Download Sermon TextBaptism of Jesus: January 11 2026, Say Yes
Say Yes
Say Yes
Homily by Lisa Wiens Heinsohn for St. John’s Episcopal Church
The Baptism of Jesus, January 11, 2026: Matthew 3:13-17; Isaiah 42:1-9
What a week. In living memory I do not recall a week like this one except the week that George Floyd was killed nearly six years ago now. But we are here now. Here in the presence of God and ourselves and one another, surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses that are our spiritual ancestors and our kin the maple and cedar trees outside and the snow and Lake Harriet and Bde Maka Ska, we are here now.
The world today feels like quicksand, and it can feel like we are drowning. It is true that Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother, was murdered by an ICE agent in the car she was driving with her wife. It is true that 2000 ICE agents have been sent here by the federal government and that Minneapolis shut its schools for two days this week to protect our children from the federal government. But in the middle of the quicksand there is a lifeline. There is a strong and powerful platform under our feet that will not let us drown. That platform is the living, breathing truth of the power of God’s love. There is a rope to hang onto called our liturgy and our stories and our scripture. There is a person standing next to you who understands your fear and anger and pain, who is in this with you, and that is the person of Jesus embodied in the St. John’s community and the bread and wine and the beautiful insistence that in the kin-dom of God everyone belongs, everyone is made in the image of God.
Renee Good was good and made in the image of God. The person who killed her was also made in the image of God and has goodness in him although he manifested evil and violence. My dear friend Rebecca Voelkel went to ICE headquarters on Thursday morning at 7am to demand that ICE leave Minnesota, and 200 ICE agents came outside in full military uniform and gear and stood there. Rebecca said to many of them, “you don’t have to do this. You can say no.” Some of them ignored her. But some of the ICE agents were obviously of Latino descent and she said that some of them looked so distraught. They looked as if they are suffering moral injury. There is no such thing as a living caricature. Every single person is a human being with a soul and a life story.
In today’s gospel reading, a young man from Galilee whom no one had ever heard of showed up at the River Jordan to be baptized by his cousin John. This is at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. There has been not a single miracle, or teaching, or healing. No disciples have yet been called. Jesus is a nobody. In my imagination, Jesus has finally decided it’s time to go public. It’s time to pick up the mantle that has been his since birth and unleash the power within him to heal, and teach, and proclaim good news to the poor. No one told him he was supposed to do that. It was a fire in his own belly that many people ridiculed him for. He did not go through an ordination process that helped other people say of him, “this man is vetted. He’s legitimate.” The only endorsement Jesus had is the one we see in today’s gospel story. When Jesus is baptized by John, Jesus sees the skies open and the Spirit of God descending like a dove upon him and he hears the voice of God saying, “This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” We don’t know if anyone else saw or heard this happening. But Jesus saw this, he felt it, and he knew in his bones that God was confirming his decision to go public. Before he had done a single powerful thing, there is God, assuring him at the core of his being, you matter. I love you. I am pleased with you.
That is Jesus’ initiation into finally saying yes to the purpose of his life.
The scriptures don’t tell us why Jesus chose this moment to go see his cousin John and ask for baptism. But there was clearly a moment when he decided, now is the time. Maybe King Herod did one too many awful things and he said, if I don’t do this now, when will it ever happen? We don’t know. Whatever the reason, he made the decision to surrender to his soul’s purpose. And he was caught up into a great current, the current of alignment with the will of God, that said healing and liberation are the purpose of your life and the will of God for this world, and nothing and no one can take that away from you.
There are moments in life that come that are not repeated, and what we do in those moments can, if we choose, send us on a different trajectory than the one we were in before. They all revolve around saying yes to God, saying yes to what seems impossible. And even if Jesus was the only one who saw the heavens open and the Spirit descending upon him, he did see it. Sometimes when we say yes there is an inner confirmation we cannot prove to anyone else, but we know it happened. Sometimes we just need to be Frodo who said, “I will take the Ring. Though I do not know the way.”
Today is the day we get to say yes. Yes to the impossible vision that Jesus was all about, proclaiming good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, healing the brokenhearted, declaring God’s favor to all. We can say yes to the unique and beautiful ways each one of us is meant to proclaim and manifest that vision. You see, all of us are needed. No one of us can do it all ourselves. I am an enneagram 8 originally from California and somehow, I am leading this beautiful community, and there are things that are mine to do and no one else. You all have your own unique gifts and burdens, and you are priceless and an important piece of the puzzle and every one of us is needed, there things that are each one of ours to do that no one else can.
We have all experienced this week differently and I don’t mean to pretend that my experience is the same as any of yours. But I know this. The Apostle Paul says, Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation. Eckert Tolle wrote an entire book called The Power of Now about the immense power of being fully present in this moment, and perceiving holistically what this moment is about. I know that something made Jesus say yes to claiming his public mission in the world. I know that Mary said yes to the Angel Gabriel although she was confused and afraid, because she also felt in her bones that this purpose was hers and hers alone. I know that today is unique and will never be repeated, and what we do and say today matters.
The storm in our world right now is strong and powerful and destructive. It is hurting people everywhere; it is hurting people in our line of sight. But it is not the complete reality. Beyond the storm is the deep stillness of the beauty of the cosmos and the God who created it. Underneath the violence is the shining souls of each one of us, and the purpose each one of us came into this world to fulfill. The storm is like a vast sickness, like the wasting sickness that killed billions of starfish off the coast of California over the last decade. The 2000 ICE agents in our City patrolling Target and Costco parking lots and terrorizing high school students and families and murdering unarmed women in cars are instruments of the Domination System, the Principalities and Powers our ancient ancestors would have called demonic. This is not normal. It is not how things were made to be. But it is not the whole reality.
Each of us was given a truth-cord, deep in our bones. Like a cello string, it vibrates strongly in the presence of truth. We recognize it when something deeply true and important and powerful is spoken. What is the truth that God is speaking to you about your gifts and your soul’s purpose? What is it that God is asking you to say yes to?
The answer is probably not figuring out how to fix this world and then doing that. That is way above all of our paygrades. I believe the answer is about cultivating a posture of willingness, a posture of readiness, of openness to the Spirit of God, so that when the small invitation to act does come, we can recognize the invitation and say yes in the moment. Sometime tonight or tomorrow or the next day, some small opportunity will come, that aligns with who you are, with what you can offer in this world, that takes courage. You can listen, and say yes and take action, and then do that again, and again, and again.
Our Bishop Craig Loya is saying yes to speaking out about what is happening in our city, because that is his to do, and it is giving courage to the clergy and lay leaders in Minnesota to do the same. Our friend Rex is saying yes to coordinating with national church leaders about how to help the Episcopal Church stand with immigrants and the most vulnerable. Sue Everson-Rose read my Facebook comment that I was showing up at the clergy gathering at Portland and 34th Street on Thursday and she spontaneously showed up. There she was, walking down the street to join me, and she warmed my heart and gave me strength. Some of you have contacted me saying you are willing to drive immigrants to work or school or bring them their groceries. Others are mighty prayer warriors, and they offer their deep contemplative awareness and lament to God, praying without ceasing, modeling pure love in this world. Minnesota is saying yes. We are marching and organizing. We are finding amazingly creative ways to resist nonviolently, in every possible way, saying NO to the cruel power of empire that has invaded Minneapolis-St. Paul. Go Minnesota.
None of us says yes perfectly. None of says yes, all the time. Sometimes saying yes means taking a break and going skiing or meditating or watching a good movie. But there is such a thing as initiation. There is such a thing as a new beginning. There is recognizing that God calls you beloved, and then saying yes to what God will ask of you in the coming days, although you don’t and can’t know what that will entail, just that it will come, and how you respond will make a difference to you and to the world God so loves. Say yes to living Jesus’ Way of Love in this world. Say yes to renouncing evil and the Principalities and Powers, the Domination System, that possesses our world. Say yes to affirming the goodness of all people, the sacredness of all life. Say yes. Now is the time. Amen.
