Out with the Old, in with the New

The Rev. Joanne Sanders

Stanford Memorial Church

January 13, 2008

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW

The former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare.

~Isaiah 42: 9

Welcome to a new year and in the spirit of all things new, the season of resolutions. At a staff meeting this past Wednesday, one of my colleagues shared some interesting resolutions found on a website. Please indulge me for just a moment as I share two of those with you this morning.

Resolution #1: 2008: I will read at least 20 good books a year. 2009: I will read at least 10 books a year; 2010: I will read 5 books a year. 2011: I will finish The Pelican Brief; 2012: I will read some articles in the newspaper this year. 2013: I will read at least one article this year; 2014: I will try and finish the comics’ section this year.

Resolution #2: 2008: I will get my weight down below 180. 2009: I will watch my calories until I get below 190. 2010: I will follow my new diet religiously until I get below 200. 2011: I will try to develop a realistic attitude about my weight. 2012: I will work out 5 days a week. 2013: I will work out 3 days a week. 2014: I will try to drive past a gym at least once a week.

I often wonder why resolutions have become such a part of the New Year tradition. As humorous as they may be, these resolutions are perhaps more truthful then we care to admit – that each year we might need to revise or lower our expectations, or be more realistic and honest with ourselves about not only what is possible, but more importantly, what can be sustained over the long haul.

While the secular calendar tells us it is a new year along with the season of resolutions, there is a bit of irony in the fact that the Christian liturgical calendar, as we observe here at Memorial Church, tells us that it is Epiphany, a sacred season which essentially means manifestation or demonstration of God’s real presence in the world. The irony here is that these two calendars correspond in such a way to emphasize the importance of manifesting or demonstrating that which we long to change about ourselves, our relationships, even our world and communicate that by way of new behaviors, attitudes, and actions. The message of Epiphany is also about manifestation and demonstration. It is about distilling outwardly God’s presence in the world around us and also in our own lives.

Just as the New Year draws us in with the timeless practice of making resolutions, so does Epiphany with the timeless stories from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, also known as the Old and New Testaments. These stories, like resolutions, are meant to get our attention, to hook us, to draw us in even as God is meant to get our attention, to hook us, and to draw us in.

Today’s story in the gospel narrative of Matthew is that of Jesus’ own baptism. Under John the Baptist’s ministry, all Israel is gathered and waiting at the Jordan River. But it is not God who appears, but Jesus, having crossed the Jordan from Galilee. Like all other Jews he comes to be baptized by John. Evidently, Jesus also wishes to participate in this act of repentance, in essence, turning toward that which is the very life of God and a mission “to proclaim justice in the land, to be a light for the nations, to open the eyes of the blind and free prisoners from captivity” as Isaiah the prophet declares today in the Hebrew Scriptures.

John the Baptist objects to baptizing Jesus, and such an admission indicates that John clearly recognizes who Jesus is. Nevertheless, Jesus refuses to show any elitism. Rather, for the moment he, the founder of a new humanity, insists on expressing solidarity with all those of the land of Israel who have come to John for a baptism of repentance as a means of identifying with the iniquity of the people, and of manifesting, of demonstrating a life turning toward God, as the Epiphany themes suggest.

One commentary I consulted suggests that apparently, to Jesus, nothing less could be involved in the meaning of his determination to fulfill all righteousness, as it reads in Matthew’s gospel today. Through the peculiar use of the first person plural pronoun us in verse 15, (Let is be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness) the addresses of Matthew’s gospel are drawn into Jesus’ identification with his fellow Jews and his submission to John’s baptism. Here is a notable instance of Jesus embodiment of the Servant, the One and the Many of today’s text in Isaiah. (I will put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations) As the One who is in solidarity with the Many, his baptism is his experience of manifesting and demonstrating all that God requires.

In these narratives of Isaiah and Matthew, it seems to me that God is drawing us in to the notion that while the people of Israel have been liberated from their wilderness, according to the prophet Isaiah, they have also been taken by the hand and kept, given by God as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations. The former things have come to pass, and new things are now declared.

And there may be something else that is liberated or declared, if you will, here too.

Scholars and theologians argue that it is also God who is being liberated from the “parochial captivity of those who regard God as exclusively as their own, of those who think it unimaginable that God would have any interest or care for anyone outside their or our – own circle.” What may be liberated here also is God, not just of the people of Israel, whom God never forsakes, but of everyone, everywhere, under every other possible claim. God is freed to be God. Writes Peter Gomes, theologian and preacher: “The message that God means to communicate to the world through Jesus Christ at Epiphany is that God has compassion, concern and connection with and for the whole world, and not just for our particular tiny familiar corner of it.”

“Why,” Gomes asks, “is this so hard, so impossible, so difficult to believe and to accept? Why is it that themost committed Christians find this notion of an inclusive God so difficult to take seriously?”

Rev. Corrie and I can attest to the fact that on many levels, our particular religious community with which we identify and the church that has ordained us, the Episcopal Church, is splintering on this very basis.

I’ve been a believing and practicing, for the most part, Christian all of my life. And in an older and former permutation of that identity, I had adopted what I would describe as a narrow, parochial, and exclusive understanding of God, which might surprise many of you. I didn’t really even know what Hinduism, Islam, Judaism espoused, let alone know any person who identified as such. I certainly didn’t know you could be Christian and gay or lesbian, let alone an Independent or Democrat. I had no idea there were feminist theologians. In fact, I didn’t really know what a feminist or a theologian was. And you definitely would not have found me enjoying a fine glass of California Chardonnay. My hair was permed and I wore buttoned up blouses with bow ties. I looked like I belonged on Leave it to Beaver. In my mind, Christianity as I had come to know it was the only way and the best way.

To borrow the phrase from an old Virginia Slims commercial (and I am really dating myself here) “You’ve Come A Long Way Baby.” Christian, gay, feminist, are a few of the terms I identify with these days.

That said, out with the old, in with the new has particular relevance for me.

Lest this sermonic train fall off the track, let me get to where I’m going with all of this. I do and can very easily identify with many of the bewildered but curious Christian students and others I meet on campus in this critical endeavor called religious life that ask if Hinduism is true, Islam is true, Judaism is true, then how can Christianity be true? Isn’t it the only way, and therefore the best way? What does God have in mind for those millions of people who quite happily are not Christian?

One of my favorite books is a slim, 100 or so page classic written by J.B. Phillips called Your God is Too Small in which he basically says if you think your God is only your God and therefore the only God, then your God is too small. I think I will resolve to read that again this year, if not every year.

The narratives of Isaiah and Matthew today at their very core are stories of a large God, a roomy or “capacious God” as Peter Gomes says, “an enormous God whose love encompasses not just those who believe in God in the same way that we do, but all of God’s creatures and God’s creation, whose love is expressed in languages, in ways, in customs that they best can understand. We who bear the name of Christ must never shrink from proclaiming and celebrating what that means as a manifestation of God in the world, but we must also never be so arrogant or ignorant – and I will add indifferent - to suggest that we are the only and exclusive means by which God works to redeem creation.”

As the great spiritual says: Plenty good room! Plenty good room! Plenty good room in God’s kingdom and God’s reign! Plenty good room! Plenty good room! So choose your seat and sit down.

While I may be more or less preaching to a proverbial choir, what may seem old to some of us requires a new, emboldened reminder to all of us because of the urgency of the remaining, ever-deepening complexities across cultural, religious and political landscapes, not only here in America, but also around the world. Those of us who are committed to ecumenical and inter-religious sensitivities must be both deliberate and diligent in our own manifestation and demonstration of our understanding of the Servant of the One and the Many. It is not enough to know it in theory. It is not just trendy to talk about religious diversity or understanding. We must work to deepen it, broaden it, challenge it and resolve to learn more fully about the lives and practices of those we may know so little of. We must be in it for the long haul. Jesus identified, manifested and demonstrated solidarity with those around him by offering an embodiment of an inclusive humanity and so must we. This in my view

is uniquely the greatest joy, challenge and privilege of living a truly holy, faithful and Christian life of epiphany.

And so we end where we started. That is, with resolution – to resolve to deepen and expand our own knowledge and awareness of others different from us along with our own specifically Christian life this year. “To recognize that it starts,” writes Barbara Crafton, “with God becoming human. Plainly, this cannot be: not if God is who we think God is and human beings are what we know ourselves to be, short on both virtue and attention span, much of the time. Once we have plunged into the waters of the Incarnation, the embodiment of God in Jesus, fully human, all bets are off. Anything can happen.”

There IS plenty good room.

There is plenty good room.

Now it is time for me to choose my seat and sit down.

Notes:

New Proclamation: Year A, 2007-2008; 1st Sunday after Epiphany

Peter Gomes; Strength for the Journey; 2003

Barbara Crafton; The Geranium Farm, 2008.

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