Excerpts from the sermon of the Very Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely, Dean of Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix:
“If the Baptism of Jesus means anything to us today, it is because, as St. Augustine pointed out, Jesus’ human mother means that he is both fully human as well as being fully divine. When he comes up out of the water, and the voice of God is heard by the children of Israel for the first time in thousand of years, the delight that God has in him, is also speaking of God’s delight in us.
“But we are only in this scene because, as the Prayer Book says, we are part of the body of Christ. And it is our participation in this body that will ultimately give us the ability to overcome our tendency to objectify another and subject them to violence. Because as long as we can see each other as members of the same body, we will not be able to dismiss them as ‘scum,’ ‘vermin’ or ‘parasites’ as graffiti I have seen here in Arizona has described our President.
“And so if we are to stand against the flames of violence and hatred that even now licking at the edges of our state, we are going to have to live into our vocation as members of the Body of Christ. We are going to have create humanizing relationships with each other that will make it impossible to objectify our sister and brother. We are going to have to make our city, our state and our country into our neighborhood. We must build walls of love with each one of us serving as a brick in that wall. And those walls will stand against the flames.
Some people tell me that I’m being naive. I probably am. But violence begets violence. By preaching love, the Church has stood fast against empire after empire. It is our way. And it’s time we got to it.
From The Lead at Episcopal Café. Photo from AP.
