Life Is Serious

Sermon-Year C-2 Epiphany January 17, 2010
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I was meeting with a bunch of clergy earlier this week, talking about today’s gospel reading. We were talking about Mary as a Jewish mother. One of the priests said that a woman in his congregation used this story to explain why she prayed to Mary instead of Jesus. “You see,” she told my friend, “Jesus did whatever Mary told him-even when he didn’t want to-which means if you get Mary on your side, you’re home.”
HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT JESUS WAS JEWISH? He went into his father's business. He lived at home until he was 30, his Mother thought he was God.

A long time ago someone came into my office, upset with my preaching. He said, “you make too many jokes in your sermons, life is serious.”
I agree, life is serious. The problem is that my jokes aren’t funny enough. Life is serious, and it’s important that we need to fill it as full as we can with whatever time we have.
Listen, I need to explain the key that unlocks this gospel. It’s not about a miracle of changing water into wine. As wonderful as that is, that doesn’t change my life. This story is a sign. It points beyond itself. It’s trying to tell us something about OUR relationship with Jesus. And how he fills us.
Remember, John doesn’t describe this as a miracle-he calls it “a sign”. That means it’s supposed to point beyond what happens to what it means. In this case, the first sign is a way of convincing his disciples that there is new life in Jesus. Dr. Robert Linthicum, in Partners in Urban Transformation writes:
There are three rather remarkable statements in this sentence that would mean little to a reader of today, but would immediately capture the attention of any Jew reading this manuscript two thousand years ago, immediately alerting them that there is far more to this story than an account about Jesus’ first miracle. First, it tells us there were “six stone water jars”. Second, it tells us that the purpose for these jars was to be used for the “Judeans rites of purification”. And third, it tells us that the jars were immense, “each holding twenty to thirty gallons”. Given the limited quantity of water needed to perform the “Judeans’ rites of purification” (that is, washing the feet and hands of those coming to the wedding feast), the number of jars and the quantity of water they held was all out of proportion to what would be needed even for a wedding feast with hundreds of guests. The author obviously means for the reader to note the absurd abnormality of this sentence. Why would John [the gospel writer] do this?
The water jars are meant to be something far greater in this story than being containers of water. What this sentence is meant to do is to prepare the reader for Jesus’ first confrontation with the Law as practiced under the rule of the high priests and Pharisees – …. John had made clear in this sentence that the jars were not there at the wedding to provide either water for drinking or for bathing. They were there “for the Jewish rites of purification” – for the keeping of the stipulations of the Law that the Pharisees and priests used to control the actions of the people and to dominate society. The wedding wine had now run out. The Law, as used by the priests and Pharisees to dominate and control the people, was also “running out”. So it was that Jesus would now take the very structures of the Law (the six stone jars) and fill them, not with the water of the Law but with God’s new wine by which Jesus would transform this wedding banquet and make it a success!
Jesus simply tells the servants to bear the water-filled jars to the steward of the wedding feast. Acting obediently to Jesus’ command (and likely thinking that he was a complete fool), they poured a goblet of this water for the steward to taste. And behold, “the water had become wine” (vs. 9). And not any old wine, at that! The steward declares that this is the most excellent wine of the entire banquet, and commands that it be distributed to the wedding guests.
Now keep in mind that the wedding banquet is used in the Old Testament as a symbol of God’s transforming, [saving] work among God’s people, the wedding itself symbolizing God’s union with the people. The Law, as symbolized by stone jars filled only with water, had lost their capacity to bring joy and transformation to Israel. But now, in the hands of Jesus, the Law-laden jars are transformed into vessels of “grace and truth”, dispensing a gospel far superior to the Law used by the Judeans to dominate the people.
This story then ends with the words, “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him” (2:11). John makes it quite clear that this event at the wedding in Cana was not a miracle; it was a “sign”. It was an act that had deep meaning beyond the act itself, an act that was designed to make one think, discuss, and make a decision to follow the Jesus way of “grace and truth” rather than the Judeans’ way of an empty [jars of] Law. It was a “sign” of what God was about to do through Jesus, as presented in the remainder of the Gospel of John. And the author tells us, “And the disciples believed in him!” They saw beyond the act to the sign and, as best they knew how, they embraced that sign and the grace and truth that Jesus was now offering to them.
I thought this was wonderful. The key to this gospel is the empty purification jars, the old life and then Jesus filling them with wine. The jars at one level are supposed to be us-empty, waiting. And Jesus comes to the celebration and fills us up.
Many years ago there was a wonderful movie called, “Babette’s Feast”. Anyone remember it? “It is an intriguing story placed in a desolate and tiny village on the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark. The drama revolves around two ageing sisters, the daughters of the local Lutheran pastor, who carry on after his death the pastoral care of the elderly and weekly prayer and Bible study. It is a sad, lifeless life. They both let slip through their fingers opportunities for new life because they were trying to please their father.
Into their lives comes Babette, who had to leave her home in Paris for political reasons. She comes to live with them as their cook. Now being such did not demand much, since they ate the same meal every day-boiled dried fish and stale bread. For a Parisian woman, this was not haute cuisine. So Babette would spice up their drab meals in small ways and seek to make the food more palatable.
There are more stories in the movie. Two old friends tell each other what they really think about one another. A husband and wife become engaged in angry conversation. This all happens at the weekly table gatherings for prayer and Bible study. Babette from the kitchen hears this.
One day Babette becomes the winner of the lottery in France and receives 10,000 francs. The sisters feel sure she will now be leaving them. Her response is quite different. She tells them she will be offering a banquet-a feast in thanksgiving for her good fortune. The food comes from abroad. The table is laid with linen, china, crystal, and silver. It is a veritable and incredible meal, the likes of which most of the diners have never had before. The wines, the soup, the quail, the roasted suckling pig, the cheeses and fruits, the dessert gave to each person a new lease on life. The argument between the two old friends is resolved. The married couple is reunited in their love for one another. Babette's feast offers them something they have never had before. Everyone at the banquet discovers that life is more than their weekly routines, and small rites of purification. Life is meant to be a banquet. And each of those present finds new hope, new joy.
One meal seldom has the power to change our lives forever. But it can point beyond itself to what life is meant to be. Jesus uses empty jars at the wedding feast. Babette took the lifeless routine of everyday life and made it a feast. Life is very serious. Jesus’ first sign is that he wants to fill up our lives as full as he possibly can.
Amen.

Another Way Home

Sermon-Year C-2 Christmas January 3, 2010
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
If it had been three wise women instead of three wise men?
They would have asked for directions.* Arrived on Time* Helped Deliver the Baby* Cleaned the Stable* Brought Practical Gifts* And made a CasseroleAnd as they were leaving they would have said:
“Did you see the sandals Mary was wearing with that dress?" "That baby doesn't look anything like Joseph!" "That donkey has seen better days” "I heard that Joseph isn't even working right now!" "Want to bet on how long it will take until you get your casserole dish back?"
We’re celebrating Epiphany 3 days early. The official day of Epiphany is January 6th Christmas season is how long? 12 days, ending January 5th. And that means that January 6th is the first day of Epiphany. In the Eastern church Epiphany was much more important than Christmas, and they didn’t focus on the visit of the magi. For Eastern Orthodox Christians most of their attention was on the Baptism of Jesus. We will celebrate that next week. But in the early days, this season, Epiphany, in the Eastern church was the important celebration-not Christmas.
Even today, Pastor Katerina K Whitley writes: “In this season of Epiphany we enter the realm of light. In fact the Greek church, in the language of the people, has called this season, Ta Phota: “the lights.” In the Eastern church, this season of light is celebrated as fully as the season of Christmas. ….The presence of water in Epiphany is as meaningful as that of light, perhaps reminding us that this was the preferred time for baptism in the early church. On Epiphany Day in every port city in Greece, the Orthodox bishop throws a cross into the waters of the sea and brave young men jump into the cold January Aegean to retrieve it.
We are in the darkest time of the year and yet in the eastern church they call it, “the lights”, Ta Phota. Epiphany season continues this year for 6 weeks.
T.S. Eliot, wrote a poem called, The Journey of the Magi. It is short and written from the perspective of one of wise men.
I have put a copy of this wonderful poem in each of the Chalking the door bags.
This is a short story, the story of the wise ones traveling from the east to find a newborn baby who would be king. 12 verses. But it is packed with a lot of drama. Foreigners on a long journey, an evil kill who is plotting to kill a baby, pilgrims following a star, arriving with expensive gifts, and then the same travelers leaving without telling the king-keeping the holy secret. A great story told in a few short verses. But here is the part that always grabs me, the last phrase, “they went home by another way.” I love that phrase “they went home by another way.” After all those miles, after all those days of travel, after meeting with the evil King Herod, after all that fear, and all those sacrifices-they finally arrive. When these travelers finally arrive at their goal-there’s no celebration, no fireworks. Suddenly their whole journey is changed, and they start new lives. Does it not seem odd? You would think after all this there would be a wonderful scene, great drama. These were men who listened to dreams and followed stars. These were men who met with kings and traveled long miles because they had heard prophecies. Any of you do this? Of course not. They weren’t like us! But we were similar in one way, after they found Jesus, they went home by a different way. The old road home no longer worked for them. They were changed people, different. They couldn’t walk the same path or be the same people. They had to go home a different way. This season of Epiphany begins every year with this same story-the wise men following a star. And it ends every year with the same story-Jesus on the mountaintop with his 3 closest friends-the Transfiguration. The people who set up the lectionary want us to be grabbed by this. The story of Epiphany begins with a star and ends with a dazzling light on a mountaintop-and each time the focus is on those who are witnesses-what happens to them. What happens to us. After the epiphany. The 3 disciples come down from the mountaintop and are told to keep what they’ve seen to themselves. The magi, quietly, secretly, go home by a different way. Why?
Anne Lamont tells in Traveling Mercies about her moment of Epiphany following a health scare. She writes, “The afternoon the doctor called to tell me that my mole was benign, [my son] asked me if I had been brave during the stitching. I said I was very brave. We were sitting outside looking at things. And it was as if the lighting director had turned the lights up full force, because all these small things were showing up more brightly—a yellow house finch, the tiny pink buds of the scraggly wild rose, a patch of ivy on our dirty-blonde hill” (pp. 182–183).
After you’ve had your epiphany, the colors look different, the world is different. After we’ve seen the light, we are different. After an epiphany, a manifestation, a revelation, the road home is always different, we are changed.
The magi were never the same after meeting the Christ child. They couldn’t travel the same roads, they could go home, but now it would be by a different way. And that is true for us, also. Once we meet Christ, once we have our epiphany, we are on a different path. Have you seen your life change as you live your faith? Do you take a different road because of your beliefs? Have you had your revelation? One dictionary defined an epiphany as “a sudden intuitive leap of understanding, especially through an ordinary but striking occurrence.” It’s the day you graduate and suddenly realize that you a no longer a student. It’s the day your child is born and someone calls you mom or dad.
In 2008 we walked the Camino in Spain, an old pilgrimage road for 200 miles, 14 days. The whole way we, and everyone else, carried a simple seashell on our backpacks. It meant that we were pilgrims on the way. Whenever you saw someone else with a seashell, you knew right away that they, too, were a pilgrim. They, too, were on the way. And every walker greeted every other pilgrim with the same words, “Buen Camino” Good way, good walk, God be with you. On the day that we finally reached Santiago do Compostela the end of the road, we took off our packs, and our shells and left them in our hotel rooms. And no one said to us “Buen Camino” any more. We were no longer pilgrims. We had arrived. And at that moment I thought, “we’re walking a different road now. We’ve finished this journey.”
Today we celebrate Epiphany, the feast of the first strangers finding the Christ child. Foreigners who walked a long way to simply see a newborn babe. And after they saw him, they were never the same. I bet it felt weird for them on the way home. It felt weird for us in Spain. When you’ve been on a long journey and suddenly you arrive, you wonder what life will be like now. What we believe, what we teach, is that we go home by a different way. We are always different after we’ve seen our light. We are altered after our epiphany. Even if we take the same way, we are changed. That is not just the story of these wise men. This is the story of the first people who saw Jesus-and were different. They didn’t just follow a star, they no longer carried their shells, no one said “buen camino” to them any more. They were changed now after their sudden intuitive leap of understanding. They had to take a different road home after meeting Jesus. And so do we.