We the baptised… (Proper 15C)
Sunday 18 August 2019 | The Rev’d Clare Barrie
“I’ve come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptised, and what stress I’m under until it is completed…”
Is the fire Jesus longs to bring is like that of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, burning in the hearts and resting on the heads of so many believers, enabling them to mighty deeds of faithfulness? Or is it rather the refiner’s fire of the prophets, burning away the chaff of sin or the fruitless branches that don’t bear fruit? Or is it the fire of God’s judgment, raining down on the heads of God’s enemies?
We don’t know – it is impossible to resolve all the tensions raised by these words of Jesus. The same Jesus who has proclaimed an overarching message of peace and reconciliation throughout Luke’s gospel, seems here to be wishing for devastation.
And in the background, we hear the words of Isaiah’s song for the vineyard of the beloved, a love song that has turned to grief and desolation – “And now, I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down…”
These are profoundly uncomfortable passages of scripture. The Jesus who wandered along beside Galilee and searched for lost sheep and prayed for people to be healed is much more palatable. But perhaps we need to revisit our notions of peace, because often, what that means in reality is peace at any cost – especially if that cost lands in some other part of our world. The most obvious example of this on a systemic is the compounding cost of the consumer societies of the west on the environment around the world – the havoc of climate change is the cost of our privilege and prosperity, and it is the poorer parts of our world which are bearing the brunt of that cost.
But closer to home and more personally, we probably all can think of times when we have ‘kept the peace,’ bitten our tongues, forced down our anger and not rocked the boat, because the consequences of speaking out are frightening. But who bears the cost of that kind of peace? When truth is sacrificed and someone suffers in silence, because we don’t want to ruffle any feathers? Is that any peace at all?
Remember that it was also Luke that told us how, in the midst of the beautiful story of Jesus’ birth and the choirs of angels, Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple as a baby. And Simeon said to Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many… and to be a sign that will be opposed, so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
If we think that being followers of Jesus is a soft option, we are deluding ourselves. Jesus has not called us to be nice, endlessly polite and agreeable in the face of the suffering and injustice and brokenness of the world around us. Instead there will be times when we are to speak truthfully, urgently; we are to be filled with a holy dissatisfaction with the way things are – even a holy anger. We are to pray for God’s will to be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
And who is this we? It is we the baptised – we who are baptised in and into Christ. And Jesus’ own anguish seems to resonate in those words in which he is reflecting on his own death – “I have a baptism with which to be baptised, and what stress I am under until it is completed!” I think it’s not Jesus’ intention to cause the division of households, or parent and child – but rather that he knows his life and death and resurrection will ultimately profoundly re-order our human ways of relating. And the closest, most intimate relationships are those within families.
So Jesus is using this imagery to tell us that even those sorts of relationships will be disrupted, will pale in comparison to the new humanity of the baptised – the new creation. He’s not saying that we should toss those good things aside, but that we should recognise that there is an even more powerful and profound human interconnection – a more profound belonging, and that is through our baptism. And there will be times when that solidarity – that real and proper peace – will disrupt all our other kinds of belongings, including the false or lesser types of peace we sometimes settle for.
I read this week that in the Eastern Orthodox church, the icons of Jesus’ own baptism show him not just immersed in the River Jordan, but also standing over chaos. In some Eastern icons of the baptism, there is a shadowy figure under Jesus’ feet who is supposed to be like a river god, the power of chaotic nature.
So Jesus’ baptism is a descent into deep waters, the depths out of which new creation comes – and there are echoes of the watery chaos of Genesis, because Jesus’ baptism is like the very beginning of all things. Just as the Spirit comes down on the chaotic waters in the first chapter of Genesis, and brings out of it a world, a new creation, so Jesus comes down into the chaos of this world. This is the linked meaning of the baptism and the death of Jesus – this is how he can speak of his own death as a baptism. So also is our baptism a kind of death, and rising to new life.
Some of my favourite words about the meaning of baptism are from a 4th Century bishop of Jerusalem, Cyril, who said:
“When you went down into the water
It was like the night and you could see nothing,
but when you came up again
it was like finding yourself in the day.
That one moment was your death and your birth,
that saving water was both your grave
and your mother.”
We start to see then why our baptised identity is not at all about some private conviction of faith. Baptism binds us to one another in Christ, and it binds us to this world that Christ loves – it makes us truly alive, and it calls us into responsibility, and solidarity with the chaos and the depths of our own needs, and those of our neighbour, and those of the world around us.
We start to see then why our baptised identity is not at all about some private conviction of faith. Baptism binds us to one another in Christ, and it binds us to this world that Christ loves – it makes us truly alive, and it calls us into responsibility, and solidarity with the chaos and the depths of our own needs, and those of our neighbour, and those of the world around us.
Sometimes we wish that ‘the fellowship of the baptised’ was just a lovely gathering of people who are holy, and finished, and polished, and like us – but actually, that would be a false peace. ‘We the baptised’ are a huge variety of people we might not choose for ourselves.
Living into our baptism means going where Jesus goes – into his death and his life, into the chaos of this world, of our neighbours, and of ourselves, for all of which God holds so much love and hope and anguish.
Though going down into those waters is like the night and it may be hard to see the way, we will rise again and find ourselves in a new day – this is the pathway of peace beyond understanding.
Amen
With thanks to Rowan Williams for some imagery and ideas about the baptised identity: http://aoc2013.brix.fatbeehive.com/articles.php/2572/archbishop-of-canterburys-visit-to-the-diocese-of-gloucester