This week was the Feast of the Epiphany, which was also the day that domestic terrorists stormed the Capitol of the United States. You may or may not agree with my characterization of these people, perhaps you might rather call them protestors, but I am not alone, nor do I feel like I am going out on a limb here. I don’t know any other way to refer to them authentically. One could easily go on around the difference the country witnessed between the treatment of the insurrectionists versus the treatment of Black Lives Matter demonstrators. After years of living and working in the DC area, alongside police officers of all different models, I can say that it would not at all surprise me if there was cooperation inside. For all of what I have just said, I am deeply troubled, I am appalled, and really, really I wish I were surprised. As Bishop Rickel said in his comments, Epiphany is supposed to be about light shining out into the darkness and overcoming the darkness. Sadly, a Chinese proverb is instead true, “may you live in interesting times.” None of us wants to live in times this interesting.
Before we get to the portion of the service devoted to prayer, let us pray the prayer attributed to St. Francis, please turn to page 833. And keep it marked. Please pray with me:
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
“Sarah”, I asked myself, (and I don’t usually talk to myself, just sometimes when life feels crazier than usual) “What can you and the Holy Spirit make of this week’s scripture that can speak to us today?, in light of this week”
And what my attention was drawn to – hopefully by the Spirit! – is DO-ING. Allow me to linger on this.
In just a little bit, on this day when we remember Jesus’ baptism, and hear of the making of the earth and the giving of the Spirit, we will renew our baptismal vows. We do this a few times a year in a question-answer form. When world events are such that our foundations are shaky, I find the exercise of professing my allegiance to something bigger than myself and bigger than my country a grounding activity. So we will do this, and do it together.
In my 20s and early 30s in medical school and residency, I would often fly Southwest Airlines, often I took my children with me on a flight from Dallas to San Antonio. There was a SWA billboard ad that said, “GO, SEE, DO”
There is something to this. “Go, See, Do”. If you were going to ask anyone on the street about God, you might get a John 1 kind of answer, “God is Love”, or you might get God is in everything (what theology terms pantheism). When you start stripping things down, whatever God is, I think it may be best to say that God is very much a verb. Consider the Genesis reading today. In the beginning God speaks things into being, God does things, out of nothingness, the formless void—in Hebrew the tovu va vohu, God makes something. And it is in these moments of God doing in which heaven and earth touch each other. This is the poetry of God. The psalm today is likewise full of the doings of God. It is about what God does. God speaks, breaks, makes, shakes, gives. God is about the action of loving, God is about the action of growing in love. With some light that God created and some water of Baptism, we too can be slightly better than a houseplant, we too can grow into the full stature of Christ. We have possibilities. God is about doing, and then we too are about doing God things. Besides what you believe, in a few moments we will renew our baptismal vows, and I will ask you about the things you WILL do.
Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and
fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever
you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?
Will you proclaim by word and example the Good
News of God in Christ?
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving
your neighbor as yourself?
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people,
and respect the dignity of every human being?
Clearly there is a lot to do, there has always been a lot to do. In the wake of this week, we need to consider what things we can do to ensure that objective truth is told everywhere, that all people are treated fairly, that no one has more rights than anyone else, etc. I know that Christianity is not the same as democracy, it’s true; there are other religions in which a democracy can function, and here in this country, there is separation of church and state, but the ideals of equal treatment before the law and equal representation, still fall into the language of our baptismal covenant; they are the political forms of values that are in fact enshrined in our baptismal language.
Around that same time when I lived in Dallas, there was an another Southwest Airlines ad in Spanish with a similar message, “?Porque no vamos?” Why aren’t we going? Or, why don’t we go? When it comes to the Holy Spirit, the question is always “why aren’t we going?”. The Spirit of God exists in the Bible from the beginning, with the ruak (which is Hebrew for Spirit) blowing around, and occasional resting on people; but, in the New Testament, Jesus opens the flood gates for the Holy Spirit. The baptism into Jesus is not so much about repentance. (Many would rightfully wonder from what Jesus, who was himself baptized, would need to repent.) Yes, we need repentance, we all need repentance, and turning to God. Still, I think our biggest sin is taming the Christian message to be about us, about helping us, our journey and our getting right with God instead of being about our reaching to others. Even though we are told over and over that it is in relationship that God is made known. Christ comes and opens up the Holy Spirit to everyone, this is the Spirit he leaves with us. Maybe if we thought about our getting right with God is really about how we treat others, how we treat others when we let the Holy Spirit move in us and become our authentic selves, most reflective of the Divine.
When the Holy Spirit rests on us to show love, care, justice, mercy to all.
Please pray with me again, page 833:
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
Francis of Assisi knew the faith was about going and doing. The Scriptures testify to the life of faith as a going and doing. So the question for us today, in this Feast of Epiphany?:
Porque no vamos? Why are we not going? Porque no vamos? WHY DON’T WE GO!