We’ve been talking a lot about baptism the last few weeks. We’ve been doing some baptizing the last few weeks. In our Sunday readings, we’ve been following the story of Jesus past Christmas, and he’s gone from being a baby in a manger to a fully grown man in the first-century world. We’ve met John the Baptist with him, waded in the water of the Jordan River with him; and here we are reading about baptism again, in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, written some 20 years after Jesus was arrested, crucified, and resurrected. And this morning, the images of water, darkness, and light infiltrate our lectionary readings.
Our Epistle reading comes from Paul’s first letter to the Christians in Corinth, a congregation that was diverse, urban, mostly Gentile, and often at political odds with each other. We think Paul wrote at least four letters to the Corinthians, parts of which have survived in First and Second Corinthians, profound and rich Biblical books in which Paul worked out a lot of his theology while trying to shepherd a wayward, quarreling flock.
In this passage, Paul is scolding the Corinthians for the arguments they are creating among themselves, with one group saying they are better or more righteous or more faithful than another, siding with this religious leader or that one, Paul or Cephas or Apollos. Paul suggests they are turning the sacrament of baptism into a political tool, a foundation for division instead of a calling into community, the opposite of what baptism initiates us into, which is a gathering in of God’s beloved people from all walks of life and all levels of power or absence of power. Baptism, then as now, was intended to bring all people into the body of Christ, the communion of saints here and gone before. It is not a sacrament meant to set people apart as more faithful or more religious or settled in this theological camp or that one. Baptism is the promise of the Church all together to live for the kingdom of God, caring for one another, living in love, not in division. We remind ourselves of this every time we speak our baptismal covenant: We are as baptized Christians promising to resist evil, to repent of sin, to proclaim the Good News in word and example, to love our neighbors as ourselves, to strive for justice and peace, and respect the dignity of every human being.
“I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Paul writes, “that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”
This past week I spent a few days at a Christian education conference hosted by Virginia Theological Seminary (VTS) in Alexandria, VA, and we were reminded of former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ description of baptism from his book, Being Christian:
“The gathering of baptized people is therefore not a convocation of those who are privileged, elite, and separate, but of those who have accepted what it means to be in the heart of a needy, contaminated, messy world. To put it another way, you don’t go down into the waters of the Jordan without stirring up a great deal of mud.”
Jesus, from the moment of his baptism, made this clear – as AJ preached two Sundays ago, quoting Delmar’s words in the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou?, “C’mon in. The water’s fine!” – but, he emphasized, “Jesus didn’t remain in the Jordan River. From the water, he moved to the desert,” uncomfortable, lonely, dry, hot, “where he was tempted and tested.” Our baptism, like Jesus’, is not the end but the beginning of the Christian life, and Christian life is often more desert than oasis. “…don’t expect to stay in [the river],” as AJ reminded us, “Go on out! There’s work to be done.”
If Paul reminds the Corinthians 2,000 years ago and us today what baptism, what Christian community, is about in the Epistle reading this morning, then the Gospel of Matthew underlines it. Jesus, having been baptized by John, begins his life’s mission of teaching and healing and living the Good News, the light coming to a people in darkness.
And Jesus knows the darkness. He is beginning his own hard work of ministry as John is ending his – not in quiet retirement, but in prison, and eventually. execution. Jesus has no illusions about what his own baptism means, what his coming work will mean. What Jesus teaches and preaches and encourages others to practice, just as John did – this countercultural concept that all people, Jews and Gentiles, emperors and carpenters, slaves and free, are beloved, and that God asks us to live accordingly – will land him in exactly the same place it landed John. And yet, Jesus leaves the river Jordan and goes into the desert, and then he returns to the water to call his first disciples – Peter and Andrew, James and John – and they leave their nets, come out of the water, and follow him into the dangerous, hard desert work of repenting of sin and loving the world. “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people,” Jesus tells them. Fishing for people, especially in a world that is not ready to listen, is not easy work.
Baptism, answering the call of Christ, means living “in the heart of a needy, contaminated, messy world.”
And we, like the Corinthians, can use some reminding of that. We know the quarrels and political conflicts that arise in our society 2,000 years later. We know the sorts of judgments we can find ourselves making, assumptions and prejudices we hold about our neighbors. What would Paul say to us? We know the messiness and pain of our world, as we read the news out of Ukraine, the news of mass shootings such as the one in California last night, when we look at our own sidewalks and see those who have no shelter on cold winter nights. What would Paul say to us? Are we still stuck in the waters of baptism, staying where it’s comfortable and not starting the work that’s waiting for us, the call to the Christian life and purpose?
Timothy Sedgwick, a retired professor of ethics at VTS, writes, “It is wrong to identify Christian faith with ritual cleansing or healing, with a particular understanding of baptism, or with the beliefs and practices of a particular person or group. The gospel is given in the cross as self-sacrifice, giving oneself up in response to and care for the other, the cross bearing the burdens of others – not as self-denial and resignation, but in joy and thanksgiving…”
Joy and thanksgiving because this work of baptism and resurrection is the work of light in darkness, though it is difficult work, though it is desert work. The end of it is love, and the building of the kingdom of God. It is the dawning of life out of death, and that is a promise to all of us.
— The Rev. Cara Ellen Modisett, Curate, Trinity Episcopal Church of Staunton
Third Sunday After Epiphany, Year A, January 22, 2023
Readings: 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, Matthew 4:12-23
