Epiphany 2A, January 15, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God, manifest in us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Last week in our Gospel lesson, we heard Matthew’s version of Jesus’ baptism at the Jordan River. You might remember that I said that, according to Matthew, the voice that Jesus heard was an inside-out rather than an outside-in voice. Matthew was describing the bat kol – the voice of the Divine that sounds like the voice of a little girl, or the daughter of a voice, an echo. Matthew mentions that the heavens opened up to Jesus and a spirit of holiness landed on Jesus like a dove and he heard the voice of the Divine – the bat kol – saying this is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased. Matthew does not describe this as a voice that any of the others who were there would have heard.

So it’s interesting to me that John the Evangelist, offers a Gospel story enhancement, in which John the Baptist insists – indeed, testifies – that he saw the change in Jesus happen. John the Baptist testifies that saw the spirit go down from heaven like a dove and remain on Jesus. The spirit is not named holy, but since it’s coming down from heaven, we can understand that it is from the Holy One. Notice that in this Gospel, there is no description of Jesus being baptized by John or by anyone else! In the verse just before our Gospel reading begins, John the Evangelist says that this took place outside of Jerusalem, across the Jordan River in a place called Bethany (or Beth Ani). Beth Ani means poor house or house of response to those who are suffering.[1] So, according to John the Evangelist, the recruiting of Andrew and his brother Simon took place outside of Jerusalem, across the Jordan River in a place called Beth Ani and not in the Galilee where Andrew and Simon had a fishing business with their father. As you know, I’m always trying to separate the ingredients of what I call Gospel soup, where the stories from the four evangelists and the spices of church traditions and teachings get put in a big Church blender to make them smooth and easy for folks to swallow!

That leads me, though, in the particular (or peculiar) way my mind works, to think of the hymn phrase: “taste and see.” It’s a variation on Jesus’ invitation here to come and see after he has asked the two following him what they are looking for. I want to call your attention to how much seeing, watching, noticing, recognizing, looking, finding, and revealing is going on in this short passage from the Gospel of John. [2] In Greek, as in English, seeing and knowing are often interchangeable when it comes to understanding. Perhaps there is not a more perfect Gospel passage for the season of Epiphany, which itself has to do with seeing — revelation or manifestation. There are words in this passage that mean seeking in order to find, and finding with or without looking – you know, like things discovered while looking for something else, or not looking at all. One of the Greek words that gets translated see is the same word that forms the root for theater. There are variations of seven different Greek words in this short passage from the Gospel of John that have to do with vision. John the Evangelist loved metaphors, so we can understand that vision may have both everything and nothing to do with eyesight.

It seems to me that spiritual or sacred vision might start with eyesight, but it develops and deepens and and grows in the heart. Recently I picked up a book about photography by Christine Valters Paintner, called Eyes of the Heart. In it she points out that to see with “eyes of the heart,” is to see or understand differently than thinking or calculating or pondering with the mind. She writes, “Just like the camera, the heart has the capacity for turning its lens toward what it longs to see and then choosing its focus.” [3] In this story, the Gospel of John is exploring the capacity of those early followers of Jesus who saw something, who recognized something, who found something in Jesus that changed their hearts and focused their vision – maybe he restored their vision, maybe he gave them vision for the first time. Whichever it was, John tells us it was deeply transformative.

I want to go back to the detail about the location in which this scene in our Gospel narrative takes place because the location matters. Beth Ani was literally a way station for people who are suffering – a kind of hospice location where desperate people could be received and cared for. The people at Beth Ani were either providing assistance and care or needing assistance and care – perhaps a little of both. (There were at least a few places in biblical times called Beth Ani.) If John the Baptist was preparing the way of the Lord, and if affliction made one ritually impure, then healing and a ritual cleansing was what was needed to restore one to community. In those days, in that part of the world, there was no better place than the Jordan River. That’s why, by the way, I like to pour a little bit of water that I have collected from the Jordan River into the baptismal font for anyone I baptize. It’s not magic of course, but it is symbolically, ritually powerful. Restoring folks to community is a way of preparing the way of the Lord. I like to remind Emmanuel of Beth Ani because Beth Ani reminds me of Emmanuel and the place of response, respite and care that we all provide for hundreds and hundreds of people week in and week out –preparing the way of the Lord, living into the vision of restoring folks to community.

And yet, even with the Beth Ani charism or character of Emmanuel, one of the things that I’ve felt acutely in the last two months is an inability to focus my own vision, the eyes of my own heart. Spinning news cycles and social media have blurred my ability to make sense of the transition happening in our government. The flashing of my own internal alarms have made it feel hard to see, to understand what to do – how to respond to the injurious rhetoric and behavior of the President-elect and many of his advisors and nominees for senior political positions, and the not-coincidental uptick in hate crimes around our city and across our country. It has felt harder than usual for me to respond pastorally to folks who are at risk and are terrified, while keeping my own fears in check. It has helped me a great deal to keep the Gospel of stories of Jesus front and center, because they actually provide a clear vision – a Way – through the Kingdom of Anxiety (as W.H. Auden calls it). This Gospel story is about baptism and that helps me recall my baptismal promise to respect the dignity of every human being.

It also helps me – and perhaps you – to know that today marks the beginning of a week that will include the annual national commemoration of the life and witness of Martin Luther King, Jr., and will end with on Saturday with the Women’s March in Washington, D.C. and sister marches in Boston and in hundreds of other cities all around the world. Women and men and children will come together in solidarity with people most affected by hatred and violence: people of color, immigrants, religious minorities, poor people, people who identify as various kinds of queer, people who live with disabilities and illness, oh, and women. Our intention is to gather in peaceful, interfaith, nonpartisan witness. We will use our bodies to assert our values of racial justice, economic justice, reproductive justice, climate justice, religious freedom and human rights. Prior to the march, at 10:00 on Saturday, we’ll gather here in this sanctuary for a brief interfaith prayer service with Christians, Jews, and Muslims. I hope if you’re marching, you’ll join us here, and if you’re not marching, you’ll join us in spirit.

I pray that our coming together will focus our vision and I hope that our collaborative witness will strengthen our resolve and increase our energy because we have work to do at every level of our society. We have work to do. It is our opportunity and our obligation; it is our privilege and our honor. And as the Talmud teaches, it is not our responsibility to finish the work of repairing the world, but we are not free to desist from it either. [4]

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