Sermon for January 13th 2007

Sermon for January 13th 2007
The Revd. J. Michael Povey at St. David’s, Englewood, FL

Isaiah 42:1-9; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17


When I was a slip of a lad I said “I want to be like Mr. Norton when I grow up”. Mr. Ralph Norton was a retired missionary who lived three doors away. My first essay in High School was on “my ambition”. It was to become a medical missionary. I mention this to illustrate that many of us have a sense of vocation from a young age.

I believe this to be true of Jesus. It is an article of our faith that Jesus was fully human, as we are, therefore I take it that Jesus’ road to maturation and self awareness was the same as ours.

Therefore I cannot believe that the baby Jesus had any unusual self awareness. But the boy Jesus grew up with an increasing knowledge of his vocation, schooled as he was in the Torah. So it is not surprising that at aged 12 he was aware that he had to be “about his Father’s business”. And the moment when he fully accepts his call, is the one we read in the Gospel.

Notice the directness of Matthew. “Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptised”. Jesus is the actor, he is not being acted upon. John demurs but Jesus persists. He is to fulfill all righteousness as the truly human one. He is about his Father’s business. He is willing to live fully into the Torah’s law. He is one with us in all respects, and not a whit “above us” - humanly speaking. He will be baptised with all the other repentants.

St. Paul expresses this so beautifully in his letter to the Christians in Philippi, stating that “Christ Jesus …….emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death” (Phil 2: 5 fff) Those words could almost be a commentary on the meaning of Jesus’ baptism.

Jesus’ baptism, is the moment when his vocation becomes clear and unambiguous. It, as St. Paul has told us, to become the servant. He steps into the role of the servant of God, described at least four times in the book of Isaiah. We read of this in one of Isaiah’s so-called servant poems.

He is, according to Isaiah, “my chosen, in whom God’s soul delights”. No wonder he hears the heavenly voice at his baptism. “It’s as if God is saying ‘way to go, son’”

The servant will no be a ranter. He is not the street preacher who cries out in the streets, and lifts up his voice saying “repent or else”. No, this is the gentle servant. Some other person might be tempted to break off a reed which has been bent out of shape by the wind. Some other person would snuff out a smoking candle. But he will tend the bruised reed, and trim the dimly burning wick - so comforting isn’t it, for us who are oft times those bruised reeds, those dimly burning wicks.

And the telling marks of the servant of God - the vocation which Jesus lived to the full are four-fold.

A covenant to the people. That is a guarantee of God’s eternal faithfulness.

A light to the nations. That is bringing universal justice.

Opening the eyes of the blind. Done by Jesus both literally and metaphorically.

Freeing the prisoners. Literally in the case of Peter, Paul and Silas. Figuratively for those who live in dungeons of despair.

Peter, in Acts, puts it almost prosaically, “he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him”.

This is the vocation which Jesus, in his full human freedom, accepts at his baptism. To be God’s servant, obedient to the end. Obedient, as St. Paul says in Philippians, even to the point of death.

We are those who have also heard the call of God to a new vocation. It is expressed most succinctly by Jesus, the servant of God. It is the only call we need.

Jesus says “Follow me”.

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