Homily for the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany, 2022
Homily for Epiphany 2, 2022
Fr. Tony Melton
Christ the King Anglican
"Serve the King”
This is the second sermon in a series walking through the Gospel reading in Epiphanytide. The central question in this series is, “If in Epiphany we celebrate that Jesus is manifest to the world, what do the Gospel readings teach us about Jesus. What exactly about Jesus is made manifest? Who is He? And what does this show us about the Church?”
Last week, the Gospel reading was about the boy Jesus sitting in the Temple, amazing the priests and scribes with His Wisdom. He was presented as the New Solomon, Wisdom Incarnate, Maker of the World, King of Israel. Jesus as King is continued in today’s Gospel reading. Today, we have the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, where God the Father declares Jesus to be His Beloved Son, and sends the Holy Spirit to rest upon Him as a dove. First, we will ask what this event says about Jesus. Then, we will ask what it means for us.
Let’s go over the facts of the story. John is baptizing in the Jordan. Jesus comes to John to be baptized. And the text says in Mark 1, “And straightway Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him, and there came a voice from heaven, saying, ‘Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” There are two major themes here. The first is creation language from Genesis. The second is coronation language from the Psalms. First, creation language. Listen carefully to what Mark is getting at. What else emerged from the water, had the Spirit descend and hover over it, and had divine approval spoken over it? The first creation. Where else did we see something emerge from the waters, God display His favor over it, and then had a dove come to rest on it? Noah. In fact, if you remember, Noah sent a second dove that never returned. That dove’s task was to go find the New World, the New Creation. And we don’t see that dove again until it comes to rest upon Jesus, the New Creation. So we have in this Gospel reading, very clearly, that Jesus is the New Creation.
Looking at the story from a different lens, we see another emphasis jump out. We have the Spirit poured out upon Jesus, and then God says, “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Now to us, we read this and we think, “Right, Jesus is the 2nd person of the Trinity, i.e. the “Son”. Obviously the Father is pleased with His Son, because…He’s God…they’re of the same essence. That’s neat. But there is a lot more going on here, and the Old Testament believer who didn’t know about the Trinity would have definitely picked up on it. They would have known that the Messianic King would be an “anointed Son upon whom God’s favor rested.” A good place to see this is Psalm 2.
The Psalmist ponders, “Why do the heathen so furiously rage together? The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel together * against the LORD, and against his Anointed: He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn: saying, ‘Yet have I set my King * upon my holy hill of Sion.’”
Then the Son speaks, “I will rehearse the decree; the LORD hath said unto me, ‘Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. Desire of me, and I shall give thee the nations for thine inheritance.”
Then the psalmist speaks to the world, Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and so ye perish from the right way, if his wrath be kindled, yea but a little. * Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
The Jews were waiting on the Beloved Son, and they should have known that the Baptism of Jesus was God’s way of telling them that Jesus is the promised King…of the New Creation. Now we must ask what this means for the Church. Today, we will focus more on the King aspect, and we’ll save the New Creation emphasis for next week when Jesus brings the New Wine of the New Creation. Today’s emphasis is, broadly speaking, political. I hear a lot, “Keep politics out of the pulpit!” Well, this is a political sermon. Jesus is king, and we live in a kingdom. Politics. How, then, shall we live?
The Middle Ages was the era of kings, and, as you know, kings claimed their power by divine right. The Modern age is the era of either the Republic or the Dictatorship, which have something in common that distinguishes them from divine right kingship. Power in a Republic and in a Dictatorship comes from people, not directly from God. In the case of the Republic, power is given by the people through elections and layers of representation. In a Dictatorship, power is often taken by a group of people. But in a Divine Right Kingdom, power is supposedly granted by God directly, and so the political structure that emerged in the Middle Ages was called feudal.
Before we progress any further. Two disclaimers. I’m not saying that ancient kings actually had an exclusive and direct divine right to be the king. I’m also not saying that this was a great way to govern, or had consistently great effects. The only thing that should be said in connection with our Gospel reading is that Christian nations were trying to map a political structure they saw clearly in Kingdom of God onto their Christian nation. That sounds logical, doesn’t it? And what did they see in Kingdom of God? They saw what our Collect speaks of today, that King Jesus governs all things in heaven and earth. He owns all things. And therefore everything in His Kingdom is given by grant. It is like we say in the Liturgy: “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.”
The idea that Jesus is King and that He governs His Kingdom through grants and gifts is common in the Scriptures. Actually, the Men’s Fellowship discussed this idea while studying Ephesians 4 yesterday morning. Jesus the conquering King “led captivity captive and gave gifts unto His people.” The crucial point is that the Church functions very much like a feudal system. The problem with the Middle Ages was that they tried to map the politics of the Church, which is indwelled and preserved by the Holy Spirit, onto the nation-state, which is not. But Modern Christians have the opposite problem. We map secular models of government, either the Republic or the Dictatorship, back onto the Church, as if the Church is not the physical manifestation of the Kingdom of God. And this misunderstanding of Jesus as King and the Church as Kingdom hurts our mission and steals our peace.
Our Propers this morning very clearly draw our attention to this political dynamic within the Church when they move from Jesus as the Anointed King in the Gospel, who “governs all things in heaven and earth” in the Collect, and then in the Epistle moves directly into the giving of gifts. Listen: “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. If prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.” I hope that you forever connect spiritual gifts and ministry roles with feudalism with the Baptism of Jesus.
For application, the rubber meets the road in how we conceive of authority. You don’t have to raise your hand, but have you ever seen the nastiness of when factions in a church vie for power and authority? If we conceive of the Church as a secular thing, run through representation, with power either taken by people, or given by them exclusively by the people, then the only lens with which we can see our individual role within the Church is through the lens of power, or authority. In this type of church polity, the focus of our Christian duty is forever on our vote, or our appeal, or our opinion about this or that decision or leader or doctrine. Our conversations fixate on the problems and conflicts within the Church because within that church polity, like in a Republic, everyone has the authority. So there is always fighting, because every problem is everyone’s problem.
But it is not so in the Kingdom of God; it is not to be so in the Church. Jesus, the Beloved Son, the Anointed King of the New Creation, governs all things in heaven and earth, and to each He has granted gifts, and roles, and ministry. Some to preach, some to serve, some to give, some to lead. And each person ought to function within that kingly grant with humility, gratitude, and service.
Back in Dallas, I was a part of a small group of young priest. We would get together once a month with our wives, pray for each other, eat good food. Inevitably the men would start talking church politics. “I can’t believe that bishop did that.” “I think that the Church should do this.” Yadda-yadda-yadda. I was a part of it, too. And one of my friends, a fellow priest, spoke up one night and said, “Well, well, well, don’t you all sound like a bunch of bishops!?” What was he saying? He was reminding us that Jesus is King, and Jesus is in control, and Jesus has granted differing gifts to diverse people for different purposes. To me and my brother priests, he has called us to pastor of parishes. Our work is the Cure of Souls at a local level. To the bishops, Jesus has granted the terrible burden of sorting out the problems of the Church at large, for defending against heresy. The men around my table were not only acting like bishops, they were acting like Senators. But the Church is not a Republic, it is a Kingdom. When we forget that, we lose our peace. We become embittered voters rather than joyful servants.
Now, the Church is not perfect. Everyone can see that. Yet, it is not secular either. It is filled with the Spirit of God. When things go awry, there are ways to set it back on course. But the general posture of every Christian is to receive their place and gifting and to serve in that place and gifting for the glory of God. The truth about Jesus is that He is King. The truth about us is that we are His servants who serve in our roles. We are not to focus on our own position or influence, but on God and Neighbor. Listen to where St. Paul takes the idea that we all serve in our different lanes, and how this idea of humble service creates a servant’s heart and an “other’s focus".
“Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another; Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality. Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but associate with men of low estate. Others focused. Joyful service.
CTK, we have had the blessing of peace, have we not? Some have said that this is a natural honeymoon stage for a church plant, and that is surely part of it. But I think the spiritual dynamic here is that, by God’s grace, you have a hunger for the Kingdom of God and a focus on mission. I see in you a trust in Christ that allows you to trust those who have the ministry of leadership. You have an "others focus”, a mission focus, a servant’s heart. You are not consumed with how much authority you have, but on how you can best serve our King in the place that He gives. Let us always be at peace in the service of our King, and always keep in our mind the last verse of our Psalm this morning, “The Lord remains a King forever, and He shall give strength unto his people; the Lord shall give his people the blessing of peace.” Amen.