A Sermon Preached at St. Stephen’s on July 23, 2006, by the Rev. Cork Tarplee

In the middle of the fifth-century, St. Patrick baptized Aengus, the King of Ireland.  According to early historians, Patrick leaned heavily on his sharp-pointed pastoral staff and inadvertently stabbed the king in the foot.  After the baptism, Patrick noticed a growing pool of blood on the floor and realized what he’d done.  He begged the king’s forgiveness and asked why he hadn’t said anything.  “I thought,” responded the king, “that it was part of the ritual.”

For the most part nowadays baptism is a clean and painless event.  Children sometimes cry as if you are poking them in the foot, but we adults generally make light of their tears as if no harm is done.  But baptism is at heart a messy event—and one that in some sense ought to draw blood.

All of us who have been baptized ought to remember Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River .  Far from being a neat and pristine moment, baptism in the Jordan —which is a notoriously muddy stream—was messy.  All of us who have been baptized ought also to remember that for Jesus his baptism was the start of his public ministry.  And that public ministry was no easy-going walk in the park.  It drew blood.

Today’s Gospel is a reminder of just how much work that public ministry was.  In the story we just read, the twelve come back to Jesus to report on their first experience sharing his ministry.  They had been sent into the towns and villages with no money or equipment to heal the sick and bring good news to the poor.  Now they are back full of stories about what it was like.  Jesus can see that their work has been hard for them and he proposes that they all go off together to some quiet place and for the only time in the New Testament, he doesn’t suggest that they should pray or study. They go away this time simply to “rest a while. For many were coming and going and they had no leisure.”

For Jesus and the disciples the work they took on involved the constant push of the crowds and constant sweaty demands.  And the Gospel reminds us that Jesus’ constant response is compassion.  Even when he tried to get away for a little while, Jesus was moved, St. Mark reports, by the neediness of the crowds. “He had compassion on them,” the Gospel says, “Because they were like sheep without a shepherd.”

This Gospel is good news in the first place because it reminds us that Jesus’ followers were always the great unwashed, ordinary people, living ordinary lives, burdened by work, frightened by the brutality of life and hurting.  Jesus is never aloof from these people.  In his own baptism, he gets right into the mud of the river just like everybody else, and throughout his ministry it is the ordinary needs of ordinary people he responds to.

The Gospel is also a stern reminder that we are called to ministry. Noted American author and flamboyant personality Alexander Woolcott never had any children, but he was asked to serve as godfather to 19 of his friends’ offspring.  In 1931 when he stood as godparent to Helen Hayes’ daughter Mary, he had played the role so often that he quipped “Always a godfather, never a god!”

Woolcott missed a theological point. All the many baptisms we participate in call us to be godparents—that is, they all ask us to take responsibility for the growth of the children we baptize. But a more important point is this: Baptism itself calls us to become gods.  Baptism is the start of a process by which we are all intended to grow up into more Jesus-like people.  Baptism was not just the start of Jesus’ public ministry; it is also the start of ours.

So in some sense, our baptisms are intended to draw blood—ours. This neat and apparently harmless event sends us all out to get our hands dirty, just as Jesus and his friends did. The promises of our Baptismal Covenant make that clear: We promise to keep going to church—even though that is going to cost us money and rest on Sunday mornings, and even though in some circles it may be embarrassing to admit that we do it. We promise to keep coming back when we make mistakes—and we all know that we would rather think of ourselves as squeaky clean people who never need any forgiveness. We promise to serve Christ in all persons—and we all know that the people who are in the most need are sometimes the messiest people to be around.  We promise to work for justice and peace in the world—and standing up for the oppressed and speaking out for peace are often pretty unpopular things to do.

The work of Christ’s ministry in this world hasn’t changed.  People are still clamoring for healing and nourishment, for hope and direction.  What changes every day are the people who agree to respond to those needs.  Every day someone new is baptized.  Every day someone else is moved by compassion to make a difference in the lives of others.  Today, perhaps the person who is moved to help will be someone in this room.                                     AMEN