The Holy Spirit - Church Is A Body of Ministry Mark 1:4-11
Baptism of Our Lord trans. January 15, 2012
Michelle Meech
St. Alban’s, Albany, CA
In the painting, a black man stands on a rock in the middle of a river. His black beard, peppered
with grey, covers most of his face. He wears a bright, golden knee-length robe and a shawl of
bright red covers his shoulders. With his left hand he’s pointing, with his right hand he’s pouring
water from a pitcher.
Both his pointing hand and the water from the pitcher are falling on the same object – a younger
black man standing below him in ankle deep water, dressed in nothing but a white band of cloth
tied around his hips. The younger man’s hair is shoulder length, his black beard free of grey.
His gesture is one that indicates he’s cold – his arms are crossed, wrapped around his body in a
protective way.
All around this pair are others of varying dark skin tones going about their every day chores
along the river. A woman crouches, dressed in a brassiere and blue skirt, beating laundry clean
with a paddle.
Two men work together on the opposite side of the river, jumping from tree to tree, gathering
materials of some kind. A man carries a huge basket out of the water – probably full of fish.
A woman prepares food, kneeling beside a table. A man washes his hair while standing in the
water.
No one, not one, of these others appears to have noticed the two at the center of the scene.
They are going about their communal work together.
This mural, which depicts the Baptism of our Lord, is one of the many world-famous murals that
used to adorn the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Nearly two years ago today,
on January 12, 2010, that cathedral was damaged far beyond repair in one of the most horrific
and devastating earthquakes in recent memory. The cathedral complex around the main
building, which housed the ministerial center of the diocese, was destroyed.
As you may know, the largest diocese in our Episcopal Church is the Diocese of Haiti. Its
cathedral is a cathedral of the Episcopal Church – just like Trinity Cathedral up the road in
Sacramento, just like the National Cathedral in Washington DC, just like Grace Cathedral in San
Francisco. And our Haitian brothers and sisters are baptized into the Body of Christ under the
same covenant we are here in Albany.
The world-famous murals, which were painted by the most significant Haitian artists of the
twentieth century, covering the interior walls of the Cathedral, are now nearly annihilated.
Efforts are underway to gather pieces of the murals so they can be reconstructed.
But this is relatively low on the list of priorities for the Cathedral community because rebuilding
this Cathedral is less about re-erecting a building, and more about recovering its ministry.
Because a church is not a building, it’s a body of ministry.
And the ministry of our Episcopal brothers and sisters of the Holy Trinity Cathedral was
extensive:
 The Cathedral directly supported 8 different schools, including an elementary school that
educated 900 students, a theological seminary, 2 trade schools and three institutions of
secondary education. They also run a scholarship program for young people in need.
 They also either started or provided support for 6 different hospitals and health care
facilities some of which are the only medical facilities in remote regions of Haiti. And its
convent runs a facility for indigent elderly people.
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The Holy Spirit - Church Is A Body of Ministry Mark 1:4-11
Baptism of Our Lord trans. January 15, 2012

Michelle Meech
St. Alban’s, Albany, CA
In addition to the beautiful murals that once covered the inside walls, the Cathedral
helped to maintain the culture of Haiti through its art museum and also support the arts
with the Holy Trinity Philharmonic Orchestra, the unofficial state orchestra of Haiti.
Now, the reason I’m taking the time to go into such detail about the ministry of this Haitian
Cathedral is because I’m up here preaching to you today about the Holy Spirit. Today’s
scriptures, as we celebrate the Baptism of our Lord, are about the Holy Spirit. About how
baptism is not by water alone, but a baptism into the Body of Christ is always a baptism of the
Holy Spirit.
When we are baptized by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ, we are immediately members
of the priesthood of the baptized – ministers of Christ. And our call to ministry is defined for us
in the Baptismal Covenant, which we recalled last week when we celebrated the Feast of the
Epiphany.
Our Baptismal Covenant asks us to claim our ministry as members of this Body. Will we:
 continue in the apostles’ teaching, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?
 persevere in resisting evil and whenever we fall into sin repent and return to the Lord?
 proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
 seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourself?
 strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human
being?
In all of these questions, these baptismal charges, we find appeals of connection, connection to
one another as the Body of Christ, connection to ourselves as we are called to return,
connection as the community of humanity. If we are indeed baptized by the Holy Spirit, then it is
the Holy Spirit that IS this connection to one another.
It is the Holy Spirit that calls us forth in movement toward and with one another.
It is the Holy Spirit that inspires our compassion, motivates our actions, arouses us from sleep
into awareness.
It is the Holy Spirit that sings, strums, drums and toots its horn – creating the music of our dance
with one another on this earth.
Indeed, it is the Holy Spirit that is that space between us, forever calling us into that gap, into
itself, inviting our reach, yanking us into contact with one another, sometimes despite our own
best efforts to remain autonomous and separate.
Where judgment separates us from one another,
the Holy Spirit re-members us.
Where fear retracts us, shutting our eyes and clenching our muscles,
the Holy Spirit cracks us wide open so breath and light can again enter our hearts.
And ministry, the ministry of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Haiti, our ministry, our movement of
connection, is orchestrated by God the Holy Spirit.
As Christians, we profess a Triune God.
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
God the Creator, God the Redeemer, God the Sustainer.
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The Holy Spirit - Church Is A Body of Ministry Mark 1:4-11
Baptism of Our Lord trans. January 15, 2012
Michelle Meech
St. Alban’s, Albany, CA
God the Sustainer.
What is it that sustains us? What is it that sustains the created world?
It is this connection, this compassion that draws us toward one another.
It is this ministry that brings us from our place of isolating beliefs and boundaries into life with
one another as the Body of Christ, life as the community of God’s beloved creation.
As Christians, when we are baptized by this Spirit into the Body of Christ, we are called into
community to minster with one another. We are a body of ministry.
And, although this is a potentially heretical statement to some…
I cannot see how this connection is the exclusive domain of Christianity. We call it the Holy
Spirit and we are called to the Body of Christ, but isn’t it the same power at work in people who
proclaim an Islamic faith?
In those who are Jewish? In our brothers and sisters who sit cross-legged in Buddhist
meditation or who sit chanting the name of Shiva or Pavarti as Hindus?
Doesn’t it come to scientists who see patterns emerge from their research and to Wiccans who
culminate their spells asking that no harm be done to anyone?
The Holy Spirit is that which calls us beyond our limiting definitions into the space between one
another and invites – no demands – our surrender to its voice, its music.
It helps me sometimes to visualize a wave that’s moving and when we are surfing it, we are
answering our call to ministry. We are finding the movement of the Holy Spirit and connecting
to it, adding our hands and our hearts as best we can.
Nan Merrill’s book, Psalms for Praying, offers this rendition of today’s psalm:
Give praise to the beloved, O heavenly hosts,
Sing of Love’s glory and strength.
Exalt the glory of Love’s name;
Adore the Beloved in holy splendor.
The voice of the Beloved is upon the waters;
Love’s voice echoes over the oceans and seas.
The voice of Love is powerful, majestic is the heart of Love.
The mercy of the Beloved breaks the bonds of oppression,
Shatters the chains of injustice.
Love invites all to the dance of freedom,
To sing the Beloved’s song of truth.
The voice of Love strikes with fire upon hearts of stone.
The voice of Love uproots the thorns of fear,
Love uproots fear in every open heart.
The voice of Love is heard in every storm,
And strips the ego bare;
And in the heart’s chapel all cry, Peace and Glory forever!”
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The Holy Spirit - Church Is A Body of Ministry Mark 1:4-11
Baptism of Our Lord trans. January 15, 2012
Michelle Meech
St. Alban’s, Albany, CA
The Beloved lives in our hearts; Love dwells with us forever.
You who awaken to the Light of universal Oneness
Will know the blessed joy of serving in the great Work of Love.
The largest portion of any of the murals to survive the earthquake is a portion of the one I
described, the Baptism of our Lord. After it crashed to the ground, it’s now approximately ¾ the
size of the original.
Yet this mural in the Cathedral-that-is-no-more still depicts a community blessed by the Holy
Spirit.
The washing, the feeding, the working together. The community with Christ in its midst, indeed
at this center, connected and nourished by the waters of baptism, connected and nourished by
that which is communal.
Perhaps it is some sort of metaphor that this is the largest part of any of the murals to survive.
Because despite incredible, horrific devastation, the ministry continues, the great work of Love
persists, the Holy Spirit sustains.
The church is not a building, it is a body of ministry.
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