Isaiah 42.1-9, Psalm 29, Acts 10.34-43, Matthew3.13-17
Today is the feast of the
Baptism of Christ, but it’s also known as Plough Sunday, because according to
very ancient tradition, going right back into the Middle Ages, tomorrow is Plough
Monday. Plough Monday is the first Monday after Epiphany, January 6, and it was
the start of the agricultural year, the moment when ploughing started to
prepare the ground for the coming year’s crops. At a time when people were much
more aware of their dependence on the soil, it was a very important moment.
Agricultural labourers would be touting for work, desperate for an income in
the dark months of winter. Farmers would be hoping for good weather to get the preparation
for seed-sowing done.
So prayers would be said in
church on this Sunday for the coming agricultural year. Some churches even kept
a parish plough in the back of the church for those who didn’t have their own
to use, and candles would be lit in front of it.
And on Plough Monday itself,
ploughs would be dragged around the village, accompanied by singing and dancing.
The villagers might dress up, disguising themselves, and appeal not only for work,
but for money to help tide them over through bad weather when ploughing couldn’t
be done.
My guess is that most of us
won’t be trying to do any ploughing tomorrow, but this time of year is
definitely a “back to work” time for many, or a time of getting back to a more
normal routine if you aren’t out at work. How you feel about that depends on
what your work or your “normal” day to day life feels like. If you have a job,
and it’s a job you enjoy, work is a blessing, but work can also be tough and
challenging, precarious and insecure, consuming every waking moment, or not
paying well enough to live on. The worst of the winter weather is often still
ahead of us, and there are no Christmas lights to brighten the dark nights that
still lie ahead. This is it.
That’s why it seems a good
idea to me to mark this day, even if most of us have never laid a hand on a
plough. Plough Sunday proclaims that daily life matters, our work, our everyday
routine matters. If our faith doesn’t impinge on that, then it isn’t a faith
work having. Faith is not just about what happens in an hour on a Sunday
morning in church. What we do here on a Sunday morning is meant to strengthen us
for the calling we all have Monday to Saturday. To help us think about that,
the C of E has launched some resources called “Everyday Faith” – there’s a
series of 21 daily reflections you can sign up for on the Church of EnglandWebsite, in an app or by email, starting
tomorrow, and a booklet available too – I’ll put a copy on the Red Table to
look at. They are all designed to help us think about where we find God, and
show his love day by day wherever we are.
Our readings today are a
great way to set us off on those reflections on everyday faith. Today’s Psalm invited us to listen for the
voice of God in the world around us, to see God at work in the forests and
oceans, not just in the sacred space we have carefully roped off for him.
Isaiah, in the Old Testament
reading, talks about the servant of God who brings good news to others by his
patient care – not breaking bruised reeds or quenching dimly burning flames. Biblical scholars argue about who or what he
had in mind when he wrote this, though of course, Christians have seen Jesus as
the perfect example of it. But towards the end of the reading, it is clear that
God is calling the whole nation, all his people, to be “a light to the nations” setting people free from oppression,
living the faith they profess.
In the reading we heard from
Acts, Peter, an ordinary fisherman, does just that. He proclaims the message of
God to a Roman Centurion, Cornelius, and his household. He doesn’t leave it to
some religious professional – this is his story, and he is going to tell
it. He hasn’t been to theological
college or got any academic qualifications, but his life has been shaped
by walking with Jesus, day by day, learning to see himself as Jesus sees him,
getting it wrong and being forgiven, falling down and being picked up again. It’s
the fruit of spending three years close to Jesus, learning from him, being
changed by him. Cornelius and his household can see that he knows what he is
talking about because he’s lived it.
But it is the Gospel reading
which gives us the most powerful demonstration of what it looks like to have a
God who is with us where we are, in every situation, 24/7.
Jesus comes to John the
Baptist at the River Jordan, to be baptized. John can’t understand why. His
baptism is a baptism of repentance, based very closely on the kind of ritual
washing which would have been a regular part of everyone’s religious practice,
and still is in both the Jewish and Muslim faiths. Ritual washing was a way of
symbolically purifying yourself before you worshipped, having your sins washed
away. But John couldn’t see why Jesus needed it. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
”I need to be baptised by you, and do you
come to me?”, he says.
But Jesus wouldn’t be put off.
This needs to happen he says, “to fulfil
all righteousness.” What on earth does that mean?
Righteousness is a clumsy
word. We easily confuse it with self-righteousness, that “holier-than-thou”
attitude which looks down on others, in an attempt artificially to bolster our
own sense of self-esteem. But righteousness isn’t that at all. Righteousness is
how things are when everything is as it ought to be – relationships, attitudes,
body, mind, soul, spirit. It is about the whole of life, the whole of
creation. It often goes with peace in
the Bible, because it’s the only route to real peace. (e.g. Ps 85.10) We can
paper over cracks and hope for the best, we can negotiate cease-fires in the
trouble spots in our world, or in our neighbourhoods and families, but unless
we put things right at the root level, the trouble will all be there waiting to
break out again afresh.
Jesus comes to “fulfil all righteousness”, to do
what is right, to put right what is wrong, to mend what is broken, to
heal what is hurting, to bring together what we have divided through our
prejudice and suspicion of one another.
To do that, he needs to get at the root of the problem, in the depths of
human hearts and human experiences, and that means being where we are, not just
when we are on our Sunday-best behaviour, but when we are feeling exhausted and
fractious trying to spread ourselves too thinly in a job that’s impossible to
do, or at loggerheads with our boss, or feeling worthless because we can’t find
a job at all. It means being where we are when we are anxious about our loved
ones, or feel we have let them down. It means being where we are when we are
succeeding too, because sometimes it’s the good times which are most damaging
to our faith, when we start to believe that we can go it alone without God and
others, that our success is all down to our own brilliance.
Throughout his life Jesus,
shows this commitment to being where we are. It starts with his birth, a tiny
child laid in a manger in a world that has no room for him, just as it has so
often got no room for the vulnerable and the weak. It is seen throughout his ministry
in his friendship with those who are outcast. Ultimately it will lead him to
the cross, where he’ll die the death of a criminal, entering into the worst of
human experience. But his baptism is a significant moment in his identification
with us too. Jesus goes down into the waters of the Jordan just like any of
those lost, battered, guilty, confused people who have flocked to John hoping he
can wash away the mess of their lives. He identifies with us so that we can
identify with him, so that we can hear the words God speaks to him, “This is my Son, the beloved” so that we
can know that he means to include us in those words too. Just as Jesus is God’s
beloved son, so are we all his beloved children.
I spoke earlier about the
Church of England’s Everyday Faith
initiative, and I’d like to finish by inviting you to share in a little
activity inspired by their resources. It’s called “This Time Tomorrow”. I’ve
given you all two post-it notes. If you haven’t got any, there are spares in
the pews. I’d like to invite you to take one and think about what you will be
doing this time tomorrow. Maybe you’ll be at work, doing whatever you do –
happily or unhappily. Maybe you’ll be caring for a family member, or doing the
housework or on a journey. I will probably be hovering around the church, in
case I’m needed to sort anything out with the plasterers who are starting work
on the North Aisle tomorrow. I’d like
you to write on the first note whatever it is you’ll be doing, and stick it on
this noticeboard as you come up for communion. Let it be a way of giving that
Monday morning activity to God, and sharing it with all the rest of us too, so
we can pray for each other.
The second post-it is for you
to take away. I’d like you to write on it – perhaps at the end of the service -
something which you want to recall and hold onto from this morning’s worship –
a word, a thought, an experience, a feeling. And then, “this time tomorrow”, I’d
like you, if you can, to look at it again. Let it be a reminder that the God
you meet in church is still with you then, wherever you are. Let it be a
reminder to you that you are still his beloved child, whatever you are doing,
treasured, valued, called, with a job to do for him, with love to share, and
good news to proclaim.
Amen
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