Sermon - Baptism of Our Lord 2022

Sermon - Baptism of Our Lord 2022

Each of the gospels gives us a different portrait of John the Baptist. In the Gospel of John (different John), John the Baptist declares Jesus to be the messiah, and cries out ‘Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’. Interestingly, in John’s gospel, Jesus does not actually get baptised. John is (we think) the last gospel to be written. But what about the first?

In Mark, we meet John clothed in camel’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey. John the Baptist is portrayed as the forerunner of Christ, preparing the way for him.

In Matthew, John the Baptist gets snippy. ‘You brood of vipers!’ is how he famously describes the Pharisees and Sadducees. Today we might say ‘a mob of snakes’.

Sermon for Epiphany 2022

Sermon for Epiphany 2022

Most of the time, being an Anglican is a very ‘mixed bag’. We are, after all, the church of Empire, complicit in the colonial enterprise – derived from a state church with an hereditary monarch as Supreme Governor. We’re not quite Catholic and not quite protestant, and our favourite activity is shooting our wounded.

But we are also the church of Desmond Tutu. Tutu was one of those Anglican leaders who meant we could hold our heads high. His exuberant energy, his terrific sense of humour, his confrontation of systemic evil, and his unswerving commitment to reconciliation and peacemaking. He was the best of us. He wasn’t just a social justice warrior or a preacher – he was also a spiritual being. His life was shaped by prayer and by sharing, usually daily, in the Eucharist. In a sea of bland episcopal functionaries - Tutu was a bishop with passion and vision and a fire in his guts. His vision lives on in myriad ways, but his loss to the Anglican movement cuts me pretty deeply, I have to admit.