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Epiphany IIA: January 20, 2002
H O M I L Y G R I T S
Second Sunday After The Epiphany
+ Year A +
January 20, 2002
© Copyright 2002 by Grant Gallup
¶ Book of Common Prayer Lectionary
Isaiah 49:1-7 That my liberation may reach to the end of the earth
Psalm 40:1-40 Expectans, expectavi - I waited patiently upon the Lord
1 Corinthians 1:1-9 Not lacking in any charism
John 1:29-41 "What are you looking for?"
¶ Revised Common Lectionary - all as above
Isaiah 49:1-7
Psalm 40:1-11
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
John 1:29-42
Tomorrow is the official celebration of the birthday of Martin Luther King
Jr. as a national holiday. Both the Episcopal and Lutheran churches have
long included Dr King in their calendars, with the unique provision that
the observance may be held either on his birthday or on his martyrdom,
April 4th.
The calendar of the Church has customarily celebrated only three other
birthdays--the Lord's own at Christmas, his blessed Mother, Mary of
Nazareth, and the birthday of his cousin, John the Baptist. Mary of
Nazareth and John of the Jordan are both thus celebrated because they in
unique ways made possible the theophany of Jesus as Christ and Liberator:
Mary as Theotokos, God-bearer, the one from whose belly and breast, hands
and handiwork, Jesus came to be one of us. And the Immerser, Jesus' own
cousin, who presented him to his contemporaries, initiated him into the
Commonwealth of God and articulated his calling for us as no one else has
done. It is still John who points us to Jesus as the lamb of God --the
cordero de Dios, the Agnus Dei, who takes away the sin of the world. Do
lambs still take away sin?
It has been said that symbols can lose their power and disappear--the cult
of Mithra, the ancient warrior deity popular in the ranks of the Roman army,
was a strong competitor to early Christianity, for his myth represented the
slaying of a sacred bull whose lifeblood provided fertility to the earth.
It had initiatory rites of bathing in the bull's blood, and included a
communion meal and strictly hierarchical organizsation, and was as popular
with the military of the time as a form of 19th century Anglicanism is at
West Point with our own, complete with whistles and flourishes and "Onward
Christian soldiers marching as to war." . D. H. Lawrence thought that "O
Pig of God, that takes away the sins of the world" would be a better song
than Agnus Dei, and better serve as our symbolic sacrificial animal, as
pigs were smarter and tastier than lambs.
In an age which has forgotten that milk comes from cows--most kids think it
comes from plastic boxes--in an age which forgets that hamburgers are
carved out of the bodies of dead animals, and fur coats come from the
skins of slaughtered beasts, does anyone understand what it meant for John
to turn to Jesus and call him Agus Dei? We sing the old song at mass quite
frequently, Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on
us. The witness of Martin Luther King Jr. gives us a chance to see again
in our own time and in a way we can understand, what it means to be a lamb
for God.
>From the time of the first passover in Egypt, when our spiritual ancestors
killed young lambs and poured out their blood as an offering of life itself
to God--offering in sacrifice the very best they had to offer-- the image
has come to us as the offering of innocence, of its purity and goodness, in
place of our failure and guilt.
We have a reading from the fourth gospel which articulates in a fuller way
the reading last Sunday of the Baptism of Jesus. But today we do not hear
the water baptism itself mentioned at all, but instead we hear John
declaring "Look at the lamb of God." We hear him saying "I saw the Spirit
come down" and we hear him direct two of his own students to follow Jesus
home and stay with him and learn from him. We hear the two disciples say
to Jesus, "Rabbi, where are you staying?" and we hear Jesus' invitation,
"Come and find out." We hear Andrew, one of those two disciples on the
next day go to his own brother, Simon, and say to him, "We have found the
Anointed One." Let's look at the sequence and see how it illuminates for
us the meaning of this day on which we celebrate both a birth and a
baptism, and our invitation from Andrew who says to us: "We have found
Messiah."
A dove descends upon a lamb. The symbol of new life after the Flood, the
dove descends and remains on the one who is called to initiate our liberation.
I once heard William Stringfellow, the lawyer-theologian, speak at a
conference in Washington DC on the subject of Baptism, in which he said
that in the New Testament we see Baptism as a notorious public and
political act, a repudiation of the claims of patriotism, nationalism, and
jingoism. For if we remember that when a Gentile was baptized, the person
was given not only a
new religion, but a new citizenship--becoming a citizen of the Jewish
state--then we see how far we have forgotten what John and Jesus meant by
baptism into the Commonwealth of God, the Kingdom of Heaven. Baptism meant
that every other loyalty lost its priority, for it upholds the sovereignty
of the Word of God by hoisting its flag higher than that of any other.
Baptism is not a private matter; it is not even symbolic of a personal
experience. To think of Baptism, either of water or of the spirit, as an
individual's private trip with Jesus, is to defame the living God, and as
William Stringfellow said, "it induces hallucinations, and victimizes those
who hold such opinions." Baptism is instead public, and it is about
vocation, about our calling. The first reading, a Servant Song from the
prophet Isaiah, says that vocation goes back to where we came from; our
calling echoes back into our earliest life, in the womb, for God did not
begin with us at our Baptims, or even at our birthing, but was .
preparing us for our life and work when we were "formed in the womb to be
God's servants." Our servanthood as those who are en-Christed, anointed,
is not to be a private or nationalistic matter, but God promises, "I give
you as a light to the nations, that my liberation may reach to the ends of
the earth."
Martin saw this early on, that he could not simply be devoted to the civil
rights of Alabama Negroes to have bus rides in Montgomery. In his letter
from Birmingham jail, he wrote that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to
justice everywhere. . . we are caught in an inescapable network of
mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one
directly, affects all indirectly
Never again can we afford to live with the narow, provincial 'outside
agitator' idea."
We are all inside agitators. Isaiah heard God tell him that there is no
place in the universe where justice and decency are outside agitators. Dr.
King saw that before most north Americans did, and was one of the first
strong voices to call us to oppose our nation's war against the people of
Vietnam. As early as January of 1966 he must have heard God say, "It is
too light a thing that you should be my servant only to raise up your own
people. . . I will give you as a light to the nations." Dr. King got the
Nobel Prize for Peace for more than the rearangement of seating assignments
on buses. And he has been canonized by our churches in their calendars for
more than being a model as minority leader.
What would he be asking us to do about our tax money being used for world
domination now? About our national conspiracy against the Palestinian
people? About our continuing exploitation of the Americas? About our
abuse of the Two Thirds World, our robbing of the world's riches for our
corporations to exploit? John saw Jesus coming and said "Look at the
Lamb!" It is here again that Dr. King's life and death illuminate this old
symbol, for Martin saw clearly--and knew it would come to him--that
'undeserved suffering' and the willing embrace of 'undeserved suffering on
behalf of others' is redemptive, and could and would heal society's wounds.
The mass media and the trend of celebrity politics muted his voice towards
the end of his life, I remember. It seemd almost as if history had passed
him by. The mass media, an amen chorus for capitalism, muffled its own
voice which for a short while had sung "We shall overcome." Other, more
strident voices shouted and screamed. Shouts and slogans of Black Power
and sects both militaristic and fanatic adopted the methods and style of
the oppressor, and we got divisive and hateful voices like the Symbionese
Liberation Army, all of which seemed to have made Dr King and his
preaching passé and obsolete. But then came what John the Baptist pointed
to for Jesus. For Martin could no more die of old age than could Jesus of
Nazareth. He had heard the voice of God and knew exactly what it meant.
As Jesus set his face stedfastly towards Jerusalem, so Martin set his
stedfastly towards Memphis. And he learned on a balcony at the Lorraine
Motel what Jesus learned on the cross at Golgotha: that vocation means
suffering and death as a witness for God. .
There can be no crown without the cross. James Winchester Montgomery, the
Bishop of Chicago for many years, was accustomed to gently slap the face of
each new confirmand at Confirmation services. It was an old ceremony
called the 'buffet' -- pronouncing the "t", and thus a buffet unlike the
boo fay
of privileged eclectic dining which we are more accustomed to in our
churches.
It was a forewarning of the violence called down upon us by courageous
witness. To be a conscous Christian is to understand that your Baptism is a
willing abrazo, a conscious embracing, of your own martyrdom. It may not
in fact come to you, and you may if God wills it, die in your own bed a
hundred years old, surrounded by friends and family. (And who knows, you
may then be resuscitated by heroic physicians who could keep you alive for
another ten years of beefsteak and bourbon!) But Baptism means you have
decided to take the chance of martyrdom. Baptism means you looked up when
the Baptizer pointed to Jesus and to Martin King and to all the friends of
God along the road and declared, "Look, there's a lamb from God." There's
a life of redemptive suffering.
Paul writes this too, if we need another witness, in his letter to us and
to the church at Corinth. The believers there were split into factions
(1:12), were conceited ( 4:8), tolerated gross immoraltiy (5:1),
scandalously took each other to court (6:1), bought and sold sex (6:15),
flirted with idolatrous religions (vs. 14), got blind drunk at church
suppers (1, 21), paid no attention at public worship (14:33), laughed at
the church's teaching (10:12). Yet Paul writes to them and addresses them
as "dear ones at Corinth. . . all of you sanctified ones." "All called to
be saints" Sound familiar?
Dr. King wasn't any more perfect than the "dear ones at Corinth." We have
heard of his flirts and foibles. And those of his disciple Jesse Jackson,
and his contemporary Elijah Poole, the little man in the sparkly fez whom
we heard as "Muhammad Speaks," who like Jesse sired a baby out of wedlock,
but who spoke loudly to the "lost/found" people of our time and restored a
skewed Islam to the consciousness of North Americans. But like the saints
at Corinth Martin was aimed at Jesus, he was aimed in the right direction.
What he did that was perfect was to offer the gifts he had to God and to
the community, towards the perfecting of God's people. His efforts
weren't only for himself, for Coretta and the kids. His efforts weren't
only for Black folks. They weren't even for North Americans only. He came
to see that his vocation was to justice and peace everywhre, not merely for
fair bus fare in Montgomery.
Every vocation must begin somewhere. It's time now for each of us to find
not another bus seat to sit in, like Rosa Parks, --the Church has already
'been there, done that'-- but to find something that will get us out of our
seats now and take us to the river once again, the river of Baptism, which
we need to put our foot into again and feel the chill and know the thrill.
And to turn and see Jesus and John and Martin King not far away from the
throne of the Lamb. "Look what it means to be a lamb of God. Look what it
means to take away the sin of the world."
Remember how the media used to refer to Ronald Reagan in deferential,
courtly tones, as "the Great Communicator"? What happened? Remember how
his was the "Teflon presidency"? Nothing was ever going to stick to him?
Remember the use of the word "charisma" in those sleepwalking years? What
all of those words tended to do was to deceive the people, lead us to think
that we had something Real going on here, and that "it was morning in
America again." Some of us suspected all along that it was scoundrel time
in America once again, that all was hokum, mirrors, and blue smoke, that
there was no spiritual power there at all, but only windbaggery. We have
had several redactions of it all now, and behind all the special effects is
the great fraud of the Wizard of Oz, for we have clicked our heels
together and found that we are backl in Kansas with the munchkins. On
September 11, night stallions galloped through our dreamland and battered
down the fantasies. It was briefly Midnight in America once again and we
woke in a cold sweat with 'pesadillas,' nightmares. But yesterday, the
President choked on a fast food pretzel and briefly swooned whilst
watching TV football. (I myself choke and gag most every day I watch the
ongoing CNN version of The Empire Strikes Back.) For now It's Sunday
afternoon in America once again and Bush Baby has enormous approval
ratings in the polls. He is thought of by most as the Right Man for the
Job. Most United Statesers think of him as having the right equipment for
the task at hand, though they wouldn't talk of him as 'gifted', or as
'charismatic.' He can't chew a pretzel and watch TV at the same time,
without choking.
St. Paul uses a key word in his epistle today: Charisma. If I were to
ask each of you to write down and hand in after the homily the names of
three people whom you know of that had 'charisma', I expect they would all
be names of people you've seen on TV, and 'though I've been on TV once, on
the Oprah Winfrey show, I wouldn't be one of the three you had chosen.
I'm fairly certain we think of 'charisma' as something maybe Oprah herself
has, or
Jesse Jackson, or Madonna, or perhaps some radical chic types might even
choose the darkly handsome and morose figure of Osama Bin Laden, the
Lawrence of Arabia for our time. (Those who forget the past are condemned
to repeat it.) Almost anybody fascinating and famous will do.
Quintin Crisp, whose comet shot through the firmament briefly a decade ago
as the Stately Homo of England, wore his charisma rather as if it were
drag, or an effeminate floppy hat, but himself claimed that "charisma is
the ability to persuade people without the use of logic." For
'charisma' has come to mean the power of subliminal persuasion. Persuading
us to part with our money and critical consciousness in order to
participate in the magic of personality and celebrity. Chicagoans
faithfully tune into Oprah as if she were the Oracle of Delphi about to
utter revelation.
Most of us have no resemblance to Oprah, Bin Laden, or Muhammad Ali, all of
whom have been spoken of as 'charismatic' in their celebrity and notoriety.
(I years ago met Oprah and Ali, and look forward to tea in his tent with
Osama one day, before Donald Rumsfeld gets there.) So what can St. Paul
mean when he says that you and I are not lacking in any spiritual gift, any
charisma? He is after all talking to the ordinary church members in
Corinth. . Paul ties charismata very closely to vocation, another badly
misused word. He says that our charismata will sustain us, keep us going,
hold us together, to the end, because the God who called us is faithful. He
speaks of himself as Paul, called by the will of God, and he speaks of the
folks at Corinth as called to be saints. 'Saints-elect' --just waiting for
inauguration. All these 'calls' are inflections of the word vocation.
The word is used in quite a different way when we talk about 'vocational
aptitude testing' or we speak of 'vocation to the priesthood' or a
'vocation' to be a concert pianist or a schoolteacher or a biochemist. But
the kind of work we are good at may or may not be a beckoning from God's
spirit--it's doubtful that anyone was called by God to invent nerve gas, or
to serve as a hanging judge, or as a CIA agent or a terrorist suicide
bomber. Vocation has to do with a call to more abundant life for all. To
see the folly of vocation looked at as a synonymn for gainful employment,
look at the gospel today. Look at John Baptist, apparently unemployed;
look at Jesus, a survival income artisan until he was thirty, and then a
wandering beggar healer and preacher until his arrest and execution.. His
lifework was so irrelevant that only a generic word, teknon, is given for
it. Paul, who had a university education, is said to have earned his keep
by tent-making. Peter and Andrew were fisherfolk. The whole point of the
gospel is that these were not their vocation--they were indeed called FROM,
not TO, these trades to put the Commonwealth of God ahead of their little
money making. The Kingdom Movement was their calling. Following Jesus
for us is not to go into carpentry and cabinet making, but into the
Revolution. Our vocation is to follow Jesus and the saints, and that is a
vocation common to all of us. Paul says we are called to be saints (not
clergy and laity), and that together we are lacking in no charisms. The
charisms are given to us as a group, as an ekklesia, for our use as a
koinonia of saints.
It doesn't mean that everybody or anybody is called to be a celebrity, or
famous, or a star, but it does mean that everybody is called to sanctity
as a destiny. The gifts we have among us are those appropriate to our
calling into the community, and are bound up in the way we communicae with
each other and the world, the way we understand (Paul says in our speech
and in our knowledge) that we are the great vanguard of God's people in
the world, engaged in Revolution.
Fidel Castro is now an old man, yet does not fit Yeats's definition: "An
aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick" for there is
still in him a Soul that can "clap its hands and sing, and louder sing for
every tatter in its mortal dress" *. He has outlasted a gaggle of imperial
presidents and their appointed assassins, and still embodies a home-grown
American version of socialism, a living rebuke to capitalism rampant. He
has no aspirations to replace George Bush, but only to outlast him and
outlive him too. Martin Luther King was pastor of a small church back in
the early sixties, but that didn't mean that God was going to let him be a
hidden sword or a hidden arrow, either. God made them both to be lights
to the nations, that liberation might reach to the ends of the empire.
These men became celebrities, but there's something far more significant
beyond that, or their jobs (a lawyer and a preacher) or roles in life.
They have both outlived and outlasted the hate that cannot kill their
revolutionary spirit. They have fulfilled their calling.
"When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, 'What are you
looking for?" The contemporary Sufi 'awakener' who went by the name of Bawa
Muhaiyaddeen, asked a similar galvanizing question of would-be disciples,
"What do you want?" Coleman Barks writes that whatever the answer the
suppliant gave, Bawa would give the answer back, transformed, an answer
that engaged the immediate needs of the suppliant. Once a seeker expressed
a desire to know God and Bawa replied with a homespun recipe to cure
hemmorhoids. Another, looking for help with a family problem, was treated
to a discussion of perfect wisdom. Both answers turned out to be eerily
appropriate for the seekers.** So when the two seekers replied to Jesus,
they did so with a question, "Rabbi, where are you staying?" and his
engaging reply was an invitation to "Come and See." Discipleship for the
earliest church was not private learning, or a Sunday morning class, but
challenge to a common life, for "they remained with him that day. It was
about four o'clock in the afternoon." (Tea time thus had its earliest
setting.)
John's disciples were thus incorporated into the Revolution at tea time,
and to one of them Jesus gave the name of Cephas who "the next day" himself
made a life decision---to go to Galilee with Jesus. And on the third day
they celebrated the Epiphany of Wine in Cana, with the mother of Jesus
presiding at a Sign for all discipleship to come. So we sing to Jesus
still today, "Turn our water into wine." Turn our seeking into finding.
Turn our quest for a common life into one of faith and fellowship. Call us
to Come and See, and to meet your Mother.
GRANT GALLUP
Apartado RP-10
CASA AVE MARIA
Managua, Nicaragua C.A.
Tel. 011-505-2662165
gallup@tmx.com.ni
GRITS 2nd series now on-line: http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/homilygrits
*William Butler Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium" II.
**"The Illuminated Prayer": The Five Times Prayer of the Sufis, as revealed
by Jellaludin Rui and Bawa Muhaiyaaddeen, Coleman Barks & Michael Green.
New York: Ballantine, 2000.