Matthew 3:13-17

O Holy One, Our strength is in you. May your Spirit direct and rule our hearts in all ways today through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen

John the Baptist sure gets around – doesn’t he? We expect to hear his fiery message of repentance in Advent and then sometimes he does show up again in Epiphany, sometimes even in Lent, but not usually during the Easter season. Of course, the Gospel reading today is taken from the daily office…so lo and behold just when you’re not expecting him he shows up… like a bad penny – for some. He is a very familiar penny though found in all four of the Gospels so there is no way of getting around him, this appointed messenger of God, prophet sent to prepare the way of the coming of the Lord. One who was sent to baptize faithful Jews as a sign of repentance and preparation for the coming Messiah. One who shouted the word of God with all its force, truth and directness. Calling people to compassion, to share with the poor but above all announcing that “another is to come” after him, whose sandals he was not even worthy to untie. One who would baptize not with water as he did, but with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

Can you just imagine John must have been a little surprised and a bit horrified when Jesus showed up on the scene asking to be baptized? Here was the one he knew he was waiting for asking to be baptized by him. What happened to the agenda? What happened to the fire, to the coming new order that God would initiate. John had taught that the people should purify themselves by his baptism of water, now, so that they would be cleansed and ready to pass safely through the fires of judgment that were to come. Surely it was John who needed to be baptized by Jesus. But as we already know…this was not the agenda.

Several years ago, with Advent quickly approaching, the clergyperson I was working with asked if I would like take on the job of putting together an Advent program for the congregation. Fortunately, I had just seen an excellent Christian drama performed by a local group named Double Edge Productions. After the performance, they mentioned they were available to perform an Advent drama starring none other than John the Baptist baptizing Jesus in the Jordon River and it worked out that they could come to St. Nathaniel’s. The performance begins with several actors walking to the river to be baptized by John. As I watched the actors who were depicting every sort and condition of people, I had a vision (one that is still with me today) of the hundreds of spiritually empty people out there longing for an encounter with God streaming to the river to be baptized by John. Then Jesus appears and he goes into the river, a river full of all the sorts and conditions of those who were longing for a new cleansed relationship with God and he takes on those conditions, those “sins” all the way to the cross.

According to Matthew, Jesus’ baptism marked his true identity. The heavenly voice declares Jesus to be both Son of God and Suffering Servant propelling Jesus to obey the call to love. This call of love takes him along the dusty roads of Palestine, touching and healing every sort and condition of people. It takes him into the political arena, where he experiences the public shame and the physical agony of being tortured and crucified. It takes him to the grave, where he conquers death, and rises on the third day.

No, this messiah was not the agenda instead this Son of God Messiah was a Servant Messiah who went about the work of teaching, healing, feeding, washing feet and having compassion for all of God’s children. This picture of Jesus as Servant, Matthew emphasizes and stresses in his Gospel because this servant picture fills in the Son of God picture, it tells us something vital about the whole gospel story and it gives us the example for the Church’s mission and ministry to the world.

St Augustine once said, “For you I am bishop, but with you I am a Christian. The first is an office accepted; the second is a gift received. One is danger; the other is safety. If I am happier to be redeemed with you than to be placed over you, then I shall, as the Lord commanded, be more fully your servant.” St. Augustine was given leadership in the Church but his nature was one of a servant first. He embodied the very servant nature of Jesus, much like John the Baptist, Moses and other leaders we have seen along the way like Martin Luther King, Jr. Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to name just a few.

This semester in Charlie’s servant leadership class we have talked a lot about the leadership qualities these servant leaders demonstrated in their lives. In my opinion and from my past experience, it is a style of leadership desperately needed in the church today. Reading this semester ‘The Servant as Leader’ by Robert Greenleaf and ‘Servant hood: Leadership for the Third Millennium’ by Retired Bishop Bennett Sims has reaffirmed my understanding that a truly effective leader is servant first. Jesus did not come to reveal a way of being religious Greenleaf said; he came to reveal a way of life. That Works!

Bishop Sims defines the work of a servant leader as one who honors the personal dignity and worth of all who are led, and one who evokes as much as possible their innate creative power for leadership. The servant leader builds up the people, not the system or the leader’s self- importance. When this is done Bishop Sims says the system will build itself. The principles of servant leadership are making room for others, truthfulness, empowerment, the exchange of power rather than control, or power with rather than power over, a belief in grace, forgiveness and reconciliation. It is a pull toward collaboration that is designed around a shared vision.

The Rev. Kevin Martin, Canon for Congregational Development in the Diocese of Texas for nine years, wrote a great book titled ‘5 Keys for Church Leaders’. The first key he talks about is ‘The Pastor as Team Leader’. He says the American Church needs to abandon its culturally fixated view of the pastor as CEO and return to the biblical view of ordained leaders as “a leader of leaders of the missionary community. We no longer need leaders who stand alone as experts and whose knowledge commends people to follow. The Church desperately needs more leaders who clearly understand that ministry belongs to and is centered in the baptized members. The Church needs new ways of thinking about leadership and about ministry because what has worked well in the past in not working very well today.

Servant hood is the key to God’s identity will it be the key to ours as well? Will we leave here puffed up by our knowledge and/or our self-importance, or will we leave humbled by the knowledge that we have a tremendous responsibility as leaders and pastors to help bring healing and wholeness to all God’s children, and to provide opportunities for the people of God to broaden and deepen their relationship with Jesus and with one another. This can happen if we incarnate the attributes of the servant Jesus like compassion, courage, and truthfulness; and if we respect the dignity and worth of all as children of God it will happen.

John had a choice that day by the Jordon River. He could have said to Jesus sorry your baptism doesn’t fit into the agenda as I see it and I’m the rector here. You should be baptizing me not I you. But John the servant leader humbly baptized the Son of God, the Servant Messiah opening the way for you and for me through our own baptism. If we are willing, if we have the courage to obey the call to love, to follow the example of servant leadership that Jesus and John give us then we will not be able to ignore the hundreds of spiritually empty people out there longing for an encounter with God for they are streaming to the river and they need to be baptized. They need to hear and witness the Good News. They need to meet the Risen Jesus. For Jesus is alive!

Most of you are aware of the tragedy that occurred in my family this past Dec. Your prayers and support during this time have been a great source of comfort to me, as this story about my brother has also. Some of you have already heard this story so please bear with me. On Sunday Dec. 9, my brother Dan and his wife Nichola spent the afternoon putting up the Christmas tree. Needing to leave to go to Nichola’s mothers for dinner in downtown Savannah, they left the house quickly leaving the decoration boxes scattered about because they knew they would be home later to put them away. As they were driving on the Truman Parkway around 5:30 pm they came upon a 17 yr. old who, driving much too fast for the curve, had just crashed his car into the center guard rail.

Dan pulled over and as he and Nichola began to run back to see if the young man was hurt they both were hit by a car traveling between 50 or 55 mph. Dan was thrown hitting the guard rail head first, which thankfully stopped him from being thrown into the oncoming traffic. He did fall on the other side of the rail face down. The 17 year old went to Nichola, who did not loose consciousness despite her many injuries, and she asked about her husband. The first man on the scene went to look for my brother, when he found him he could not find a pulse, a second man stopped and the two men were going to begin CPR when they did find a very faint pulse. I was able to meet and talk with both the men who helped my brother that evening.

There were several miracles that occurred that night; my brother must have called for an ambulance when he was pulling over because within several minutes the ambulance was on the scene. The accident took place just across the street from the trauma center and hospital and within 12 hours after the accident the pressure in my brother’s head went from over 60 to normal which is a reading of 10 and under. The doctors could not account for it and they said it had to be the hand of God. They even began calling him the miracle man. About a week and a half after the accident when the tracheotomy could finally be could be closed long enough for him to talk – he began to tell everyone about his encounter with Jesus. He said he saw Jesus – he thought it was sometime before accident because thankfully he could not remember what happened– he said Jesus was beautiful and he looked at him and told him he would be with him and help him.

When the clergy or doctors would come into his room the first thing he would say is let’s pray and he would say the prayer. I don’t know how many times he told me he was not going to be the same person. When he finally went to rehab he said to me one day, “with all the Lord has to take care of in this world he found a few minutes for me – who am I?” I said Dan you are a beloved child of God and Jesus loves you. Jesus loves each one of us. We will not be able to understand in this life why Dan’s life was spared and Nichola died, but the Good News and the Easter message is Jesus is Alive! And it is one of the Servant Messiah, whose very understanding of leadership led him to the cross, but death does have the last say – on the third day he rose from the dead and the servant church flows out from the resurrection. What will our agenda be? The Lord is Risen! Alleluia!