Sermon for the First Sunday after Epiphany

Luke 3:15-17,21-22

January 10, 2010

I’ve been thinking this week about a guy I met who was standing in my service line one morning over thirty years ago when I was in the car business. He was a great guy. I don’t even remember his name, but I liked him a lot.

When I met him I had recently become the service manager of a large car dealership. After years of working in the service department in various jobs, the service manager had moved on and the owners tapped me, a young, green-about-the-ways-of-the-world kid for the job. It was a stretch.

One of the things I learned very quickly was that the service manager was responsible for buying all the chemicals and cleaners used at the dealership. We bought degreaser and detergent in 55 gallon drums, and the dealership’s account was big enough that within a week of my taking the job I began to hear from a lot of salesmen.

It seemed like a bit of a feeding frenzy. The word was apparently out that there was a new guy in charge and this was the time, if you happened to be in the auto chemical business, to get your foot in the door. It was pretty bad. The phone rang a lot. It seemed the owner of every chemical company in town was having some sort of big celebration and had therefore authorized the salesman to give people like me anything from watches to pots and pans just for signing an initial order. Lots of salesmen wanted to be my friend and several of them were just plain pushy. By the time I met the guy I’m thinking about I had been interrupted, sideswiped and even lied to by more salesmen than I ever realized were out there. It had been a long couple of weeks.

Then one morning I was standing at the check-in desk at 7:30 working a line of maybe ten folks who wanted to drop off their cars for the day. One tall guy at the back of the line had a friendly patient smile and he conversed in a friendly way with others in line as he gradually made his way to the desk. When it was finally his turn, he said he didn’t have a car to drop off. Instead, he handed me his card and said he was in the chemical business, he had been around the shop and had checked out what we needed. His prices, he said were on the back of the card. “Give me a call if I can be of any help.” Not only did we do business, we had many great conversations over coffee during my tenure as service manager.

I thought of this guy when I noticed something a little different in Luke’s version of the story of Jesus’ baptism. It is a small detail, but it is one that stands out because it doesn’t appear in any of the other gospels. The baptism of Jesus is one of the stories we celebrate during Epiphany, and it is the central story of the Epiphany in the Eastern Church. Epiphany of course, means “manifestation” and we understand the feast of Epiphany and the season of Epiphany to be about the ways in which God is revealed to be present with us in the person of Jesus. The baptism stories in Matthew, Mark and Luke all end with the dove descending and a voice form heaven saying “this is my son my beloved in whom I am well pleased.” The story comes at the beginning of Jesus‘ ministry as he takes center stage and the spotlight falls upon him.

In Matthew and Mark the only person we hear about being baptized is Jesus. The story is about him and him alone. Luke, though, takes it in a little different direction. Luke says, “now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized.” In this tiny detail, Luke shows us a Jesus who is with the people who came out to see John, with them not as the star of the show, but as one of them. Jesus was baptized, not alone, but as one of the many. I have this image of Jesus waiting in line, not concerned about getting to John, trusting that his turn will come. It seems important that Luke would want this part of Jesus’ life, his being among us as one of us, held up as a way in which God is made manifest in our world.

Luke shows us Jesus willing to stand alongside us in the mundane and the not so mundane, a companion in the everyday business of life. We do a lot of waiting in this life, and because of this little addition in Luke’s version of the story, we have this morning the the strong suggestion that we never wait alone. Whether we are waiting at the social security office, waiting at the DMV office, waiting for news from Iraq, from the doctor….waiting for a child to get a handle on life and take hold of their future in such a way that you can sleep at night. Luke today gives us a Jesus who has time to wait with us. Who has time for us!

Luke gives us in this little detail, a glimpse into his theology. He shows us a Jesus who lives not above us or over us or out ahead of us, but beside us, even if we are slow about figuring out where it is we are trying to go. Jesus who lives with us walks with us on our schedules. Jesus who says by joining our lives in that way that his focus is not on some destination to which he would lead us, but on us. We are worth his time--his living. In Jesus God chooses to join us where we are. Luke’s Jesus--whose baptism doesn’t stop the show, who is baptized in the company of all who have come out to see John--Luke’s Jesus has time to wait for us, with us. He’s not anxious about selling what he has come to bring us. He simply enters the story, speaks clearly and honestly about who he is, goes out and meets people where they are, and treats well and with great respect those who are used to being treated badly. With an approach like that, the people who encounter him naturally become interested in what he might have to offer.

I was a harried, overwhelmed new service manager when that guy took the time to wait in my service line. What sold me was his understanding and respect for my situation and his confidence in his product. He didn’t need tricks to convince people. Anyone who gave him a little of their time would see that what he was selling was a good deal, and he began the exchange by giving of his time first.

The people who went out to see John that day were all looking for something. They wanted cleansing, renewal, strength, forgiveness. Jesus didn’t move to the head of the line to make his pitch. Instead he joined them like that guy in my line that day. I’m guessing he heard their stories, listened, and left them believing they had been in the presence of someone who was willing to spend a little life with them in the waiting. It was quite an approach, very effective, for here we all are.

And we still bring our children, the vessels of our greatest hopes to the waters of baptism. We come ourselves, looking for something we can’t always name, trusting that there is something in this Rite that will make our lives--their lives--different, new, more solid.

In just a moment we will ask questions, make introductions, tell stories and talk for a while about what it is we seek in the baptismal waters. All this we will do before we make the journey to the font. And as we tell our stories and ask our questions, we will know that Jesus isn’t in the water, but with us as we make our way to the water, caring, listening, loving each of us every step of the way. Amen