Weekly Sermon | cedarvalley

Epiphany 2C January 19, 2025 John 2: 1-11

You have to admit that the first of Jesus’ signs – Jesus’ miracles – John tells us about is not at all what you would expect. I mean, you can understand why Jesus – the Word made flesh – the Son of God – would heal the sick, give sight to the blind, make the lame walk, and even raise the dead. But to change water into wine so that a wedding party can go on and possibly get out of hand, well, that’s not something you would expect. It seems almost sacrilegious, doesn’t it? It seems to be promoting over consumption and wild partying and being left with a hangover in the morning.

But, you see, the entire reason John tells us this story is because it’s not just a story about a wedding party that takes place in Canna of Galilee, it is actually a story about another wedding party … the wedding banquet we know as the kingdom of heaven. And the reason Jesus needs to change water into wine is to help us understand how radically different the realm of God is from the realm of the world. The reason Jesus needs to change water into wine is to show us how radically different God makes our lives when we live in harmony with the divine – it is as radically different as water is from wine.

Symbolically speaking, water is all you need to stay alive. It’s good for you, it’s what you need – preferably eight glasses a day, but it is not good enough. The kind of people who only drink water is the kind of people who just read books about happiness but never risk finding happiness on their own. The kind of people who only drink water is the kind of people who sit on the sidelines but never get into the game. The kind of people who only drink water plays it safe and by playing it safe they miss out on the brilliance and the magnificence of life.

Symbolically, the wine Jesus provides offers a very different kind of life. To drink the wine of Christ is to live life with enthusiasm and flair and reckless abandonment. Jesus, the true vine, can help us experience how intoxicatingly beautiful and spectacular life is meant to be lived.

Wine is a symbol of joy and celebration. And through this miracle Jesus wants us to understand that religion isn’t just about obeying rules and meeting obligations. Instead, religion is about God’s longing for us to experience complete joy and a spirit of celebration as we are wed in oneness with all that is holy through Jesus Christ in faith and love.

Sadly, as clearly as Jesus changed water into wine, we have a strong tendency to change it back into water. Sin causes us to water down the wine-blessed life we were meant to live.

Let me give you some examples. We are given the wine of family; a gift of grace that is meant to nurture the confidence we need to truly be ourselves and the love we need to achieve our dreams. And what do we do with it? We abuse it and neglect it and dishonor it and it turns into water.

We are given the wine of abundance, a gift of grace that allows us the opportunity to taste the goodness and the richness of life. And what do we do with it? We let our greed and our lust for more turn it into a curse. We protect it and horde it and refuse to let us experience the joy of using it to bless others. And again, the wine becomes water.

We are given the wine of faith, a gift of grace that inspires qualities of hope and courage and love. And what do we do with it? We make it cheap and we use it to become judgmental and legalistic and allow it to condemn others. The wine is changed back to water.

Life is meant to be so much more meaningful and inspiring than we sometimes let it become. That’s why Jesus made this his first miracle. Jesus changed water into wine into order to set the stage from the beginning that God had something for him to do among us. This miracle breaks us out of our old way of thinking about religion and establishes a new way of looking at our relationship with God. The water jars for the religious rites of purification with their restrictive rules about how and when they are to be used are set free in this miracle and so are we. We are changed into new wine … into the best wine, and that gives us a chance to discover the intoxicating limits of joy and beauty and grace that comes from life with God in Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Pentecost 7B July 7, 2024 Mark 6:1-13

We see in our gospel reading for today the continuation of a theme that has been running through the life and ministry of Jesus from the beginning. Again and again, Jesus has been forced to deal with rejection: rejection for what he teaches, rejection for what he does, and rejection for who he is.

The Pharisees criticize him for healing on the Sabbath. His disciples chastise him for sleeping in the middle of a stormy sea. Even his mother and his family try to get him to stop working so hard because his zealousness is proving to be an embarrassment to them. And today, Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth and it happens again. The people who sat next to him in worship, who celebrated with him at festivals, who watched him play and grow up, can’t accept what he has become.

At first, listening to Jesus teach in the synagogue, these family friends and neighbors are astonished by his eloquence and spiritual insight. They are impressed: “Where did he learn all of this?” they ask each other. “How did he get to be this good?” they wonder. “When did he get so wise all of a sudden?” they question. “After all, he is one of us. Up until recently he was just a local handyman, patching our roofs, framing our doors, and fixing our wobbly tables and chairs.” What happened? Where did Jesus get all of this?

Well, the answer to their questions is that he got all of this from them. He got it from his parents and siblings and relatives. He got it from his teachers at the synagogue. He got it from the values kept by his neighbors and from the stories he learned of his hometown heroes and his local scallywags. Jesus, in essence, is a mirror, showing them who they are and the role they played in shaping his identity and his place in the world. And the same is true for us. So much of what it is that makes us who we are and the things we do is shaped by our environment. And the history we carry and the people who have left a mark on our lives play a big part in our identity.

But their amazement suddenly shifts and they take offense at him. Someone in the crowd – perhaps a jealous neighbor, or maybe a childhood rival, or possibly the village gossip who loves to stir up trouble – questions the fact that Jesus has stepped out of his lane and ignored his place in the community. “He was one of us and now he thinks he’s something more – he has become something we didn’t expect him to be – something that doesn’t fit into the box we put him in.” And their doubts leave him powerless to do what he would love to do for them – what he has done for so many others.

But before we judge them too harshly, let’s imagine that we are also standing among his homies wondering the same thing ourselves. Like them, how often have we missed the holy among us because we could only see what we wanted to see? How often have we missed the new thing God is doing in Jesus because what we could only see is the old and familiar? How often have we not allowed Jesus to surprise us?

I remember something a wise friend told Pam and me when we were newly married. She said that we should surprise each other every once in a while with something unexpected. That surprise, she said, keeps the intrigue and the mystery of love alive in a relationship. I believe that part of the gospel mission for us involves an element of surprise. Because our openness to being surprised, keeps us open to the intrigue and mystery of God’s deep love for us so that it doesn’t get old and boring and meaningless.

My prayer for you, my friends, is that when you listen to Jesus you can hear a new thing God is doing underneath the comfortable traditions and the familiar habits of your faith. I pray you will be surprised by the mystery of the abundant life God has for you in Jesus – a life filled with love and grace … with mercy and forgiveness … with freedom and peace. May you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear the surprising good news God has for you in Jesus Christ, our Lord.