Sermons

Jan 7 - The Rev. Brian C. Taylor - Baptized by fire and the Holy Spirit

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January 7, 2007
Baptized by fire and the Holy Spirit
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

The First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of Our Lord
Isaiah 43:1-7, Psalm 29, Acts 8:14-17, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

John the Baptist was a wild man. He wore animal skins and ate insects in the desert, publicly denouncing the political figure who would eventually behead him for his insolence. Most of us prefer the figure of Jesus. We like to think of him, in contrast to John, as kindly and benevolent; he healed, loved, and spoke gentle wisdom to the children along the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

And yet, strangely, John took the opposite view. He said that he had come to baptize only with water – a benign, cleansing, and comforting symbol – but that the much more powerful Jesus would come to clear the threshing floor, to burn our chaff, and to baptize us with fire and the Holy Spirit.

What are your associations with these words? Mine have to do with wild-eyed Pentecostals, writhing on the floor and speaking in tongues. Scary stuff, isn’t it? - unrestrained, passionate devotion. One of my predecessors - in fact, our parish’s founding Rector, Paul Saunders - told me half-kiddingly that in the 1970’s, when the charismatic movement was young and untamed, he tried to stamp it out in this parish. But he said All I got for my efforts was a burnt pant leg.

I was very fortunate to have had a positive experience with the fire-breathing Pentecostals back in those days. I was a musician then, and one of my favorite kinds of performance was what I called sound-music: groups of people improvising sounds using things like rusty car hoods, water and rocks, random radio sounds, vocalizations. The Zen composer John Cage was my model. I still have his photo among my wall of heroes in my office.

It was during this period that I attended a few Pentecostal and charismatic prayer-meetings. What struck me was that when they began to dance, twitch, or speak in unknown tongues, they were involved in a kind of unconscious improvisation. Like me and my music friends, they tapped into a completely intuitive, non-rational form of soul-play. Children do it all the time. So do abstract artists and tribal dancers.

We’re not just rational beings. We’re also passionate, spontaneous, emotional, and mystical. When religious experience taps into this unconscious material, it becomes very powerful. That’s what Jesus did. He tapped into a place in people that was deeper than the intellect, deeper than values and doctrine, deeper than ethical behavior. He plunged them into the darkness, turned them around, woke them up and set them free. He baptized with fire and the Spirit.

Jesus envisioned a passionate transformation of the whole person, a rebirth. He asked impossible things, things that only a transformed person might be able to do: Do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute you, love your enemies. Give to everyone who begs from you, lend and expect nothing in return, give away your possessions. Let your goodness fall on the deserving and the undeserving alike, just like the rain. If someone strikes you on the cheek, offer them the other cheek, too. Do not worry about tomorrow. Be afraid of no one, for you belong to a kingdom that is not of this world. Die to your self.

To hear these words in a pious church setting on Sunday morning is one thing; but when we allow them into the concreteness of our life, it is something else entirely. When someone hates us, how do we do good to them? How do we break our attachment to possessions, to worry, to status, to our very sense of self?

Jesus baptizes us with fire. He takes us into unknown territory where we do not know how to be faithful as he asks us to. He takes us beyond what we think we are capable of doing, to a place where we are not in control. To be a follower of Jesus is to subject ourselves, time after time, our whole lives long, to a baptism by fire.

I hate to break it to you, but it never gets easy, at least for me:
· every time someone treats me badly and I hear Jesus off in the background saying Be honest, stand up for yourself, but love, forgive, never disrespect another precious child of God;
· every time I am tempted to envy or be intimidated by those with mere worldly power or status, and I hear Jesus saying The last shall be first and the first shall be last;
· every time I worry about money or accomplishing hard things or what others might be thinking about me and I hear Jesus saying Consider the lilies of the field; do o not worry about anything; trust in God;
· every time I am tired and spent and someone else’s urgent demands break in upon me and I hear Jesus say Empty yourself, become nothing, die to yourself -
- I want to say to him Are you kidding? This is the real world, here, buddy. I’m only human. It is always a baptism by fire with this guy.

Humanly speaking, Jesus’ way is impossible. But, as he said, for God, all things are possible. That’s why John the Baptist said that Jesus would baptize not only with fire, but with the Holy Spirit. And as Jesus promised, he sends us that Spirit to guide us into all truth.

The Spirit’s guidance into truth begins with the challenge. We hear Jesus’ gospel week after week, perhaps daily, and if we have ears to hear, he confronts our assumptions, even our sense of what is possible and even fair.

Our immediate reaction to his challenge, naturally, is to realize how inadequate we are to the task. At this point, we face a fork in the road; we have a decision to make. In one direction, we can walk off, shrugging our shoulders, assuming that this sort of thing is only for the true believers, the radical saints. This is the real world, buddy. I’m only human.

The other way, the way of transformation, is the path of surrender. Of course you can’t do any of the irrational and superhuman things Jesus asks of you. And so you must surrender to the Spirit, dying to your self, dying to your precious self-image that you should be able to do this, dying to the very effort to accomplish what Jesus asks. Give up!

But then also keep your eyes fixed on the vision, and wait patiently for the Spirit to fulfill it. This is no passive stance; it takes all the passion we have, the hope that we shall be free, loving more fully, awake and of service to God’s world. It takes passion to hold on to the conviction that God can and will transform us.

Here’s where we have something to learn from those wild-eyed Pentecostals in their self-abandonment. For our faith sometimes takes us to a non-rational, intuitive, unconscious place, where we must improvise and surrender to the Spirit. Do not try to do it yourself. But never give up on God.

Because as you hold on to hope, as you surrender to the Spirit to do what you cannot do, God will change you. It may not be today or tomorrow, but transformation will come. You will one day notice that you can love without justification; you won’t like some people, but at least you’ll respect and treat them fairly, with no resentment – and that’s love. You will see that your heart is more generous and empathetic, less attached and afraid. You will be born again.

Today we renew our baptismal covenant, our vows to God. We remember what sort of vision we were baptized into. We promise many impossible things, answering every question With God’s help I will do these things. We rekindle our passion and hope. We surrender. And we are baptized again with fire and the Holy Spirit.