To be truthful I have struggled with this text all week. Now some would say this is not writing a sermon, but the struggle is always a good thing. I did not know what I wanted to say until this morning and it is about the baptism of Jesus in Matthew because this is the only gospel where John refuses to baptize Jesus and Jesus responds that it is to fulfill all righteousness.
There is another passage which sometimes accompanies our readings and it appears often to us. It comes from Paul and is from Philippians 2 where Jesus does not lord over all that he is equal to God. This is important especially today. We have been so drawn in by the events of this week. We are so drawn into the right and wrong side of things that we miss what is happening. Division.
I know what is right and I'm right. No, I know what is right and I'm right. This is not to minimize what happened this week in our nation, but to bring to light how divided we have become. When Jesus starts his ministry there is no division squad of I'm better or more or even better then because we just read in Bible study where Jesus heals a woman and a leader of the synagogue, who should be in the division squad.
We are studying Luke and we had the healing of Jairus' daughter and the woman with the issue of blood for 12 years. Jairus is a member of those whose Luke's gospel is setting up as the opposing team, the religious establishment. Yet Jesus goes and heals his daughter anyway. This is the same with the baptism everyone is on a level playing field. Jesus is baptized because we say we become joined with him in his death and raised with him into life.
What does this do? It creates the level playing field. If we are united with Christ in baptism the mark and seal we receive invites us to unite with one another and not Lord it over others (getting back to Paul in Philippians 2). This means that all this rightness we feel right now divides us and puts us onto a moral high ground where we feel justified to punish those who think different than we do. This only creates more hurt, more moral high ground, more justification to not see the spark of God in each other. This is what the makers of division hope for is to drag us apart until we can't see one another.
What is the saddest part of this week? We are so up on our high horses we can't feel the pain of the other and there is pain here for everyone. A country in pain and others in painful fear of what might happen. Children in pain, a spouse in pain, a community in pain, and a pain of fear of blame and retaliation in another side.
What we need is bridges to the pain and Christ is showing that way. Get off your high horses. When we renew our baptismal vows today we are saying, as the water sprinkles down, the light of Christ of God is in each one of us and that doesn't stop within these walls. We are sprinkled to remind us to see that water spreading out beyond us, out beyond the walls and into our communities. Because Jesus doesn't come and say punish this one and punish that one. Jesus comes to be healing balm among us and in spite of us.
Just look at any of the gospels: rich, poor, Jew, Gentile, and even the oppressor Rome he heals, walks with, looks with compassion on, and feeds all of these and us. This is what it means to be broken in the bread. The pain we feel is the pain others feel as well whether it works itself into fear or whether it is in tears. Because if we don't stop and go to those as if God's light is in them then we have already lost the battle because we already only see those who are like us as worthy and everyone else as disposable and that is not the gospel good news.
So remember today as you receive the water we are in this together. Then go and be the light which shines into this world of dark pain. Be the bridge to seeing each other so we can heal a world which only sees the differences. Amen.
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