Fully Aflame: Sermon for Epiphany 1/Baptism of Our Lord, by Susan Daughtry
Water and fire. These two elements show up over and over again in today’s readings. In Isaiah, with beautiful, beautiful poetry about God rescuing Israel from exile, we hear:
[Click here for today's readings.]
The Psalm for today describes God’s power and glory in the midst of a thunderstorm. It says, ‘The voice of the LORD is upon the waters, The voice of the LORD splits the flames of fire.”
And in the reading from the Gospel of Luke, John the Baptizer predicts Jesus coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. ‘The chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire,’ it says. Water drowns us, fire burn us up. Fire and water, elements that destroy.
And yet we need fire and water to live. The symbol of water is also one of life--In Genesis, God creates the world out of the watery chaos. In Exodus, God saves the Hebrew people by taking them through the Red Sea. Water cleanses, and the earliest Christians adapted Hebrew bathing rituals to create the ritual of baptism. Water slakes our thirst and cools us. Fire keeps us warm, cooks our food, lights the darkness. And just as much as fire is used as an element of judgment in Scripture, it’s used to describe inspiration, passion, and to symbolize the spirit of God. In the story on the cover of the wrapper today, from the ancient desert fathers:
Water and fire. They are elements of destruction, and elements of life. We need them, we fear them, we control them. The very things that destroy us can be the vehicle for new life, and new growth, the ground in which new grass can grow.
Last week in my classroom I showed portions of a documentary called ‘War Dance.’ The movie follows a group of children who live in a remote part of northern Uganda, an area ravaged by civil war. Rebel soldiers in this area come into towns in the middle of the night, killing adults indiscriminately, forcing women into sexual slavery, and abducting children to force them into the ranks of rebel soldiers. Children who are abducted by the rebels are often forced to become killers themselves. It’s an awful, awful cycle. The Lord’s Resistance Army, as the rebels call themselves, have been operating this way for over twenty years, brutalizing and killing innocent people for no discernable political reason.
The film ‘War Dance’ follows a group of schoolchildren in one of the most endangered parts of Uganda, who live in a refugee camp, protected by the military. The school in the refugee camp has a music class, and the students there have earned the right to compete in the national music competition. So the film follows them as they prepare to go to Kampala to compete against students from the rest of the country, and tells the stories of a few individuals.
It might sound trite for me to say, after watching this film, that it’s an incredible example of the power of the human spirit. You hear the stories of how each of these children lost their parents, how one of them was forced into the rebel ranks and became a killer himself, until he escaped. And yet here they are, putting their hearts and souls into music class. The one kid who escaped from the rebels says, with complete earnestness, I want to be the best xylophone player in all of Uganda. There is such life there in this child who has seen so much death. And when you watch these children dance, the life—the passion—they are truly on fire.
In the midst of so much death—murder, brutality, and the very worst of what humans can do to each other—there are stories of bravery, forgiveness, and of the remarkable power of the human spirit to survive and start over and burn even brighter after great loss.
Early in the film, one of them says, “Even though we are from the war zone, we can still do good things.” If that is not an example of walking through the flood and not being drowned, then I don’t know what is. This is the Isaiah passage right here.
But it makes me wonder, too, if part of what can happen in the human spirit after great loss is that we have the choice not just to survive but to become flame ourselves, to rise up from the ashes and burn even brighter in the face of what threatens to kill us. THAT is the gift of the Holy Spirit. THAT is the story of Jesus’ life.
So, how does this all come together this morning? There are a lot of things we can say about baptism: through it we name individuals as beloved members of God’s family. It’s a commitment to a way of living your faith, and a chance to start anew. All of that would be good and true to say about the meaning of baptism. But what I am taking away from these baptisms this week is that in this ritual we enact the power of God to use the very elements of our destruction—water and fire—to bring us back to life. In baptism, in the full immersion that Episcopalians are too proper to do—we symbolize not just washing away sin, but death. We baptize you into the death of Christ. And we do that in the great faith that death is not the end of the story, but the beginning of new life.
And it is extraordinarily empowering to choose to believe in a God who says, You have already died. Nothing that happens to you now can hurt you. You belong to me. It gives a deep meaning to the words of Isaiah:
You are free to live a life of bravery and beauty and forgiveness, because whatever happens to you now, you belong to God. You are free to be totally changed into fire. And so, at the age of 13, you can leave what family you have left in your refugee camp in a rickety truck and drive 200 miles to Kampala and sing in a music competition, against people who think YOU are a rebel soldier, and then come back to your camp and live the rest of your life with a new understanding of who you are and what you can do. In their story we have a powerful reminder that we have the choice about how we want to live, and the power to transform the world around us with our own light and flame.
In the Gospel story for today, after he is baptized, Jesus hears the voice of God say, This is my son, the beloved. You belong to me. And perhaps that is what gives him the strength to start down the road that will lead to the incredible story of his life and death and resurrection. The passion and flame of that story are what we invite you into in this baptism this morning.
Water, and fire: May you go out from this baptism and find a way to live a life that is fearless and full of passion, so that you also are fully aflame, totally changed into fire.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
[Click here for today's readings.]
The Psalm for today describes God’s power and glory in the midst of a thunderstorm. It says, ‘The voice of the LORD is upon the waters, The voice of the LORD splits the flames of fire.”
And in the reading from the Gospel of Luke, John the Baptizer predicts Jesus coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. ‘The chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire,’ it says. Water drowns us, fire burn us up. Fire and water, elements that destroy.
And yet we need fire and water to live. The symbol of water is also one of life--In Genesis, God creates the world out of the watery chaos. In Exodus, God saves the Hebrew people by taking them through the Red Sea. Water cleanses, and the earliest Christians adapted Hebrew bathing rituals to create the ritual of baptism. Water slakes our thirst and cools us. Fire keeps us warm, cooks our food, lights the darkness. And just as much as fire is used as an element of judgment in Scripture, it’s used to describe inspiration, passion, and to symbolize the spirit of God. In the story on the cover of the wrapper today, from the ancient desert fathers:
Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said: Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts: now what more should I do?
The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: Why not be totally changed into fire?
The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: Why not be totally changed into fire?
Water and fire. They are elements of destruction, and elements of life. We need them, we fear them, we control them. The very things that destroy us can be the vehicle for new life, and new growth, the ground in which new grass can grow.
Last week in my classroom I showed portions of a documentary called ‘War Dance.’ The movie follows a group of children who live in a remote part of northern Uganda, an area ravaged by civil war. Rebel soldiers in this area come into towns in the middle of the night, killing adults indiscriminately, forcing women into sexual slavery, and abducting children to force them into the ranks of rebel soldiers. Children who are abducted by the rebels are often forced to become killers themselves. It’s an awful, awful cycle. The Lord’s Resistance Army, as the rebels call themselves, have been operating this way for over twenty years, brutalizing and killing innocent people for no discernable political reason.
The film ‘War Dance’ follows a group of schoolchildren in one of the most endangered parts of Uganda, who live in a refugee camp, protected by the military. The school in the refugee camp has a music class, and the students there have earned the right to compete in the national music competition. So the film follows them as they prepare to go to Kampala to compete against students from the rest of the country, and tells the stories of a few individuals.
It might sound trite for me to say, after watching this film, that it’s an incredible example of the power of the human spirit. You hear the stories of how each of these children lost their parents, how one of them was forced into the rebel ranks and became a killer himself, until he escaped. And yet here they are, putting their hearts and souls into music class. The one kid who escaped from the rebels says, with complete earnestness, I want to be the best xylophone player in all of Uganda. There is such life there in this child who has seen so much death. And when you watch these children dance, the life—the passion—they are truly on fire.
In the midst of so much death—murder, brutality, and the very worst of what humans can do to each other—there are stories of bravery, forgiveness, and of the remarkable power of the human spirit to survive and start over and burn even brighter after great loss.
Early in the film, one of them says, “Even though we are from the war zone, we can still do good things.” If that is not an example of walking through the flood and not being drowned, then I don’t know what is. This is the Isaiah passage right here.
But it makes me wonder, too, if part of what can happen in the human spirit after great loss is that we have the choice not just to survive but to become flame ourselves, to rise up from the ashes and burn even brighter in the face of what threatens to kill us. THAT is the gift of the Holy Spirit. THAT is the story of Jesus’ life.
So, how does this all come together this morning? There are a lot of things we can say about baptism: through it we name individuals as beloved members of God’s family. It’s a commitment to a way of living your faith, and a chance to start anew. All of that would be good and true to say about the meaning of baptism. But what I am taking away from these baptisms this week is that in this ritual we enact the power of God to use the very elements of our destruction—water and fire—to bring us back to life. In baptism, in the full immersion that Episcopalians are too proper to do—we symbolize not just washing away sin, but death. We baptize you into the death of Christ. And we do that in the great faith that death is not the end of the story, but the beginning of new life.
And it is extraordinarily empowering to choose to believe in a God who says, You have already died. Nothing that happens to you now can hurt you. You belong to me. It gives a deep meaning to the words of Isaiah:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you. Do not fear, for I am with you.
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you. Do not fear, for I am with you.
You are free to live a life of bravery and beauty and forgiveness, because whatever happens to you now, you belong to God. You are free to be totally changed into fire. And so, at the age of 13, you can leave what family you have left in your refugee camp in a rickety truck and drive 200 miles to Kampala and sing in a music competition, against people who think YOU are a rebel soldier, and then come back to your camp and live the rest of your life with a new understanding of who you are and what you can do. In their story we have a powerful reminder that we have the choice about how we want to live, and the power to transform the world around us with our own light and flame.
In the Gospel story for today, after he is baptized, Jesus hears the voice of God say, This is my son, the beloved. You belong to me. And perhaps that is what gives him the strength to start down the road that will lead to the incredible story of his life and death and resurrection. The passion and flame of that story are what we invite you into in this baptism this morning.
Water, and fire: May you go out from this baptism and find a way to live a life that is fearless and full of passion, so that you also are fully aflame, totally changed into fire.