Second Sunday After Epiphany - Year C 2010

Second Sunday after the Epiphany – Year C (RCL) 2010
Isaiah 62: 1 – 5; Psalm 36: 5 – 10; 1 Corinthians 12: 1 – 11; John 2: 1 – 11
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, Portland, OR
Sunday, January 17, 2010

OF WINE AND WITNESS

Let us pray: God of abundant grace we are overwhelmed by the excess of your generosity and blessing. As you demonstrated at the wedding feast in Cana, your heart knows no boundary in displaying your care and concern for your children. Like empty stone jars, you have filled us with your goodness and grace. Now pour us out into a world that sorely needs your love and presence. Let your love flow to those who thirst for acceptance and new beginnings. As we remember this day the ministry of all those who follow in your name – we are especially grateful for the witness of your servant Martin. May our hearts and lives be enlightened by the memories of those saints who have come before us, and challenged by the call of the prophetic voices for peace in our midst. May we utilize the gifts of the Spirit to further the work of your kindom among us. Amen.

(SUNG) TASTE AND SEE, TASTE AND SEE
THE GOODNESS OF THE LORD.
OH, TASTE AND SEE – TASTE AND SEE
THE GOODNESS OF THE LORD. OF THE LORD.

I am struck by the imagery and description of interactions with Jesus, the disciples and crowds whenever we find the Gospel narratives turn toward stories of food and table fellowship. This morning’s depiction in the Gospel account by the author of John’s Gospel is no less telling in terms of this fellowship and Jesus’ response. This story appears only in the author of John’s telling of the good news. It seems an odd and perhaps trivial way for Jesus to begin public ministry – yet on closer exploration it speaks of God’s generosity and abundance poured out for us so that we might pour ourselves out for others in God’s name. It is perhaps helpful to look at this story narrative in light of its placement within the structure of this author’s text. This is the first of seven “signs” to which the author points as demonstrations of the power of this Emanuel, this “God with us” to move people from doubt to belief. “Signs” as this author describes them, are perhaps different from what we might think of as “miracles”. I often think of a “miracle” as some act or intervention into the natural physical laws of our world – which temporarily “suspends” those laws in order for the miraculous event to occur. A “sign” rather is an indicator of something toward which it points. For example, if you are driving down a roadway and suddenly see a blue light flashing in your rear view mirror, you might think “that is a police car coming up behind me.” Well, in actuality the blue light is not a policeman – rather it is a “sign” which points toward the police vehicle and the officer inside of it rushing closer toward your vehicle. In the same way, the author of this Gospel sees seven “signs” of Jesus’ ministry as pointing toward the greater glory represented in them. Signs, however unlike miracles done in the open – are hidden from some. Not everyone understands their significance – and often many miss the subtleties of their pointing. The narrator tells us, “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciple believed in him.”
Cana, as well as this story of Jesus’ attendance at the wedding feast there – are unique to the Gospel according to John. Scholars are puzzled as to where the exact location of “Cana” would be; it is mentioned in no other texts of the time. Suggestions are that is might be the community presently located at Kefr Kenna, which is about 4 and a half miles northeast of Nazareth. This author mentions the community other times, mentioning that Jesus is visiting there when asked to heal the son of the Roman official at Capernaum and identifying it as the disciple Bartholomew’s home town. The significance then of Cana, is its insignificance. Just another example that this author uses to point out that God, in Christ takes the ordinariness of our life sanctifies it and by so doing makes it holy and sacred.

(SUNG) TASTE AND SEE, TASTE AND SEE
THE GOODNESS OF THE LORD.
OH, TASTE AND SEE – TASTE AND SEE
THE GOODNESS OF THE LORD. OF THE LORD.

Let’s return to the idea of Jesus’ interaction with the disciples and the crowds at times of food sharing or table fellowship. Vision if you will the abundance when Jesus surrounds himself at events of feasting and nourishment for the body – they also frequently become opportunities for nourishment of the spirit. In Jewish tradition, we should note images of banquet were associated with the messianic age. The author of John’s Gospel is well aware of this and uses the “first” of the signs which point toward Jesus as something more than meets the eye to highlight the messianic fulfillment in the “Word made flesh” who will perform other signs in the time of first century Palestine which will speak some two thousand years later with much the same power and intention. Six stone water jars filled to capacity become wine of our rarest vintage (Chateau Mouton Rothschild). Five barley loaves and two fish feed 5000 – bread and wine offered at the Passover feast become food for that generation and for this as the very sustenance of body and spirit. All of this speaks of the abundance and extravagant generosity of God, made manifest in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. We should note that weddings in the time of Jesus were more than the merely private family affairs of our time. Weddings often lasted for seven full days and the entire community would be gathered for vast amounts of food and wine. The regular and meager diet of the peasant classes of that time would have consisted mostly of grain, vegetables, fruit, olives and occasionally fish. Meat and poultry were rarely eaten since people were reluctant to eat the few animals they had. Hence, the wedding banquet took on a special and spectacular place in the lives of the people of Jesus’ time and station. There is a reason that heaven is depicted in the lives and literature of these people as a great banquet at which no one goes hungry and room is made at the table for all. This is the scene that the author of John’s Gospel wishes to describe and implant in the hearts and minds of the audience as the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. The “six stone jars” which Jesus asks to be filled with water would have been present for the ritual purification of the guests at this banquet. Each of these jars would have held twenty to thirty gallons of liquid. Ritual tradition would have required approximately 1 cup of water for each persons purification ritual; it is possible that 120 to 180 gallons would have been enough for purification of the whole known world – and now the guests at this wedding banquet into the third day of the celebration have enough wine to satisfy the needs of all of Israel twice or three time over. Such is the abundant grace and blessing of the Messiah. As we begin to examine the life and ministry of the Word made flesh, John’s author seems to be saying that what this Jesus is about – what this gospel or “good news” of Jesus is about is a wedding banquet at which the wine never runs out and the best is saved for last.

(SUNG) LET US TURN OUR THOUGHTS TODAY
TO MARTIN LUTHER KING – AND RECOGNIZE THAT THEIR
ARE TIES BETWEEN US, ALL MEN AND WOMEN. TIES OF
HOPE AND LOVE, SISTER AND BROTHERHOOD. THAT WE ARE
BOUND TOGETHER, IN OUR DESIRE TO SEE THE WORLD
BECOME A PLACE IN WHICH OUR CHILDREN CAN GROW FREE
AND STRONG. WE ARE BOUND TOGETHER BY THE TASK THAT
STANDS BEFORE US AND THE ROAD THAT LIES AHEAD.
WE ARE BOUND, AND WE ARE BOUND.

Some of you may recognize that ballad which first appeared on a James Taylor Album in 1995 and provides the perfect “segue” to move from the preaching of a sermon on the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth to the living of a sermon on the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth that was embodied in the ministry of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This spiritual and civil rights leader is remembered for the incredible gift that he was to our generation and countless generations to come by the setting aside of a special holiday in memoriam. I think that we as Christian community do a grave disservice to Dr. King’s memory and to the Gospel message if we allow this day to pass without some recognition I am grateful to our Director of Music Ministry for choosing hymns for this Sunday which reflect the gifts of African American composers in our traditions of sacred music and hymnody. Dr. King and the message, which he tirelessly preached, must serve to continue to stir the hearts and minds of this nation and this Church that still suffers from the sin of Racism. Many among us have living memory of the work, which Dr. King led in the heart of the American south during that turbulent period of the early 1960’s; while others were not even born until well after his tragic death by assassination in 1968. History leaves us a large collection of letters, writings and sermons from the hand of this charismatic and gifted leader of the Church. I would like to share with you just a few of the quotes that continue to stir my heart and soul with the power of his prophetic ministry:

“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word”. “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'“Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”

“Any religion which professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them, is a dry-as-dust religion.”

I would challenge each of us to take the time this week to read to re-read “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. It is easily accessible in many formats and speaks to the Church and to the world with dignity and passion about the work, which God called Dr. King to live out, and subsequently calls each of us to live out in our own ways. Grace and abundant blessing is still spoken to us in our own day and time, by voices like those of Martin Luther King, Jr. and by voices like yours. This is the way that the message of Good News or Gospel continues to live in “the word made flesh” who continues to dwell among us.