2nd Sunday After Epiphany

Strength In Diversity
By Rev. Steven R Mitchell
2nd Sunday of Epiphany, January 17, 2010
First Cong UCC Rock Springs, WY
I Cor. 12:1-11; John 2:1-11

This morning, in churches all across the country, preachers are standing in pulpits like this one and delivering their annual Martin Luther King, Jr, Day sermon. As I was reviewing today’s lectionary selections, it seemed obvious to me that I should focus on the reading coming from I Corinthians as it deals with the message of diversity, which is nicely summed up in verse 12, “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.” For many of us, especially those of us who lived through the civil rights movement era, look to Dr. King as an icon to “justice” issues and a name that comes to our minds when we hear the question asked, “Does God still send us prophets?” In Dr. Kings martyrdom we are strengthened in our confidence that he was indeed a man sent from God, showered with gifts, who will be remembered for his eloquent words, his courageous deeds, and his deep and abiding commitment to non-violence as the ultimate form of Christian resistance to injustice, even in the face of police dogs with snarling teeth and the taunts by “nice, Christian” Americans- twentieth century Americans who reacted angrily and self-righteously when a people demanded justice too long delayed. Justice too long delayed, Dr King said, is justice denied.
As each year goes by and we remember Dr. King with our sermons and singing and even our renewed commitment to justice for all of God’s children, it seems to me that it’s rather tempting to lift up this prophet, onto a pedestal, much as the church has done with Jesus.UCC study guide In the movie Torch Song Trilogy, when confronted by his mother about trusting her enough to speak the truth, Arnold responds in reference to his deceased partner, “It’s so much easier to love the dead.” The inference being that it is easier for us after someone is gone to look at their good qualities in our own timing, than to recognize their qualities while we are being confronted at the time with their messages that differ from our own understanding of the issue.
It is this understanding then that I found myself continually coming back throughout this past week to the other lectionary selection, the Gospel of John. For it is John’s story that helps provide the foundation in which Paul is able to build upon in the understanding of how each member of the body is essential to the working of the entire body. So if you will bear with me, I will try to be true to the memory of Dr King’s efforts as I focus some of my thoughts and understanding of what John is saying in todays Gospel reading. For as Arnold says, “it is easier to love the dead” as the further away we are from the time that Jesus walked this earth the easier it is for us to lose sight of what the true meaning of his ministry is about and by doing so we elevate the message to a point to where it becomes so sacred that it is unapproachable and untouchable and ultimately non-meaningful and relevant to today’s audiences.
This morning’s Gospel reading begins with: On the third day; even though this is the beginning of a new chapter, if we only look at this selection, one is left wanting to understand what has happened during the first two days and since the rest of the Gospel readings through Epiphany come from the book of Luke, I think it bears just a little recap of what has happened up to this point as a way of helping understand what is actually being said beyond the obvious reading of the turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana.
If we go back to the first chapter in John we read where the writer is establishing the Divinity of Jesus through the cousin of Jesus, John the baptizer! After the writer establishes that Jesus is baptized, he shows where John the baptizer announcing Jesus as the Messiah, the chosen one of God to lead the people of Israel to establish or to many, re-establish their Kingdom. Yes, I am saying that the early portion of Jesus’ ministry was viewed by the larger masses that followed him as a political movement.
The writer of this gospel moves from the day of Jesus’ baptism to saying the “next day” that two of John the baptizer’s disciples run after Jesus after hearing Johns declaration that “here is the one I speak of” “here is the Messiah”. One disciple is identified as Andrew; the other is not named but can be concluded to be John the beloved who is also the author of this gospel. They go and stay with Jesus after they decide to leave John the baptizer and follow Jesus. It is during that first day that Andrew goes to his brother Peter and brings him onboard. Then there is another, “next day”, so on day two, they come across another man named Philip, who is so impressed with Jesus that he goes and gets his brother Nathanael who also decides to follow Jesus. At the close of the second day, Jesus leaves with five disciples for the town of Cana in Galilee to attend a wedding.
It is at this wedding “On the third day”, that we learn that Jesus’ mother and other brothers are introduced into the story. We also hear Jesus state that, “My time has not yet come." One of the major points in today’s reading hinges on the concept of “timing.” We also read “He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him” with the first recorded miracle; that of turning water into wine. But we need to finish this chapter to make total sense of what we are asked to focus on this morning. After the wedding is over we read that Jesus, his disciples and his mother and brothers all leave and travel down to Capernaum and stay there for several days. We then read that during that time, Passover is nearing and Jesus goes to Jerusalem, to the temple and sees the temple being used as a place of business. He is enraged and turns over the tables of the money changers. He is confronted by the Pharisees with, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?" Jesus then presents them with his first challenge by saying, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."
I hope that you are following the language and the days that are being presented within the first two chapters by John; for they are reminiscent of the theology of the creation stories, in regard to timing and his way of showing the divinity of Jesus as being God’s son. The use of the “on the first day” that of creating out of the void, light; then, “on the fourth day” planets, moon and sun. If you read the six days of creation in Genesis not as six separate days but as a re-telling of three events, meaning on the first day and the fourth day as the same day, the second day and the fifth day as one day, and the third day and the sixth day as another day. Then on the seventh day God rested, you will see John relating God’s authority of dominion over His creation and thus, Jesus’ authority to do the ministry that Jesus as challenging the Pharisees with. You can also start to see how early humanity understood creation as first the creation of the heavens and earth; next the development of life in the oceans and thirdly life finally developing on dry land. Sounds a bit like our understanding of the evolutionary process.
John, then lets us know that there is a correlation between the “3rd day” of Jesus’ ministry being exposed at the wedding in Cana and his statement of “destroying this temple and in 3 days I will rebuild it.” Timing is very important in today’s lesson. There is a tremendous metaphor being presented by John’s story, as Jesus selects the “purification vessels” as the vehicle of providing wine; the ritual of each guest who arrives to this celebration has to be ceremonially washed, thus purified before being able to attend this event. The idea that these vessels were empty is another important statement by John about Jesus’ divinity. Then the statement by the host of the wedding ceremony making a statement to the groom saying, “you have saved the best wine till the last” is another statement to Jesus’ divinity. John is using all of this to represent the understanding the old way, the temple law was empty, no longer working, no longer being a way of salvation for people and that through Jesus there was a new life, giving way to “live life to its fullest.” The water had to be fetched to fill the empty ceremonial jars, meaning it had to be drawn from a well or from a river; water represents a living source, a necessity of sustaining life, the wine we look to as the new covenant as we come to the communion table, as Jesus re-established its meaning as “new life”. The underlying message in today’s gospel is that the old structure of the church was empty, dead and that by the coming of Jesus, there was a new order; there was a moving away from the law to grace.
How does this affect us in today’s church if we say that we are living in grace since the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? I believe the message is ongoing. For life to exist there needs to be the ability to change, for death comes when life becomes stagnant. For the church to exist, it needs to “re-invent” itself with each new generation. With each generation, there lies a danger of becoming empty, having nothing to offer that is relevant to the new generation. I believe this was the conflict that we read about between Jesus and the Pharisees. Jesus was presenting a message of how to reconnect a relationship to God that had become meaningless through “laws of do’s and don’ts” and no longer had any meaning for these who lived under the law; thereby not allowing for spiritual growth, this connecting with God.
This happens to every congregation; there is a time when the church is vibrant and its ministry is reaching not only its members but also out into the community, where there is excitement about what is happening and there is a growing of the Spirit among its members. Then comes the next generation and there is not the same connection to meaningful activities that provides for the same spiritual growth. This then creates a conflict, whether it is open or not. But something will happen, either the new generation will fall away because their spirituality isn’t being nurtured, much like a leaf on a tree will wither and fall off the tree due to the lack of nourishment; or the new generation will try to establish methods and activities that will be meaningful to them so that they will grow spiritually. Out and out conflict will erupt when the older way of doing things is challenged by a new way of doing things, just as what was happing between the Pharisees and Jesus. It happens between parents and their teenagers. When there is an inability as parents to release our children as they become adults and let them form their own life styles, the tension becomes great and sometimes a breaking off of contact.
The challenge for any church is just like that of parents as their children grow up and become adults; that of balancing the foundations that have been taught with the building of the needs of the next generation upon it. That moving from the law into the living under grace. It isn’t an easy movement but it is one that has to happen. Otherwise, the ultimate outcome is death of the once vibrant institution.
Now we come to the melding of today’s gospel with that of the lesson from the Apostle Paul as he addresses the importance of each member of the body to make a complete “whole” and that the whole cannot function without its parts. In this country, the established church used the scriptures to justify slavery. It took a war between the states to abolish it. In this nation, we used the same bible to keep women from having equal rights as men. The war for women’s suffrage was won, I believe, in the bedroom. We use the same bible today to continue to justify violence against those who do not use the same name in their religious beliefs. I can remember when Dr King was alive and calling our nation into account for its refusal to recognize its injustice through segregation because of bigotry, that good “Christians” tried to demean “truth” by using scripture to justify evil. This is not the message of “love” and “justice” that Jesus gave his life for. We seem to never learn the lesson of the simple song we learn as children, “Jesus loves me this I know for the bible tells me so.” Or “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children in the world.” So you tell God, at what point do these little children no longer become precious in his sight? When do some of us no longer become God’s children? Jesus was crucified because of that question. Dr King was murdered for challenging our country in not allowing all the children in.
I would like to close by sharing a piece of a sermon Dr King spoke just two months before he was murdered in the name of preserving our culture for the future of our children.
"Every now and then," Dr. King said, "I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral. And I don't think of it in a morbid sense. Every now and then I ask myself, 'What is it that I would want said?' And I leave the word to you this morning….
"I'd like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day, that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try, in my life, to feed the hungry. And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say, on that day, that I did try, in my life, to visit those who were in prison. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity."
The Apostle Paul wrote, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
We here at First Congregational, have some very exciting opportunities coming before us as we meet at the end of the month for our annual meeting; we are going to be asked to start thinking about who we are and who will we let into our family and who will we exclude. We are going to be asked to what degree are we willing to make this a ministry of God and at what cost are we willing to do this. We are at a point, I believe, that is representative of the Wedding at Cana. I wonder sometimes, if our wine has run out; the question is, “are we going to let Jesus fill the empty jars to the brim with living water and allow the new and best wine to now be served?” Only you can answer this question. Amen