Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 6:39 - 45

During my medical education, there was a saying -- and I suppose it’s still a saying -- “See one, do one, teach one.”  Medical education is a lot of book learning, but there is a lot of practical stuff as well.  And the only way to learn the practical stuff is to watch someone else do something, try it yourself until you can do it without much thought; then teach it to someone else.  In fact, when you teach something to someone else, it reinforces your own knowledge of what you tried to teach..  And it doesn’t just apply to medicine.  I was reminded of this the other day when the turn signal in my car stopped working.  I knew it needed a new light bulb, but I had never replaced this on this particular car.  The manual wasn’t much help.  So I found a youtube video that showed me how to do it.  I’m not a quick study, so I would go in the house and watch the you tube for a minute, then go out to the car and try to do what I watched.  Over the course of a half hour or so I managed to change the bulb.  I was so proud of myself, and I had gotten a lot of exercise going back and forth between the car and my computer.

You and I are the sum total of seeing and doing; from the time we are infants we model our behavior on others.  But we often forget that we are, by necessity, models for other  people.  It’s kind of flattering to see yourself reflected in other people.  I remember during the last couple of years that I was in practice, a phrase I had never heard before became widely used in the Baystate culture.  “At the end of the day” was shorthand for “after we take into account everything, this is my conclusion”.  The phrase was first used by people who held a high rank in the hospital culture, and before you knew it you began to hear it in conversations all through the hospital.  

Today Jesus makes a number of straightforward statements that it’s hard to disagree with. A blind person leading a blind person?  That’s a recipe for disaster.  Can a disciple surpass his teacher?  Jesus means that you can’t learn more than your teacher can teach you.  Who could disagree?  And it’s good advice to make sure you can see before helping your brother see.  Good trees bear good fruit; bad trees bad fruit.  Simple statements.  But here it is in the gospel, straight from Jesus’ lips.  What’s the point?

I think it’s this.  “See one, do one, and teach one” is the saying.  We have to be conscious of the fact that our behavior is being watched; people around us will pick up on how we act, what we do - and incorporate some of that into their own personalities.  

But it works in the other direction as well.  Some of those vibrations that we cast off and that others pick up on push away rather than attract..  If I see someone who appears angry all the time, or depressed, or humorless, I might not pick up on something good about that person that would aid my own spiritual growth.    

We can’t help learning from each other; and what we learn best is non-verbal.  Jesus could have simply instructed his disciples to serve each other, but he acted this out at the last supper when he washed their feet.  And while we are rightfully concerned about our own spiritual health, we need to take a positive interest in the spiritual health of those who watch us -- especially people close to us like our children, our spouses, our best friends.  

Saint Paul said to the Corinthians, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”  He was conscious of the fact that he was teaching by example as well as words, but also that if his followers imitated him, they would be on the right track, because he knew he imitated Christ.  

Lent is coming.  It’s a good time to take stock of our spiritual lives and what we need to do to draw closer to Jesus.  And it’s also good to ask, who among our friends and associates is influenced by my behavior?  And likewise, who do I  imitate?  Because our ultimate goal is to imitate Christ and to live in such a way that others who see us will be influenced to be more like Jesus.  During Lent make a resolution to learn more about Jesus so that you can model your own behavior more completely on him.  

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

In today’s gospel we hear Jesus continuing to instruct his disciples.  And what he is telling them is as countercultural today as it was in his time.  It’s almost as though he is saying, “Pay attention to how you feel when somebody does something to you, and then do just the opposite.”. That’s definitely not the way of the world.  So what gives?

When you read through the gospels, Jesus frequently mentions the “kingdom of Heaven” or “the Kingdom of God”.  Most of us think he’s talking about life after death, when we will live in the heavenly Jerusalem where everything will finally be perfect, where we will contemplate the vision of God for all eternity.  Jesus, of course, came to earth to make a pathway for us to come into union with God, to destroy death, to allow us to live forever.  But we don’t have to wait till we die to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  He gives us very plain instructions, which everyone can understand.  And that’s the scary part.  I can understand what Jesus is telling me, but putting it into practice is really hard.  

Most of us who try to be disciples congratulate ourselves if we manage to avoid serious sin.  When we have that act of penance at the beginning of the Mass when Father tells us to “call to mind our sins” I bet you didn’t call to mind even one.  He caught me off guard also.  It takes some time to remember the last time I committed an official sin.  As long as I stay out of trouble and keep my nose clean, I’ll be alright.  

But what if our examination of conscience consisted of those things Jesus talks about?  When did I last “love” an enemy, or do good to someone who hates me?  .Some of the things he talks about are more situational, and i’m not sure how I would react if someone cursed me -- probably I wouldn’t do much, but I probably wouldn’t bless them.  But Jesus is laying out a way of life which has captured the imagination of some really great people, including Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Junior.  And, of course, all those brothers and sisters of ours that we call saints.  Following Jesus’ instructions is the only way to change the world for the better.  

In the early days of the Civil Rights movement in this country I remember a story.  In 1971 there was a lot of violence in Durham, North Carolina, as the city attempted to comply with mandatory integration of the schools.  The city fathers appointed a Black activist, Ann Atwater, to chair a commission on how to make integration safer.  They also appointed a man named Clairborne Ellis as her co-chair, who was also the head of the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan.  I suspect this was an attempt to sabotage the whole process.  The commission set out to interview the stakeholders, and one group came in from a local Black church and started the meeting with a rousing hymn.  As Ann Atwater was clapping along, she noticed Clairborne was not, so she got up and took his hands and clapped them along with the music.  That was the beginning of a life-long friendship, and Clairborne eventually quit the KKK and joined Atwater in campaigning for civil rights.  At Clairborne’s funeral his family made sure that Atwater was present.  By then most of Clairborne’s extended family had not only dis-associated with the segregationists but had also been involved in extending civil rights.

This story, and there are many others like it in which enemies became friends because of a simple, countercultural act on the part of one of them, is the sort of thing Jesus is talking about.  Of course there is risk when this way of living is tried.  You might end up being a martyr or losing your job or your home.  But if you’ve truly brought the kingdom of God closer to reality by your action, you have nothing to worry about.  Jesus promises that Your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

As you know, we are about to begin a synodal process in our diocese.  It doesn’t involve bringing a Black activist and a ku klux klansman together, but there is a similarity.  In the process we are about to embark upon, there will be opportunities for you to listen and speak to others about the Church; you will have a chance to step out of your comfort zone and engage with others over the very real tissue of thinking about our Church and what you personally would like to see in the future.  We can choose to keep our heads down and go on with our lives, or we can do what Jesus says:  Give and gifts will be given to you, a good measure , packed together, shakedown, and overflowing will be poured into your lap.  For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured it to you.  

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 6:17, 20-26

Most of us are familiar with the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus gives us the eight beatitudes.  You remember, “Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” These are recorded in teh gospel of Matthew, where the writer has Jesus go up on a mountain and sit down. He wants us to see that Jesus is like Moses, bringing us a new set of guidelines by which to live.  And sitting to give a speech was a sign of authority to the Jewish people; We still do this when the Pope delivers a serious message -- He speaks from a chair, “ex cathedra”. And so when we hear Luke’s version, as we just did, we probably think of these statements in the same way -- in fact, people call this discourse Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain.  But perhaps that’s an indication that Jesus is doing something very different here.  At the beginning of the gospel, it tells us that Jesus stood on a stretch of level ground, with his disciples in the middle of a great crowd, including gentiles, because Tyre and Sidon were both regions inhabited by them.  Luke, who is probably a gentile and is writing to gentiles, portrays Jesus as a teacher in the Greek world.  These teachers would gather their disciples in an agora, which is Greek for field, or flat place, and teach standing up.  But these differences aside, Jesus’ gives us only four blesseds and four woes.  

“Blessed are you poor”, he says, not “poor in spirit”.  Saint Augustine said that he is not holding up physical poverty as an ideal, although certainly Saint Francis did.  Augustine said that Jesus meant us to have a humble attitude towards God, to be faithful, and to do good with what has been given to us.  Similarly, blessed are you who are now hungry” speaks to our awareness of the need for God in our lives.  Blessed are you who weep does not mean being depressed or sad; it means you are aware of injustice to the point where it hurts to think about it.  Blessed are you when people hate you on account of the Son of Man.  I think about people who day after day are there praying in front of the abortion clinic.  These attitudes that Jesus lays out need to be cultivated; they aren’t automatic.  But they are important, because Jesus promises that the day will come when these longings in us will be satisfied, and we will see that having gone through the work of putting God first, of longing for God above everything else, of being hurt by the injustice around us, of accepting the subtle and sometimes obvious hostility toward us when we act for Christ -- there will be a great reward.

Jesus goes on to warn us of the four sources of sin; the pursuit of material goods, the pursuit of comfort, pleasure, good things to eat and drink; the pursuit of amusement and distraction; and taking delight in the honors the world gives.  Jesus knows that all of these are sources of distraction from what we should be doing, and they blunt those spiritual impulses that lead us to union with God.  And we forget that we are mortal, that someday we will die, and none of these things will matter.  Jesus points out that any and all these sources of sin will be seen as empty and worthless someday; We will suffer the fate of the false prophets in the Old Testament.

So when we think about these beatitudes, we can see that life is a sort of balancing act.  We have four things that seem to push us away and four that seem to attract us.  And our job as Christians is to see in the woes the things that our dangerous to our spiritual lives; and in the blesseds, those things that bring us closer to God, which of necessity means cultivating a true poverty, a true hunger, a true sense of the evil around us and indeed, in us; and the willingness to put yourselves out for Christ.  

Lent, of course, is for these things.  We deny ourselves something, so we are in solidarity with the poor; we fast, so we can see beyond the good things we give our bodies; we remember Christ’s suffering in the Stations of the Cross, in the Passion narratives we will hear, and we recall the injustice all around us; and we are marked with ashes for all  to see, which is a tiny step but does mark each of us as as one of Jesus Christ’s disciples. In these beatitudes and woes, Jesus invites us to measure ourselves and see what we are lacking; and holding out to us the promise that if we step out with courage even when it’s hard, we have his rock solid promise that we will be rewarded in heaven.  

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

 Luke 5:1 - 11

My dad was an ardent fisherman, something he had in common with my grandfather.  Until my grandfather developed lung problems from smoking, the two of them would go out in the very early morning and spend most of the day fishing.  I remember my dad proudly bring hime two or sometimes three nice fat brook trout which my mother would fry up for supper.  There were also times when he brought home nothing.  My dad tried to get me interested in fishing.  I’ll never forget the first time -- I think I was about six or seven.  He got me out of bed at 4 in the morning on a Saturday.  I dozed in the back seat of the car until we finally reached the little Bighorn river.  He gave me my new fishing pole and put a worm on the hook and told me that I was sitting near a good fishing hole and he would go up the river to another one.  He promptly disappeared in the early morning mist and I felt pretty abandoned, hoping that I would not get eaten by a bear and also that I would not be confronted with a fish.  It seemed like several hours whent buy and he finally returned and we went home.  I must have made a fuss because he didn’t ask me to go fishing again for a few years.  I never became an avid fisherman. 

Peter and his partners didn’t fish in mountain streams for recreation.  For them fishing was hard, backgreaking work.  You went out onto the lake in a large round boat.  You and your partners threw a very heavy net over toe side and as it sank you pulled on ropes to get the net to close around whatever it caught; you pulled the net back on the boat and sorted out whether there was anything worth keeping; and this went on as long as you could put up with it.  And when you got back to shore you would go over the net repairing tears and cleaning it up, and you would clean your fish and set them out to dry over a fire.  And sometimes you didn’t catch anything.

Peter and his partners were at the end of a bad day.  I’m sure all they wanted at that point was to go home and rest up.  But that’s when Jesus entered their lives, at least in the story that Luke tells.  And Jesus takes over.  I wonder what was going through Peter’s mind.  I’m sure he didn’t think he could learn anything about fishing from this wandering preacher who had been teaching the crowd.  Maybe he agreed to try one more time because of the people who were watching from shore.  Whatever the reason, the result was an overwhelming catch of fish.  

I suspect most people who go to Mass on Sunday have been involved at some point in their lives in ministry.  Maybe teaching faith formation, maybe belonging to a service organization; maybe just helping out once in a while -- I see some people staying after the last Mass on Sunday morning who just tidy up the church.  And for those who don’t do forma minstry, I’m sure that there are times when one’s faith pushes you to do something you’d rather not.  We all know that faith is not just belief, but it is action based on belief.  

But we get tired; we try something and fail; we make great plans and see that things don’t change much.  Several years ago our diocese launched a major effort to revise the parish council system.  There were workshops and publications and practice sessions.  I remember that in Saint Mary’s we spent a lot of time learning about this.  This was true of other parishes as well.  All that effort came to nothing.  Parish councils have not really changed from before n terms of impact, structure, or utility.  This sort of thing is reflected in the secular world as well.  I went through three such attempts at re-aligning everything while I worked at Baystate.  These were all interesting and we hoped, promising, but things settled back into the original groove eventually.  

Saint Peter and his partners had done everything they knew how to do to catch fish and put food on the table for their families.  And they failed.  And Jesus came along and rescued the whole sad situation.  And that’s something we can take away from this story in the scriptures.  When we step out to change things, we always start out by doing what we think will work, what we think is the best way to procede.  And when we fail, we feel like giving up.  And that’s when the Lord offers his help.  That’s when we need to pray, to look around and see what he is telling us to do, to listen to the Holy Spirit.  That’s when we need to put out into deep water and lower our nets, expecting that He will show us the way.  We see the success of so many saints who operated in this way.  Mather Angelica, the founder of EWTN, seemed to live a charmed life, with someone coming to rescue her over and over again when she was up against the wall.  And she expected that.  We celebrated the feast of Saint John Bosco this last week.  He died at the end of the 1800’s, having established an educational system for the poorest of the children, and an order to carry on his work -- all because he left things in God’s hands.  Read about your favorite saint and you will see that their successes were usually from allowing Jesus to lead.  

So on this fifth sunday of ordinary time let’s resolve to put out again into the deep and lower our nets - and let the Lord work through us, which is when success is going to take place.  

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 4:21-30

Why did they get so mad at him?  Why did his friends and neighbors, the people he grew up with, the people who at first were amazed at the gracious words which fell from his lips – why did they suddenly turn on him – not just reprimanding him, not just expelling him from the synagogue, but making an attempt to kill him?  What just happened?

If you were Jewish, in Jesus' time, you had a deep-seated prejudice against people who weren't Jews, even people who were very much like Jews, such as the Samaritans.  We learn through other sources that the Jews were divided even among themselves;  we know about the Pharisees and Sadducee mentioned in the scriptures.  But there were many other divisions.  There were the zealots, those who remembered Judah Maccabee and the almost successful campaign for their freedom.  They remembered the mass suicide at Masada, when the surviving Jews, holed up on a mountain, killed their wives and children, and then themselves, rather than surrender.  The zealots were few in number, but they wanted to go to war with the Romans, and shake off their rule or die trying.  There were the Essenes, possibly people who might have influenced John the Baptist.  They felt that in order to be Jewish you had to completely separate yourself from the world.  They were more separatist than the Pharisees.  They lived in the desert in a sort of monastic community.  There were the Jews who lived throughout the empire, the ones who worshiped in synagogues and used a Greek translation of sacred scripture.  They were looked down on by the Hebrew speaking Jews in Judah, who considered them less than pure.  And the Greek-speaking Jews looked at the Jews in Jerusalem, and considered them backward and insular.  But all these divisions aside, all of them believed that even the lowest Jew was better than the greatest gentile.  After all, the Jews were God's special people, and right there in scripture, you could read what God intended to do to the gentiles, and it wasn't pretty.

So here comes Jesus, who delivers an insult which is almost blasphemous.  He mentions two miracles, done by two great  prophets, two miracles which bypassed the Jews who could have used them, and healed gentiles.  The congregation had been thinking that with Jesus, their kinsman, the kid who grew up in their town, who claimed to be acting for God – certainly he would do even more spectacular things in their midst than he had been doing in other Jewish towns.  And Jesus lets them know that their sense of privilege, as Jews, as his friends and neighbors, entitles them to nothing at all.  It isn't because he is the carpenter's son that they try to kill him; it's because in their hearing, he seems to have blasphemed, he seems to have challenged their view that they are God's special people.  Insulting them is the same as insulting God.  

But Jesus will do this again and again, to jewish communities, to groups of pharisees and scribes.  It will be the subject of more than one parable – the classic being the story of the pharisee and the publican.  And his miraculous cures are freely given, but there is no logic as to why he cures this one and not that one, except that in the gospel stories, it seems that all his miracles are done to make a point.  Jesus is compassionate, Jesus has pity on people; but those are not the main reasons he heals.  

The people in Jesus' home town see Jesus as a sort of walking hospital but they don't see him with eyes of faith, they don't see the underlying reality here, the reality that made the blind man and the Samaritan woman and peter and countless others acknowledge him as lord, even as the son of God.  They are blinded by the fact that he is the carpenter's son.

Christians have different attitudes towards miracles.  Some of us are willing to admit that they happen, and that they did happen in the past, but we have various reasons why we never seem to witness them today.  Some of us feel that it is a matter of faith, and we feel guilty because we don't have enough faith to get God to cure us or our loved one.  Some of us feel that the miracles of Jesus did what they were supposed to – get the church started – and now there is no reason for miracles, because the church has been established..  And there are Christians who insist that miracles are all around us, all we have to do is claim them, or pray for them in the name of Jesus.  And if we are right with God, we can expect miracles.  There are even books out there that teach us how to get miracles.  

But Jesus worked miracles to show people that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, to demonstrate that he had God's power.  And that conditioned every miracle he worked.  If the miracle could not teach his disciples something, or reveal something to the crowds who followed him, then it wasn't something he did.  Jesus is the God of nature, and as nature's God, disturbs the natural order as little as possible.  Or, perhaps another way to put it is to say that what is natural is the greatest miracle of all.

None of us goes through life without at least once or twice wishing for a miracle; we pray for the healing of a loved one; we pray that God will save the life of a little child, or a dear friend; or heal a parent of a crippling injury.  And we wonder why he does not answer.  And then we remember the story of Jesus in his home town.  I think God's greatest gift to us is our freedom, and God desires that we use that freedom to respond to his love.  But we don't have to.  And if we are truly free,  then what we do must have consequences, or else our freedom is just a sham.  And that's the problem with miracles.  They can happen, i believe that.  But a miracle, something that disturbs the natural order, has the potential to diminish the freedom we are given, and ironically, that's the problem.  

So what should we do?  We remember that Jesus died for us out of love, and we have confidence that everything that happens fits into his loving plan.  And we can ask for miracles, but remember that they are pure gift, and if a prayer seems not to be answered, it doesn't mean our faith is weak, or we aren't loved by God.  It only means that God has something greater in store, something we will learn is so much more than what we had thought one time would have been our greatest desire.  

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

John 2:1 - 11

I had an uncle who noticed things.  He was a farmer and I guess that helped; you need to be aware of changes in prices of wheat and livestock; you need to have a sense of what the weather is going to do; you have to be sensitive to animal behavior because animals can get sick.  But he noticed people as well.  He had a sixth sense about you; he wouldn’t ask how you were feeling, he’d say, “You're feeling bad today, aren't you?” and he’d be right.  He belonged to a local farmer’s coop and was famous for pointing out things no one else had noticed.  Some people just notice things.  And I think Mary was like that. 

Weddings in those days took several days and during a wedding, everything came to a halt for a big party.  In the little villages of Galilee, there might be a wedding every few years, and the whole town expected that no expense would be spared.  And you didn’t run out of wine -- that would lead to social death, and a subject of gossip for a long time.  And that’s what Mary noticed.  Not Jesus, not the apostles, not any of the wedding guests.  Mary noticed.

And Mary did something about it.  She has known Jesus for all his life, all thirty years.  We know almost nothing about those years -- except that people didn’t expect much -- when he began his preaching ministry, they reacted with disbelief: “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” they said.  I doubt that Jesus worked any miracles in those first thirty years.  And I wonder about Mary.  Obviously, she remembered the events surrounding his birth, and when he got lost in Jerusalem.  Like any mother, I'm sure she thought Jesus was special.  But I don’t think she expected a miracle.  She just took the problem to Jesus.  That’s kind of an example for us as well.  Some of us, myself included, tend to ask God for specific things in our prayer.  We like to help him out so he doesn’t have to guess what we need.  But Mary shows us how to pray - “Son”, she says, “They have no wine.” Maybe that’s how we should pray -- dump the problem in God’s lap and wait for him to respond the way he wants to.  After all, that would by definition be the best for us.

Even after I’ve heard this story over and over, it’s still a shock when Jesus turns to her and says, “Woman, how does your concern affect me?  My hour has not yet come.”  People have tried to soften Jesus’ words -- in some translations, Woman is translated as “Lady” which seems more respectful, perhaps.  Or as some tell us, “Woman” was actually a respectful way to address a lady in those days.  But none of us can imagine addressing our mothers in this way, and that’s true in other languages.  Unless we are really mad, we call her Mom, or at least “Mother”.  So I think Jesus, who is like us in all things but sin, really meant what he said -- “Don’t bother me, This isn’t the place for me to begin my ministry.” 

But Mary persists.  Mother Teresa once asked a businessman for a contribution to her work.  He replied that things were tough and maybe another time.  When he finished his day he walked into his waiting room and saw her sitting there.  She looked at him and said, “This is another time.”  She got the contribution.  Mary does not give up.  She figures that the embarrassment to the young couple was much worse than Jesus beginning his ministry at a time he chose.  And so she gets the help together and tells them, “Do whatever he tells you.”  Now I’m pretty sure that she didn’t say it once. She pushed and prodded and kept it up till they gave up and went over to Jesus.  I can see the servants standing there saying “What do you want us to do?”  And Mary is off to one side smiling.  

Jesus tells them to fill the jugs with water.  This is not as simple as it seems.  Each holds a lot of water.  If you’ve been to the grocery store you’ve seen those Arizona tea containers -- that’s about a gallon.  The servants, in addition to everything else they are doing, have to go back and forth to the town’s well to get about 150 of those jugs full of water and emptied into the six stone water jars.  That’s a lot of work.  In fact, I wonder if Jesus gave them this task to shut them up -- after all, his hour had not yet come.  But I imagine Mary is still pushing -- “Do whatever he tells you to do!”  And in the end the servants do just that.  

Finally Jesus gives up.  At this point the miracle occurs and his hour, his march to his passion and death, begins.  Now we could comment on the abundance of good wine, and how it’s a symbol of the kingdom Jesus is ushering in, a kingdom where there will be nothing lacking, where there will be more than enough for everyone to satisfy every need, every longing.  We could talk about the significance of the number of jars -- six, how there were six days during which God created the world, and he rested on the seventh.  

But maybe the lesson for today is to be like Mary -- to notice when there is something lacking - in our lives, in the lives of our loved ones -- and to bring that need to God.  And then to wait in expectation, doing whatever he tells us, what he tells us through our Church, through our conscience, through the circumstances of our lives.  And to persist in our prayer.  And to trust.  Because we know that the best wine will be coming.  

Baptism of the Lord, cycle C

Luke 3:15 - 16, 21 - 22

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a live concert by a rock or country band.  It’s the same music you could hear on a recording, but people keep demanding live music, in venues where everyone stands shoulder to shoulder and moves with the music.  I think the main reason is that in those kinds of events, there are moments when you feel at one with everyone else, moments when the barriers fall, and you have a glimpse of a different way of being.  There's Something in us that longs to be one with the rest of humanity, just as there is something that wants to throw up barriers between my group and your group. Humans are weird.  

The Gospels were written in the forms we have today about 60 to 100 years after the Birth of Christ.  Some estimates are even later.  Mathew and Luke tell the same baptism story as Mark, with their own embellishments.  John refers to observing the voice from heaven but the actual baptism isn’t recorded.  In any event, Matthew gives a hint as t6o what will trouble the Church down through the ages.  He has John saying, “It is you who should baptize me” and Jesus replying “Let it be so for now.  It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”  Sister Dorothy back in grade school used this passage to tell us that Jesus didn’t really need to be baptized but was just giving all of us sinners a good example.  As you can tell, that was burned into my brain, leaving me puzzled for the next 70 years.

I’m not the only one.  Many great theologians puzzled over this. It’s hard to view Jesus acting deceptively.  Some decided that John’s baptism had nothing to do with sin or repentance, but instead was an act of solidarity with the ancestors who had crossed the Jordan river into the promised land.  And Catholic theologians, at least, do insist that the baptism of John was not a sacrament, like the baptism instituted by Jesus through his Church.  

But maybe we could look at the baptism of Jesus in a different way.  Picture the scene -- John has just called the crowd a brood of vipers, and we know there were tax collectors and various other sinners in that vast gathering, not to mention pagan soldiers.  Remember when John was asked “What are we to do?” and he gave answers to tax collectors and soldiers specifically. And there were Pharisees.  So there was Jesus, in the middle of a crowd -- a crowd of sinners.  

And the people were entering into the Jordan river -- the same river  where Elijah the prophet ended his ministry and Elisha, his successor, assumed his.  The same river where Naaman the Syrian had been washed clean of his leprosy.  The same river where the people of God crossed into the land given  to them by God, where they became a nation.  

The first public act of Jesus was to indicate his solidarity with humanity -- all of humanity, past, present and future; Jews, gentiles; sinners and those who thought themselves sinless.  

This is the moment when Jesus steps into God’s work on earth.  It’s when he takes on the common human experience of living in a broken world, a world which is bound to disappoint.  He’ll join us in longing for justice and righteousness and the world that could be.  

And this is the moment when You and I are invited to see that in these muddy waters, carried forward down through time in our baptismal fonts, something happens that transforms us, that unites us with the God become man who allows John to wash him as well.  

Saint Paul tells us that there is one baptism -- and when we participate in it, we are there with all those others who have been baptized --many of whom in ordinary life we probably would have nothing to do with.  But we are invited to see that we are not alone, that God is with us, that what appears ordinary, random, unexciting, is actually touched with divinity.  And that is not because of anything we have done, but because God loves us and in Jesus, calls us his beloved son or daughter.  And it goes without saying, that if I’m a beloved son or daughter, then so are you, and I had better take a closer look -- because there is something of the divine in you as there is in me.  Sometimes it seems like the whole message of Christianity is that because Jesus takes on our nature, all the barriers, the tribalism, the rivalry, the class wars, the race thing -- all that divides us is meant to be broken down.  And of course Jesus prayed, “That all may be one, Father, as I am in you and you are in me, that all may be one in us.”  To the extent that we open ourselves to this mystery, baptism, which unites us with Jesus and the rest of the baptized,  is where salvation starts.