Third Sunday of Epiphany 2024

 

I wonder what the furthest distance is that you have travelled to attend a wedding. In the straw-poll conducted with our congregation this morning, the top 5 distances were: 5. Toronto, Canada. 4. Lexington, USA. 3. Chingola, Zambia. 2. Kochi, India. 1 Melbourne, Australia. In our Gospel reading today (John 2.1-11) Jesus and his disciples and his mother Mary had travelled 25 miles to attend a wedding, which isn’t far by car, but cars hadn’t been invented.

Weddings are a big deal, and they were a big deal then. The whole village would turn up, along with other guests from miles around.

If you’ve ever been on any journey, you’ll know that often the first thing you want to do on arrival is splash some water on your face. In Jesus’ time, guests would be welcomed by servants pouring water on their feet and hands and splashing water on their heads, as a way of saying, ‘You are welcome; we are so glad that you have come to us.’ At this wedding there were so many guests that they poured out the equivalent of 900 modern .75l bottles of spring water, or wine.

Weddings are a big deal, and they were a big deal then. The whole village would turn up, along with other guests from miles around, and they would stay for as long as it took to consume all the food and wine. When all the wine was drunk, that was the social cue to go home. And so, eventually, Mary turns to her son and says, ‘The wine has all been drunk; that’s our cue to leave; round up your friends, say goodbye to the bride and groom, it’s time to go.’

Jesus replies, ‘Woman,’ Woman. What a beautiful, tender moment. It resonates with the creation story. God had made a human from the soil and breathed life into it; but whereas everything else God had created was good, or very good, it was not good for this human creature to be alone. God saw that the human needed someone to stand alongside them, to sustain them, at times rescue them. So, God drew it into a deep sleep, took it up, broke it in two, and gave each part to the other. And the man cried out, in delight and relief, ‘Here at last, this one is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman for she was drawn out from man.’ In my culture, to call your mother ‘Woman’ may seem dismissive, but when Jesus calls his mother ‘Woman’ that delight in their shared humanity, their intimate biological belonging to one another, and the sense that Mary is the one who stands alongside him and sustains him are all there.

‘Woman,’ says Jesus, ‘what has this social cue to do with us? My hour has not yet come.’ Other than the sense that he is not ready to leave, that is a rather enigmatic statement that will just hang there for the next ten chapters until, speaking of his imminent death and resurrection, Jesus reveals that his hour has come (John 12.27). Ah, now we recall the wedding at Cana, and see that it was the first sign pointing to this moment.

Mary tells the servants to do whatever Jesus asks of them. And what he asks them to do is something very ordinary. He asks them to refill the water-jars. Something they would have done many times. An ordinary task for a servant, involving a trip to the well; something they would undoubtedly have done later as part of the clearing up after the guests had gone. But instead, they do it now. And when Jesus asks them to draw out some water, it has been transformed into wine.

The master of ceremonies is livid. He calls the groom aside and gives him a dressing down: This might be your first wedding, but it can’t be the first time you’ve been to a wedding!? Everyone knows that you serve the best wine when the guests arrive and hold back the cheaper wine until they’ve had plenty to drink. You have totally messed up!

The master of ceremonies doesn’t understand what is going on. But what is going on?

The water of hospitality had run out. The wine of hospitality had run out. But this is not the end of the story, only a necessary moment within the story. Jesus demonstrates the principle of death and resurrection, of the new life that is only possible because the old life has come to an end. It is a principle we see at play in the world around us, in nature. It is winter, and the plants and animals have withdrawn deep into themselves. The trees look dead, but something profound and necessary is going on beneath the surface. Only we humans are hard-headed and hard-hearted enough to live as if every month, every season, were the same. It is winter, and yes, spring is coming; but we cannot force it to arrive before winter has done its work. The world is renewing itself.

Our youngest son is in his second (final) A-level year. And he is flying. He is excelling academically, he has an active social life, he is making hopeful plans for his future. But there was a time when, for over two years, he could not face leaving the house, didn’t leave the house. I can tell you, that was a long, hard winter. I don’t mean December, January, February.

Jesus is the God who became one of us, who entered-into the death and resurrection of creation. Who blesses the life that we cannot hold onto, and the life that we receive if only we let go of the life we had.

This happens to us over again. This coming Saturday, at a service at the cathedral, we will mark Bishop Paul’s ten years of service among us as our bishop, as he retires. And we will pray for Paul and Rosemary as they begin a new life, in a new place; a life that is only possible because this life and ministry is coming to an end.

Sometimes we have varying degrees of choice, sometimes not. No one chooses bereavement; but Jesus says, just as I was with you, just as I blessed, the life that has run out, so shall I be with you, and so shall I bless, the life that still lies ahead.

What Jesus does at the wedding in Cana is the first signpost on this road.

It is such a beautiful, tender, and hopeful gospel.

 

Here, then, are some questions for those who would consider following him:

Where have you experienced death? It could be the death of a dream, the death of a marriage, a literal bereavement. In what part of your life are you dying right now?

Where have you tried to resist death, or deny the reality of dying? It could be in resistance to change or by masking the natural process of aging.

Where have you known resurrection—new life, not necessarily better than what was before, but different, and hopeful? What did that awaken in you? Is there any part of your life where you are experiencing resurrection life right now?

 

First Sunday of Christmas 2023

 

Lectionary readings: Galatians 4.4-7 and Luke 2.15-21

I wonder what kind of gifts you received at Christmas—and whether you could tell what they were from the way in which they were wrapped? Some gifts are easy to wrap—books, for example—while others call for more creativity. Some gifts come in gift bags, you might set aside to use again, to give a gift to someone else. Some gifts come in boxes, which may have already been flattened and put out with the recycling. One gift I ordered for Jo didn’t arrive until yesterday, and didn’t get wrapped at all, other than the parcel it came in. But however it comes, unless you are a small child or a cat the packaging is likely less important than the content.

I wonder, also, what the strangest gift you received was? My sister gave me a little figure of Jesus, an-inch-and-a-half tall. If you submerge it in water, over three days it will grow up to 600% its original size.

In our readings this morning we are presented with five containers, each filled to overflowing, by God, with his Son: namely: time, Mary’s womb, the law, our hearts (these all recorded in our first reading, from Paul’s letter to the Galatians) and a manger (recorded in our Gospel reading, which also mentions Mary’s heart and womb).

Time, Mary’s womb, the law, our hearts, and a manger. All things that once contained Jesus; all things that could only contain him for so long before he filled them to overflowing.

That is the Christmas mystery, and the Christmas joy. That Jesus comes to fill our lives—our given days and hours and minutes (time); our potential to be life-giving to others (womb); our relationships with others (law); our desires and our free will (heart); our homes and livelihoods (manger)—he comes to bring fulfilment and fullness of life to all these aspects of our being. The infinite, pouring into the finite, that we who are finite might be drawn into the very Life and Love of God, and that the world might know that this gift is for them too, for all who will receive it. Not just for Christmas, but forever.

 

Christmas Morning 2023

 

Lectionary readings: Isaiah 62:6-12 and Luke 2:8-20

Our readings this morning resound with angels and humans praising God.

As we gather around the Lord’s table, to share bread and wine, we hear the words of the prophet Isaiah that no enemies shall eat the bread and no foreigners shall drink the wine. For in Christ all creation comes home to God: there are no enemies; there are no foreigners: we are one people, one family, one body. And in a world full of fear, that drives us to ‘other’ one another, to ‘Us and Them’ ourselves, to view the stranger with suspicion, this is miracle.

Isaiah’s word to us this morning culminates with these words:

‘You shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.’

Look around. ‘You shall be called Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken.’ What does that look like? If God has anything to do with it, if God is at work here, it probably won’t look anything like our assumptions. But it might look like welcoming the stranger, it might look like people who have felt forsaken—by their neighbours, by the families, perhaps even by God—finding a home. Finding room at the table. Finding their lives being built up, given back to them; different to what was lost, but beautiful in the light of this new Day.

Like Mary, may we treasure these words, and ponder them in the days and weeks and months and years ahead. Like Mary, may we be open to what it is that God wants to do in us and for us and through us, united in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God the Father. Amen.

 

Christmas Night 2023

 

Lectionary readings: Isaiah 52:7-10 and John 1:1-14

Here is the news, news of great joy: Your God reigns!

What does that reign look like? It looks like life, breaking out, all over the place, in every place that had become a wasteland. New life, come into being.

Come into being, in the deserted places of our lives. Yours, and mine. For here is the Christmas miracle: just as the Son of God came into the world not by the will of man but by the will of God, so we are born anew, children of God—sisters and brothers—not by biological means but by the will of God.

Now, I said that the Son of God did not come into the world by the will of man, and I meant man specifically, not human. For human will was involved, in cooperation, in partnership, with God’s will: and that was the will of his mother, Mary. Mary said ‘yes’ to God, believed that God could transform her empty womb into a cradle of life—into the Cradle of Life. That Life which gives life to me, to you.

This Christmas Night, I wonder, what is the new life that God desires to bring to birth in me, in you? What deserted place does God want to fill, to bursting, life that will grow until it cannot be contained, but breaks out for the blessing of the world? Perhaps in this very moment, you have felt this Life kick you, from inside, as if to say, “I’m here and I am on the way!”

Impossible, you say? But wait: Your God reigns!

 

Fourth Sunday of Advent 2023

Luke 1:26-38

‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.’

Genesis 1.1-5, Authorised (King James) Version

When God sends the angel Gabriel to Mariam, to Mary, we read, ‘she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.’

The Greek word translated ‘much perplexed’ is diatarassó which means ‘agitated’ or ‘acutely distressed’ and conveys an intense to-and-fro between thoughts and emotions.

The Greek word translated ‘pondered’ is dialogizomai which means ‘going back and forth, in order to evaluate something,’ in a way that, typically, leads to a confused conclusion.

Mary is churned up, like the waters that cover the formless earth.

Which is interesting, because while the root of her name is generally thought to be the Hebrew for ‘rebelliousness’—which fits well in light of her defiant Song, the Magnificat; and may go some way to explain why so many Jewish women born under Roman occupation were given the name—St Jerome records another origin story, that Mariam means ‘drop of the sea.’ A microcosm of the great deep.

Mary is agitated, distressed, not by what Gabriel has been sent to tell her, nor even (unlike Zechariah, or the shepherds) by the angel himself, but by his greeting.

God comes to create anew, the first Day. Like the earth of old, Mary’s womb is empty; indeed, like the earth of old, it has become futile, for she has dedicated her life to God, giving up the possibility of bearing children. As with the waters of old, Mary is deep, and her face is covered with darkness, with confusion. And, as with the earth of old, the Spirit of God is moving over her, as an eagle hovers over her chicks, to bring forth the Day. God is brooding, sheltering, bringing forth.

Mary is amazing, not because she has it all together, but because she responds to God’s word. And the mystery of that ‘Yes!’ is that God has a human mother. That God becomes human, shares in our nature, that we might share in the divine nature. The mystery of that ‘Yes!’ is that it births not only the Christ, but also the Church, the new humanity. The mystery of that ‘Yes!’ is that it births not only the new humanity, but the new earth. Because, in Christ, through Mary, God is making all things new.

If the depths and the riches of that mystery doesn’t leave you churned up, you must be dead!

But here is something. As God moved upon the face of the waters, and as God came upon Mary, so God comes, moving over the chaos of your life and mine, the waste places, our emptiness. We don’t need to strive harder, to be a better person, to be acceptable to God, or worthy to be called by him. We don’t need to tame our tides, that ebb and flow, or drown our questions, ignore our fears, mask our distress, or dial ourselves down. But we can choose to say, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

That is enough. And who can say what light and life will break out from within us, that has long sat chained in darkness? Who can say what will unfold, in you and through you, for the good of the world, and to the glory of God?

 

Remembrance Sunday 2023

 

Lectionary readings: 1 Thessalonians 4.13-18 and Matthew 25.1-13

We think of this life as light, and death as darkness, the extinguishing of light. But in fact, it is the other way round. This life is dark – just think about the rollcall of conflict in the world. When Jesus returns, we will be brought into the banqueting room, into light and warmth and joy.

When I say this life is dark, I’m not advocating a counsel of despair. Darkness is one way of describing evil and the pain it causes – if your home has been destroyed by rockets, you are living through dark days. But the dark can also be magical. That’s when the stars are visible, and – if you are lucky – you might even catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights. And dark can describe mystery, the way in which even those closest and dearest to us can be a mystery to us at times, without in any way diminishing love.

And when I proclaim the Christian hope that death is the door into light and life, I am not advocating that we give up on the gift of this dark world. Death remains a tragedy for those who are left behind. I am simply saying that death is not something we should fear or see as bringing life – true life – to an end. I am saying that however good the present can be, something greater waits for us. Think of it like this: people sometimes say, ‘Your school days are the best days of your life.’ I really hope not. I hope that your school days are happy; but I’d hate for the rest of your life to be an anticlimax. Think of this world as our collective school days, and the world to come as the rest of our lives.

How, then, should we wait in the darkness of the world? In the parable Jesus told, that we heard again today, some of the bridesmaids came prepared, and some did not. It is as if they knew the Scouting motto, Be Prepared. They had thought about their kit and made certain it was in working order. They brought lamps, and they brought flasks of oil.

Baptism is the occasion on which we become a member of the Church. At every baptism, we give the person who has just joined the Church a candle, lit from the Paschal Candle, the large candle that reminds us that Jesus is the Light of the world. Our candle is a reminder that we are called to be a light in the world. Candles only really make a difference the darker it gets. As we wait for Jesus, think how your life can make a difference, lighting the way for others, or easing their stress, or helping them celebrate.

But the bridesmaids didn’t have candles, they had oil lamps – and flasks of oil. Oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, the Giver and Sustainer of Life, God in us, empowering us. The wise bridesmaids told the foolish bridesmaids, whose oil had run out, to go to the dealers. After midnight! God the Father and Jesus pour out the Spirit on our lives, so we can ‘Shine as a light in the world to the glory of God the Father.’ As we wait for Jesus, we ensure that our flasks are regularly topped up by coming to God, in worship, on a regular basis.

That is what today is about. First we acknowledge the darkness; then we entrust those who live in darkness and those who now live in light to God, who rules over the night and the Day; and then we respond in hope and commitment, to strive for all that makes for peace, heal the wounds of war, and work for a just future for all humanity – as dependent on God in this as an oil lamp is to oil.

 

Fourth Sunday before Advent 2023 (or All Saints' translated from 01 November)

 

Lectionary readings: Revelation 7:9-17 and Matthew 5:1-12

I am a parent. Not everyone is, of course, by any means, but many people are, and I often hear parents say things like, “I don’t really mind what my children do in life,” – that is, what their gifts or passions might be, or how they might put those to work – “as long as they are happy.” And I think that this bears some consideration. They clearly cannot mean, ‘I want my children to experience an unbroken state of happiness,” because the state of happiness is always a temporary condition, in response to pleasant circumstances. We surely want our children to have such experiences; but we also know that they will also experience anger – and in the face of injustice, rightly so – and grief and a host of other responses to life that make us human; and we will want them to become the kind of adult who can feel and recognise and regulate and respond well to the whole spectrum of emotions. So, when we say that we want our children to be happy, I think – I hope – we are talking about trait happiness, or the predisposition of personality towards happiness; possessing the kind of character that faces adversity with the underlying belief that all shall be well, at least in time.

Another way of putting this, then, might be to say, “as long as they are secure.” And the question arises, if we want our children to be happy, to be secure, how best can we equip them for that?

Jesus spoke about how we can nurture the enviable personality trait of happiness – in Greek, makarios – often translated as blessèd.

The kind of people whom he identifies as being happy people might surprise you: those who are poor in spirit, who mourn, who are meek, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who are merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, persecuted for righteousness’ sake, reviled, and slandered. We might want our children to be some of those things – peacemakers, for example – but we probably shy away from hoping that our children will be reviled. And what does ‘poor in spirit’ or ‘meek’ even mean?

I think that Jesus is describing what today is called operating from a secure attachment to God as our caregiver, enabling us to feel secure in the face the losses and threats we all experience in life, whether bereavement or conflict or injustice or malicious false report.

Now, there is a large body of research into happiness that suggests that our default underlying level of happiness or unhappiness in life is fairly stable and significantly shaped by hereditary factors, by the underlying happiness or unhappiness of our parents and our early childhood experience. There are good neurological reasons behind this. Children are remarkably resourceful. We seek happiness, or security, from our caregivers. If they are able to provide us with a secure base, from which we can explore the world and to which we can return to receive comfort when we experience distress, then we learn the right balance of self-reliance and reliance on others. If, for whatever reason, our caregivers are unable to provide us with a secure base, we find the strategies that provide us with some form of connection, that meet our need for comfort or recognition. Again, research shows two main strategies, anxiety, and avoidance: that is, overly reliant on others to manage our emotions, or overly self-reliant. We work out what works – for example, in some families, keeping rules results in reward while breaking rules results in punishment, and so we learn to keep the rules; in other families, we learn to pay attention to social cues, to micro changes in someone’s facial expression – and our brains train themselves to prioritise these things and ignore other things. And later in life, we find ourselves reacting to other people in ways that follow these scripts.

So, we might relate to God as someone whom we can coexist with if we keep the rules; or as someone whose response to us is unpredictable, and we are never sure whether we are acceptable or if we are a nuisance.

How we view God will, in turn, affect how we view trouble. If we believe that, as long as we keep the rules, we will avoid getting into trouble, and yet trouble comes looking for us, we may be predisposed to blaming ourselves: somehow, perhaps even in a way we aren’t aware of, we have offended God and rightly brought down his wrath against us. Or perhaps, if you were raised in a legalistic household in which you never felt approval, you have come to believe that no matter how hard you try to keep the rules, you can never be acceptable to God. Or, then again, perhaps you rebel against God, because breaking the rules will at least result in attention, even if that attention is harsh, and attention is better than being ignored.

If, on the other hand, we grew up in an unpredictable environment, say with an alcoholic father or a drug-addicted mother, when trouble finds us, we may be predisposed to blaming God, who we perceive as unpredictable, capable of love but also of outbursts of anger. Our survival tactics kick in, and we stay away from God until he has sobered up, fend for ourselves, or try to appease. Perhaps we see ourselves as a martyr, that as long as God is punishing us, however unjustly, someone else we love is spared.

But what served us well, or kept us safe, in the past does not necessarily serve us well today. Moreover, it might not align well with the freedom God desires for us to live in. For example, we might withdraw from people because (so we believe) doing so protects us from the pain of losing them; but God wants us to know love, and to experience being comforted – or, consoled – when we inevitably experience loss.

The good news is that our underlying level of happiness is fairly stable, but not fixed: it really is possible to experience change and growth throughout the whole of our lives. If you are, by personality, an anxious or an avoidant person, you don’t have to stay that way. Jesus calls us to follow him, to take responsibility to respond to him, to learn from him, to repent – which means a change of mind – and believe – which means to walk out a new way of being in the world.

Which brings us back to the Beatitudes, the list of those who are blessed, or happy, or secure. Except that now I want to draw our attention from the word makarios, blessed, to the word hoti, translated ‘for,’ or, ‘Why? Because…’ These people are not secure because of their circumstances; they can be secure, in the face of disturbing or unsettling circumstances, because of God’s dependable character. God, who rules over the skies and the earth and the realm of the dead, who holds together past, present, and future, who is the very source of life, of consolation, of strength-under-control, of justice, of compassion, of innocence, of peace, who catches us up into this glorious goodness that makes all things well.

One of the disciples sitting on the mountainside listening to Jesus speak is a young boy called John, who has only recently started out on learning from Jesus. Decades later, as an old man, exiled from his community by the Roman empire, this same John has another apocalypse, or revelation of what is really going on behind the scenes, behind the way in which the world appears to run. He sees a multitude, all of whom have come out from tribulation, from circumstances in which they were without options, who have been rescued from destruction into God’s safety, preservation, welfare. Whose needs are met, and whose tears are erased. Our reading from The Revelation to John and our reading from The Gospel According to Matthew are the same revelation, seen from two different points – childhood, and old age – with a lifetime of experience between. Everything John has known has proven the Beatitudes to be true; nothing he has seen has invalidated their claims. And that, of course, is what they are: an invitation to discover what God is like, how truly good God is.

November begins with All Saints’ Day, when we remember the many children, women and men who have discovered these things to be true in challenging circumstances down through the centuries; followed by All Souls’ Day, when we remember those sisters and brothers in the faith who demonstrated these truths to us, personally, in and through their living and dying. Today we are invited to repent and believe, to unlearn the false ideas we have held about God and to lean into a fuller knowledge, whether for the first time or the seventy-seventh. Come and see, that the Lord is good! ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’