Personal Renewal of Solidarity

Personal Renewal of Solidarity

Unlike Matthew and Mark, Luke reports what they didn’t think important enough. Jesus’ Baptism wasn’t private between him and John — Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized — Luke doesn’t even bother to narrate the actual baptism, just that it had happened in the past tense. John was a lot like a revival preacher setting up a tent in the country and calling people to come hear the Word of God that had come to him, and then repent of their sins by being baptized in the nearest body of water. Matthew and Mark would have known this too, but only Luke thought it a detail worth mentioning. I believe that Luke wants us to understand Jesus’ Baptism as an act of solidarity with his fellow Jews and Israelites. Baptism as an act of solidarity is essential to the Baptism rite in our current prayer book.

It wasn’t just individual Jews that John wanted to repent. It was the people, the congregation of Israel, that John wanted to change their collective heart and life. Five centuries after the end of their Babylonian exile, the community of the Old Covenant had been exiled in place, their promised land controlled by other empires, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans. More so than in our age of individualism, the ancient peoples saw a much closer connection between individual health and community health. Jewish individuals changing their hearts and lives was the necessary first step for Israel, the community of the Old Covenant, to renew that covenant with their one and only God and being forgiven as one people.

As Jesus went down in the river to pray, studyin’ about that good ol’ way, he went down in solidarity with his people, identifying himself totally with all their hope and all their tragedy, singing, O sinners, let's go down, come on down, down in the river to pray, even though he himself had not inflicted any of that tragedy himself. And when he came up and in effect replaced John after his arrest, Jesus the Christ would share everything there was to share with the people of the Old Covenant as he renewed that Covenant.

So here we are, “the community of the New Covenant,” which is how our Outline of Faith defines the Church, renewing that Baptismal Covenant, for ourselves as individuals and as a church. And what is the New Covenant? The “new relationship with God, given by Jesus Christ…[who] promised to bring us into the kingdom of God and give us life in all its fullness…[and] commanded us to believe in him and to keep his commandments.” In that Baptismal Covenant we are about to renew, the statement of belief comes first in The Apostles’ Creed, followed by some specific promises.

“Will you continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?” Will you make the best effort you can to regularly come together with your siblings in Christ and acknowledge God’s awesome holiness? Will you look for ways to pray regularly, not just telling God what’s in your heart and in your mind (as if God doesn’t already know that better than you know yourself), but in silence, listening for a still small voice rising in your heart and mind, trusting that God is speaking to you with insights you would never have come up with without entering into that holy silence?

“Will you persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?” Will you examine yourself, your discontents, your resentments, and your own failures, not to beat yourself up, but to learn the height and the depth of God’s love for you and for all?

“Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?” As St. Francis said: Preach the Gospel always, use words when necessary. And when it comes to words, try rehearsing your “elevator speech.” What can you say in less than five minutes of how you have met God in Christ, and why you have entrusted yourself to God in Christ Jesus?

“Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” Remember that we don’t choose who moves next door, or who sits by us on the Metro. The neighbor we are to love as the person next to us, wherever we are.

“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” Given where we live, this one might be the hardest. I suspect that most of us are here because we want justice served, and indignities removed. Keep in mind that God has no party, but God’s justice judges all parties. Frequently we find it easier to say what God is not. So, even if we’re not 100 percent certain what justice is in a certain controversy, as people of God, we must be prepared to say what justice is not.

I hope I’ve succeeded in putting a little meat on the bones of the Baptismal Covenant I’m about to ask you to renew. I was dunked at the age of nine, and my faith journey started then, as it did for those those cradle Episcopalians in their infancy. Later in my youth I had salvation anxiety as I wondered if I had truly been born again. It was in The Episcopal Church that I realized my salvation was to be found, not in my solitary search for the truth, but in a community of a baptismal covenant with God and each other. Its theology of baptism as initiation into an unbreakable covenant relationship with God and each other is in my bones. That is the community that I renew my loyalty to, and my love for, this day.

The Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ

The Rev. David Kendrick

Jan 12th 2025