Living word by word

A Sermon on Jessie Diggins, Rosa Parks, and the Wedding at Cana

Epiphany 2C                                                 January 17, 2016

A sermon on Jessie Diggins, Rosa Parks, and the Wedding at Cana

John 2: 1-11

            While the sports section was covering the Vikings 12 pages at a time last week, a tiny paragraph appeared posting news that was much bigger in my world: a Minnesotan named Jessie Diggins became the first U.S. Nordic skier to win a World Cup distance race.  This is big big news in cross country skiing, and the race series last week that she was part of was front page news – in Norway.

            There was one article that gave it a little more attention == and what was fascinating was the way various people commented on the win.  No one described it as a long-shot or a miracle. The athlete herself was both elated and humble. She said again and again that it was her team’s enthusiasm that cheered her on, her coaches and waxers that made it technically possible.   The godfather of Twin Cities skiing, Ahvo Taipele, said “I saw her ski when she was 12 and I always said she would be a threat.” Her coach said “we’ve seen how she can close down a race many times.”  And of course a couple of people said, “The Europeans have been put on notice!”

And her parents, her parents simply said “This is the result of 100s and 100s of hours of dedication and training.”

And most of the world still has no idea what I’m talking about.

As the Gospel of John tells the story of Jesus, it never speaks of miracles or wonders. Jesus heals the blind, raises the dead, and this morning turns water into wine, but never is what he does a miracle. It is a “sign” – an act that reveals his glory and points to who he is.  It’s putting us on notice that the Word is coming into the world.

But the funny thing is, with this sign especially, it’s a pretty well-hidden sign.

Think about it: what happens truly is astonishing, and it totally saves the day for this family. 

Mary knows that not having wine is going to be disastrous – are they poor? Was there an accident and something was lost? Are they just pathetically poor planners? We don’t know. But what we do know is that in the world of Middle Eastern weddings, failing to have enough wine to offer your guests at a wedding is a colossal failure, a real shame.

Mary is maybe the only one at this time who knows that Jesus can be of any help with this issue.  Their relationship is--  well,  probably about as complicated as you can imagine a relationship between a human mother and a not-exactly-normal son would be.  The way Jesus addresses her probably has more to do with John’s theology than with Jesus here – let’s agree to leave that aside for the moment. But notice this; all she says is:

Do whatever he tells you

And they fill the jars –  

            This is a ridiculous amount of water.  It takes some serious obedience for these servants to do this, because this is enough water to keep people drinking for weeks nearly a thousand bottles. And it’s WATER they’re putting in there. You can imagine some of them saying “Why are we doing this? What good does this do?” No one wants to drink water.  There’s an old saying, “in beer there is wisdom, in wine there is joy, in water there’s bacteria.”

 The real crisis here is more than wine, it’s hospitality, it’s joy. The people are not dying of thirst. They are in danger of going home because the party has lost its luster, because this is not what a good host does.

But the obedient servants fill the jars, because Jesus told them to and because Jesus’ mother told them to do what he said.

            And out of all this water, after all this work, one servant takes one cup to one man, the steward.

            The steward, we assume, has no idea where this cup came from;  He gives all the credit to the bridegroom, who likely has no idea that the servants have been hauling water full time for the last hour, much less who ordered them to do so.

            But that one cup,  that little bit of what was an enormous wonder of abundant wine, that cup causes him to wonder out loud about the entire philosophy of hospitality:

            You, you have saved the best wine for last.

            The assumption here is that the guests are not even going to notice how good the wine is. They would have noticed when it ran out, for sure. But not the quality of what is now in front of them.  Not only do they not know how closely the wedding escaped disaster. Not only do they not know that Jesus is responsible. They don’t even know that this wine is the best of all. But they sure benefit from it. They might have all kinds of other explanations for what has just happened.

So it’s an odd thing. If this is supposed to be Jesus great revelation to the world of who he is, it’s pretty well hidden. If this is supposed to be a sign, it’s a sign that does not exactly turn the spotlights on him. 

--

The people in the best position to appreciate what has just happened are the ones who actually had to work some to make it happen – those servants must have literally hauled water for quite a while.  So while the wine sort of came out of nowhere, the full jars did not. It was the result of lots of work.

--

In our age of instant fame and viral videos, what we seldom see is the hauling of water. We want the miracle, the great moment captured in 42 seconds on someone’s camera, but we have little patience for the process of getting there.

Think of the civil rights movement. My generation came of age learning about Rosa Parks as if her staying put at the front of the bus was a spontaneous decision, a moment that catalyzed everything that followed just by sheer force of will.

But that’s not what happened. Rosa Parks was not just tired.  And she was not the first person arrested for refusing to give up her seat. She was a churchgoing woman of color who had already been active in the efforts to call attention to segregation.  She was known and respected across the community  because she was engaged across a broad spectrum of the Montgomery community. As her husband put it,  she was more often at community potlucks than cooking dinner at home. She was already active with the NAACP and was disciplined in the art of peaceful demonstration. And when her action catalyzed the Montgomery bus boycott, there were already legions of neighbors and fellow churchgoers who were ready to not take the bus to work the next day, and the next day, and the next. There was organization, and determination and grit from not just one woman but from a community.  And their actions was one part of a struggle that lasted not just days but years.  There was, and still is, a lot of hauling water happening to call attention to the need for human dignity and rights for every citizen. (This is beautifully written about in The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg).

--

The ones who realized what happened at Cana were servants, which is entirely fitting since when Jesus decided to teach his disciples his last lesson about who he was, he took a towel, and wrapped it around his waist, and got down on his knees. His last commandment to them was that they love one another. And loving one another is not one deed but thousands upon thousands.

It shouldn’t surprise us that we don’t always see the signs.  The world is too drunk with its own consumerism to care most of the time. Most of the time we don’t even notice the disasters we have narrowly escaped. That is no different than before.  But God’s grace still pours down; Jesus still goes about his work, healing, giving life, giving joy.  If we want to see it, we have to pay attention.

Next week at St. John’s we will gather and speak of what it means to follow this servant. There will be report after report by servants in this place who can tell you of hundreds of hours, thousands of dollars, a ream of examples of deeds done in Jesus’ name. Many of us may not feel that it matters all that much, whether we show up, whether we volunteer, whether we have that conversation with someone we don’t already know or raise our hand to help out.

  It is easy for us to fret that it’s not enough; it’s easy to imagine that all that water we haul week after week is not what we need to really feast in God’s presence.  

But Jesus is here;  as we obey his commands, as we love one another, as we tend to empty jars and empty bellies and troubled hearts and questioning minds and hungry souls, the ordinary water of everyday life  becomes the wine of joy. If we pay attention, we will see him at work.

So how will you put something in an empty jar this week? It might not be dramatic, you won’t do it alone, and it might not even be noticed by anyone; and it’s entirely possible that when someone says this is the best wine I’ve ever tasted, they won’t know that it came from the work of Jesus. But Jesus offers joy to the whole party, every one.  And this is just the beginning.

 

Kid theology

Our Epiphany celebration at ECLC's Bonfire service  (OK, 11th day of Christmas. . .but we had to do it on Wendesday) was a blast!  Fifty people, including at least a dozen royalty, showed up to journey with the Magi to the Christ Child.

One of the things that always amazes me when you engage children in this kind of interactive worship is how readily they offer their theological perspectives and answers. Some of my favorites from Wednesday:

At the end of dinner we passed out king's cake, with the forewarning that some surprises lay therein to remind us of the occasion. I confess, I struggled a bit with this, largely because I did not have the energy to bake my own cake that day (I have since been diagnosed with pneumonia, but  that's another story).  If this were France or Italy, one might find a small baby Jesus (too hard to find), a coin (too chokeable) or a dried bean (too likely to crack a tooth).  Not wanting to put in anything potentially toxic, I went for small wax birthday candles in a couple slices, simply slid in from underneath.

After all had partaken I asked who had found surprises, and "why would there be a little candle in your cake?" I  was just thinking Jesus' birthday here, but Paavo burst out with confidence, " Because Jesus is the light of our lives!!"   Amen.

Later we went downstairs to write our hopes and dreams for the new year on pieces of paper. Trying to prepare the children for the act of burning them in our mini-bonfire, Dawn explained that burning things was an ancient way of sending ones prayers up to God.  This message seemed fairly well accepted at the time (my daughter LOVED this idea). . .but more on that later.

Then we proceeded to gather up our "gifts for the baby Jesus," namely items for Lutheran World Relief Health kits that had been collected. The kids were invited to take an item as we journeyed to the manger and give it to baby Jesus.   One boy almost immediately had trouble with this idea.  He came to me nearly in tears, holding up his toothbrush.

"How are we supposed to give these to Jesus?  We can't even SEE Jesus!"

I think this boy was bright enough to accept my fumbling explanation about "giving to the least of these."

Finally we did make it to the fire, and the manger. Toothbrushes and soap and towels were piled on top of the baby Jesus, and prayers were thrown into the fire.  One three-year-old was NOT happy about the fire plan though. Why?

She wanted to give her prayer to Jesus, of course.

Lectionary blog Epiphany 6A: How do we stop making it a checklist?

I love checklists, but I shudder at how easily we can turn faith into a self-help program that creates a litmus test for those who are "in."

With the beatitudes, two weeks ago, the challenge was to imagine the blessings as just that: blessings, not a list of virtues to strive for.

This week it is Jesus' own attempt to move past checklists that can still lead us down that road. He sets the bar high enough that it would be pretty difficult to let ourselves off the hook. But as soon as we get to a concrete matter like divorce, that little voice creeps in. How many people will hear the first two paragraphs, but forget them entirely once they've heard Jesus compare their remarriage with adultery?

We would love, as pastors, for these texts to become the "start of conversation" about a life that honors other human beings, that refuses to let old grudges fester in our hearts, that refuses to treat others as objects. But how many people will only hear the exclusions in this text?

It doesn't help that our translators give us "hell"  for "Gehenna," which was an identifiable smoldering garbage dump outside Jerusalem. Can bitterness, lust, or rage smolder like a stinky pile of refuse? You bet. No need for the afterlife to explain that one.

How do we speak honestly about the ways that sin can fester in our lives without resorting to a list which consigns some people to the realm of "sinners" more than others?

Maureen Dowd  reported this week  on a new IPhone "confession app" that purports to "start the conversation" about the state of one's soul -- but how do you start the conversation with a list?

Self-examination can be a helpful tool in the spiritual life, but an awfully tricky one to prescribe.

sliding into Epiphany

  

Even though it's a rare 2nd Sunday after Christmas January 4, we're going to slide into Epiphany on January 4 this year.  See my former post on the Gift of the Magi for thoughts on the Matthew text.

    And, though it commits the usual sin of melding Matthew and Luke's nativity stories, I'll be reading my kids  Humphrey's First Christmas as the Magi approach. Humphrey is a child-like camel who wants nothing more than a blanket like the other camels -- until he is moved to give it to the baby Jesus.

 Our ace nanny gave this book to my son, who treasures his blankie above even his trains. The illustrations are what really make this book a treasure -- something about camel's teeth brings home the way the Incarnation is a gift to all creation.

Transfiguration

I'm actually taking this Transfiguration Sunday off, in order to participate in the City of Lakes Loppet on Sunday. For me it's an annual glimpse of the kingdom, being able to SKI from the suburbs into Uptown! This year we might have a kid skiing with us instead of being hauled behind us. . .another milestone.

Those of you looking for a preaching image or two, I'll refer you back to my essay from last year  at Journey with Jesus. Matthew's account is a little different, yes, but the larger image of the lights going on still holds true.

At ECLC, we're going to have a surprise transfiguration of a different kind. You'll just have to show up to see what it is.

Second Sunday after Epiphany - lectionary 2

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Isaiah 49:6

There’s a nice moment in Rob Gifford’s China Road where he recounts a moment “in the first flush of youth and the first flush of faith” when he read the biography of James Hudson Taylor, one of the first western missionaries in China to promote respect for the indigenous culture. Taylor encouraged his associates to adopt Chinese dress and elements of Chinese lifestyle as they preached the Gospel, started schools and hospitals. Gifford, inspired by Taylor’s faith as well as his progressive views, considered entering mission work himself, but his priest in his home church in England advised him, “that sort of canvas might prove a little small for you.”  Gifford’s journalism, in its compassion, insight and accessibility, is evidence, I think, that his priest was right.

How often do we church professionals paint our own work as the true “big canvas” of the Gospel, while dismissing the large ways the laity in their own vocations spread God’s light? How often do we work within our own “tribe” as if that is all there is to God’s work, while in fact our members are being lights to the nations; perhaps they are not preaching from their cubicles, but they are feeding the hungry, educating the young, healing the sick, cleaning the environment, defending the weak. OK, maybe they are also using precious creativity and resources to name a new low-fat snack or advertise the latest techno-gizmo. . .but even in the midst of that they are talking to people with whom most clergy can never dream of having a candid conversation.

God’s healing, God’s salvation, is promised to reach the ends of the earth. Maybe we who work within the tribe have the lightest of all loads; we just give the rest of God’s servants some really great colors to paint on that big canvas of God’s creation.

Epiphany 2A-- Matthew's take

"Let it be so now," Jesus says, "for it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15)

It comes as no surprise that Jesus in Matthew's Gospel wants to "fulfill all righteousness." Matthew, of all the gospels, is very interested in righteousness, that sense of a life fitting in with the will of God. I fear, however, that in interpreting the debate between John the Baptist and Jesus about who should be baptizing whom, we read it with the ears of American individualism. We can too easily hear it as an argument about Jesus' personal need for baptism, just as we so often assume that baptism is an individual act of repentance and commitment.

But Jesus clearly sees this as more than an individual act: "it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." John's baptism of repentance is ultimately about the whole people of Israel needing a new start, a re-entry into the Jordan waters that marked the beginning of their life in the promised land. Jesus is affirming John's public ministry in this act, and so affirming that the kingdom of God is more than a dwelling somewhere deep in our individual souls. It is a new beginning for all, one in which Jesus as God-with-us stands at our side, dripping wet.

Epiphany 2A-- Baptism of our Lord

This Sunday's second lesson from Acts chapter 10 is a classic example of what drives me crazy about the lectionary. Here is a key moment from the book of Acts -- Peter's encounter with the Gentile Cornelius, and the subsequent baptism of the whole household -- and all the lectionary designates for the day is Peter's speech -- sermon really -- excerpted from the larger narrative. I can't think of any preacher's sermon that would hold up well over centuries, with only one paragraph and no context whatsoever. Peter's, I'm sorry to say, is no exception.

The rationale, I suppose, is that we get a mention of the relationship between John the Baptist's ministry and that of Jesus. But the really remarkable thing about baptism in Acts 10 comes in the narrative, in the fact that Peter, having never entered a Gentile's house before, finds himself baptizing Cornelius and all his household.

A key word for the book of Acts is several variations on the word un/hindered. Acts ends with the news that, even under house arrest, Paul is preaching the Gospel unhindered. In Acts 10, the same word appears in verse 47, but is translated withhold. "Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?" (10: 47) Later, when Peter has to justify his actions to elders in Jerusalem, he asks "who was I that I could hinder God?" (11:17)

Baptism, we learn in Acts, is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Our job is not to be gatekeepers, but simply to get out of the Spirit's way, and be witnesses to what God is doing.