Must be nice

Juli Belian

St. Luke’s Episcopal Church

January 7, 2024—Baptism of Our Lord

Matthew 3:13-17

Must be nice.

For as long as I can remember, that has been my from-the-gut instantaneous response to this gospel, no matter how many times I read it or hear it read.

Must be nice.

I mean, you got heavens opening, doves descending, special effects voices booming across the water --

Apologies in advance for my attitude, I’ve been mired in voluminous and difficult grading for a solid month, now, and classes start tomorrow and it’s one of those rather squeezy moments in life. So of course I also agreed to write a sermon about our Lord’s baptism, because that’s what insane people do.

But seriously, haven’t we all struggled, wondered, prayed, maybe even dreamed, trying to figure out what God wants from us in this life? Maybe not every day, but sometimes? Especially, perhaps, at those hinges in life, where we’re between jobs or homes or identities, when we do most sorely desire a little guidance from the Big One, most of us probably wonder and maybe even worry about how we can know whether we are doing God’s will.

So, think back with me - when you have been in that situation, any of you get any special-effects voices or doves descending? Because I sure haven’t. But Jesus - who already has this pipeline to God because of the whole I am he and you are me and we are all together thing - Jesus gets James Earl Jones, and a light show. And doves! Don’t forget the doves!

Must be nice.

One of the very many things I wish I had time and money to do is create a set of montages, each one composed of clips from every visual treatment of a particular Gospel scene. So when Jesus is born, we’d take clips from everything from Franco Zefferelli’s “Jesus of Nazareth,” to the Ray Bradbury-written “King of Kings,” to 1965’s “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” to the stop-motion classic, “The Little Drummer Boy,” heck, maybe even “Life of Brian,” and we’d stitch them all together so you could watch Jesus being born a dozen times in a row. I think you’d see different things in those scenes than you ever noticed before.

We’re lucky to have the four gospelers doing that for us so much of the time. Jesus’ baptism is retold in at least the three synoptic gospels, though, of course, they each tell it in their own special way. Mark’s version is short, to-the-point: Jesus got baptized, light show. In Luke, all the dunkin’ is done before the camera pans to Jesus (just as the doves are released). And in both Mark and Luke, God's "atta boy" is spoken directly to Jesus. Only Matthew includes any human dialogue, just two lines, a little mini-story in which John just about refuses to do the deed, recognizing he is outranked the moment he sees Jesus wade in the water. But Jesus tells him to “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

I've read a number of commentaries on this passage in the past, uh, 24 hours, and I do find some consensus about this passage: No one really understands it. What I mean is, the standard explanation seems to be that God clearly wanted Jesus to be baptized - cue up doves and voices as evidence - and therefore, once Jesus did it, God was pleased. That's all fine, but it doesn't really explain why God wanted Jesus baptized by John - or baptized at all, for that matter. After all, if Jesus was sinless, why does God want him to receive a baptism of repentence? Scholars have "resolved" that question in many creative ways, but those commentaries always feel rather ... constructed ... to me, logical but overly complex and somehow rather awkward. I've personally never really been bothered by Jesus' baptism in the first place, first because the concept of Jesus as having been sinless didn't enter Christian theology until after the gospels were written, but also because I think that "baptism" in this specific context was not what we understand baptism to be today. There were many occasions in every Jewish life that called for a formal, ritual washing, both of clothes and the body, and the Essenes were out there baptizing themselves every few days, so baptism was not a once-for-all, only-for-repentance kind of thing. It was something you might do fairly often, in fact, a much more ordinary and recurring part of religious life.

In addition, I think there is another way to understand John's statement, “I need to be baptized by you." Yes, he has stated that the one who comes after him outranks him, and yes, it would be weird in that time and place for someone of lower rank to baptize someone of higher rank, but I never really thought John was saying, "I should be baptized by you for repentance." Here is John, announcing to everyone that his baptism is just the introductory offer, that the real baptism is yet to come, and I think John wants that. I think John is not being polite, I think he's deadly serious that he wants that monster baptism now, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the baptism he's been saying all along that only Jesus can give, and I think he is asking for it outright here, close to begging, and Jesus is just kind of, "Easy there, John, let's just do this." Which brings us back to our starting point yet again: Why? Jesus tells John why, but it feels pretty cryptic: "For it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness." How are we to understand that?

Well, it might help if we remember that since Matthew is the only gospeler to include this conversation, Matthew is the one who is worried about these same issues, and the answer Jesus gives John is an answer Matthew is giving us as the readers. What answer, then, would seem right to Matthew? Matthew, the writer of this gospel, is well known for his focus on Jesus as Messiah, as the embodiment of every Hebrew prophecy and the fulfillment of all Mosaic Law. When I was at seminary, one of the little tricks we had to be able to do on our final exam in New Testament was identify which gospel certain passages came from and discuss the scholarly basis for our identification, so as students, we came up with "rules of thumb" to help us do that, and the rule of thumb for Matthew is that Matthew is the most Jewish of the gospels. For Matthew, the Jewish tradition into which Jesus was born is an essential pillar for understanding Jesus' life, and Matthew's gospel takes every opportunity to tie his story firmly to the history of God's chosen people and the law.

A concern with "righteousness" is very Jewish and very Matthew. "Righteousness," both in the Greek word used here and in the Hebrew צדקה, is one of those lovely difficult words, a word that includes so much more than the meaning we understand it to have that it becomes difficult for us to discuss it in English. It does not really mean "a person's adherence to a moral standard." It is describing relationships, not individual actions. Its meanings include what we call in English "equity," which does not mean anything about equality, but more about fair treatment, in which each gets what they are due, some more, some less, some good, some bad, depending. But its connotations also range from the idea of zealous advocacy on someone else's behalf all the way down to, frankly, good manners. In Rite I, or in the old prayer book, we used to say, "It is meet and right so to do," and it's that kind of "right" that goes into "righteousness," the idea that we are all inhabiting our proper place in relation to each other.

In this sense, I feel pretty sure that if Jesus were to show up here on some Sunday morning, whether we recognized him or not, he would join in our liturgy without any particular fuss. I can imagine - in fact, I am delighted to imagine - the fraught moment that would ensue if, say, Clare realized who Jesus was when he came up for communion. I mean, no one could avoid the mental hiccup that would result. What would she say: “The body of - well, you ...”  ?? Any reasonable person would hesitate, perhaps even refuse to give Jesus the bread and wine, would say, No, this is backwards, Jesus, you take the wheel. But then I can imagine Jesus, already kneeling at the rail, saying very quietly, “Let's just do it like this for now; we wouldn't want to be rude.”

Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder notes that "John and Jesus recognize this [reversal of their positions]. However, in order to align and 'fulfill all righteousness,' Matthew’s Jesus does things in order. ... Jesus could have baptized John. However, by allowing John to take the lead, Jesus acquiesces to what John is called to do." Jesus is honoring John's ministry and submitting to it as a ministry of God. Jesus "does not circumvent the process so that he can get to his mission." Jesus does not cut in line. Jesus is polite.

But of course, it's way more than just being polite. Who sent John to prepare the way for Jesus? Who commissioned John's mission? God, of course. Jesus' submission to John's baptism is not just solidarity with us poor, utterly unlike Jesus sinners, it is an affirmation of God's calling of John. For Crowder, is key: "One of our tasks [as Christians]," she writes, "is [to] provide the space for people to be whom God has called them to be."

So maybe, I begin to think maybe this story isn't really about Jesus getting baptized. Maybe the start of Jesus' public mission is hallmarked by Jesus stepping up to his nearest predecessor and encouraging him as he does what God sent him here to do. Maybe God's "atta boy" wasn't praise for getting dunked. Maybe God was just tickled that Jesus did the right thing, treating John with the respect he deserved, encouraging and furthering John's ministry. What mother wouldn't be proud?

I cannot tell you what God is calling you to do in your life. I can't even tell you what God is calling me to do in my own life. Every time I've thought I heard angel choirs or heavenly voices, it was just some neighbor's stereo, and every time I've thought I've gotten a grip on what God is calling me to, I turned out to be grasping thin air. But that's OK. I don't need to envy that dramatic affirmation of Jesus' calling, because that's not really what it was. Jesus didn't come to the river to be announced like a debutante. He came to the river to get to work, to start the long process of showing us that ministry is done the "right way" by each of us making space for each other to exercise our own gifts, to become the people God created us to be, whoever that may turn out to be. This is the particular nuance of "righteousness" that Jesus means. I am called, among other things, at least, to respect and support you as you respond to the many different ways God is calling you, whatever that may be, and you are called to do the same for me. With or without doves.

Now that - Must be nice.