The Exquisite Love of God, Bursting Out All Over Epiphany 2 Yr C

Mom. C’mon. Stop It. Mom, just leave me alone. It’s a familiar drill. A young adult accompanies his mother to a family event—Thanksgiving, Christmas, a funeral, a wedding---and mom wants junior to show off for the guests. …..the mom is proud as can be and wants the world to know. The son is mortified, preferring to remain in the background, to do his familial duty and then get out of there. Conflict ensues. It’s a drama played out over and over again in our lives.
The Wedding in Cana is no different. Mary feels for the host, who has run out of wine and sees a perfect opportunity for Jesus to reveal his glory and help the host save face. A fully human family conflict played out within the Holy Family.

This story of water being turned into wine is one in a series of Epiphany tales, beginning with the visit of the magi and ending with Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountaintop. Each of these stories point toward one truth of Jesus’ nature—his divinity…but today’s Gospel does something more-- it also discloses his humanity. Jesus responds to his mother with the irritation common in most young adult-parent relationships. While the miracle aspect of this story garners the most attention, the wedding in Cana also serves as a post script to the nativity story, proof that Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine.

Besides today’s Gospel, another familiar story illuminates the fullness of Jesus’ humanity within the fullness of his divinity: the Boy Jesus in the Temple. You remember that story---Jesus and his family travel to the temple for the Passover . As the family heads for home, Mary and Joseph realize Jesus isn’t with them,. Three frantic days later they find him sitting among the teachers, discussing and asking questions. Jesus is incredulous when his mother rebukes him for worrying them feeling that her hysteria was an over-reaction. A typical adolescent response to the worry of a parent.
So, while becoming aware of Jesus’ divinity---the promised messiah--is the usual task in Epiphany, we musn’t forget his humanity.

Since Advent we’ve been told that this was going to happen, a boy, born of a woman would come among us as the Son of God. Fully God, Fully Human.
But hearing this and “getting it” are two different things.
And, that’s what epiphanies are all about ---getting it.

Getting that Jesus is God in the flesh. Getting Jesus feels all that we feel, experiencing the world as a human , while also, through his divinity, transforming us into something altogether new.

And that’s where the miracle at the wedding comes into play. That’s when this miracle—this sign as John calls it---shows us that through the very human person of Jesus, God has chosen to dwell among us, to experience his creation first hand. At a wedding.

But, the wine is running out and the wedding host is in danger of being shamed in a very public way. Although Jesus doesn’t feel that his time has arrived, he acquiesces and saves the day.
But, the miracle at Cana isn’t done simply to save the wedding day….it’s done to show us that this Son of God is here to save us in a completely new way.
The water used in the miracle is in large stone jars used for Jewish rites of purification---a cornerstone of the old covenant… From the restrictions of the old emerges the hope and joy of the new.
Much like new wine bursts old wineskins, God, through Jesus bursts out of the old in a big, abundant and extravagant way. It wasn’t that Jesus created a few extra bottles of wine out of water. Jesus created gallons and gallons of wine---exquisite, fabulous wine, out of those stone jars. This first miracle of Jesus is not just a little something. It’s a whole lot of something big. It’s abundant and it’s bursting out all over.
Because that’s what God gives us. Not just enough, but plenty. Not just ok, but exquisite, not just ordinary but extraordinary.
God as among us in Jesus is abundant, all encompassing and never ending. And through Jesus, we’ve become vessels for God’s love in this world.

Do we understand this? Do we get it? Have we had this epiphany? Does the story of Jesus at this wedding help shake us out of our old way of thinking---does the promise of God’s extravagant abundant love as symbolized in the gallons of exquisite wine—help us realize the truth: That with God and through God we can---and we must---bring hope to the world? Do we get that we CAN make a difference by allowing ourselves to be vessels of God—bursting with an abundance of grace, truth and love?
Jesus walked among us to show us that we, each of us, is a vessel for God in the world. Each and every day we have opportunities to be an overflowing, bursting vessel of God in the world. Whether it’s a kind word to a lonely neighbor, a helping hand to a hurting child, reaching out to a refugee or a donation to Episcopal Relief and Development to assist the rescue work in Haiti, the world always has room for more of God’s love.
For if there is one thing we can take from the humanity of Jesus is that when God’s creation hurts, as the people of Haiti do today, God hurts. And if there’s one thing we can learn from the divinity of Christ it is that each one of us, through prayer and action, can make the devastation of Haiti, the hurting throughout this world bearable.

Today, through the manifestation of God in the person of Jesus Christ, we have the ability to show others the abundance of God’s grace.

May God among us through the person of Jesus Christ give us the strength and the determination to burst out, overflowing with God’s abundant exquisite and extravagant love.


Amen.

Baptism---a thought or two.

One of the greatest pleasures of the priesthood is administering the sacrament of baptism. There is the wonder of an infant--all soft and sweet and full of potential-- but then there's also the joy a baptism brings. It isn't that many of us think this baby is doomed to eternal limbo without the sacrament, there is no sense that this little baby has sinned in any way shape or form...no the joy is that "thing" babies bring to the table. Innocence? Possibility? The miracle of life? I don't know what it is specifically, but I do know that, for me, when that child is sealed as Christ's own forever, it is very hard for me to maintain my composure. Of course he is already Christ's own forever, but by publicly annointing him, I get the immense privilege of proclaiming that to the world. The day this doesn't choke me up is the day I should hang up the collar.
God bless Colin and all the innocent, beautiful children of this world.

Named by God, Sealed in Christ--Feast of the Holy Name January 1, 2010

+Toward the end of seminary my liturgics professor decided it was time to share some horror stories of being a priest….of the time he spilled an entire chalice of red wine down a brand new, very expensive altar frontal. Of the time instead of throwing a fistful of dirt onto a casket in a graveyard he threw his prayer book, of the various and sundry mishaps common in baptisms—screaming babies, throwing up babies, babies who are so wiggly you pray that you won’t drop them into the font…but one story really sticks out for me. He said that often, especially at a big service like the Easter Vigil when you can have a number of baptisms, and especially nowadays when children are given unfamiliar names, you can, as the priest—or the Bishop---forget the name of the child you are baptizing. It eventually happens to everyone—we have a brain cramp--but this professor of mine said he had a sure fire way to get you out of this awkward situation—just as you are about to administer the baptism say to the parents and Godparents, in a booming and God like voice: “Name this Child.” Now besides getting the priest out of a sticky wicket, this action can be very moving for all involved. This act of initiating the child into a faith while also naming the child, is reflective of our Jewish roots. You see in baptism we, like in the Jewish rite of circumcision, commit the child to our faith tradition and we name the child. These two actions: the naming and the commitment are, for good reason, linked in the circumcision and baptismal rites. For our name says a lot about us, as does the way we choose to worship our creator. Through the action of circumcision and the action of baptism those who love us are saying, this is who this child is and this is how he or she will be known. The commitment to an identity is sealed through our naming ceremony, and the ceremony is determined by our faith. So whether the tradition is of the old covenant or the new, the naming ceremony is important.
The story of the incarnation, the coming of God in the flesh to dwell among us—is all about the old leading us into the new. For the incarnation was then and is now, an ever-unfolding event. We don’t know what will happen next, neither did Mary and Joseph. They had been given snippets but the reality of it all was still unfolding for them. We’re told throughout the Nativity story that, Mary pondered all these things in her heart. No doubt wondering, what in the world does all this mean, what will happen next?
Out of their faith, Mary and Joseph commit themselves and their son to a new way, a new life. Through their repeated acts of faith Mary and Joseph set forth a chain of events that takes us from the wood of the crib, to the wood of the cross, from the Covenant of Moses to the New Covenant of Christ.
Progressing from the old into the new is an appropriate theme for this, the first day of a new year. Mary and Joseph as they have throughout this Advent and Christmas journey, are leading the way out of the old and toward the new. Mary and Joseph follow the traditions of their faith by circumcising and naming their son on the eighth day. But besides honoring the traditions of the old this action also gives us a glimpse into the new--for by calling their son Jesus instead of the more traditional Joseph, Mary and Joseph respond to the directive of God given to them through the angel Gabriel….honoring the old while opening the way for this new thing---this God coming to us in the flesh--Jesus.

Through their faith Mary and Joseph risked everything to follow God’s directive…even though it would take their son from the stable in Bethlehem to that hill in Calvary.

How easy it would have been to ignore Gabriel’s directive, to name Jesus Joseph and to return to Nazareth to raise him with his brothers and sisters a carpenter’s kid, a faithful Jew. A good and simple man. But Mary and Joseph didn’t do this. When asked to name their child, they gave him the name which was given to them. A name which held no family connection, a name they wouldn’t have chosen on their own. A name which from that day forth, became a name to be written on the hearts of generations of the faithful. A name which allows us a glimpse of God, and allows God a glimpse of us. A name which serves as a window between this world and the next, a name which saves us. …a name which seals us as God’s own forever. A name at which every knee shall bend and every head will bow. A name which is written on our hearts and in our souls, a name we carry as we strive to be instruments of God’s justice and mercy in all whom we encounter.
Mary and Joseph took the old: a traditional ceremony of circumcision and naming to unleash something altogether new: the promised messiah, a savior for all people.

Through the actions of the Divine and the response of the lowly today we have been given a new name, we have been marked, sealed as God’s forever. Today a child has been named and through that name God has come to dwell among us, to save us and to shine upon us, forevermore. +