Baptism of the Lord

See Commentary on (Luke 3:15-16, 21-23) in Luke 3:1-20, Luke 3:21-22 & Luke 3:23-38

Homily 1 - 2010

Australians aren’t racist, according to the assurances our political leaders have been giving us over this past week. But their assurance is meaningless. What do we mean by racist? What behaviours would we consider racist? Do we mean our laws aren’t racist, or our leaders aren’t racist, or our police aren’t racist, or our sports heroes aren’t racist? And when we say Australians aren’t racist, do we mean all Australians, or most Australians, or some Australians? Can people, sometimes, be racist, even a little?

In claiming that Australians aren’t racist, are we effectively denying the reality of Original Sin? I suppose that most Australians have no idea of Original Sin – but we Catholics have.

I think I can honestly say I don’t want to be racist. I try not to be racist. But I’m not so out of touch with myself to think that sometimes I am.  I want to be innocent of patriarchy and of clericalism, too. I try not to behave that way. But I’m sure there are plenty of women who would say that I am.

Part of the power of sin, of Original Sin, especially, is to blind us to the obvious. Original Sin is alive and well in all cultures and in all sub-cultures, even religious ones. It’s like the air we breathe. It’s always there, so we don’t notice it.

Cultures and sub-cultures protect their identity by being clear who is different, who does not belong, who is not “one of us”. The more insecure we feel, the more important it becomes. It is so much in our nurture that it has probably become fixed in our DNA. Instinctively, we defend our boundaries, we protect our identity. We’re proud of who we are, and we’re glad we are not “those others”. Our way of doing things is always so much better.

Who needs redemption? Who needs Christ?

No one instinctively loves those outside the boundaries. It’s hard enough to love those within the boundaries…  - Queenslanders can sometimes be a bit way out, or Collingwood barrackers, or the Labour party, or the Liberal party, or the bureaucrats down there in the city.

To love, we have to choose – deliberately. We have to work at it, and, though we can constantly improve, only a few seem to manage to love consistently, practically, non-selectively, easily, all the time.

Our instinctively sinful natures, reared inevitably in imperfect cultures and sub-cultures and social structures, need redemption. That’s OK – because it’s at hand. But we have to recognise and to admit that we need it – or we’ll do little about it.  And to recognise our need for redemption, we need to know ourselves – to know ourselves well – and that doesn’t happen naturally. We have to work at it.

Today, in the Gospel, Jesus was anointed by the Spirit while he was at prayer after his baptism.

Today’s First Reading from Isaiah gives us some idea what that might have meant. 

According to Isaiah, God had said about the one whom he had endowed with his Spirit: Faithfully he brings true justice; he will neither waver, nor be crushed until true justice is established on earth .. I have appointed you to open the eyes of the blind, to free captives from prison and those who live in darkness from the dungeon.

Today, we remember our own Baptism – that wonderful moment when we were first christened. But being christened back then is useless if we leave it at that. 

It gave us enormous potential. But that potential can remain pitifully undeveloped – it can atrophy – if it isn’t deliberately cultivated. To become genuinely christened – to become Christ-like – is a life-time adventure, and it needs our deliberate co-operation. We can love.

We can keep growing in love and getting better at it. … And to the extent that we do, life becomes worth living, fulfilling, even if sometimes lonely.

Homily 2 - 2019

The First Reading tonight from Isaiah was great. He was quoting God [as it were]; and God was speaking about “my chosen one in whom my soul delights”, and saying “I have endowed him with my spirit that he may bring true justice to the nations”. God then repeated, “Faithfully he brings true justice”, and then added, a third time, in case we hadn’t been listening, “he will neither waver nor be crushed until true justice is established on earth”. Interestingly, God then spelt out the practical expression of this true justice by saying, “I have appointed you ... to open the eyes of the blind, to free captives from prison and those who live in darkness from the dungeon”. True justice – opening people’s eyes, and emptying the gaols – liberation, not imposition.

Then in today’s Gospel Reading from Luke, Luke spoke of John telling people about Jesus, “Someone is coming, someone who is more powerful than I … He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire”. But first, in line with Isaiah, he must be endowed with God’s Spirit. So, Luke says, “… while Jesus was at prayer, heaven opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him.”

To complete the introduction, we turn to tonight’s Second Reading where Peter was talking to Cornelius about Jesus, and saying, “God had anointed him [Jesus] with the Holy Spirit and with power”; and he saw that power expressed in “doing good and curing all who fallen into the power of the devil” – liberation not imposition – perhaps not all that different from Isaiah’s giving sight to the blind and emptying the gaols!

Over the centuries, perhaps from the time of Constantine in the fourth century, the Church has not helped people much to understand either justice or power. So often, when we think of God’s justice and of God’s power, or of God as almighty judge, we almost instinctively think of God punishing, even condemning to hell – the “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” attitude that Jesus strongly argued against. Jesus, endowed with God’s Spirit, clearly showed God’s justice, true justice, as restorative justice, a justice seeking to liberate both wrong-doers and victims as well – for, without help, how many victims remain otherwise imprisoned in the corruptive bitterness of revenge?

Yet, to appreciate restorative justice, we need firstly to learn to see reality as it is, freed from the habits of centuries, our instinctive prejudices and unaddressed thirst for revenge. Jesus’ insistent call to “conversion” [or that most inadequately translated, even deceptive, word, “Repent”] worked hand in hand with enabling the metaphorically blind to see.

Likewise, the Church needs to rediscover Jesus’ sense of power. Jesus apparently had remarkable power and inner authority. But his power had nothing to do with imposition or coercion – nor should the Church’s. Jesus’ power set people free – free to be their true selves. Jesus sought to educate and form consciences. He urged people to get to know themselves, to learn to recognize their deep desires, to appreciate value. He invited them to obedience but only in the beautiful sense of learning to attune their hearts and minds to his vision and his goals.

I feel somewhat fascinated that the secular Royal Commission into Clergy Sexual Abuse has removed the Church from its soap-box and its recourse to the threat of the so-called “Catholic vote”; and left it little option but to focus again on the real sources of its life-giving power. Jesus’ undoubtedly remarkable authority stemmed from his insight into truth, his attractive joy and inner beauty, his personal integrity, his obvious love and mercy, his simplicity and transparency, his non-violent gentleness, and even his poverty.

Whatever about our bishops and the institution, whatever even about our politicians and political parties, can we allow the power of Jesus to become our power, and in the process, can we become truly a light to the nations?

Homily 3 - 2022

Matthew, Mark and Luke speak differently when writing of John’s baptism of Jesus. Today we have Luke’s account. If you listened carefully, you will have noticed that John’s baptism did nothing to Jesus, or to people generally, for that matter. John himself insisted that he simply baptised people with water, giving them a chance to express publicly their personal, inner repentance. With Jesus, however, something did happen. In his case, it happened while he was quietly praying after his baptism. Jesus had a profound inner experience. We shall notice later in the year, as we work through Luke’s Gospel, that Luke made quite a point of Jesus’ praying and praying alone.

To describe the indescribable, Luke drew on an image Isaiah had used five or six hundred years earlier. It was the passage that we heard this morning in the First Reading. Luke adapted it to suit his purpose. In the passage that we heard, Isaiah had God saying, “Here is my servant …, my chosen one, in whom my soul delights. I have endowed him with my spirit…”. The translator of Isaiah’s prophecies and the translator of Luke’s Gospel used different words for a few of the original words, and Luke himself made a few deliberate modifications.

Where Isaiah had God saying, “Here is my servant”, Luke had God speaking directly to Jesus and saying, “You are my Son”. Where Isaiah had “my chosen one”, Luke had God calling Jesus “the Beloved”, and where Isaiah had “in whom my soul delights”, Luke had “my favour rests on you”. Luke also made more of Jesus’ experience of God’s Spirit, by expressing it graphically: “Heaven opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily shape, like a dove.” Personally, if I were the translator, I would choose Isaiah’s translator, but make it all a bit more direct, “You are my son. I love you. You delight my heart.” And I would leave out the comment about the dove.

We shall find out later [in Lent, I think], Jesus needed to take time to come to terms with what he had just experienced in his prayer. He went off alone into the deserted bushland surrounding the Jordan — “led by the Spirit”, as Luke would put it. He needed time and space to somehow explore the new revelation of his unique, over-powering, relationship with God his Father— and its implications. Not surprisingly, while he was still there, he was “tempted by the devil”, in the shape of facing possibilities prefaced by what he was already hesitatingly wrestling with: “… if you are the Son of God”. “if you are the Son of God, turn this stone into a loaf”, “…if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down [in full view of everyone] from the parapet of the temple”. In other words: exploit your newly-realised dignity, and betray your whole mission. Effectively, Jesus was tempted to by-pass the supreme centrality of love as the source of all human dignity, and the means of human salvation.

But the Father who loved him dearly was real, and was on his side — and he knew it. It was on the basis of that clear revelation that Jesus embarked on his mission, stepped out confidently into the world — and resolutely embraced his destiny.

If we can let God reveal to each of us just how much God loves us, we too can be transformed, and eagerly allow God’s love to renew our lives.