One of the challenges of raising children is dealing with the rivalry between siblings for mom and dad’s affection. I remember when my sister and I were growing up, if she got something and I didn’t – or I got something and she didn’t – one of us would take it as evidence that mom or dad loved one of us more than the other, that one or the other of us was mom’s or dad’s favorite. When we were children, kid sister and I fought like cats and dogs over stuff like this. Of course, as adults my sister and I get along very well – which comes in handy, since we now have to cooperate on looking in on our mom as she has become increasingly frail with the passage of the years.
When I was reading over our Gospel passage for this morning (Luke 4:21-30), I couldn’t help remembering, however vaguely, how my sister and I used to squabble. We are continuing from where we left off in Luke’s gospel last week, when Jesus, soon after beginning his ministry, came home to Nazareth to preach in his hometown synagogue. Remember how he was handed the scroll from Isaiah, and he read these words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And then, as the congregation gazed intently on him, Jesus declared: Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. We’re told that the congregation was amazed at these gracious words from Jesus. But their mood soon will change.
Jesus went on: you’ve probably heard about the miracles I did in Capernaum, and wonder why I’m not doing any here in my hometown. When Jesus quotes the proverb, “Physician, heal thyself,” scholars tell us that in his day, this didn’t imply that the congregation thought Jesus himself needed healing, but rather that he should stick to helping his own first, take care of his hometown first, and then heal elsewhere if time permits….sort of like our saying about the shoemaker’s children going barefoot. Jesus goes on to say that no prophet is accepted in his own hometown. And then, as precedent for his seeming neglect to do miracles for the people who knew him when he was growing up, Jesus then goes on to give examples of occasions when God’s mercy was showered, not on the children of Israel, but on foreigners – the widow at Zarephath in Sidon to whom Elijah was called, Naaman the Syrian who was healed of his leprosy. The crowd’s reaction seems extreme – overcome with fury, they were about to throw Jesus off a cliff. What on earth got into those people?
The peoples’ fury came from their interpretation of the Isaiah passage Jesus read. They read the passage as God’s good news – good news for them. They read the passage as saying that God wanted to bring good news to the poor – to them – proclaim release to the captives – to them – recovery of sight to the blind – to them – to let the oppressed – them – go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor – favor to them. As I mentioned last week, there’s an additional phrase in the Isaiah passage that Jesus omitted – the day of vengeance of our God – that was the one part of the Isaiah reading that Jesus listeners would have thought applied to people other than them. In other words, they interpreted the Isaiah reading as a promise that God would rescue them and smite all their enemies. Had Jesus preached the text along those lines, his listeners would have continued to be proud of their hometown boy made good, and everyone would have gone home happy and none of this likely would have made its way into Scripture. But Jesus took on the risky task of proclaiming God’s good news – not for them, but for those they considered foreigners and even enemies. Bad enough that Jesus mentioned Elijah’s being sent to a Gentile widow, but his lifting up the healing of Naaman the Syrian was intolerable – the folks at Jesus’ hometown synagogue had about as much affection for Syrians as many people in America do for those from Syria and for Muslims in general today – that is to say, not a whole lot. The folks at Jesus’ hometown synagogue expected the Messiah to destroy their enemies, not to minister to them. Jesus informed them otherwise, and they became so enraged that they wanted to throw Jesus off a cliff.
As the title of the 1940’s book by Thomas Wolfe tells us, “you can’t go home again.” When we’ve left our hometown for a time and experienced the wider world beyond the familiar world in which we grew up, if we return to the place of our origins, it can be jarring, for us, and also for those who knew us back when. Jesus surely found that out, to his sorrow. He sought to bring the members of his hometown synagogue along spiritually, to show them a wider vision of God’s love than they’d previously considered. Rather than responding with praise to God for, in the words of our hymn, the wideness of God’s mercy, they responded with murderous rage at Jesus. What Jesus taught as Good News was heard by his hometown synagogue as Bad News.
Are church folk today so different? American Christianity, at least in many churches, is very much about drawing lines, who’s in, who’s out, who’s loved, who’s hated. While the trend may be slowing and changing, for the past 30 years or so, the churches that have prospered are those that draw sharp lines between the saved and the damned, who proclaim God’s love and bounty and longing to shower prosperity on their members, and God’s desire to rain down fire and brimstone on sinners – defined as those who are “not their members”. For the folks in the pews, a prosperity gospel in which God not only allows, but actually blesses their McMansions and gas guzzling cars and a general lifestyle of conspicuous, wasteful consumption. And not only that, but the folks in the pews get to salivate at the prospect of God sending their enemies to hell, of being raptured away and getting to look down from heaven as God turns their enemies into crispy critters. For folks in many churches, it’s not enough that God love them – it’s also a critical part of their faith that God hate the same people they hate. In the time of the early church, nonChristians used to remark, “See how these Christians love one another” and we may remember the song, “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love,” but in many churches, the folks outside the church doors will know them, not by their love, but by their hate.
But the annoying thing about God is that, no matter how sharply and boldly we draw boundary lines around God’s love, God insists on coloring outside the lines. The same God who covenanted with Israel is the God who heals Israel’s enemies. The same God who offers salvation through Jesus Christ is the God who still seeks to save those who want nothing to do with the church. And like squabbling siblings jockeying for their parents attention, the church is quick to proclaim, “God loves us; God doesn’t love you,” forgetting that, whatever our labels, “us” and “you” are all members of one human family.
A few years ago, the United Church of Christ took a different approach. The national church broadcast advertisements proclaiming our church’s welcome to everyone. The ads were a little edgy – edgy enough to be rejected by major networks such as ABC and CBS. They satirized the exclusion practiced at many churches by showing a church with bouncers and a velvet rope, or a church with pews equipped with ejector seats, with which the ushers could eject anyone they didn’t want. If a prosperous, upper-middle-class family showed up, welcome in. If a single mom, a gay couple, a person of color, someone with a handicap showed up, out the door with them. Kick ‘em to the curb. The ads ended with the UCC’s message of welcome to all. Contrasting reactions to the ad by church folk and non-church folk were fascinating. The church folk – including many UCC church folk - said that the ads were too harsh: no church really has bouncers trying to keep people out or ejector seats to toss them out. The non-church folk basically said, “oh yes, you do: many churches indeed have bouncers and ejector seats, it’s just that you in the church have lived with them so long that you just can’t see them." Not literal bouncers, but hostile, dismissive attitudes toward folks who aren’t part of the club accomplish the same thing – keeping “them” – however defined - out.
Now, no mistake – God loves us, each of us, infinitely. God created us, Christ died for us, and the Spirit never leaves us. But God gives us that love to pass on, not to keep to ourselves – we are to be channels or pipelines for God’s love and grace, not storage tanks. Our epistle reading from I Corinthians 13 gives us a compelling picture of what this love looks like: “love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude, does not insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth; love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” This passage is often read at weddings, but Paul did not intend this as an idealized portrait of love to be held closely between spouses, but rather the very practical, every day love and concern and caring that church members are to share with one another, and with the world.
Proclaiming this expansive love of God is risky. It’s not the kind of message that builds megachurches, at least not today. It is the kind of message that will make our more fundamentalist brothers and sisters want to throw us off a cliff. But maybe God can use this inclusive love to change lives for the better, one at a time. I’m reminded of the old poem by Edwin Markham that some of us may remember: “He drew a circle that shut me out – Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win; We drew a circle that took him in.” And we here at Emanuel Church, few though we are, still do what we can to continue to draw ever wider circles to welcome our neighbors. And as our numbers slowly increase, the circles we draw will become wider, more inviting, to a neighborhood, a city, a world starving for God’s love.
Jesus found that he couldn’t go home again. In the words from John’s Gospel, “he came unto his own, and his own received him not.” His vision of God’s expansive love was just too threatening for the folks in his hometown synagogue. But through his teaching and ministry, his life and death and resurrection, the Christ who couldn’t go home again built a spiritual home for each of us, for those who have grown up within the church’s embrace, and for those who came to the church later in life, seeking a loving spiritual home that the world couldn’t offer. May we at Emanuel, who have found a spiritual home here, continue to put out the welcome mat and open the door wide and go out into the highways and byways and invite those seeking a spiritual home. For those who find their way here, may we respond with what the UCC calls extravagant hospitality, as we share with them the gracious words, “welcome home.” Amen.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
On A Mission
I believe it was in the 1990’s that it seemingly became fashionable for corporations to prepare mission statements. Perhaps with large corporations diversifying into various lines of commerce, there was a sense that they were losing focus. Stephen R. Covey, author of the book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” is quoted as saying “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” In preparing mission statements, companies would ask themselves, “What business are we in?” For example, here is the mission statement of the McDonald’s fast food chain: "McDonald's vision is to be the world's best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile." These statements often tried to express the core of what the company was about, but broad enough to allow adaptation to a changing business environment. For example, a company whose mission statement reads, “We make top quality buggy whips” probably would no longer be in business. But if the same company said, “we make the top quality accessories for transportation, so our customers can get where they want to go with speed, comfort, and style,” their vision could adapt to the transition from the horse and buggy era to the automobile era, and could include accessories for trains and other forms of mass transit as well – the focus is the general category of “accessories for transportation,” not the specific product of “buggy whips.”
In our Gospel reading (Luke 4:14-21) today, we catch a glimpse of Jesus early in his ministry. Having preached in Galilee and the surrounding country, he had begun to build a reputation as one worth listening to. In today’s Gospel, he comes home, preaching in his hometown synagogue. The text he chooses, from Isaiah 61, is not random – in fact, in Luke’s gospel, this text serves as Jesus’ mission statement, the foundation for his self-understanding of his ministry.
The Isaiah text quoted by Jesus comes from a time after the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylon. After decades in exile, they are finally home at last – but “home” is the charred, crumbling remnants of a temple surrounded by a city in ruins. Our Old Testament reading from Nehemiah 8 tells of a time immediately after the return from exile, when the people, having been in exile amid hostile foreigners for so long, eager to reconnect to their roots and their faith and starving for a word from the Lord, prevailed upon Ezra to read from the book of Moses. And so Ezra read from Moses, we’re told, with interpretation, giving the sense, so that the people understood the reading. But the Isaiah text quoted by Jesus comes at a later time, when the initial burst of energy among the returnees from exile began to wane. They needed to rebuild all over again, and they became discouraged, both at the magnitude of the task before them and by opposition from surrounding tribes. And so the Isaiah text is a word of hope, a word of good news to people needing to hear good news.
We’re told that in Jesus’ day, while the text was read in Hebrew, the people spoke Aramaic – a dialect of Hebrew, but different enough that some may not have understood the text as it was read. In our context we might think of the differences between the Pennsylvania Dutch spoken in Berks and Lehigh and Lancaster counties, which my father’s parents spoke, and the High German in which our older church records are recorded. And so it was customary for the rabbi to interpret the text to his listeners, just as Ezra interpreted the law of Moses in our Old Testament reading. This may be where the tradition of preaching a sermon originated. We’re told that Jesus’ reading caught the attention of the congregation, so that all eyes were focused intently on him – no bored, half-asleep, slack-jawed, dead-fish stares from the congregation that day. And in our Gospel reading, after Jesus read out the text – significantly, omitting a line about “the day of vengeance of our Lord” – vengeance wasn’t part of his mission - he gave his interpretation, his sermon – one short sentence – “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Some translations say, “has been fulfilled in your ears” or “has been fulfilled even as you heard it being read.” Of course, his listeners had to wonder, “what does he mean? Fulfilled how? What has changed just now, as we heard Jesus reading?” Some foreshadowing – in our reading next week, Jesus will go on to tell them what he means, and the congregation that started out speaking well of him will try to throw him off a cliff.
For Luke, the Isaiah text – and let me quote it again: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This text defines how Luke saw Jesus’ mission. It sets the context for the rest of the Gospel, and indeed also for much of the book of Acts, which Luke wrote as a sort of sequel to his Gospel. More than the other Gospels, in Luke there is concern for the poor, for the oppressed, for those in captivity to societal forces beyond their control, for those on the margins of society. For example, in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 5, in the Sermon on the Mount, the first beatitude says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. In Luke 6, the parallel passage from Luke’s Sermon on the Plain just says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.” And it’s followed up in a few verses by the words, “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” So for Luke, this verse from Isaiah on which Jesus preached is foundational, absolutely key to understanding what Jesus was about. Let me say a word about that final phrase – the year of the Lord’s favor. This refers to the year of Jubilee, set forth in Leviticus 25:10, where every 50th year, the trumpet was to be sounded, and the people were to proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof – and if that last phrase sounds familiar, it’s the quote on the Liberty Bell. Any land that had been sold over the past 50 years was to return to its former owner, and the people were not to work the soil, but to live on whatever the land brought forth on its own. This concept, which we don’t know if it was ever actually implemented, was set forth in order to prevent the rich from scooping up too much wealth from the poor, and to be sure that no person or no family or no tribe would be in perpetual bondage to another. In this day of huge disparities between rich and poor, maybe it’s time to proclaim a year of Jubilee.
What does this text from Isaiah mean to us, here at Emanuel, where our name proclaims that God is with us? To us here at Emanuel who are Christ’s body, His arms and legs and hands and feet in the world today? This text that was Jesus’ mission can be our mission as well. For we are anointed – by our baptism, by the Spirit of the Lord within us, to proclaim good news to the poor – here in Bridesburg, and through our support of the Conference and wider church, to the world. For here in Bridesburg, as there were in the Nazareth of Jesus’ time, as we seek each week forgiveness and freedom from our own sinfulness and brokenness and from the world’s sin and brokenness that bears down on us all, all around us there are captives to be released, blind seeking to see, oppressed to be set free – set free from their own bondage to sin, set free from society’s oppression, from forces beyond their control - a community yearning for a proclamation of God’s favor.
But we’re just a little church. How can we hope to take all this on? It is here that our reading from I Corinthians 12 is helpful. We are one part of the body of Christ, and each of us is one member in the body of Christ. We can’t do everything – and we’re not asked to. But we’re asked to do something – to do something for Christ in our personal lives, our professional lives, our lives as members of the congregation, our lives out in the community. And other members of Christ’s body will be active as well – and we must always be mindful of our need for each other.
When I get discouraged at the magnitude of the task God has set before us, I’m reminded of a prayer attributed to Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, gunned down while saying Mass.
It helps now and then to step back and take the long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not Master Builders, ministers, not Messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.
So may the words of Isaiah 61 be fulfilled, not only in our hearing, but in our speaking and our doing. May we here at Emanuel be prophets of God’s good news, here in Bridesburg, in Philadelphia, and through our partnerships with other Christians, to the ends of the earth
In our Gospel reading (Luke 4:14-21) today, we catch a glimpse of Jesus early in his ministry. Having preached in Galilee and the surrounding country, he had begun to build a reputation as one worth listening to. In today’s Gospel, he comes home, preaching in his hometown synagogue. The text he chooses, from Isaiah 61, is not random – in fact, in Luke’s gospel, this text serves as Jesus’ mission statement, the foundation for his self-understanding of his ministry.
The Isaiah text quoted by Jesus comes from a time after the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylon. After decades in exile, they are finally home at last – but “home” is the charred, crumbling remnants of a temple surrounded by a city in ruins. Our Old Testament reading from Nehemiah 8 tells of a time immediately after the return from exile, when the people, having been in exile amid hostile foreigners for so long, eager to reconnect to their roots and their faith and starving for a word from the Lord, prevailed upon Ezra to read from the book of Moses. And so Ezra read from Moses, we’re told, with interpretation, giving the sense, so that the people understood the reading. But the Isaiah text quoted by Jesus comes at a later time, when the initial burst of energy among the returnees from exile began to wane. They needed to rebuild all over again, and they became discouraged, both at the magnitude of the task before them and by opposition from surrounding tribes. And so the Isaiah text is a word of hope, a word of good news to people needing to hear good news.
We’re told that in Jesus’ day, while the text was read in Hebrew, the people spoke Aramaic – a dialect of Hebrew, but different enough that some may not have understood the text as it was read. In our context we might think of the differences between the Pennsylvania Dutch spoken in Berks and Lehigh and Lancaster counties, which my father’s parents spoke, and the High German in which our older church records are recorded. And so it was customary for the rabbi to interpret the text to his listeners, just as Ezra interpreted the law of Moses in our Old Testament reading. This may be where the tradition of preaching a sermon originated. We’re told that Jesus’ reading caught the attention of the congregation, so that all eyes were focused intently on him – no bored, half-asleep, slack-jawed, dead-fish stares from the congregation that day. And in our Gospel reading, after Jesus read out the text – significantly, omitting a line about “the day of vengeance of our Lord” – vengeance wasn’t part of his mission - he gave his interpretation, his sermon – one short sentence – “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Some translations say, “has been fulfilled in your ears” or “has been fulfilled even as you heard it being read.” Of course, his listeners had to wonder, “what does he mean? Fulfilled how? What has changed just now, as we heard Jesus reading?” Some foreshadowing – in our reading next week, Jesus will go on to tell them what he means, and the congregation that started out speaking well of him will try to throw him off a cliff.
For Luke, the Isaiah text – and let me quote it again: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This text defines how Luke saw Jesus’ mission. It sets the context for the rest of the Gospel, and indeed also for much of the book of Acts, which Luke wrote as a sort of sequel to his Gospel. More than the other Gospels, in Luke there is concern for the poor, for the oppressed, for those in captivity to societal forces beyond their control, for those on the margins of society. For example, in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 5, in the Sermon on the Mount, the first beatitude says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. In Luke 6, the parallel passage from Luke’s Sermon on the Plain just says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.” And it’s followed up in a few verses by the words, “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” So for Luke, this verse from Isaiah on which Jesus preached is foundational, absolutely key to understanding what Jesus was about. Let me say a word about that final phrase – the year of the Lord’s favor. This refers to the year of Jubilee, set forth in Leviticus 25:10, where every 50th year, the trumpet was to be sounded, and the people were to proclaim liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof – and if that last phrase sounds familiar, it’s the quote on the Liberty Bell. Any land that had been sold over the past 50 years was to return to its former owner, and the people were not to work the soil, but to live on whatever the land brought forth on its own. This concept, which we don’t know if it was ever actually implemented, was set forth in order to prevent the rich from scooping up too much wealth from the poor, and to be sure that no person or no family or no tribe would be in perpetual bondage to another. In this day of huge disparities between rich and poor, maybe it’s time to proclaim a year of Jubilee.
What does this text from Isaiah mean to us, here at Emanuel, where our name proclaims that God is with us? To us here at Emanuel who are Christ’s body, His arms and legs and hands and feet in the world today? This text that was Jesus’ mission can be our mission as well. For we are anointed – by our baptism, by the Spirit of the Lord within us, to proclaim good news to the poor – here in Bridesburg, and through our support of the Conference and wider church, to the world. For here in Bridesburg, as there were in the Nazareth of Jesus’ time, as we seek each week forgiveness and freedom from our own sinfulness and brokenness and from the world’s sin and brokenness that bears down on us all, all around us there are captives to be released, blind seeking to see, oppressed to be set free – set free from their own bondage to sin, set free from society’s oppression, from forces beyond their control - a community yearning for a proclamation of God’s favor.
But we’re just a little church. How can we hope to take all this on? It is here that our reading from I Corinthians 12 is helpful. We are one part of the body of Christ, and each of us is one member in the body of Christ. We can’t do everything – and we’re not asked to. But we’re asked to do something – to do something for Christ in our personal lives, our professional lives, our lives as members of the congregation, our lives out in the community. And other members of Christ’s body will be active as well – and we must always be mindful of our need for each other.
When I get discouraged at the magnitude of the task God has set before us, I’m reminded of a prayer attributed to Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, gunned down while saying Mass.
It helps now and then to step back and take the long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about: We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not Master Builders, ministers, not Messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.
So may the words of Isaiah 61 be fulfilled, not only in our hearing, but in our speaking and our doing. May we here at Emanuel be prophets of God’s good news, here in Bridesburg, in Philadelphia, and through our partnerships with other Christians, to the ends of the earth
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Jesus' Time - Our Time
I suppose it’s inevitable that, in our day of “reality TV” there are reality wedding shows. “Rich Bride, Poor Bride”, “Bride vs Bride”, “Bridezillas” – nothing sexist there….but in our voyeuristic culture that likes watching “real people” behaving badly, watching “real people” acting out on TV, what better than the stress of preparing for that special day to give the viewers at home a reason to tune in. And I’m sure we’ve all been to real weddings of family or friends that gave us indelible, if unintentional, memories – the wedding where the bridesmaid tripped over her dress and landed on her backside, the rings got lost, the bride or groom started giggling during their vows, or the best man got drunk at the reception and slurred his way through the toast to the newlyweds. Preparing for that day of a lifetime can cost thousands of dollars, if the couple wants to go upscale, requiring coordination of all manner of items and services – wedding gowns, tuxes, caterers, a limo rental, not to mention setting up things at the church. In the stress of all this planning, the bride’s and groom’s fangs may come out. One hopes that by the time they’ve driven off for the honeymoon, they’re not ready for a divorce.
Our Gospel reading today (John 2:1-11) describes a situation in which the headwaiter, or in today’s terms, party planner, were he on such a TV show, would likely have been sent packing. In Jesus’ day, a wedding was not just an event for immediate family, but for extended family and friends, an event which traditionally would have lasted seven days. Among an oppressed peasant population, a wedding would be one of the few occasions in a person’s life where one could relax and rejoice amid plenty of food and drink, at least for a week, before returning to their difficult daily existence. This wedding took place in Cana, a small village about 9 miles north of Jesus’ hometown Nazareth. We’re told that that the mother of Jesus was invited – for all we know, she may have been helping with the arrangements – and Jesus and his disciples were invited also. And then a fit-for-reality-TV moment arrives – the wine runs out. In our context, this would be embarrassing; in the time of Jesus, in which hospitality was literally a matter of life and death, this would have been utterly hang-your-head-in-shame mortifying. Mary says to Jesus, “They have no wine.” Jesus’ immediate next words seem callous, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?” Hey Mom, butt out! It’s not our problem! But then he goes on, “My hour has not yet come.”
We may need to unpack this a bit. Scholars tell us that “Woman” would have been considered a polite form of address, though it sounds cold to our ears. It’s also important to note that, in John’s Gospel, Jesus is very much in charge at all times – as he says at a later point, “I lay down my life and I take it up again.” And so Jesus was in this situation – asserting himself to act independently of his mother’s words – on his initiative, not hers.
Mary is not put off by his response, but tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” There were six stone water jars, used for the Jewish rites of purification – in other words, that would have contained water for ritual washing of hands. It’s possible that, for John, the number six is significant – seven is a sign of completion, perfection, while six is a number of incompletion. Jesus tells the servants to fill the jars with water, which they do, then tells them to draw some out and give it to the chief steward. Of course, what they bring the chief steward is wine – not just any wine, but top-quality wine. John tells us that the chief steward didn’t know where it came from, but the servants did – it’s almost as if Jesus whimsically spiked the punch, playing it as a quiet in-joke between himself and the servants, behind the back of the chief steward and the bride and groom. So the chief steward called the oblivious bridegroom over and told him, “usually people serve the good wine up front and save the cheap stuff for when people are sloshed, but you’ve saved the best for last.” John tells us that Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
John’s gospel records many fewer miracles of Jesus than do Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In John’s gospel, in fact, they are not called miracles, but signs – signs that point to God’s glory, just as a road sign points out directions to a nearby location. And, in fact, John’s gospel is the only place where the miracle of the wine at the wedding of Cana occurs.
And what aspect of God’s glory is pointed out by this sign? – the sign points to God’s abundance, to the overflowing joy of God, brimming to the top and overflowing, just as those six huge stone water jars - at 20 or 30 gallons each, we’re told - overflowed with the best of wine for a wedding feast in Cana. We Protestants are often painted as sour, grim killjoy sorts, but the Jesus depicted in today’s reading is no killjoy – but rather, the sort of person who gets invited to wedding banquets, who can rejoice with others – to the point where critics called him a drunk and a glutton, a friend of sinners - and step in with God’s abundance in a situation of want, who cares even about something as personal as a wedding feast. In a sense, this miracle can be compared to the feeding of the five thousand, in which Jesus took the scarce morsels available and multiplied them so that there was enough and to spare. And in contrast to our culture and the prosperity gospel of some churches, this is not “abundance” to be hoarded and kept to ourselves, but rather to be given away freely, shared with all, so that all may experience God’s grace and rejoice.
It’s also surely not a coincidence that John mentions that the stone jugs were used to contain water for Jewish purification rites. Some theologians see Jesus’ miracle as a way of minimizing or invalidating the importance of their intended use in Jewish rites of handwashing – and certainly there was tension between John’s faith community and some Jewish leaders who did not follow Jesus - but I see the miracle instead as a sign of the continuity of God’s faithfulness – out of these vessels used for Jewish religious observance came Jesus’ abundant provision for the joy of those at the wedding feast. And we might reflect that, while this was Jesus’ first sign, he saved his best sign for last as well, when his hour – the hour of laying down his life for us on the cross and taking it up again at the resurrection – came to provide abundant grace for all of us, grace upon grace overflowing with joy like the top-quality wine at the wedding feast in Cana.
I must say, though, speaking of overflowing joy and abundance and even grace seems a bit disconnected to the news of the present day, to the difficult local, national, and international economy, the many unemployed in America, the many in Bridesburg who seek assistance – and especially in light of the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, where thousands were killed, trapped under crumbled buildings – perhaps 60% or more of the buildings in the capital city of Port Au Prince were destroyed - and perhaps millions are homeless, without food for days, and the international community seeks to send aid, but the Haitian infrastructure, rickety and unreliable even in the best of circumstances, is now almost completely broken down, making it incredibly difficult to distribute aid to those who need it most. Like Mary at the banquet, the news reports tell us that Haiti not only has no wine, but increasingly little food or drinkable water. As it happens, the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference just recently began supporting two medical missionaries to Haiti, Pat and Kim Bentrott. There’s additional information in the bulletin – they even have a blog, http://www.kimandpatrick.blogspot.com/ which I’ve begun to read, and I commend it to those of you who have computer access.
How will we respond? Some will say, “what is that to me, to us?” For example, Pat Robertson informs us that Haitians made a pact with the devil for their independence, and therefore the earthquake is an expression of God’s wrath. Others, equally eager to wash their hands of the disaster but less eager to play ventriloquist for God, simply say, “not my problem.”
But I’ll make a suggestion that will sound a bit odd coming from a protestant pastor – maybe we should take Mary’s advice to the servants at the banquet, “Do whatever Jesus tells us to do.” In Matthew 25, Jesus said that whatever we do unto the least of his brothers - and sisters, we would say today - we do unto him – for good or ill. And, despite Pat Robertson’s blatherings, surely the Haitians are among Jesus’ sisters and brothers. The United Church of Christ is among those gathering funds for relief efforts, and there’s information in the bulletin for those wishing to donate. Of course, assistance from the international community will come to assist in the immediate circumstances, but aid will also be needed over the long haul, long after the camera crews and news anchors have left to go cover other stories, to help Haiti rebuild. Our regular giving to OCWM pays for all of the overhead involved in getting disaster aid to Haiti, so that any funds designated to Haiti will go 100% to Haiti. More than this, as we did this morning, we should keep our sisters and brothers in Haiti in our prayers, not just today, but every day in the days ahead. Like the persistence of the poor widow’s pleas to the unjust judge in Jesus’ parable, we should persist in prayer, not only for ourselves and our church and our own community, but for our sisters and brothers in the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, struggling mightily to get by under the best of circumstances, now dealing with unimaginable disaster.
The head waiter said to the bridegroom – “You have saved the best wine for last.” Even amid our daily challenges, may we experience the overflowing grace and joy of Jesus in our lives, so that it will flow beyond us to our friends and our beloved community of Bridesburg, today and every day. Amen.
Our Gospel reading today (John 2:1-11) describes a situation in which the headwaiter, or in today’s terms, party planner, were he on such a TV show, would likely have been sent packing. In Jesus’ day, a wedding was not just an event for immediate family, but for extended family and friends, an event which traditionally would have lasted seven days. Among an oppressed peasant population, a wedding would be one of the few occasions in a person’s life where one could relax and rejoice amid plenty of food and drink, at least for a week, before returning to their difficult daily existence. This wedding took place in Cana, a small village about 9 miles north of Jesus’ hometown Nazareth. We’re told that that the mother of Jesus was invited – for all we know, she may have been helping with the arrangements – and Jesus and his disciples were invited also. And then a fit-for-reality-TV moment arrives – the wine runs out. In our context, this would be embarrassing; in the time of Jesus, in which hospitality was literally a matter of life and death, this would have been utterly hang-your-head-in-shame mortifying. Mary says to Jesus, “They have no wine.” Jesus’ immediate next words seem callous, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?” Hey Mom, butt out! It’s not our problem! But then he goes on, “My hour has not yet come.”
We may need to unpack this a bit. Scholars tell us that “Woman” would have been considered a polite form of address, though it sounds cold to our ears. It’s also important to note that, in John’s Gospel, Jesus is very much in charge at all times – as he says at a later point, “I lay down my life and I take it up again.” And so Jesus was in this situation – asserting himself to act independently of his mother’s words – on his initiative, not hers.
Mary is not put off by his response, but tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” There were six stone water jars, used for the Jewish rites of purification – in other words, that would have contained water for ritual washing of hands. It’s possible that, for John, the number six is significant – seven is a sign of completion, perfection, while six is a number of incompletion. Jesus tells the servants to fill the jars with water, which they do, then tells them to draw some out and give it to the chief steward. Of course, what they bring the chief steward is wine – not just any wine, but top-quality wine. John tells us that the chief steward didn’t know where it came from, but the servants did – it’s almost as if Jesus whimsically spiked the punch, playing it as a quiet in-joke between himself and the servants, behind the back of the chief steward and the bride and groom. So the chief steward called the oblivious bridegroom over and told him, “usually people serve the good wine up front and save the cheap stuff for when people are sloshed, but you’ve saved the best for last.” John tells us that Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
John’s gospel records many fewer miracles of Jesus than do Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In John’s gospel, in fact, they are not called miracles, but signs – signs that point to God’s glory, just as a road sign points out directions to a nearby location. And, in fact, John’s gospel is the only place where the miracle of the wine at the wedding of Cana occurs.
And what aspect of God’s glory is pointed out by this sign? – the sign points to God’s abundance, to the overflowing joy of God, brimming to the top and overflowing, just as those six huge stone water jars - at 20 or 30 gallons each, we’re told - overflowed with the best of wine for a wedding feast in Cana. We Protestants are often painted as sour, grim killjoy sorts, but the Jesus depicted in today’s reading is no killjoy – but rather, the sort of person who gets invited to wedding banquets, who can rejoice with others – to the point where critics called him a drunk and a glutton, a friend of sinners - and step in with God’s abundance in a situation of want, who cares even about something as personal as a wedding feast. In a sense, this miracle can be compared to the feeding of the five thousand, in which Jesus took the scarce morsels available and multiplied them so that there was enough and to spare. And in contrast to our culture and the prosperity gospel of some churches, this is not “abundance” to be hoarded and kept to ourselves, but rather to be given away freely, shared with all, so that all may experience God’s grace and rejoice.
It’s also surely not a coincidence that John mentions that the stone jugs were used to contain water for Jewish purification rites. Some theologians see Jesus’ miracle as a way of minimizing or invalidating the importance of their intended use in Jewish rites of handwashing – and certainly there was tension between John’s faith community and some Jewish leaders who did not follow Jesus - but I see the miracle instead as a sign of the continuity of God’s faithfulness – out of these vessels used for Jewish religious observance came Jesus’ abundant provision for the joy of those at the wedding feast. And we might reflect that, while this was Jesus’ first sign, he saved his best sign for last as well, when his hour – the hour of laying down his life for us on the cross and taking it up again at the resurrection – came to provide abundant grace for all of us, grace upon grace overflowing with joy like the top-quality wine at the wedding feast in Cana.
I must say, though, speaking of overflowing joy and abundance and even grace seems a bit disconnected to the news of the present day, to the difficult local, national, and international economy, the many unemployed in America, the many in Bridesburg who seek assistance – and especially in light of the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, where thousands were killed, trapped under crumbled buildings – perhaps 60% or more of the buildings in the capital city of Port Au Prince were destroyed - and perhaps millions are homeless, without food for days, and the international community seeks to send aid, but the Haitian infrastructure, rickety and unreliable even in the best of circumstances, is now almost completely broken down, making it incredibly difficult to distribute aid to those who need it most. Like Mary at the banquet, the news reports tell us that Haiti not only has no wine, but increasingly little food or drinkable water. As it happens, the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference just recently began supporting two medical missionaries to Haiti, Pat and Kim Bentrott. There’s additional information in the bulletin – they even have a blog, http://www.kimandpatrick.blogspot.com/ which I’ve begun to read, and I commend it to those of you who have computer access.
How will we respond? Some will say, “what is that to me, to us?” For example, Pat Robertson informs us that Haitians made a pact with the devil for their independence, and therefore the earthquake is an expression of God’s wrath. Others, equally eager to wash their hands of the disaster but less eager to play ventriloquist for God, simply say, “not my problem.”
But I’ll make a suggestion that will sound a bit odd coming from a protestant pastor – maybe we should take Mary’s advice to the servants at the banquet, “Do whatever Jesus tells us to do.” In Matthew 25, Jesus said that whatever we do unto the least of his brothers - and sisters, we would say today - we do unto him – for good or ill. And, despite Pat Robertson’s blatherings, surely the Haitians are among Jesus’ sisters and brothers. The United Church of Christ is among those gathering funds for relief efforts, and there’s information in the bulletin for those wishing to donate. Of course, assistance from the international community will come to assist in the immediate circumstances, but aid will also be needed over the long haul, long after the camera crews and news anchors have left to go cover other stories, to help Haiti rebuild. Our regular giving to OCWM pays for all of the overhead involved in getting disaster aid to Haiti, so that any funds designated to Haiti will go 100% to Haiti. More than this, as we did this morning, we should keep our sisters and brothers in Haiti in our prayers, not just today, but every day in the days ahead. Like the persistence of the poor widow’s pleas to the unjust judge in Jesus’ parable, we should persist in prayer, not only for ourselves and our church and our own community, but for our sisters and brothers in the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, struggling mightily to get by under the best of circumstances, now dealing with unimaginable disaster.
The head waiter said to the bridegroom – “You have saved the best wine for last.” Even amid our daily challenges, may we experience the overflowing grace and joy of Jesus in our lives, so that it will flow beyond us to our friends and our beloved community of Bridesburg, today and every day. Amen.
God's Beloved
The early Celtic or Irish Christians used the name “thin places” for places in nature where they felt especially close to God – often places that were especially beautiful, where the grass was especially green or the view especially inspiring. They felt that in these places, the barrier separating them from God was thinner than in most places, almost translucent. Some modern writers use the term “thin places” to refer those transitional moments in our lives – a wedding, the birth of a child, the passing of a loved one – in which our day-to-day lives recede into the background and God’s presence is felt more strongly than usual. Today’s Gospel reading from Luke describes a sort of “thin place”, where we’re told that not only was the separation between humanity and God thinner than normal, but that God tore open the heavens to be part of the moment.
The particular “thin place” in today’s Gospel (Luke 3:15-17, 21-22) is the Jordan River, where John is baptizing the crowds who come to him. The crowds are coming to John to be baptized as a token of repentance, a sign that they are dissatisfied with the quality of their lives, and are not only sorry for what they have done, but want to turn their lives in a new direction. The Jordan River would have been a highly symbolic place for John’s listeners. As Americans and especially as Philadelphians, if we saw someone dressed in a colonial costume standing in front of Independence Hall, telling us that we should do this or that for the good of our country, we might be led to listen with special attention. The Jordan River would have had similar strong associations for John’s listeners. Remember that it was through the River Jordan that the ancient Hebrews crossed into the Promised Land. Naaman’s leprosy was cured when he dipped seven times in the Jordan River. And it was on the banks of the Jordan that Elijah the prophet was swept up in a chariot into heaven, and his mantel fell on his successor, Elisha. So for John’s hearers, the location of the Jordan River marked the barrier between “the wilderness” and “the promised land”, and for John’s hearers would have been associated with freedom, with healing, with prophetic power.
So powerful were these associations, in fact, that Luke tells us the crowds were beginning to speculate that John himself was the Messiah. And so John quickly issued a disclaimer – one is coming who is greater than I, and so great is he that I’m unworthy to undo the thong of his sandal. Yet the crowds came to be baptized – and among the crowds came Jesus. Luke tells us that when everyone had been baptized, Jesus likewise was baptized. As he was in the water, praying – Luke specifies that Jesus was praying – the heavens open, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove. A voice from heaven addressed Jesus: “You are my one dear Son; in you I am well pleased.”
All four Gospels tell of the baptism of Jesus. In Matthew and Mark, the heavens open and Jesus sees the Spirit descending. But Luke’s telling is very specific in saying that everyone sees the Spirit descending in bodily form and all hear God’s voice naming Jesus as his one dear Son in whom God is well pleased.
Why did Jesus come to be baptized? After all, John’s was a baptism of repentance, of turning away from sin, and yet we say that Jesus was without sin. Jesus’ baptism was not for himself, but for us. In being baptized, Jesus stood with the crowds seeking change in their lives, identified with them, indeed, identified with us in a radical way.
And in our baptism, we in turn are identified in a radical way with Jesus. We – or our parents and godparents on our behalf – desire the death of our sinful nature, our cleansing from the power of sin in our lives, and our being raised up out of the waters into the new life Christ brings. We are marked as Christ’s own, and God calls us, as God called Jesus, beloved sons and daughters, in whom God is well pleased. As Jesus was empowered by the Spirit for ministry, so we are empowered by the Spirit to minister in Christ’s name.
And yet we know that in Jesus’ time on earth, God’s voice was not constantly speaking to the crowds from the heavens. Even as God’s beloved, Jesus knew what it was to be hungry, to be exhausted, to feel all the limitations that come with being human. And being baptized as beloved children of God will not insulate us from life’s challenges and pain – but we can gain strength to endure and overcome. We may catch those glimpses of eternity, briefly experience those “thin places” where God seems especially close – but then life goes on as life does, with all the weariness and confusion and pain that life can sometimes bring. It is during the hardest and most painful moments of our lives that we can gain strength from remembering that we are baptized, that we, with our brothers and sisters in Christ, are God’s beloved. I’m reminded of these words that were found scrawled on the walls of a cellar in Cologne, Germany, where Jews hid from the Nazis: “I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining. I believe in love, even when I don’t feel it. I believe in God, even when He is silent.” It is during those “dark nights of the soul” that we all experience, in which the light is hidden from our souls and love seems far away and God seems silent, that our baptism can remind us of God’s abiding love. The protestant reformer Martin Luther suffered terribly from depression, and sometimes felt that Satan was stalking his very steps. It was during these awful moments of despair that Luther would remind himself, “But I am baptized. I am baptized.” Note the tense of the verb: not “I was baptized” but “I am baptized”. Not a one-time ritual, but the marking of an ongoing relationship with God. Our whole lives are lived out under the grace of our baptism.
No matter who we are, or where we may find ourselves in our journey through life, we are called to remember that God has claimed us for himself as his beloved sons and daughters – that, in the old words of the Heidelberg Catechism that some of us grew up with, we belong, body and soul, in life and in death, not to ourselves, but to our faithful Saviour, Jesus Christ, who through the water of baptism has claimed us for his own. Amen.
The particular “thin place” in today’s Gospel (Luke 3:15-17, 21-22) is the Jordan River, where John is baptizing the crowds who come to him. The crowds are coming to John to be baptized as a token of repentance, a sign that they are dissatisfied with the quality of their lives, and are not only sorry for what they have done, but want to turn their lives in a new direction. The Jordan River would have been a highly symbolic place for John’s listeners. As Americans and especially as Philadelphians, if we saw someone dressed in a colonial costume standing in front of Independence Hall, telling us that we should do this or that for the good of our country, we might be led to listen with special attention. The Jordan River would have had similar strong associations for John’s listeners. Remember that it was through the River Jordan that the ancient Hebrews crossed into the Promised Land. Naaman’s leprosy was cured when he dipped seven times in the Jordan River. And it was on the banks of the Jordan that Elijah the prophet was swept up in a chariot into heaven, and his mantel fell on his successor, Elisha. So for John’s hearers, the location of the Jordan River marked the barrier between “the wilderness” and “the promised land”, and for John’s hearers would have been associated with freedom, with healing, with prophetic power.
So powerful were these associations, in fact, that Luke tells us the crowds were beginning to speculate that John himself was the Messiah. And so John quickly issued a disclaimer – one is coming who is greater than I, and so great is he that I’m unworthy to undo the thong of his sandal. Yet the crowds came to be baptized – and among the crowds came Jesus. Luke tells us that when everyone had been baptized, Jesus likewise was baptized. As he was in the water, praying – Luke specifies that Jesus was praying – the heavens open, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove. A voice from heaven addressed Jesus: “You are my one dear Son; in you I am well pleased.”
All four Gospels tell of the baptism of Jesus. In Matthew and Mark, the heavens open and Jesus sees the Spirit descending. But Luke’s telling is very specific in saying that everyone sees the Spirit descending in bodily form and all hear God’s voice naming Jesus as his one dear Son in whom God is well pleased.
Why did Jesus come to be baptized? After all, John’s was a baptism of repentance, of turning away from sin, and yet we say that Jesus was without sin. Jesus’ baptism was not for himself, but for us. In being baptized, Jesus stood with the crowds seeking change in their lives, identified with them, indeed, identified with us in a radical way.
And in our baptism, we in turn are identified in a radical way with Jesus. We – or our parents and godparents on our behalf – desire the death of our sinful nature, our cleansing from the power of sin in our lives, and our being raised up out of the waters into the new life Christ brings. We are marked as Christ’s own, and God calls us, as God called Jesus, beloved sons and daughters, in whom God is well pleased. As Jesus was empowered by the Spirit for ministry, so we are empowered by the Spirit to minister in Christ’s name.
And yet we know that in Jesus’ time on earth, God’s voice was not constantly speaking to the crowds from the heavens. Even as God’s beloved, Jesus knew what it was to be hungry, to be exhausted, to feel all the limitations that come with being human. And being baptized as beloved children of God will not insulate us from life’s challenges and pain – but we can gain strength to endure and overcome. We may catch those glimpses of eternity, briefly experience those “thin places” where God seems especially close – but then life goes on as life does, with all the weariness and confusion and pain that life can sometimes bring. It is during the hardest and most painful moments of our lives that we can gain strength from remembering that we are baptized, that we, with our brothers and sisters in Christ, are God’s beloved. I’m reminded of these words that were found scrawled on the walls of a cellar in Cologne, Germany, where Jews hid from the Nazis: “I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining. I believe in love, even when I don’t feel it. I believe in God, even when He is silent.” It is during those “dark nights of the soul” that we all experience, in which the light is hidden from our souls and love seems far away and God seems silent, that our baptism can remind us of God’s abiding love. The protestant reformer Martin Luther suffered terribly from depression, and sometimes felt that Satan was stalking his very steps. It was during these awful moments of despair that Luther would remind himself, “But I am baptized. I am baptized.” Note the tense of the verb: not “I was baptized” but “I am baptized”. Not a one-time ritual, but the marking of an ongoing relationship with God. Our whole lives are lived out under the grace of our baptism.
No matter who we are, or where we may find ourselves in our journey through life, we are called to remember that God has claimed us for himself as his beloved sons and daughters – that, in the old words of the Heidelberg Catechism that some of us grew up with, we belong, body and soul, in life and in death, not to ourselves, but to our faithful Saviour, Jesus Christ, who through the water of baptism has claimed us for his own. Amen.
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