Sermon for January 17, Emmanuel

A wedding feast and wedding imagery shows up in the readings for today,

            and I would guess that Hunt and fellow parishioners have had a visit to Cana.

It’s a small town in the Galilee area not too far from Nazareth,

            and there you can purchase wine produced locally.

It is also a good place to get married or to renew marriage vows.

The imagery of marriage comes up frequently in the Hebrew scriptures

                        in the Prophets especially,

            for speaking about the relationship between God and God’s people.

In the reading from Isaiah 62             

God’s love for the people of Jerusalem,

            for those called into Covenant relationship with God,

            is described in the language of a bride and a bridegroom:

“You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord…

You shall no more be termed Forsaken…

but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her…

for the Lord delights in you…

…as a young man marries a young woman…

…as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,

so shall your God rejoice over you.”

This is a very intimate way to describe relationship with God,

            so loving, and with the idea of becoming one flesh.

This passage is not just for the people of Jerusalem,

but for all called into covenant relationship,

all brought into adoption as sons and daughters of God.

The wedding imagery is the most beautiful and intimate of ways

                        for expressing God’s love for us.

And then in John’s Gospel we see this first sign of Jesus,

this sign of the Kingdom of God at hand,

in a story in which the setting is a wedding.

But the wedding in this story is really more in the background;

            yet it has an underlying, subliminal message,

            in which something very profound is being expressed.

For isn’t it a little odd that this first sign of Jesus

            is not his preaching and teaching,

such as in the early chapters of Matthew’s Gospel

with the Sermon on the Mount;

            it is not healing offered to all sorts and conditions of suffering,

but this first sign appears as an occurrence “behind the scene,” so to speak,

            in the kitchen,

and only the servants know what has happened.

The steward in the wedding party knows nothing

about where the wine came from,

and doesn’t know of any connection between Jesus and the wine.

He just knows quality when he tastes it, and tells the bridegroom,

            “Hey!  This is good wine!  Better than we had before!”

Now hold that thought,

            because now I want to shift to the Epistle reading for today.

The Apostle Paul writes,

            “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters,

I do not want you to be uninformed.” 

This is from an extended section in 1 Corinthians

            in which he describes the community of faith as the Body of Christ,

                        one in being,

            later described as the Bride of Christ.

Here the focus is on the gifts of the Spirit,

            “there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;

            and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord;

            and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God

                        who activates all of them in everyone.”

And Paul emphasizes:

            “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

The passage makes it clear that every ministry and service that Paul lists here

                        is understood to be gift, given by the Spirit:

            “All these are activated by one and the same Spirit,

            who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.”

Paul is writing to the Corinthians to encourage them

in their ministry and service to our Lord.

There is no question about engagement in ministry

                        - this is assumed as something they all are called to do -

            but there needs to be clarity about just who is doing the ministry.

This is the Holy Spirit’s work, the activity of the Resurrection Spirit of Jesus.

Now this is good news,

            because while there is work to be done

            and all baptized into Christ are to take part in that work,

the skills and abilities for doing that work are present in the faith community,

            but are not dependent on just one person being skilled and equipped.

And, most importantly, we can’t even claim ownership

            of any specific talents or skills, for they are all gifts.

And, notice, it is the Spirit who decides who gets what.

So our job is to be useful vessels of these gifts of the Holy Spirit

                        that we have been given,

            and put them to use as intended.

The intention, according to verse 7, is that this is for the common good.

We are called to active ministry, each and every one of us,

            but it’s not our ministry,

            and whatever effectiveness  there is in that ministry

                        is not ours, but comes as a gift that passes through our hands

                                                                                                and doesn’t stay with us,

all for the sake of the whole of humanity.

Now, let’s go back to the wedding in Cana again,

            and see if there is any connection

between this passage in 1 Corinthians

and turning water into wine.

There is so much in this Gospel story,

            but I will pick up just a couple of points for our attention today.

First let’s look at what is going on between Jesus and his mother.

Did you ever wonder about what may seem like a harsh remark?

            “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?”

Who is Jesus talking to?  His mother!  Is that how you talk to your mother?

Or you might ask, why is Mary telling Jesus about the wine running out?

            What does Mary know about Jesus that the others don’t?

            What are her expectations of Jesus?

She knows first hand, from the time when she carried him in the womb,

            that the One she could call her son is also her Lord.

She expresses faith in her Lord

            acting on her experience of him,

            calling upon his compassionate and generous heart

in the midst of a very human situation of impending social catastrophe.

And Jesus responds,

            not by acknowledging the family relationship between them,

but with a response that is characteristic of a Teacher or rabbi testing a disciple.

Mary, the mother of our Lord, was quite possibly, we could say, his first disciple.

            She believed before anyone else.

Mary passes the test.

She continues expressing explicit trust,

            and she actively engages in drawing others into the same trust.

For what servant in such a situation

            would dare take water to the head of the feast,

passing it off as wine?

But they comply, and so they are the only ones who then know

            the incredible transformation that has occurred,

            the act of creation of the Spirit hovering over the water in those 6 stone jars.

Water into wine.                        The first sign.

Later at another feast,

            Jesus would take wine and pass it to his disciples

            and tell them to drink,

and then he would say, “This is my blood,”

            blood of a New Covenant, a new marriage between God and humankind.

Revelation 19:6-9 brings full circle this wedding imagery from Isaiah

            in the marriage of the Lamb with the Bride, the Church, the Faithful.

Here Jesus, the Lamb of God, is the bridegroom at his own wedding

            in this spiritual marriage with all his disciples,

where his own sacrifice, his life blood poured out on the cross,

                        is the wine at this table,

and the love in this marriage is none other than the agaph love of God,

            that unitive love of “I in thee and thou in me.”

May our prayer, as we come to this table today, to drink of his wine,

            be an openness of heart to realize this great love

            and a willingness to be like those stone jars, those vessels

                        to be filled with the Spirit’s gifts

                                    to be poured out for others.

And may our hearts be glad.  Amen.

Sermon at Emmanuel, Mercer Island, January 10, 2016

It is good to be back here with you all today.

I am very happy to stand in for Hunt

            as he and several of our brothers and sisters in this congregation

                        make pilgrimage visiting the places

            where Jesus walked and preached and healed and taught and confronted and died and rose from the dead as alive as alive can be.

I know from my own experiences in those same places

            how the Gospel stories will come to life in each pilgrim.

So our prayers are with them,

            and when they all return, be sure to ask what they discovered

                        about their own faith in those places made sacred in the Gospels.

Now here we are on this first Sunday in the season of Epiphany,

            when we commemorate the Baptism of our Lord in the River Jordan

                        which Hunt and the pilgrims are visiting.

And here is what I have been reflecting on for the occasion.

At the end of the year and the beginning of a new year

            the news media recaps the top stories,

and lists those prominent figures who have died in the last year.  Right?

Well, for me, and perhaps for you too,

            looking at all that happened in the last year brings a weight of gloom:

                        so many deaths by gun violence,

                        so much warfare and fighting globally,

                        an overabundance of political finger pointing,

                        the spinning of facts to support political agenda

                        and rancorous speech that is frustrating to endure.

All this may seem like a descending darkness

                                                to match the long dark nights of winter.

On the other hand as I reflected on the year past

            I found that the preponderance of gloomy news was outweighed

                        by my experience of a much different sort.

May I speak from my own experience in the last two months?

            The Spokane wind storm – worst storm in the history of the city.

Most of the city was without electricity

            which wasn’t restored for at least a week for the majority

                        and up through Thanksgiving for many.

So many trees were down damaging many homes and taking out power lines.

And then it turned cold and snowed.

I was there for 10 days through the blackout helping my sister with Mom.

And everyone around us were pitching in to help.

            People were helping one another.

I won’t begin to list all that was done.

I was back in Spokane for Christmas,

            and again I saw the continuation of people still out helping one another.

This helping spirit was still in the consciousness of the community

and what I saw was that the aftermath of that storm

                        actually produced some very good things in that city

            in the way that people were concerned about each other

                                                and working together.

I was trying to chip ice off the driveway and the neighbor,

            a father with three young children, grabbed a shovel and came to help.

           

The developmentally disabled girl who lives a couple of houses down

            came to sing a Christmas song for my mother.

Multiply that again and again.

Something good had come to my hometown as a result of the wind storm.

            It wasn’t all bad;

            it really connected people on a much more foundational level.

This was shining up for us.

            whatever our concerns about what was happening in the world,

                        we were together chipping ice off a driveway

            so that we could provide life support for ourselves and others.

There was a warmth of intimacy, a glow of light.

All this a shining light,

            the many individual instances of care and support and generosity

                        that combined to dissipate the darkness.

And this is what Jesus exemplifies in his Sermon on the Mount,

            especially the Beatitudes,

and more directly in how he himself lived and related with others,

            light, always bringing light into others’ lives.

And this is how Jesus took his followers through a process of discipleship.

The hope of the world is in that relatedness

            where our frameworks of separation break down.

Yesterday was another example of this very thing:

            relatedness where our frameworks of separation break down.

I attended a gathering of Christians and Muslims in a show of support

            in response to the fear many local Muslims were experiencing

                        because of backlash and reactivity in the community aimed at them

                                    just because they are Muslim.

Our meeting room was packed,

            and the joy that was there in the faces of all these people

                        as we talked with one another and shared support,

            that joy radiated, was a shining light, bringing life.

Relatedness where our frameworks of separation break down.

Seeing these examples of light,

we can ask ourselves this question for self reflection:

            how have I responded in a crisis, in a situation of need,

            to what degree am I really in touch with it? in touch with others in crisis?

If I am really in touch with it,

            I am going to be more generous and connected with other people.

There is more light in the world than darkness.

Now to link this in with the Gospel for today.

There are two kinds of baptism.  Can you see that?

            John the Baptist baptizes with water – that’s the first one.

            Jesus, however, baptizes with the Holy Spirit and fire.

This fire baptism sounds cataclysmic.

            “His winnowing fork is in his hand,

            to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary;

            but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Fire – just as the world was once drowned in the baptism of the great flood,

through which Noah and his family and the air breathing animals were carried,

            now the baptism would be the consuming of the world in fire,

                        a fearful image indeed.

And yet, remember this from the Bible stories, my brothers and sisters,

            there was One like the Son of Man

            walking in the fire with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,

                        and they were in the fire but not touched by it.

            In the fire but not touched by it, because they were of the fire.

And the flames of Pentecost on the heads of the 120 in the upper room.

            Like the burning bush that was not burned up.

And from the first lesson for today from the Prophet Isaiah:

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.”

Now remember the creation story from Genesis.

In Genesis creation is about life – giving birth from water and the Holy Spirit –

            the formless deep with Ruach, Spirit hovering over it.

And the first words of God are “Let there be light.”

            And from this emerges all the creative potencies of life.

Life is what matters in the creation story of Genesis

The first thing that is said as God creates is “Let there be light,”

            Light – perfect in form, purity of being –

            and the purity of being is such that it doesn’t diminish.

Think of the stars we see in the night sky

            It has taken millions of light years for their light to reach us,

                        but that light has never decayed over all that time it took to reach us.

Let there be light.

From the intimacy of Spirit and water and you get light.

The light has not diminished, it sticks with us.

It is still here,

            and in the first chapter of the Gospel of John it is called life.

“What has come into being in him was life,

and the life was the light of all people.

The light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness did not overcome it.”

It is the true light, which enlightens everyone, true light coming into the world.

As Jesus stood there in the water of the Jordan river

            a dove came down upon him,

            the Holy Spirit in a bodily, physical form.

And Jesus became a connecting point between heaven and earth.

In this we have a reminder of the dove in the story of the flood in Genesis,

            a reminder of deliverance through the flood waters.

The dove flying out from the ark over the water

            representing a new beginning, new life.

And now in the liturgy today we again make a new beginning

            as we renew in our awareness our own baptisms,

renewing again our commitment in response to the faith given us

            born of fire through our Lord and Savior Jesus,

reminding us that we are born again to be Light,

            Light in the world undiminished and life supporting.