on the Day of the Baptism of Dietrich Wilhelm Rudiger Bethge". It is a powerful and poignant statement, made all the more so by his absence from the blessed event because of his imprisonment. Toward the end of this meditation he writes: "Our being Christians today will be limited to two things: prayer and righteous action among men. All Christian thinking, speaking and organizing must be born anew out of this prayer..."

Even in 1944 Bonhoeffer understood that the stakes had changed and that a self-absorbed and narcissistic church bent on self-survival at all costs had no place in a world creating its own hell. In this same piece he also writes: "Our church, which has been fighting in these years only for its self-preservation, as though that were the end in itself, is incapable of taking the word reconciliation and redemption to mankind and the world."

Does this not truly describe the current Western church locked within the death-throes of Christendom? Aren't we incapable of taking redemption and reconciliation to our social context in a way that is understood and really heard? Are we not merely seen as, at best one more voice in the marketplace of ideas -- pushing a GOD-soaked agenda, and at worst a bigoted mob attempting to impose our meta-narrative on a world long since unwilling to listen?

Enter the Sermon on the Mount. By allowing these words to capture us we are presented with the action Bonhoeffer describes. By attempting to live out the sermon, through taking this teaching seriously and offering ourselves to its ways -- and the only way this can be done is through prayer -- we ourselves become immersed in the social slide of humanity, declaring by how we live that reconciliation and redemption is achievable.

Jesus here preaches an inside-out world where the cost of discipleship is the cross and sacrifice. He himself is immersed into the underbelly of humanity and suffers along with everyone else, experiencing the crushing power of evil and hate as it consumes humanity from the inside out.

This is really what the incarnation means. It is the offering of ourselves for the world. It is the loss of all things for the sake of the Christ. It is forgoing our own peace, prosperity and safety for the sake of this world. It is the forgoing our own rights for the sake of another. It is knowing that only GOD can change the world and becoming deeply part of this world in order that he may do so. It is standing beside the outcasts who have no champion, no alternative and no way out. It is focusing on the call of the Christ and going where we are sent. It is moving against violence and willingly suffering persecution for the sake of the Christ who called us.

Finally, to quote Bonhoeffer again: "Costly grace is the gospel...It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."   -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Mt 5:1-12a
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain,
and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. 
He began to teach them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the land.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the clean of heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you
and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.
Rejoice and be glad,
for your reward will be great in heaven.”

Bonhoeffer On Suffering

Jn. Godsey's article on the Christian & suffering. Well worth your time.

Amplify’d from www.stauros.org

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Suffering by John D. Godsey "Our God is a suffering God." So preached Dietrich Bonhoeffer in 1934. "(We are) summoned to share in God's suffering at the hands of a godless world." So wrote Bonhoeffer from Berlin's Tegel Prison in 1944. These quotations expose the heart of his theology and ethics. When defining God, Bonhoeffer liked to quote Luther, who would point to Jesus and declare: "This man is God for me." Bonhoeffer's faith was as simple and as astonishing as this affirmation: That the sole God of the universe, the Holy One of Israel, became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, who was born in a manger, lived God's righteous love as servant of all, died on a cross with forgiveness on his lips, and rose to inaugurate a new creation. Ecce homo! Behold the human being who as the incarnate, crucified and risen One reveals God's power in weakness and God's lordship in servanthood! For Bonhoeffer, this is the liberating gospel of grace and the magnetic summons to discipleship. Read more at www.stauros.org

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bmud0

Bonhoeffer Bio reviewed

This is an interesting take on the newest Bonhoeffer biography.

Amplify’d from www.christiancentury.org

Books Hijacking Bonhoeffer Oct 05, 2010 by Clifford Green You have to read Eric Metaxas with bifocals. With the upper lens you read the Metaxas of the book, an engaging narrative by an experienced writer who presents Bonhoeffer as a Christian hero led by God to struggle against an evil regime and against his wayward church. With the lower lens you read the Metaxas revealed in numerous web interviews in which he gives his account of Bonhoeffer's "staggering" significance today. Read more at www.christiancentury.org

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bmlnn

Lectionary Notebook for Matthew 4:12-23

Thoughts on the Gospel Reading
3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
See TEXT below Matthew 4:12-23


The Lectionary Gospel reading for this Sunday brings to us the startling vocational stories of two sets of brothers, Peter and Andrew, and James and John.

To begin, we must see that the missional transition is now complete. Herod, for political reasons, has driven John the Baptizer from the scene, and as the text tells us Jesus' ministry now opens in earnest, beginning with his preaching for a national repentance -- "Repent, for the Kingdom of GOD is at hand."

This, of course, has continuity with the Baptizer, but it is also is a step beyond his vision, for again as the text reminds us, it is the moment when the "great light" is beginning to shine in the land, a light meant to overshadow the fermenting call for revenge and violence which the humbled Hebrew nation wished to inflict upon its captors in Rome.

In contrast to revolt, Jesus will soon outline what life under the Kingdom rule would be, but before this he moves to create a social circle into which he could pour his message of "new wine." These were men and women (e.g. Luke 8:1-3) not only supported his message, but believed it to the point of leaving all, following him daily and devoting their resources to his movement.

As has been pointed out by others, these followers did not come to Jesus as a Master asking to be his apprentice. No, the initiative came from the other direction with Jesus inviting them to be part of his Kingdom project. What also seems clear is that Jesus calls these people into an interdependent community where the teachings of the Kingdom can be shared, lived and disseminated to others willing to take on the heavy rule of Kingdom life.

So, when these sets of brothers are confronted with the call to follow Jesus we read they "at once left their nets" and "immediately left their boat and their father and followed him."

As I say, this is startling! Matthew's use of at once and immediately seem exaggerated. How could these men make such a life-altering decisions with such speed and freedom? It seems likely that they knew Jesus already and had been drawn to him and his person (John 1:35-42) Even so, to make this decision with such abandonment seems overpowering to us. How could they do this?

The only answer seems to be the person of Jesus convinced them. Later will come the miracles and the teachings, but now it must have been that in Jesus they found their purpose and meaning. Their emotional ferment and revolutional rumblings gave way to this offer of true life and repentance. Here, in Jesus, they saw the true alternative to violence; here they were confronted with the true way of true humanness in his humanity.

But, isn't this how we became Jesus-follwers as well? Weren’t we somehow challenged by the Spirit of the risen Christ, which opened to us our own lostness? Weren’t we offered an alternative manner of life in the ways of the Christ, each of us seeing in the Christ one who identified with our own brokenness and pain, and end each of us finding in his words and works the path to truth. Isn’t that existential moment of personal conflict within us upon meeting him how we now explain our own biography? "Once I was this, but I met Jesus and now I'm that."

Also of importance here is the truth that this one moment of vocational calling did not end the story for Peter and Andrew or James and John. Daily, these men would have to remember their initial calling and then renew it by decisions they made that day. This is anything but simple. Just look at Peter’s discipleship trajectory. It is one of sputters and lapses and then eventual victories.

This, too, should serve to define our our continuing vocational moments with the Christ. So much so that our positive response to the question Jesus put to us long ago -- Follow thou me? -- still lingers within hearing and still stings, for we actually question it everyday. Will we offer him our lives today? Will we follow the path of self-denial today? Will we live for the common good today? Will we today strive for peace in a world at war with itself?

The calling to follow the Jesus-way is not for the fainthearted. No, the life he offers is rugged and involves difficult everyday decisions. How will I respond to this provocation or that insult? How will I spend this dollar or that fifteen minutes. How will I move beyond the pain in my soul? Will I self-medicate?  Will I self-absorb in entertainment? Will I find healing in openness and genuineness?

What I am driving at here is that a one time acceptance of Jesus' call does not make us a disciple. Discipleship is, instead, the very small, subtle commitments that eventually create a life under the rule of the Christ. Remember: "strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." (Matthew 7:14) 


Matthew 4:12-23
When Jesus heard that John had been arrested,
he withdrew to Galilee.
He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea,
in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, 
that what had been said through Isaiah the prophet
might be fulfilled:
Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles,
the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light,
on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death 
light has arisen. 
From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers,
Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew,
casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen.
He said to them,
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
At once they left their nets and followed him.
He walked along from there and saw two other brothers,
James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John.
They were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets.
He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father
and followed him.
He went around all of Galilee,
teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom,
and curing every disease and illness among the people.

Lectionary Notebook for John 1:29-34

Thoughts on the Gospel Reading
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
See TEXT below John1:29-34
 

 This Sunday's Lectionary Gospel reading asks us to recall the moment when John the Baptist proclaimed that Jesus, the sin-bearer, had finally arrived.

What did this declaration mean? In part it meant that Jesus was the one toward whom the Baptizer's ministry had pointed all along: "...the reason why I came baptizing with water,” says John, “ was that he might be made known to Israel." And it also meant that this one bore the Holy Spirit, and that he is the Son of GOD, Messiah. So, Good News!"

What a relief of burden this must have been for the Baptizer when the one toward whom he was directing the crowds finally appeared. This meant John’s work was nearly completed. But this is only part of the story. Think what an affliction of burden Jesus must have felt as the density of his mission came upon his shoulders in the form of a light-weight dove. Did Jesus really believe that the dove symbolized peace? I wonder. What we do know is the sin-bearer would know little peace in his short life.

Thinking down this road a little farther, what must it have felt like to be the sin-bearer? What massive dissonance must have run though Jesus' mind when the people he loved in sacrificial offering either cared little for his movement toward them in atonement or hated him for it. What thoughts must have braced Jesus' mind when the sober light of the desert day brought the realization that the sacrifice that cost so much was appreciated by so few.

This reminds me of one of my favorite books, Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It." Mclean writes about the conflict in his family as they tried to help his brother overcome his life dominating problems.

“You are too young to help anybody", McClean has the father say to him, "and I am too old.  By help I don’t mean a courtesy like serving choke-cherry jelly or giving money."

“Help,” he said, “is giving a part of yourself to someone who accepts it willingly and needs it badly.

"So it is,” he said, using an old homiletic transition, “that we can seldom help anybody. Either we don't know what part to give or maybe we don't like to give any part of ourselves. Then, more often than not, the part that is needed is not wanted. And even more often, we do not have the part that is needed. It is like the auto-supply shop over town where they always say, 'Sorry, we are just out of that part.’”

Well, know this, Jesus has what is needed, but do we want it? Do we really wish the life he offers? Do we really desire to take on his yoke and learn of him (Mt. 11:29)? Sometimes we do, but most often we seem to struggle with his easy yoke. Presumably, the yoke is easy because Jesus shares it with us, but in reality we don't want the yoke at all. Most of the time we simply want to go our own way not his.We want the life of ease and plenty, not sacrifice and poverty. So, we pay lip service to the sacrificial Jesus-way of service, but in the end that is what we mostly offer -- talk.

Said another way, it is a monumental task for us to become untangled from our cultural captivity. We are trapped by our affluence and strangled by our self-entertainment. Most of us have never been seriously challenged to see the Jesus-way as different from the American way. Our values may be rightly called self-absorbed.

By contrast there are those who have truly offered themselves to the Jesus-way, and here I have in mind someone like Martha Myers, a 57-year-old obstetrician and gynecologist, who served as a Southern Baptist International Mission Board (IMB) medical worker in Yemen for 24 years. (This information is found here) She was murdered Dec. 30, 2003, when a lone gunman attacked the Baptist hospital in Jibla, Yemen.

"After graduating from Samford University with a Bachelor of Arts degree, Martha attended the University of Alabama in Birmingham. After her third year of medical school, she participated in the Foreign Mission Board receptorship program, which allowed her to spend two months in Jibla Baptist Hospital in Yemen. This experience cemented her call to medical missions and specifically her mission to serve in Yemen.

Martha returned home after her receptorship, finished her senior year of medical school and completed her internship and residency in obstetrics at the University of South Alabama Medical Center in Mobile. Following her time in Mobile, she studied at the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. After seminary she spent a few months in the Polyglot School Ltd., in London, England, which provided the foundation for her mastery of the Arabic language.

Because of her earlier work with the FMB at Jibla hospital in Yemen, Dr. Martha Myers was sent back to the Hospital, which was an 80 bed facility that treated 40,000 patients yearly. She initially worked six days a week, spending two days in surgery, two days in the outpatient clinic, and two days traveling to villages in the surrounding area to administer inoculations and to teach the people about health care. Her ministry to the surrounding villages came to occupy a majority of her time. She spent most of her days in her Land Cruiser, covering hundreds of miles of rough, almost impassable roads over high mountains. Upon arrival at a village after a long, tiring journey, she would work tirelessly, sometimes even sleeping in the village if it was too late to return home. If called to see a specific patient, she would treat them no matter what time she arrived, often throwing stones to awaken a household at 3:00 a.m. if necessary because she had given her word that she would come.

The FMB had decided to close the Jibla hospital, making December 30, 2002, the last day that the hospital in Yemen was to be open. When the gates to the hospital opened that day, Abed Abdel Razzek Kamel, a member of an al-Qaida cell that had killed a political leader in the capital city of Yemen just a few days before, walked into the hospital compound with a concealed weapon, which he cradled in his arms as if it were a baby. Kamel followed Myers into a meeting and opened fire, killing her and two other missionaries. Kamel's actions were prompted by an earlier visit his wife had made to the hospital. Upon her return, she spoke highly of Myers, noting that no Muslim doctor had ever treated her with such love and compassion. Kamel knew he had to kill Dr. Myers to keep her from spreading Christianity in Yemen.

Martha was killed doing what she loved, in the place where God wanted her to be. It was her wish to be buried in Yemen and her family honored that wish. In trying to stop the spread of Christ's love in Yemen, Kamel served to reveal His love to the world through the broadcasts of Martha Myers' death, which showed her Christ-centered dedication to those in need."

How do we find and live this rule of life? How do we carry the burden of world at war with itself? How do we care for others when we really want others to care for us? Sadly, we have lost a theology of the cross in favor of a theology of triumph -- where we are the hero of the story, rarely the victim and never the villain.

In truth, we must have help. In truth, we must have empowerment from beyond ourselves, from beyond our selfishness, for we can never untangle ourselves.

Our text offers us such hope. St. John tells us that Jesus is marked by the Spirit. This endowment of Jesus with the Spirit of GOD is the driving force behind his ministry. Said another way, Jesus is totally dependent upon the Spirit for his ministry, and he is totally smeared with this anointing of the Spirit.

To think fully about what the text means to tell us is to grasp that no matter what ones believes about the internal nature of Jesus, he is also a person just like we are people, living his life within the parameters of the human condition. And St. John would have us know that his power and sacrifice came from the anointing of the Spirit of GOD. This means his temptations were real; his struggles were real. If not, how is Jesus a genuine example for us?

If he truly is our example, as I am arguing, then he truly is our way to a real humanity? And this true humanity occurs within us and among us because we share the self-same Holy Spirit, and we share the same calling to a sacrificial life. And the only way to enter this calling and the life we share together is through the empowerment from the Spirit in the same way that he had. In this way the Spirit of GOD causes us to become the body of Christ -- which provides Jesus’ continuing incarnation to this world at war with itself. Jesus is here again, at once, alive, in and through his people.



Jn 1:29-34 Gospel
John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
He is the one of whom I said,
‘A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me
because he existed before me.’
I did not know him,
but the reason why I came baptizing with water
was that he might be made known to Israel.”
John testified further, saying,
“I saw the Spirit come down like a dove from heaven
and remain upon him.
I did not know him,
but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me,
‘On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain,
he is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’
Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”

Lectionary Notebook for Matthew 3:13-17

Thoughts on the Gospel Reading
3rd Sunday After Christmas, Jesus' Baptism, Year A
See TEXT below Matthew 3:13-17

This Sunday we celebrate the Baptism of the LORD, which brings to an end the season of Christmas. As such, the church calendar asks us to remember a second epiphany or revealing of Jesus’ identity when at his baptism the Spirit descends upon him and the Father speaks in his behalf.

This is quite a scene.

We have talked here before about John the Baptizer, the desert man who came to be known as a prophet, who preached sin-repentance at the Jordan river and who dunked any and all who sincerely wished to be part of the new thing GOD was doing. One day, Jesus shows up with the crowds in order to be baptized just like the rest of the sinners, which throws-off the Baptizer, "I don't need to baptize you; you need to baptize me!"  But Jesus is insistent: "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness."

Something is at stake here, but clearly John is unaware of its import. Is this Jesus really the one who will baptize with fire? Why must the promised one be humbled in a baptism of repentance?  (Be sure of this, to be dunked in water by another, if it is truly baptism, is only accomplished by an act of humility.)

The commentators seem to agree here. Jesus is acting in obedience to the will of his heavenly Father, and by this sincere gesture Jesus is identifying with John's message and with those who have repented and have been similarly dunked. That is why his obedience brings the heavenly recognition of the dove and the voice, and the real beginning of his prophetic ministry. But what does it bring to us? What does this starkly obedient spirit found here in Jesus, this humility, offer us in the way we live as his followers and disciples?

Much.

First, we are reminded that the path of obedience leads us through the waters of baptism, and that this initial act identifies us as part of those people committed to the Jesus-way. Said another way, the New Testament knows nothing of a non-baptized disciple. Had the thief on the cross had the time baptism would have been part of his path as well.

Second, we must understand that baptism as the first act of obedience is merely that, the first act of a life characterized by obedience. There is no getting around this, the offer of grace is not cheap. There is a deep cost to the Jesus-way: "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Matthew 7:13, 14)

This text haunts me. For the most part my road has been wide and I live among the wide-roaded people -- those with plenty and those who wield power. What does the obedient narrow road mean for me? How can I find it?

In answer I would say that what must characterize the disciple's walk for the powerful is the actual struggle to find this narrow way. If there is no struggle there is no disciples walk. Later, we can legitimately ask just where is this struggle and where does one find it, but for the church in the West there is no discipleship without this struggle.

So, is the struggle found in giving away ones wealth? Is it in the sacrificial offering of time to others and not to self-entertainment? Is it the preferential treatment of the poor and the widow and orphan?

St. James is instructive here: But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing. If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:25-27) Perhaps this could be our guide.

Third, the true pattern for discipleship is the obedience of Jesus himself. He is the standard; he is the goal. When compared to his humility and his obedience, we are surely found wanting. Listen to these brief texts for clues as to Jesus approach to the narrow way:

John 4:34 Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.

John 5:30 I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.

Philippians 2:5-8
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.

Which finally brings us to the mission of Jesus, who is the Christ. This is especially brought clear from today's reading from the Hebrew Bible -- Isaiah 42:1-4; 6-7.

1 Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. 2 He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; 3 a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. 4 He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.

6 I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, 7 to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.

The prophet announces that justice and deliverance is on the way, coming from his servant. The prophet also tells us that GOD'S Spirit will rest upon this servant and through him covenant and light and freedom will be offered to the nations.

Jesus, taking on himself this motif of the suffering servant uses this text (and others) as his metaphor for ministry (and life). These texts guided his words and his works. The question is, will we join him? Will we too offer ourselves as servant (but not savior) to a world at war with itself? Will we offer ourselves up on the altar of obedience and humility, or will we hold to our possessions, our pride of place and position? This truly is our death-struggle.

Matthew 3:13-17
13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" 15 But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."