Epiphany 2C - Jan 19, 2025
Rev Sarah Colvin
You can find this week's readings here.
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day. The church celebrates Dr. King on his death day of April 4th, (a practice we do for all Saints, or saintly people) but then it so happens, that you would only end up celebrating King in church if you were part of a daily worshipping, so I would suggest celebrating tomorrow. With the weather, it might be more difficult, but the goal is to use MLK day to enact care and compassion in the world, to do something to help bring about racial reconciliation and equity. (The irony that tomorrow is also Inauguration Day is rather thick.)
I am doing my best to not be down; truth in advertising, I am not excelling at this—YET. For myself, there are many reasons—honestly, the weather is right up there. Yet, I do believe that this is why we routinely hear that Christians are to be IN the world, not OF the world. We are to be IN the world doing those things that MLK day is supposed to be about. Slightly riffing on Theodore Parker, King is noted for the phrase, “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice….”, the arc is long but bends towards justice.
And I have had certain types of conversations with many of you, that we, ‘Merika has always been this way.. , but in all honesty it is the world, human history… PEOPLE have always been divisive. We have been ugly, and we have othered the other. And still, still the arc of the moral universe is long and it still bends towards justice. Life, love, pursuit of liberty and happiness—the attainment of any of these things is definitely not a linear path, there is almost always a zig-zag approach to any of these, a bend towards justice.
And so, not being beat down by the world, still being in the world, finding hope when there is not much evidence of hope, this is about being of God. Finding joy, being grateful, helping the other, and warming the soul of others and ourselves, these are the stuff of God made manifest in the love of Jesus.
The lessons appointed for this Sunday are, in many ways, an invitation to come to God’s party, perhaps a party with some really good wine, and bring our spiritual gifts with us. All four readings have something to bring to the proverbial party table, providing a feast of words and images to inspire, equip, and feed disciples of ancient times and of today, who are hungry for a good Word to fill their bellies and carry them through the week.
In the first reading, Isaiah proclaims to Judah the wonderful words “You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate”. He goes on to use the joyous comparison of a wedding (we are on a theme here) with how God intends to honor and rejoice over the people. Our small congregation could benefit from hearing this. God is faithful. There is reason to rejoice, even if things may not be rosy, there is hope. God will not leave God’s people bereft.
Trusting God’s work in and among our communities of faith involves not being down, but lifting our downcast eyes and drooping heads, raising them in prayers and songs of praise. The appointed verses the psalm today provides such an opportunity. The psalm has much to say about the disciple’s walk in the world and the importance of keeping God at the center of everything–whether in joyful or painful times.
Paul’s words in his letter to the Christians in Corinth is addressed to that gifted but divisive congregation; but it is just as applicable to disciples today. This church does not feel like it is a hotbed of divisiveness, even if there is that history (because we are human, there is always that history). The Spirit still activates gifts in each one of us, and when we all bring our gifts together God is glorified, and amazing mission and ministry is possible. Many of us have a habit of talking as if our gifts only had life in the past, and that’s okay, but we can’t live there. Our gifts are worthwhile in the present, in the here and now.
But the ultimate gift of joy and hope this week is seen in the Gospel. The Gospel is from John; now most of the time in John, you get a “sign” (known as miracle in other places), and then you get an explanation of the sign. For some reason, and I don’t know why, we don’t get an explanation this time. So, we get a little bit of wiggle room to interpret. There are many things we could say. It is, of course, Jesus’ inaugural public miracle of changing water into some fine wine.
As with things miraculous, the key word is change. I think sometimes we focus too much on extraneous details. Some use the story as prooftext that Jesus is somehow or other condoning drinking alcohol. (Jesus seems always to be less strict than we make him out to be. He is more concerned with how you treat others than how much you drink, as long as you don’t hurt people when you drink.) We also worry about what he says to his mother, but he doesn’t say anything bad, and he does her bidding anyway.
Instead, perhaps what we can focus on is the change; he changes water to wine. He does in a miracle what the earth, the soil, rain and sun do>>> make water into a food stuff, something that is life giving. The jars Jesus used for this miracle were used for ritual purification; they were empty but filled with clean water at Jesus’ request. From something ordinary, Jesus made something extraordinary. With something regular, Jesus did a new thing; and isn’t that so Jesus like? Each time we see the font, and we remember our baptism, each time we eat the bread and wine, we are reminded that God has claimed us and made a new thing. We are changed, just like water into wine, we are sustained, so that we can go and give sustenance to the world.
This sign presents Jesus as one who cares for his people with a kind of effective abundance. The core of the symbol is that Jesus is the one in whom God’s promise of sustaining as well as enlivening God’s people is fulfilled. With this, we are changed, changed so that our gifts can be used to help bend the moral arc towards justice. Changed to keep the party of hope going, a party that is for all creation.
IMAGE ATTRIBUTION:
Conrad Schmitt Studios. Wedding at Cana, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56770 [retrieved January 22, 2025]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_John_Neumann_Church_(Sunbury,_Ohio)_-_stained_glass,_the_Wedding_at_Cana.jpg.
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