Happenings


A sermon by Associate Minister Elsa A. Peters, January 13, 2008

Matthew 3:13-17

It has happened. Caden Jordan O’Meara has been baptized. We have all remembered our baptisms. It has happened right here so that it seems that the heavens should open. After all, that’s how it happened for Jesus when he waded into the river next to this eccentric man sprinkling water upon the crowds. Just after “Jesus came up from the water,” Matthew tells us that the “heavens were opened.” The heavens were opened.

“Heaven denoted the visible sky.” In the ancient worldview, this dome that cupped the earth was supported by “pillars dividing the upper waters from the flat earth and from the watery depths below the earth.” The moon and stars were somehow connected to these pillars. And above this dome-like structure that creates the heavens, there is the highest heaven. In ancient belief, and perhaps in some present day thought where we believe that these things just happen, this superior region was God’s realm.

It didn’t just happen that God appeared. God had to break through the barriers of the heavens to get down into the human realm. It didn’t just happen. The heavens were opened. And then, God came into this moment where two men stand in the middle of the river wondering what has just happened.

Sitting in a local coffee shop this week scratching my head about what this ripping apart of heaven might mean in, I was distracted by a photograph in the Press Herald. “Winslow Scene Suitable for Homer” read the caption above this haunting image of yellow and orange sunset.

It just happened to be sitting there next to an article about mud season coming early. I didn’t quite understand how this sunset was newsworthy. And yet, as I stared at this photograph in the paper, I heard the echo of the Matthew’s strange language in this Gospel Lesson: “The heavens were opened.”

Is this what happened? It’s fairly ordinary for us. This week’s weather was not ordinary. But, fantastic skies are part of our everyday lives – even though the Press Herald seems to intone that Winslow has the most breathtaking sunsets in Maine. Winslow Scene Suitable for Homer.

As you know, Winslow is not only a neighboring town. It is also the first name of an artist that was famous for manipulating the skies. Winslow Homer filled his sketchbooks with careful watercolor studies of the heavens.

Before I even knew where Winslow was, I knew Homer’s skies. Homer was the artist that my grandmother most adored and through whose strokes I learned to paint the energy of clouds and light. Fueled by the same enthusiasm that Homer had, my grandmother taught me that true artists took their watercolors outside. She taught me not to paint – but to watch so that I could understand the movements of each cloud and each beam of light only to echo them with my brush. Of course, more often than not, this ended with the most furious of artistic gestures.

This was how I ripped apart the heavens. I would simply obliterate the sky with a frustrated line that ruined the image. It wasn’t a clap of thunder or a bolt of lightening. It wasn’t air pollution or a burst of warm weather that made my painting sloppy. There was nothing dramatic about this change in the landscape other than my own frustration.

Is this how it happened? Is this how it happens? Is this what happens when the temperatures rise to an unseasonable 60 degrees in January? Or do the heavens open every time that the sun sets or a bolt of lightening shatters the sky? Is this a scene suitable for Homer? Or would it help if Matthew took his paints down to the banks of the Jordan to paint what happened there?

Usually, Matthew paints with words. He masterfully paints in the details of Jesus’ life, as he does with the careful rendering of the actions of John the Baptizer before the heavens open. Matthew is careful to tell us who this John character is and what he is doing right up until the point where he introduces Jesus who came from Galilee to find John in the Jordan. And then, Matthew’s masterpiece falls apart.

The language becomes awkward and fragmented. John sounds like he has a stutter. Jesus seems nervous. And then, the heavens were opened.

This didn’t just happen. God didn’t just rip apart the heavens in a moment. Even if Matthew’s language is confusing and awkward, this didn’t just happen. It’s been happening all along. It started when John called crowds to the banks of the river Jordan. It may have even started before that. But, as far as Matthew is concerned, the good news somehow started when these crowds came to get dunked in the river because the realm of God is near.

How could that happen? We could offer explanations about how God’s realm might be part of our own realm. We could watch the changing skies or paint masterpieces. Or if we are so bold, we could perform rituals that remind us that there is something that will change in ourselves and in our world. Even if it was near the beginning of our journey before we could make frustrated gestures or ask questions about what this means, this ritual with water recognized what was and is still happening in you. The heavens are opening.

In the United Church of Christ, we affirm this heaven opening moment to be:

an outward and visible sign of the grace of God. Through baptism a person is joined with the universal church, the body of Christ. In baptism, God works in us the power of forgiveness, the renewal of the spirit, and the knowledge of the call to be God’s people always.

With water, the strange movement of the skies and the responsive action of this family of faith, we recognize that each of us is beloved. It happens when the heavens are opened enough that we are aware that God’s realm is so near and we could be part of making God’s world our own. It could happen. It is happening.