Parish Missions

Whose Story Is It?

Louis Evely wrote a beautiful book on connecting the Scriptures to our daily lives entitled That Man Is You. His thesis was that all the sacred stories in the Scriptures are really stories about you and me. At no time is this more appropriate than this Sunday as we make our way into the post-Christmas season on this feast of the Baptism of Jesus.

It is easy to see the connection between the action depicted in Luke’s Gospel and our own baptism. But the Gospel invites us to go deeper than the physical act of the ritual. The effect of the ritual is the same for you and me as it was for Jesus. As he came out of the water of the Jordan...

heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon you

in bodily form like a dove.

And a voice came from heaven,

“You are my beloved child;

with you I am well pleased.

This is not easy for us to accept as part of our story. The culprit is probably that good old “catholic guilt” instilled in us, God only knows how. But the reality is that the consistent message of the Sacred Story is that our story is rooted in God’s unconditional love for us. To that end I offer one more connecting story before we close the book on the Christmas Season.

A few years back, I was invited to dinner at a

parishioner’s home one Christmas season. In additi

on to the host couple, their daughter, son-in-law and

their two children were present. Little Sarah was all of

three and Benjamin was an energetic six. They found

great delight in showing off their many Christmas gifts

to the priest-guest. Sarah returned several times with

her new doll to make sure I appreciated its beauty as

much as she did. Benjamin, too, paraded before me

a host of creative games.

Their enthusiasm seemed endless as they returned

again and again to make sure I understood just how

wonderful were all gifts they had received. Finally, in an

effort to get the conversation to move on, I acknowledged

the inevitable conclusion of the parade of gifts. I said to

Benjamin and Sarah, “You must have really been very

good to have received so many wonderful gifts.” Their

father, who was seated next to me on the sofa, leaned

over and whispered in my ear, “They got the gifts because

they’re loved.”

It was immediately apparent that the father of those children understood the connection between the Sacred Story and our own human story. It was equally obvious that the priest-guest did not! He had bought into the story of the prevailing culture typified by the popular “you better not pout, you better not cry, I’m telling you why.” The culture simply says: “You’ll get the gifts if you’re good.” Unfortunately, we have come to believe that we also have to earn God’s love, failing to see that it is a gift without conditions.

Just as God sees us as supremely lovable, our response should be like Benjamin’s and Sarah’s--one of unabashed gratitude. We may see ourselves as unworthy, but that doesn’t mean that God loves us less or that we should be anything other than ecstatically joy-filled. That’s why we come into God’s presence as a worshipping community each week. We come to joyfully proclaim our thanks for the love of God. What else can we do when given such a gift except to give thanks?

That wasn’t a rhetorical question! What else is there that God’s love requires of us. Again, the Sacred Story is our story. In the words of Isaiah proclaimed today:

I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice,

I have grasped you by the hand;

I formed you, and set you

as a covenant of the people,

a light for the nations,

to open the eyes of the blind,

to bring out prisoners from confinement,

and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.

God’s love for us, heralded by our baptism, is not only a gift; it is a challenge, a challenge to witness the divine presence in our world. We have been chosen, blessed, consecrated in our baptism. That is an awesome gift for which we give thanks in the Eucharistic celebration. But it is also a gift that empowers us through the Eucharist to be the very presence of the Christ to the world. Just as Christ offered himself by dying and rising for us, so do we, in our baptism, die to self to live for him by offering ourselves for the realization of that prophetic Isaian vision--the victory of justice. We are part of that covenant of which he speaks, not just as recipients of the promise, but as full participants in its fulfillment.

As we commemorate the feast of the Baptism of Jesus, we recall our own baptism when we were called Beloved. It’s all gift. We didn’t earn it. All we can do is give thanks and praise, and pledge to live and die as he did: going about doing good and healing all those oppressed, for God is with us. That’s the message this Sunday. That's the Sacred Story. It's our story.