1 Epiphany A
January 12, 2014
Is.42:1-9
Ps. 89:20-29
Acts 10:34 -38 Matt. 3:13-17
Long before the digital world took over, some
of us grew up in the high literary culture of comic books. The hero of heroes of the comic book culture
was Superman. The author of this story
obviously borrowed from the biblical story.
Kal-El is sent hurling through space in an escape capsule by his father
Jor-El from the planet Krypton and he lands in Kansas and is adopted and though
he is from Krypton, he is Earthly enough to become known as the mild mannered
Clark Kent. He progressively becomes
aware of his other-worldly powers even as he hides them in the earthly human
Clark Kent. As the mild-manner newspaper
reporter he is situated to be aware of the circumstances where heroic
interventions are required.
The comic book literary experience of the
hero genre was engaging to us. We, the
readers, were the privileged insiders as to the full identity of Clark Kent, while
those in the story, Perry White, Jimmy Olson and Lois Lane and all of
Metropolis were kept in the dark. The
authors let the readers know what the characters in the story do not know. The hidden incognito hero story-line is a
story line that has been repeated in successful comics and cinematic
presentations many times over.
A story reader knows that the ignorance of people
in the story is much more profound than any current ignorance in our lives now. What is the story line of admitting what I
don’t know now? What I don’t know about
other people now has no context for me to even talk about. What I don’t know now will only have engaging
meaning in hindsight when I find out what was truly was happening when I was ignorant.
This is the genius of narrative and
story. The reader gets to read about the
past with knowledge that the original characters are portrayed as not
having. This illusion of art is what
makes it so embracing.
Narrative is how the Gospel was told because
the Gospel writings were forging the identity of a club of people who were
gathering to survive their lives lived within the Roman Empire. Urbanization was a fact of the Roman
Empire. Nomadic people and people who
were forced into exile were people who needed to have smaller group identity to
negotiate their identity within the cities of the Roman Empire.
The baptism of Jesus is a story about his
initiatory rite into humanity. The
encompassing of humanity by the divine is the story of
Jesus. Kal-El appeared earthly enough to
pass as Clark Kent.
Jesus is the hero whose identity is known and
revealed and told in progression by the Gospel writers. These writers were providing something like we,
young boys felt when we received a crisp new Superman comic book, that we
secreted away in our secret club or secret fort and we felt special in that
club in the midst of the outside world of parents and teachers and all other
authorities.
The Christian Clubs in the Roman Empire gave
people an identity. The Christian Clubs
had an initiatory ritual known as baptism.
With baptism you began that progressive incorporation into the Christian
Club and this would give you an extended family to help you negotiate your
existence within the Roman Empire. The
Roman Authorities were visible enough through soldiers and authorities to be
threatening to those who did not have authority; the Roman authorities were not
omnipresent enough to completely take over private lives and in those private
lives one had to learn to practice lodging behavior to survive. Old family, tribal and clan systems often broke
down in the cities and so the function of the Christian Clubs within the city
became formidable in the lives of the members of these Clubs, these churches.
Modern society has changed the church. Church has come to have a more
compartmentalized specialty. We have
made the church into such a holy and special gathering of people, it has become
somewhere we don’t want to go very often, maybe but an hour occasionally, but
then we want to retreat to our man-caves or women salons and do the really
clubbish things which excite us, like watching the 49ers or all of the other exciting
things that we apparently don’t find in church.
I would submit to you that these early churches
were very engaging entertaining clubs which provided significant social
function for the people drawn to join them.
Churches used to command a larger role in the socialization
process of belonging. Christians were a bit secretive in
the Roman Empire because one did not want to be too open or visible to raise
any question about any possible political opposition to the Emperor and his
surrogates.
Gospel stories and literature were the art of
the community; it was entertaining art; it was initiatory art. In the Gospel literature a member of a Christian
Club was a privileged reader who had special knowledge about the resurrection
appearances of this hero Jesus. But in
knowing end of the story, the reader could relive in engaging excitement all of
the human limitations which this hero took upon himself.
The Gospel writings and other letters and
writings were passed around and received with excitement in these “club”
churches. Christians met and had this
incredible social identity club into which they were initiated by baptism. Why baptism?
Because Jesus himself was baptized.
And because Jesus had surpassed John the Baptist and because many of the
followers of Jesus had come from the community of John the Baptist, it was
important to hear it said that John recognized the excellence of Christ. But at the same time, the risen hero Christ,
accepted his complete solidarity with humanity in locating himself within a specific
community led by John the Baptist.
The risen Christ, the super-human being, was
also Jesus of Nazareth in all of his limitations.
There is always a logical problem in hero
stories. If Superman is great enough to
catch criminals and people who are falling from buildings, shouldn't he also
have been great enough to prevent the necessity of the rescue in the first
place? That is the same problem which
the Gospel writers had to deal with….yes Christ is really great and super and
wonderful but at the same time God and God’s super One did not exercise the
preventive efforts to make salvation and rescue and healing unnecessary. It is the difference between asking God to
prevent illness and asking God to heal us when illness has happened. So the super hero cannot be so super as to
avoid most of the consequences of freedom in this world. The super hero has to be great enough to surf
the waves of true freedom in this world and even the freedom that brings the phenomenon
of death.
The Gospel writings within the early church
clubs gave their members an initiatory inculcation into the group values. The Gospel clubs recount the story and the
meaning of the story of Jesus their hero.
Jesus was God becoming initiated into full humanity within a ritual such
as baptism so that men and women might be baptized or initiated into the
realization of the divinity, the eternal spirit nature that has to be released
or energized in order to experience the Higher Power of God’s Spirit to change
one’s life.
You and I today want to be initiated into the
divine; you and I want to be initiated into the Sublime. You and I want to know that our lives are
touched by a Higher Power of delicious purpose.
Since we have the freedom to worship, we don’t have to do it in secret
clubs with just a few writings to read like the monthly comic books in my young
boys club or like the few early writings which were passed around in the early
Christian communities. Because of the
acceptance of the church in our society, we have relegated the church to a compartmentalized
spiritual category and we say it is holy and special; but then we go elsewhere
for the other fun and social identity of our lives.
I am trying to make the point of the
relevance of the Risen Christ and the Gospel and the Church to our entire
lives. It is not a special compartment;
the risen Christ can be in the places where we are finding our secret sublime
fun, if we will simply allow Christ to be connected with all of the sublime and
wonderful experiences of our lives.
Baptism is not being initiated into church
life; it is a celebration of birth into abundant life itself, God’s life,
because we live and move and have our being in God. Baptism is the invitation to hear the Great Within cry to you and me, “You
are my beloved son and daughter. With
you I am pleased.” To hear these words
within us is the experience of profound affirmation to be, to love, to search,
to discover, to wonder, to find goodness, to express as much of the
possibilities of hope through faithful acts and deeds.
Can we see how excited people must have been
in these early Christian clubs within the cities of the Roman Empire? Can we appreciate the identity that they
received from initiation into the Risen Christ?
Can we be honest about how our parish
functions in our own lives now? The
parish may not have the same impact in our lives as those early Christian clubs
but can we liberate the message from being but a sacred compartment on Sunday,
and understand the reality of baptism being our initiation into the life of God,
who has said to each of us in the loudest silence of our souls, “You are my son
and daughter, with you I am well pleased.”
Amen.
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