Baptism of the Lord Homily

Several decades ago Bette Midler released a song called “From a Distance”. It’s a beautiful song with the idea that from a distance we lose the distinctions between us. We don’t see borders. We see only unity. Great!!! However there is a problematic phrase in it. “From a distance, God is watching us.”

Two decades ago I was part of a group, along with Bishop Straling and some members of this parish, who went to the Holy Land. We did all the usual stops including the Jordan River. Now, I had pictured the Jordan as blue river, flowing; not unlike our Truckee.  Well to my dismay it was greenish from the algae, slow moving, and to be honest gross. I was not about to touch that messy water. Yet, there were people around us getting into the water and renewing baptismal promises and one of our group jumped right in.

A great sadness for me is when people come to me with their lives in shambles, and they say God has abandoned them. They think God has rejected them. They feel distant from God.

A great sadness for most people is when we witness our young people hurting themselves because they feel they have failed, because they are unable to process their feelings, because they feel isolated, rejected, alone. They feel distance and distant from others.

Some people I have also encountered struggled. They felt that had to do everything perfect as to earn God’s presence. It is almost as if they are trying to win God over; make God love them. They get burnt out and make themselves crazy, and usually those around them crazy too. 

And maybe a great sadness too our church can seem to do little to remedy these situations.

This great Feast, the Baptism of the Lord; imagine Jesus, the Son of God going into the waters of the Jordan. Not the blue, clear, flowing waters of the Truckee, but that mucky, messy water.  To do so captures really the power and beauty of why Jesus came, why the Son of God became human, why he lived the life he did, and why he chose to die. It captures the essence of what it can mean to be as a Catholic.

Jesus reveals that God has come into the messiness of human life. God is with us, always.

In our worst moments of our lives; even when we think we have committed the worst offense...Jesus stands with us, and says “We can be forgiven, look at what happened to me and in the Resurrection, the Father forgives all.”

In the darkest moments when we see no light, no hope, no escape, there He Stands, not at a distance, but right there at our side. He whispers, “there is always hope, look what happened to me and my rising from the dead says there is always hope.. Wait”

God is never, ever distant. God never watches us from a distance.

Earlier this week the daily gospel was about Jesus walking into the water. It said from the shore he saw the disciples struggling in the storm. So he went to them, got into the boat, and the storm subsided.

There are many other bits of this wisdom in our scripture and our tradition to that reminds us of the truth.

Here is the catch though...we have to have our hearts opened.

It is never that God is not with us, it is usually that we have closed off our minds and our hearts to the presence, or we simply have never been told how to experience God in our lives.

We at times expect God to do things in a certain way and unless God acts the way we want, we can’t see it.

There is that one story of the man who was caught in a flood, so he climbed the roof of his house. He prayed to God for rescue. Someone arrives in a boat begs him to get in. The man refuses because God will rescue him. The waters get higher, and higher and the man continues to pray. People come in boats. He refuses. He drowns. 

He then stands before God, all angry because God did not rescue him. God says, I sent three boats, you did not get in.

When we think God is distant that is a signal to ourselves that we are being called to open ourselves.

We as a community, as the Church, as a parish, our responsibility, our mission is two fold.

We must open our hearts and minds to the Wisdom of God, so that first, we can be attentive to the closeness of God in our own lives. And secondly, and more importantly, we are called to be those people in the boat answering the prayers of others who are lost, in danger, who hurt.

We must go to those with our acts of mercy and forgiveness, with our humility, with our acts of generosity; be ready with kindness, with hands out there to welcome, to heal.

Our own baptisms unite us with Christ, open us to the greater reality that we are God’s children.

We live our baptisms all the time. It is essential that we continue to grow and foster those baptisms. We must explore the mystery of our faith, both in mind and heart. We must pray, meditate, contemplate, celebrate our sacraments, wrestle with the challenges, allow ourselves to be pushed beyond our comfort zones.

Too many people are hurting for us to not do so.

Pope Francis says that the church is a field hospital for all those who are hurting. He is so right.

Jesus, the Son of God, entered into those waters to reveal the Divine intimacy, the divine closeness. So that we can be close not only to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but as importantly, we can be close to those in this world. 

So that through the divine love, we can build the kingdom here on earth. 

Build it for those whose hearts are broken  Build it for those whose souls are weakened.  Build it for those who find little to hope for.