Solidarity
Homily delivered for the First Sunday after Epiphany (Year C)
12 January 2025
11:00 a.m. Sung Eucharist
Mission Church of the Holy Spirit
Sutherlin, Oregon
Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.
On July 11-13, 1995, in and near the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia, soldiers and irregulars of the Bosnian Serb army rounded up and then murdered en masse over 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys, dumping their bodies into bull-dozed grave pits. This act of genocide was part of a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” trying to create a “pure” Serbian enclave.
The horrors of Srebrenica reveal the costs of identity politics: building power by appealing to people’s sense of belonging to one group or another. Before the war, Bosnia/Herzegovina was a multi-ethnic region with about half its population Muslim Bosniaks, a slightly smaller number of Orthodox Serbs and about half that number of Catholic Croats. Many people lived in perfectly happy mixed neighborhoods, and many of them in mixed families.
When the war ended three years later, the entire population had been brutalized. 100,000 people were dead. 50,000 women, the vast majority of them Bosniak, had been raped. 2.2 million people had been driven from their homes, most of them destroyed.
Bosnia is not alone in showing how dangerous identity politics are. Think of Northern Ireland, the Middle East, India and Pakistan, religious wars throughout history, the purges of class warfare throughout the world, Rwanda’s genocide, and on and on. Think of how divided our country is right now, and how the bitterness of this division is driven by group affiliation. In all of these examples, horror was committed in the name of community. Politics based on group identity is a deal with the devil.
I took a course in mediation, peace building, and reconciliation from one of the chief U.S. negotiators behind the Dayton Accords, which created the framework that ended the Bosnian War. I remember well: Ambassador John Menzies told me the single hardest difficulty he had to work to help people overcome was the deep distrust generated when religious and ethnic identity are brought into the political mix. The desire for revenge for atrocities only complicates these. “Group hatred is a genie that, once out of the bottle, is almost impossible to put back in.”
Identity politics is such powerful stuff because group identity is deeply ingrained in us as one of the great sources of joy, comfort and solace: our families, our people, our tribe. In identifying with our group, we find ourselves and feel we have a place in this world. Because it runs so deep, it is prone to powerful abuse.
Rejecting identity and group affiliation as prime motives, and replacing them with mutual obligation and solidarity: that is what today’s story, the baptism of Christ, is all about. Jesus, a Jew, does not go to Jerusalem to find his path. He goes to John in the desert, inviting people to undergo baptism expressing a change of heart. John, who probably originally had connections with the Dead Sea Scroll Essenes whose mother house at Qumran was just 5 kilometers away, is using a ritual washing like theirs to mark a new relationship with God. But where theirs is the entry point to an exclusive and somewhat cranky sect, John invites all and sundry regardless of their affiliations, even tax-collecting traitors and Roman soldiers, without asking them to change their affiliations, just to better how they treat others.
The Lectionary includes it for the First Sunday after Epiphany as one of the great signs of “God in Man made Manifest” because of the voice coming from heaven at the end of the reading (Luke 3:21-22). Note, however, how the Lectionary connects this epiphany to Jesus to us. Isaiah says: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, … Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.”
This story of Jesus being baptized by John clearly embarrassed early Christians. The idea that Jesus sought spiritual guidance from John, or even received a baptism for forgiveness of sins, was just too much for them. The various Gospels, trying to make sense of it, tell the story in different ways as a result.
Mark, the earliest Gospel, says John appeared in the Judean desert and preached a “baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” Jesus of Nazareth comes and John baptizes him along with the rest. But when Jesus comes up out of the water, “immediately he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven.’”
Matthew changes Mark’s story in several crucial ways. He deletes the fact that John’s baptism was
“for repentance.” He adds a
dialogue—John says “I need to be
baptized by you, Jesus, not you from me.” Jesus replies that he must be baptized “to fulfill all the
demands of righteousness.” Jesus here does not get baptized because he needs
his sins to be remitted but because other people do, an act of solidarity.
Luke leaves in the fact that John’s baptism is unto repentance and adds a lengthy description of the Baptist’s preaching, how soldiers shouldn’t shake people down and tax-collectors shouldn’t line their own pockets. But he avoids mentioning that it was John who baptized Jesus. Here, the opening of heaven, the descent of the dove, and the hearing of God’s voice occurs only after the arrest of John, “when all the people had been baptized and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying.” Jesus here is simply throwing in his lot with the whole group of other people getting baptized, again an act of solidarity.
In contrast to Matthew and Luke, who in their separate ways say that Jesus’ getting baptized was not for the remission of sin or a sign of his subordination to the Baptist, the Gospel of John simply deletes Jesus’ getting baptized altogether. In the prologue of John, the Baptist appears purely as a witness to Light, the word made flesh. John bears witness of the one who is to follow, and identifies him as Jesus. Later, Jesus goes out to Jordan to baptize rather than be baptized (John 3:22-4:3). Though the Baptist is quoted as bearing witness that he saw the spirit descend on Jesus, there is no scene in John’s Gospel of the baptism itself.
The early Church preserved these stories despite the discomfort it felt about the idea of Jesus playing second fiddle to John. This is convincing evidence that the historical Jesus was, in fact, baptized by John, drawn to the Baptist’s message to all people of a living faith in an engaged God who would soon set things right in the world.
In contrast to the sectarian exclusionary baptisms of the Essenes at Qumran, a couple of kilometers from where John baptized, John’s baptism was open to all who wanted to show they had had a change of heart, a change in thinking. It was this combination--a call to authentic change of heart addressed to all, regardless of group affiliation or identity--that attracted Jesus to John.
This is the important take away in what Luke is telling us in the story: that Jesus was showing solidarity with people receiving John’s baptism, and indeed, with us all.
“Solidarity” means showing your connectedness to others. It is throwing your lot in with them, showing that you are one of them, that you are part of them and they are part of you. It is an expression of the idea that “I” am not alone, an independent unity apart from all others. It means “we are in this together” rather than “everyone for oneself.” It means we owe it to each other to treat others as we would be treated.
Some people are uncomfortable with expressions of solidarity, because sometimes they can be exclusive or partisan, where our identity as part of a group is expressed as a function of who is not included in the group. If you favor a co-religionist or family member in hiring, for instance, you by definition have disadvantaged people different from you.
But authentic Christian ethics have always taught that our obligations of special beneficence to those who most have a claim on us, like family, kindred, nation, and co-religionists, should never preclude our obligation of general beneficence, the good that we owe all others because of our shared humanity.
Blessed Emma, Queen of the Hawaiians who is commemorated on our Episcopal calendars on November 28, tried to serve her people, who had become outcasts and wanderers in their own land, by establishing hospitals and schools for the benefit of native Hawaiians. But in so doing, she specified that these institutions should never exclude non-Hawaiians. What she called “the strangers in our midst” were also to be served.
Such “Aloha” is the glue that binds us together. Solidarity fosters the common good, equal opportunity, fair and reasonable distribution of the fruits of our economic life, equality among people and nations, and peace in the world. It includes all the other principles and values that are necessary to create and sustain a truly good society. It is at the heart of what it means to be human, since we humans are essentially social beings, not isolated monads. It is more than a vague feeling of compassion, common cause, or shallow sympathy. It is in fact a commitment to a common life, a sign that we accept responsibility for each other.
Our modern American society is rife with values that work against solidarity: greed, selfishness, inequality, discrimination, exploitation, oppression, partisanship, putting one’s own well-being, rights, and privileges above the basic needs of others.
For us Christians, the heart of solidarity is the life of Jesus. Through the incarnation, God is in real solidarity with us and we are in solidarity with God. By receiving John’s baptism, God-made-flesh showed solidarity with us, with all our limitations, weakness, and sins. The social teaching of the Baptist and Jesus both stem from profound solidarity.
One of the reasons we Episcopalians so value Common Prayer, prayer in community and for community, is that it is a primary way we express our solidarity with each other and with all creation.
Note in today’s Gospel story that when Jesus shows his solidarity with us in a concrete act, God reveals himself. The dove of peace, the Holy Spirit descends. The voice of God, a voice of splendor and power, says, “You are my child. I love you. You make me happy.”
And so it is for us.
Let us show solidarity with each other, so that we might hear the voice of God, be bathed in God’s light, and hear God say, “You are my child. I love you. You make me happy.”
In the Name of God, Amen.
The Renewal of Baptismal Vows (BCP)
BCP p 299
Celebrant Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
People And blessed be his kingdom, now and for ever. Amen.
Celebrant There is one Body and one Spirit;
People There is one hope in God’s call to us;
Celebrant One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism;
People One God and Father of all.
Celebrant The Lord be with you.
People And also with you.
Celebrant Let us pray.
The Collect of the Day
Reaffirmation of Baptismal Vows
BCP p 303
Celebrant Do you reaffirm your renunciation of evil?
People I do.
Celebrant Do you renew your commitment to Jesus Christ?
People
I do, and with God’s grace I will
follow him as my Savior and Lord.
BCP 304
Celebrant Do you believe in God the Father?
People I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
Celebrant Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
People
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son,
our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
Celebrant Do you believe in God the Holy Spirit?
People I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Celebrant Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and
fellowship, in the breaking of bread,
and in the
prayers?
People I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever
you fall into sin, repent and return
to the Lord?
People I will, with God's help.
Celebrant Will you proclaim by word and example the Good
News of God in Christ?
People I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving
your neighbor as yourself?
People I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant Will you strive for justice and peace among all
people,
and respect the dignity of every human
being?
People I will, with God's help.
Celebrant
May Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given us a new birth by water and the Holy Spirit, and bestowed upon us the forgiveness of sins, keep us in eternal life by his grace, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
The Asperges
The prayers of the people
