God was with him

A sermon for 1 Epiphany A RCL (1-9-2011), offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17

How do we change ourselves? How are we able to effectively change our lives and also to change our communities?

This is a big challenge, and it seems to be on many people’s minds at this time of the year. What about you? How many of you made New Year’s resolutions 9 days ago?

Go on – raise your hands. Good. Can you tell us what they were about? Not the specifics, just the topic. Like health, or money, or work, or family. Go on and call it out.

How effective do you think you might be? Do you know that only 12% of Americans are typically able to achieve their New Year’s resolutions? This means that 88% of us fail to accomplish our New Year’s goals! Accomplishing change in ourselves in not easy, and yet we all recognize the need to do it.

So how can we make this happen? Perhaps some of you remember the old story of the fat Irish priest who was visited by a poor distraught widow in need of guidance.

“I am in despair,” the woman said to her priest. “My son spends all our money on honey, which he eats straight from the pot. We are penniless. Please come and tell him to stop!”

You have to understand that this was before the days of sugar and chocolate. Honey in the jar then was like the best candy and sweets that we have today. Well, weeks passed and the priest did not come. The old widow thought that he must have forgotten her request. So she went to see him again. And as soon as she came into the room, she was amazed at the sight of him.

“You are so thin!” she exclaimed. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Well, I have given up buying honey and eating it straight from the pot,” the priest replied. “Now that I know that I can stop, I will come and tell your son to stop as well!” (see Celtic Parables.)


Here is an old story which points to the importance of community and personal example in effecting change. Someone in his community needed this priest to change, and his example has benefit for others.

Ever since it first took place, people have wondered about why Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan. Even John was confused! After all, this was a baptism of repentance, which means the forsaking of sins and the commitment to change one’s life. But Jesus had no need of that. He had no sin. He did not need to change his life.

We will never know why for certain, but perhaps the Lord understood the power of his personal example and what this might mean for the rest of us who would come to follow in his footsteps. And perhaps it was this humility, this willingness to do whatever was necessary in order to accomplish the goal of God that elicited this voice of affirmation from the heavens: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

And so we today follow his example. We come to blessed waters to be baptized, to be anointed, to receive the Holy Spirit, to be named as a child of God.

Today, as we gather to baptize two beautiful young children, God speaks these words of grace and joy in our very midst: “This is my daughter, Olivia and Amelia, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

But it’s not quite the same for us as it was for Jesus. He did not need to change his life, but we do! Not the anything is wrong with Olivia and Amelia yet, but we all know it’s coming. And by the time they are forced to make difficult choices, and when on occasion they make the wrong choice, they too will understand about the challenges of this human life and the difficulty of changing ourselves.

After all, that is why we are here! Change is exactly what the church is all about. If you wish to change yourself, if you can see the potential for so much more within yourself and you long to see it come to fruition…if you wish to see this world change, if you can see the potential for so much good within our communities and are frustrated by the violence and needless suffering and heartache that so many experience…if you see and feel these things, then you are in the right place. Change is what this community gathered around Jesus, called the church, is all about.

Listen again to what Peter preached when he spoke to Cornelius and his household: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power;… he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”

Can you see here in these words the prescription for our malady as well as the description of our goal?

God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power. We are given the same, and what is more – we are given a community of fellow pilgrims on a journey together to become more tomorrow than what we are today.

Spirit, power, community – these are fantastic tools that God gives to us. But to what end? To do what he did. To go about doing good, to bring healing to those who are oppressed by the forces of evil in this world.

That is what this baptism is all about: being brought into a living community where we are equipped with the tools and the energy and the motivation to change ourselves and to change the world, so that all together we might become what God intended for us.

Remember this, as we stand in just a few minutes to declare once more our trust in God, and to promise faithfully to walk in the path of Christ, to become agents of change along with him in his work of redeeming the world.

Amen.