1 Epiphany A January 12, 2020
Is.42:1-9 Ps. 89:20-29
Acts 10:34 -38 Matt. 3:13-17
Do you think that we communicate with animals? Do you communicate with your pet dog or cat? Do you have special communication skills with your pet dog? Are you a dog whisperer? How is it that we can presume that authentic and understandable communication happens between us and say our pet dog? We can only observe a dog from the human point of view. So how can we say that we understand a dog from a dog's point of view? While we may be saying that a dog is our comfort, service and assistance animal, a dog may be saying this is my comfort, service and assistance person, in short, someone whom I've got wrapped around my little paws. In short, I can get my assistance and service person do tricks for me, like get me food when I want it.
Why do we assume the validity of such inter-specie communication? Because we assume that we share something of a sentient nature with our pet friends, but still we cannot have a complete identity with them because we remain different.
Let now ponder the possibility of the inter-specie communication between God and humanity. How is such possible? How could it even happen? And if it can happen what would be the nature and purpose of such communication?
The witness of the Hebrew Scripture is that God is so special, so different, called the difference of holiness that God is humanly unapproachable. (No one has ever seen God). If God is such a specie of a different order how is communication possible?
We believe communication with God happens because of some basic assumptions. We believe that God is enough like us and we enough like God in being personality that we have a meeting point for communication. In the creation story, it is stated that human being are made in God's image, and so that likeness is the starting point for the possibility of communication.
On the other hand, we are also faced with the reality that you and I are prisoners of human experience. We have human experiences of trees and plants, we have human experiences of animals and pets, and we can only have human experiences of the life of God. What does this mean then? It means that there has to be some way to confer validity upon human experience as a way to know God.
This is what underpins our confession of Jesus as Son of God and son of humanity. We confess Jesus as the divine life becoming fully bi-lingual with human experience so that the divine life could be interpreted into adequate human terms to make a difference in elevating human life to its highest excellence.
The Gospel story of Jesus is a story of God learning completely the human language and using the language of human experience to show what God is like and how God wants us to live best.
In Pauline mysticism, this emptying of the divine life into human experience is called "kenosis." This is the humility of God implying that humanity is like deeply loved and cherished pets, so cherish that God is willing to embrace a complete coincidence with human experience.
And one such emptying experience of God into human experience was the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. In the baptism of Jesus by John, Jesus is expressing a complete solidarity with human community, a specific human community, the community of John the Baptist. In the mysticism of St. Paul's poetry about Christ, he wrote that in Jesus equality with God was not something to be grasped; but he emptied himself taking the form of a human person. The baptism of Jesus is an event of divine solidarity with human experience, within a human initiation event. The baptism of Jesus another event of God in Christ proclaiming, "I am Emmanuel," I am with you and I am for you with the purpose of elevating you to be persons of best excellence.
What does the baptism of Jesus tell us about God? It tells us that all theology is anthropology. It tells that all known experience is but human experience, and it is the undeniable affirmation that we cannot help but be anthropomorphic because we are prisoners of human experience. Even our experience of God is but a human experience, but it is elevated and exalted human experience, particularly if its spiritual identity which propels us to fulfill the practice of love and justice.
In the baptism of Jesus, we are told it is okay to be human because the best human thing that we can do is to come to know our identity with God. The Orthodox Church has long called this dynamic process, "theosis" or the divinization of humanity. God become hominized in Jesus so that humanity might become divinized in Christ. The life of God became emptied or devolved into human experience so that human life might become evolved into our spiritual or divine natures. The baptism of Jesus was symbolic of his initiation into human community so that we in our baptism by water and the Holy Spirit might be initiated into the divine community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and with fellow saints as children of God.
Let us today be thankful of the identity that God takes with humanity and how it was expressed in the baptism of Jesus. God learned the language of humanity in Christ so that the language of God might be taught to humanity. And what is God's language? It is mysteriously never finished and always needed to be learned. It is the language of love, joy, justice, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness and kindness. Jesus came to teach us these special language features of what the divine language means for human experience.
At the baptism of Jesus, the heavenly voice declared Jesus to be God's beloved Son. But what is true about Jesus is that he did not want to be an only child. An only child might ask mom and dad for a brother and sister. Jesus asked his parent for many brothers and sisters. Jesus also gave power to men and women to also become children of God and hear God's voice say, "You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter. Welcome to the family."
If Jesus Christ is God emptying the divine self into human experience, then we owe to ourselves to embrace the invitation to ride the elevator of God's Spirit to know and express our higher selves.
Let us be thankful today that God embraces your experience and my experience as valid ways to come to know how the divine life is a part of our lives and how we are given spiritual energy and grace to live out our heritage as children of God. Amen.
Let now ponder the possibility of the inter-specie communication between God and humanity. How is such possible? How could it even happen? And if it can happen what would be the nature and purpose of such communication?
The witness of the Hebrew Scripture is that God is so special, so different, called the difference of holiness that God is humanly unapproachable. (No one has ever seen God). If God is such a specie of a different order how is communication possible?
We believe communication with God happens because of some basic assumptions. We believe that God is enough like us and we enough like God in being personality that we have a meeting point for communication. In the creation story, it is stated that human being are made in God's image, and so that likeness is the starting point for the possibility of communication.
On the other hand, we are also faced with the reality that you and I are prisoners of human experience. We have human experiences of trees and plants, we have human experiences of animals and pets, and we can only have human experiences of the life of God. What does this mean then? It means that there has to be some way to confer validity upon human experience as a way to know God.
This is what underpins our confession of Jesus as Son of God and son of humanity. We confess Jesus as the divine life becoming fully bi-lingual with human experience so that the divine life could be interpreted into adequate human terms to make a difference in elevating human life to its highest excellence.
The Gospel story of Jesus is a story of God learning completely the human language and using the language of human experience to show what God is like and how God wants us to live best.
In Pauline mysticism, this emptying of the divine life into human experience is called "kenosis." This is the humility of God implying that humanity is like deeply loved and cherished pets, so cherish that God is willing to embrace a complete coincidence with human experience.
And one such emptying experience of God into human experience was the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. In the baptism of Jesus by John, Jesus is expressing a complete solidarity with human community, a specific human community, the community of John the Baptist. In the mysticism of St. Paul's poetry about Christ, he wrote that in Jesus equality with God was not something to be grasped; but he emptied himself taking the form of a human person. The baptism of Jesus is an event of divine solidarity with human experience, within a human initiation event. The baptism of Jesus another event of God in Christ proclaiming, "I am Emmanuel," I am with you and I am for you with the purpose of elevating you to be persons of best excellence.
What does the baptism of Jesus tell us about God? It tells us that all theology is anthropology. It tells that all known experience is but human experience, and it is the undeniable affirmation that we cannot help but be anthropomorphic because we are prisoners of human experience. Even our experience of God is but a human experience, but it is elevated and exalted human experience, particularly if its spiritual identity which propels us to fulfill the practice of love and justice.
In the baptism of Jesus, we are told it is okay to be human because the best human thing that we can do is to come to know our identity with God. The Orthodox Church has long called this dynamic process, "theosis" or the divinization of humanity. God become hominized in Jesus so that humanity might become divinized in Christ. The life of God became emptied or devolved into human experience so that human life might become evolved into our spiritual or divine natures. The baptism of Jesus was symbolic of his initiation into human community so that we in our baptism by water and the Holy Spirit might be initiated into the divine community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and with fellow saints as children of God.
Let us today be thankful of the identity that God takes with humanity and how it was expressed in the baptism of Jesus. God learned the language of humanity in Christ so that the language of God might be taught to humanity. And what is God's language? It is mysteriously never finished and always needed to be learned. It is the language of love, joy, justice, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness and kindness. Jesus came to teach us these special language features of what the divine language means for human experience.
At the baptism of Jesus, the heavenly voice declared Jesus to be God's beloved Son. But what is true about Jesus is that he did not want to be an only child. An only child might ask mom and dad for a brother and sister. Jesus asked his parent for many brothers and sisters. Jesus also gave power to men and women to also become children of God and hear God's voice say, "You are my beloved son. You are my beloved daughter. Welcome to the family."
If Jesus Christ is God emptying the divine self into human experience, then we owe to ourselves to embrace the invitation to ride the elevator of God's Spirit to know and express our higher selves.
Let us be thankful today that God embraces your experience and my experience as valid ways to come to know how the divine life is a part of our lives and how we are given spiritual energy and grace to live out our heritage as children of God. Amen.
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