A Tear in the Universe (Epiphany 1B)

A Tear in the Universe

11 January 2015

Epiphany 1B Baptism of Christ

8:00 a.m. said and 10:00 a.m. sung Mass

Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon

Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

There is a detail at the end of today’s Gospel reading that is quite striking:  as Jesus is coming up from the waters of baptism, “he saw the heavens ripped open, and heard a voice.”  The Greek word here is schizo, to tear or rip asunder.   It shows up again at the end of Mark’s Gospel, in Chapter 15: “Jesus (on the cross) uttered a loud cry, breathed his last, and the curtain of the Temple was ripped in two, from top to bottom.”  The repetition is deliberate: Jesus’ baptism marks the start of his ministry; his death on the cross, its end.  At the baptism, the skies are torn apart so God’s voice can be heard.  On the cross, as Jesus cries out in his death throes, the veil of the Temple, that symbol of the division between this world and the unseen one where God’s presence is not hidden, is likewise torn.

The skies torn and God’s voice heard; Jesus’ voice and the boundary to the holy of holies ripped in two: the phenomenal universe, our day-to-day lives, what we see before us—split and divided so that we see and hear what is behind it all.  There are moments in life where things become clear, where we catch a glimpse of the hidden world through a tear in the universe. 

The baptism of Jesus is one such event; so are our own baptisms.

We are called to follow Jesus in his baptism.  Jesus receives John’s “baptism of repentance,” that is, a washing showing a change of heart and life.   He is about to leave his family’s home in Nazareth, and start his itinerant ministry of announcing the arrival of God’s Reign through word and acts of welcome and healing.     The course of his life is about to change significantly.  Immediately after he is baptized, the heavens are ripped open and God speaks, “You are my beloved; I am well pleased with you.” Jesus immediately sets out into the wilderness for the 40 day testing period preparing him for his ministry. 

Our baptism is also one of repentance, where we change our hearts, directions, and ways of thinking.   The fact that we offer this to babies shows that we believe this is a life-long process grounded in God’s grace, not in our own natural gifts or wits.   It is not just about our feelings.  It is a real thing.   

Baptism demands that we bring forth “fruits worthy of repentance,” that is, a life course and actions consonant with the promises and affirmations we make in baptism.   Included in these is a promise that whenever we fall into sin, we repent and turn again to the Lord.  Again, this is a life-time process. 

Our prayer book tradition has always seen baptism as a sacrament, an outward sign of an inward grace, a signing act in which the grace is bestowed.    I’ve just been reading Diana Butler Bass’s doctoral dissertation, a history of the Evangelical wing of the Episcopal Church in the 1800s.   A major division in the church at that time was an argument about baptism.  Calvinist Evangelicals felt the Prayer Book was too Roman in its theology because it said in the prayers after the baptism that the newly baptized had by this act been born again.   In some cases evangelical priests of that era were tried and defrocked because they refused to use the offending Prayer Book words and substituted ones that talked about baptism purely as a symbol of the act of faith in the heart of the baptized.    Our Baptismal rite to this day says that we are born anew in baptism, and in it find forgiveness of sin.   All this is through the grace and redeeming work of Jesus, but is in the rite itself.  

So how does this work?   How can the act of receiving washing in water actually change our hearts?  Especially when it is done when we are little, and often as adults cannot remember it? 

Baptism is a tear in the universe.  It is an outward sign pointing to and accomplishing an inward reality.  It discloses truth, even as its outward forms continue in some ways to hide it.

It is this way with all the sacraments: in Eucharist, common bread and wine become the body of Christ, the bread of heaven, even as they remain to all appearances bread and wine.   In reconciliation, we face our guilts and fears and God drives them away, but we remain sinners afterwards all the same.   In confirmation, we reaffirm our baptismal vows, and take this initiation into a deeper, more intentional commitment, but we remain who we were before.  In matrimony, we place our deepest relationship in God’s hands, but the relationship still must be nurtured and cared for.  In orders, we consecrate our life to service in particular ways, and the community offers us up to this service.  But take away the collar and the strange kit, and we look pretty much, in fact, are pretty much like all the rest of the laity.  In anointing, we pray for healing and restoration of good health, and we do this even at the end of life, when we expect that healing and restoration won’t be forthcoming.  

All the sacraments take place in time, but are also eternal.   All involve sacrifice.  All involve consecration.  All involve trusting that God will change us and will change things.   Sacraments all are part of a life’s course, are all lifelong.  

A few months ago, in our Sacerdotal Saturday Movies, we watched Tender Mercies.  Robert Duvall plays Mac, a down-on-his-luck country singer recovering from alcoholism.  A young widow offers him room and board at her Texas motel in exchange for handyman help.  Hope and grace stir in his life.  Eventually both Mac and the widow’s young boy, Sonny, decide to be baptized. Driving home afterwards, Sonny says: "Well, we done it Mac, we was baptized." He looks into the truck’s rearview mirror and studies himself for a moment. "Everybody said I’d feel like a changed person. Do you feel like a changed person?" "Not yet," replies Mac. "You don’t look any different, Mac." "Do you think I look any different?" "Not yet," answers Mac.  

Like Sonny, we most often can’t see ourselves as changed people.   Our habits, our ways of thinking, our ways of behaving are just too ingrained.  Baptism or no, adult immersion or infant effusion, we wonder if there is any possibility of change in our lives. 

But that is exactly where the rip in the universe occurs.  In sacraments, if we see things rightly, we get a glimpse of what’s really going on. 

A major part of the light shining through this tear in the universe is expressed in what that voice says to us:  “You are my child.  I love you.  You make me happy.” 

But the glimpse through the veil, the vision through the torn skies does not last forever. 

And so we have to take a long view.  There are times when we can perceive who and where we are only, like Sonny in that movie, by looking into the rearview mirror and seeing what we have already passed. 

Given the stresses of life, it is easy to lose heart.  It is easy to believe that people cannot change.  That is why we promise in baptism to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of the bread and in the prayers.  The miracle and mystery of our faith is this—we can change because God can change us.  At baptism we affirm in the Apostles’ Creed that believe in “the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”  This makes no sense at all if we don’t believe that God is at work transforming us, and that we shall all be changed. 

Sacraments make us new, and help us be reborn in the direction of the image of Jesus.  Remember the classic line from African-American preaching quoted often by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Lord know I ain't what I outta be.  And Lord know I ain't what I'm gonna be.  But thank God Almighty, I ain't what I was!"

Let’s try all the harder to keep the Baptismal Covenant.   As St. Francis said, preach the Good News of God’s love at all times and in all places, occasionally actually opening our mouths to do so.   Let’s not get discouraged in the fight against the powers and dominions, the unjust structures of power and society, and think that if we can’t see change that means there is no point in the effort?   Remember Margaret Mead’s words, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”  And let’s be more regular and more fervent in our prayers, more emotionally connected by them. I think that is one of the reason we use the Psalter so much in prayer—it is a book of emotions.  As Gandhi said, “It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”

It is only by taking our covenant seriously, and challenging ourselves with it, that this life-long tearing of the universe is made open to us and we can see that God has loved us all along. 

Thanks be to God. 

Amen.