"An Epiphany of Abundance." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on John 2:1-11.

"An Epiphany of Abundance"

John 2:1-11

Jesus and his mother and his disciples are attending a wedding.  Anyone who’s ever officiated or planned a wedding can tell you that things can go wrong. 

            In those days a wedding was a great occasion, and most everybody in the village, plus some people from neighboring villages, would have been invited.   Weddings were hosted by the groom’s family, and the celebrations lasted for up to a week. 

            This celebration is in trouble, because on the third day, they’re running out of wine.  This is a crisis for the family responsible for hospitality. 

            David Lose explains why this was such a disaster: “Wine isn’t merely a social lubricant…it’s a sign of the harvest, of God’s abundance, of joy and gladness and hospitality.  And so, when they run short on wine they run short on blessing.  And that’s a tragedy.”[1]

            Jesus’ mother goes to him and identifies the problem.  But Jesus says, “That’s really not our concern.  And my hour has not come.”  In the theology of John’s Gospel, “the hour” is the hour when Jesus goes to the cross. 

            His mother tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

            There were six stone water-jars there, ready to be used in the Jewish purification rituals.  Each held about twenty or thirty gallons.   “Fill the jars with water,” Jesus says to the servants, and they do.   “Now draw some out,” he says, “and take it to the chief steward.” 

            When the chief steward tasted the water that had turned into wine, he didn’t know where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew.   He called the bridegroom and said, “Normally people serve the good wine first, and then the cheap stuff when people have already had plenty to drink.  But you’ve kept the really good wine for now.”

            John tells us that Jesus did this as the first of his “signs” and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.  The miracles Jesus performs in the Fourth Gospel are never called miracles—but “signs.”  These “signs” are about revealing a deeper reality about Jesus.

In the first verses of his gospel—the prologue, which we heard on Christmas Eve--John identifies the major themes of his message.  We hear that the Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth…. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. Turning water into wine is revealing abundant grace. And what does abundant grace taste like? Like the really good wine, when you were expecting the cheap stuff.            

            No matter how hard we may try to “spiritualize” today’s gospel lesson, we have 150 gallons of really good wine at a wedding party that had been experiencing scarcity. 

            Today’s gospel text is about the very nature of God… and about the very purpose of being human.  The nature of God is pure grace-- abundant… surprising grace.  Grace overflowing to the brim, in times and places we least expect it.

            Karoline Lewis has suggested that we have so modified and codified abundance that it’s hard to recognize it anymore.  Some have monopolized abundance…hoarded it…thinking that it is theirs to control, theirs to possess, and theirs to take away. “Theirs to keep for themselves, because those without it? Well, clearly they have not merited God’s attention, earned God’s graces.”[1]

            The gospels teach us that abundance is never about you or me and Jesus alone, as much as we might want it to be—but about bringing us into life—true life, abundant life, for all. In God’s life of abundance, abundance is not ours to grasp individually, but in beloved community, in the world God so loves.

            We need to pay attention to the details in this story.  The water-jars were there to be used for Jewish purification rituals--   When Jesus turned the water into wine, it was a sign that God was doing a new thing.

            And I wonder:  What if Jesus had stuck with his original feeling?  It is not my problem, it is not my time.  What if all of his life Jesus had said, "That’s not my problem and it is not my time"?

            That’s unimaginable, isn’t it?

            Closer to our own time, in the mid 1950s, Martin Luther King wrapped up his course work for his Ph.D. and took his first call to a church.  His dissertation wasn’t done yet when Martin Luther King left graduate school and took a job as a pastor of a church in Montgomery, Alabama. 

            Not long after he went to Montgomery, Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus.  A meeting was held in the African-American community in Montgomery, and they asked who was going to lead the boycott.  

            All the other pastors and all the other influential leaders of the African-American community were smart enough to know that this looked like a risky business.  They decided to get the new pastor in town to lead the boycott.  

            Rev. Martin Luther King had every reason in the world to say, "It is not the right time for me. I have a young family.  I have a dissertation to finish writing.  I have a congregation that doesn’t know me or trust me yet.   If I start out at the head of this enterprise, what will that do to my relationship to my congregation?  It just isn’t a good time.   I have all these reasons why.  This isn’t the time for me to do something like this.” 

            But, as we all know, this very human being was moved from “not my time” -- to yes.

            More than 60 years have passed since the Montgomery bus boycott.   Fifty-six years have passed since the March on Washington when Dr. King gave his “I have a dream” speech. More than 50 years have passed since he wrote his last book before he was assassinated: “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?”

            Have we made progress since that time?  Undoubtedly.  But we need to be honest with ourselves about where we the people of the United States are   and about our history.

            Later in the Gospel of John, we hear Jesus saying, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”[3]

            I believe the gospel has the power to set us free-- as individuals, as a community, as a society-- if we have ears to hear the good news… if we have faith to trust in God’s power to transform us and bind us together in Beloved Community… if we trust in the gospel’s truth to make us free.

            Some of the stories we heard during Advent remind us that sometimes people have a failure of imagination, like Zechariah, when the angel Gabriel told him Elizabeth was going to have a baby: “How can this be?”

            In our time and place, God calls us to be the people who come to know God, to experience the grace and abundance of Jesus Christ, to embody that love and live together in Beloved Community with all of God’s children.  

            Whenever we’re afraid we won’t have enough—enough money or power or privilege or security-- whenever we think the party’s over because things are changing, God will keep doing new things and surprising us with new wine that is sweeter and tastier than ever before… and give us dreams and visions to help us live more fully into the life of abundance and grace into which God calls us.  Can we imagine it?   Is anything impossible for God?      

            In a world threatened by ethnic, racial, and religious conflict, the consequences of trying to defend the status quo or to keep most of the money and resources and power in the hands of a a few…  or of wallowing in the valley of despair and fear and negativity are enormous. But the rewards of inclusive justice and healing are too important not to try.           

            The prophets and the gospel call us to dream, to imagine an alternative reality of Beloved Community for all God’s people.  They challenge us to embody it in our daily lives, trusting that God will provide abundant new wine and better things than we ever tasted or seen or imagined   and a life overflowing with joy and blessing in God’s presence.

            Thanks be to God! 

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

January 20, 2019

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[1] David Lose, “Epiphany 2B: What Grace Looks Like!” http://www.davidlose.net/2016/01/epiphany-2-b-what-grace-looks-like/ 

[2] Wright, John for Everyone, Chapters 1-10 (Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), Kindle Edition, Loc 472.

[3] John 8:32

[4] Jim Wallis, America’s Original Sin:  Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America.  (Brazos Press, 2016), Kindle Edition, Location 388.

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[1] Karoline Lewis, at Working Preacher. https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=5276

"Hunger for Heaven." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church

"Hunger for Heaven"

John 6:24-35; Ephesians 4:1-16

Throughout this sixth chapter of John, we hear a theme of hunger-- the hunger behind and beneath all other hungers...  the hunger for a knowledge of God...  the hunger for a word from the Lord. 

            The day after the miraculous feeding of the 5,000, people come looking for Jesus, and he says, “Truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.”  Jesus sees that the crowd is seeking him out because they got something they wanted—not because of the sign that was revealed to them of a deeper truth.  Their stomachs have been filled, but they don’t understand the real significance of the miraculous feeding.  

            Jesus wants to give them much more than they want.  He points them toward a bread that lasts—that endures for eternal life…bread that is a gift from God.   

            The crowd’s follow-up question shows that they’ve missed the theme of gift.  “What kinds of works should we be doing to earn our salvation?”

            Jesus responds: “This is God’s work.  What you need to do is to believe in the One God has sent.”

            The crowd doesn’t get it, so they ask for a proof—something that would remove the risks of faith.  If Jesus would continue to provide food, then maybe that would be proof enough.       

            The crowd’s misunderstanding is understandable enough if they thought of Jesus as the prophet like Moses.  There was a popular belief that God would provide manna again in the final days.  This was connected with the hopes of a second Exodus.  Many people thought that the messiah would come on Passover, and that manna would begin to fall again.

            The people in the crowd are stuck in their faith development.  They have hopes, based on their traditions, and they want Jesus to give them what they want:  manna from heaven, and a political leader to overthrow the Roman oppressors in a new Exodus.

            Jesus corrects their theology, and tells them that God is teaching something new.  “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven…the heavenly bread which gives life to the world.”

            The people still don’t realize that Jesus is trying to tell them that he is the bread of heaven.  So, they ask: “Sir, give us this bread always.”

            That’s why Jesus says, in verse 35, “I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

            Jesus was trying to tell the crowd that what they wanted…what they expected and hoped for—wasn’t as good as what God wanted to give them.

            The people in the crowd longed for something.  They knew they needed something, so they asked for what they thought they needed.  They wanted something to make their life better—but they weren’t looking for anything that would challenge the way they understood the world.  What God was offering was a new word, embodied in Jesus—a new Word which would transform their lives.

            In this chapter of John, and throughout the Gospel of John, if we listen closely we realize that Jesus and the crowd often use the same words—but with very different meanings.  The crowd keeps misunderstanding what Jesus says, because they’re thinking in earthly terms, while Jesus is speaking in heavenly terms. 

            “What sign are you going to give us, that we may see it and believe you?  What work are you performing?”  they ask.  “What must we do to perform the works of God?” 

            Did you wonder when you heard this?   How can they ask for a sign?  Hadn’t they just shared in a miraculous feeding?  Apparently, they don’t recognize the sign that has already been enacted before their eyes.

            How can they not get it? 

            Because God’s thoughts are not our thoughts.  God’s ways are not our ways.  The logic of the world and the logic of the gospel are very different.  The call to believe is nothing short of a call to conversion—conversion from the logic of the world--to the logic of God. The call to faith is a conversion from the logic of getting what you want to the logic of receiving what you need.    As we grow in the Christian life, the logic of the gospel doesn’t overcome the logic of the world—but it puts it in its place, in its own proper sphere.

            That’s why the people had such a hard time understanding what Jesus was saying.  Because God’s thoughts are not our thoughts.  God’s ways are not our ways.  The people in the crowd were trying to understand Jesus in terms of the culture of their day, in terms of the world’s logic… in terms of what was familiar and comfortable to them.

            It’s a very human way to respond.  All too often we assume that the gospel is a little something we can add on to our present beliefs.  The story of the encounter between Jesus and the crowd illustrates the tension between the familiar and the gospel.  The text we read today is filled with that tension. 

            Christ’s invitation to believe in him is nothing short of a call to conversion.  It calls us to be open to hear God teaching us new things.  In the words of the apostle Paul, we are to be “transformed by the renewal of our minds.”

            I believe that behind and beneath all the other hungers, all the longings, all the futile ways we try to satisfy our hunger and restlessness—our most basic hunger is for a word from God.    Earlier in his gospel, John quotes the prophet Isaiah in writing that the people “will be taught by God.”  Friends, God has not stopped teaching. 

            One of the essential beliefs of our Reformed tradition is the recognition of the human tendency to idolatry.  As human beings, we tend to get comfortable with the values of the society, or the beliefs we have held in the past.  When we hear a word from God that doesn’t fit in with the logic of the world, we have a hard time understanding the heavenly logic. 

            The call to conversion in today’s scripture lesson challenges us to be open to God’s redeeming activity in the world through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit-- even when it doesn’t fit in with our earthly logic. 

            The Spirit calls us to the new life revealed in Jesus Christ.  That’s why we can’t settle in with the comfortable old ways of worshiping and living out our faith.  As Presbyterians, we affirm that we are Reformed, and continually being reformed, according to the word of God and the call of the Spirit.  Ours is a living, growing faith, which challenges us to a gradual, continuing conversion. 

            The logic of the world teaches us that we will feel happy and satisfied if only we have enough money and material possessions…  bigger, more comfortable homes…or more land.   The logic of the world teaches us that we can make ourselves safe and secure by building walls…or through power or military might.  

            Jesus calls us into a new life and starts messing with that worldly logic, saying we will be happy and blessed if we are meek and merciful…if we make peace…  that we should love our enemies…  and that we shouldn’t store up earthly treasures. 

           

            We are called, as followers of Christ, to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.  As the body of Christ, we are called to live in humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 

            As disciples of Jesus, we are called to be on a journey of learning to see things differently, “to put away your former way of life, your old self…and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”[1]

            In Jesus Christ, God offers us an alternative story to shape our lives:  the gospel story of how God loves the world…the gospel story of how Jesus came to embody God’s love by living among us, full of grace and truth, proclaiming the reign of God, preaching good news to the poor and release to the captives, teaching by word and deed and blessing the children, healing the sick and binding up the brokenhearted, eating with outcasts, forgiving sinners, and calling all to repent and believe the gospel.   In a gift of amazing grace, Jesus gave his very life for us on the cross.  God raised Jesus from the dead, overcoming the power of sin and evil, delivering us from death to eternal life.

            I believe that this gospel story is much more compelling and transforming than any stories the world gives us.   I believe in the power of the gospel story to transform us and to work through us to transform the world. 

            The gospel story teaches us that the Holy Spirit feeds us with the bread of life and the cup of salvation

            This is a story on which we can stake our lives. 

            Together, we can rejoice in God’s amazing grace and power…which we celebrate in the joyful feast each time we come to the Lord’s Table.

           

            So, let us taste the bread of life.  Let us taste and see that it is good! Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

August 5, 2018

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[1] Eph. 4:22-24