A Homily for Epiphany III

Primary Text: John 2:1-11

Let the words of my mouth and the mediation of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer. Amen

            I drove slowly through the snow late last night, longing simply to curl up in my bed and drift sweetly into sleep. Longing to be home. I was returning from a funeral and visiting with a new clergy friend, and I knew that I had spent too long talking, but the fellowship was good and like sweet water for my heart. I knew that even though the conversations I had were good for me, I longed for home, longed deeply for my bed, and for my eyelids to be able sink heavily as I drifted to sleep. The snow whipped severely around and at times, disorienting me to the point that I couldn’t even tell if I was moving forward or standing still. As the minutes drifted towards hours and my soul grew weary.

            As I drove my mind was on the worship for this morning; my mind was on the begging question of whether or not I would be ready, and I started to think about the act of worship, for this is much of what I talked about yesterday with old friends and new, and much of where my mind was. I started to wonder if we grasp, even dimly what we are doing in worship. I wondered if I grasped it and if I had explained or am even capable of explaining the breadth that is the worship of our Lord. I wondered if I could find to the words to do so.

            As I drove I thought of our worship, the importance of both parts of it. There are two parts in our worship. There is the liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Faithful or the Sacrament.  These two elements contain the very essentials of what we need for a healthy spiritual life, for we do not have life without the word; nor do we have life without the sacrament. There are exceptions to these rules, but in the context of a healthy congregation we must desire both and we need both for our growth and strength. For it is in the word that we come to know God, it is in the word that we are able to hear his voice. Yet the sacrament heals our hearts and our souls, it touches us in a way that the word cannot; it goes beyond our very ability to intellectually understand and touches us in a way we cannot quite grasp. In a very real way we are both experiencing the sacrifice of God and in that experiencing the eternal worship that we look forward to at the end of days.

            Let us pause for a moment and really look at the liturgy. It is designed to be an invitation into the worship of God and even more importantly into experiencing God. It is not a hope for the next great emotional high; liturgical worship, while it can touch every element of the human being, is not there to give us an emotional comfort or the warm and fuzzies, rather it is a hope to experience God, even if only at the very edge of His being, even if it is only to view Him from behind as he passes by, as Elijah saw him on the mountain.

            Worship, like the worship in the temple, is a dim image of what we are preparing for. We are preparing for the final, the full participation in the marriage feast of the Lamb. So it is that we start with an examination of our souls, where we look into ourselves and see the darkness of our hearts. We cannot claim that we have kept the commandments; we cannot claim that we have kept even the summary of the law. For if we search in earnest, we see that we have failed to love God completely and failed to love our neighbors completely; if we think on what Christ said on the sermon on the mount, the bar is set high and our hearts long for our own sense of justice, long to rule over ourselves, and long to rule over our neighbors. We do not long to allow the sovereign Lord to be our ruler. For this is the crux of the curse. This is why we reexamine this every week; this is why we then call out to God – Lord have mercy! Christ have Mercy! Lord have mercy! For it is only in His mercy that we can approach Him; it is only by the blood of the Lamb that we can come to him; and it is in this outpouring of love that our unruly hearts are brought into submission to His will.

            The Introit turns our hearts to the love of God. Recently we have started doing this responsively and generally using a full psalm or at least a longer portion of one. The Introit is a calling and an invitation to bring of our hearts into deeper worship of God; it is a preparation to hear His word. The word of God demands a response; the word of God is how we hear the voice of the Lord. The Gradual calls us into hearing His word more deeply and beckons us to enter into the new covenant, departing from the old; for as we enter into something new we enter into something that is greater than the old. For the old was simply a dim image of that which was to come; the old law only convicted us and brought us death. The old covenant was completed in the new and the dim images that we see swirling through the old were made clear when Christ came into the world. It is in this new covenant that life comes again into the world. We stand with eagerness to hear the proclamation of the Gospel and then we immediately respond with the Creed. Historically in the catholic church the Creed came after the sermon – but the reformers, I believe, desired that the people respond with belief immediately following the proclamation of the good news in the Gospel, and so this is what we do and then we hear the word expounded upon, now in the sermon.

            After the sermon we enter into the Liturgy of the Faithful, into what is known more academically as the Anaphora. Through this liturgy we begin to enter into intimate worship of the Lord; we are called to come and experience Him. After we have prayed for the whole of the church, after we have prayed for those who have come before us, after us, and those who walk with us now, after we are reminded that we are not alone but very much a part of something bigger, we are invited to look back and look forward. We are invited to partake in the marriage feast of the Lamb. We are invited to partake in the super that the Lord instituted. We look back and look forward in this moment, for the event itself is timeless. The event is eternal. We are very much partaking in something eternal. It is a taste, a glimpse of what our participation in heaven will be. For in the Eucharist we experience the once offered, sufficient sacrifice for all, not represented – but re-experienced. We also, dimly experience the marriage feast of the Lamb, promised for the time of eternity. The Eucharist, coming into it and partaking in it, is in fact the pinnacle of worship. It is in this strengthening and in this remembering and looking forward to the future promise that we are strengthened to head into the world.

            So, what does this have to do with the lessons today? St. John’s Gospel is broken up into two parts:  the miracles and the teachings. However, the whole of his gospel screams one thing – this is the Lord, this is the Messiah, the Son of God, the very God incarnate among us. The only way to escape this testament is to adulterate the text. St. John’s Gospel tells us that something monumental has happened; that the very Lord has burst into the world and that His love is overwhelming.

While it is impossible not to see this testimony from the very beginning of his text, it is at the marriage feast at Cana where Jesus’ first miracle was performed, that we slowly grasp his bursting forth of Love, which is a prefiguration of the final supper, the supper of the Lord. This miracle is so astounding for it was a profound act of Love. If the hosts had run out of wine, it would have been an insult to the guests, and it would have been tragically embarrassing for the new couple. It would have been something like inviting people over for dinner and then saying you forgot to actually buy food to make your guests dinner. Hospitality in Christ’s culture was of the utmost importance. A wedding feast would have lasted days and clearly the feast was all ready getting long.

            However it was not enough for Christ to simply provide them with some wine, it was the best wine that was served at the feast. We know this because the organizer, the feast planner, if you will, was angry because the best wine should have been served first, and this was the best wine. It was overwhelming, a scandalous and an astounding act of Love.

            It was also a prefiguring of something and a reveling. It was an act of re-creating. It was an act of creation. When he turned water into wine it was a speeding up of the very essence of the universe; the grape vines grow only when watered and over time grapes spout; the grapes are juiced and fermented and finally after much time and much work you have wine. This act of creation was sped up in these moments. Simultaneously he uses a piece of the old covenant, the jars for purification and fills them with what will eventually be a figure of the new covenant. He is already starting to show that all things will be made anew, showing the incredible pouring out of His love on the cross, the pouring out of the blood of the Lamb for the making new of those who would hear the call and come and partake.

            Perhaps you are wondering what does all this have to do with longing – which is where I started; longing for bed, longing for rest, longing for home and for safety. We long to be with God, we long for our hearts to be filled with His love. While the curse causes us to desire to rule ourselves, we know deep down inside that there is something greater than the ego, an ongoing ache for something more. We are void and tired without this inflowing of His love.  “As the deer longeth after water, so my heart longeth after the Lord.” He is the only one who can fill this longing, who can fill this want. It is Him alone who plants, who grows and who builds. While we are active participants in history, history is made complete and redeemed by God alone. In the end, His true justice will be served. While it may seem like the road is long and unending and may seem to bring us nowhere, eventually we find we have come a little closer to God and we know eventually we will be brought fully into that eternal promise. When we come into worship, when we enter into the completeness of the Eucharistic invitation we are drawn into a taste of the long promised completion of all these things.

            So come let us put our trust in God, let us worship the One who creates, who builds and who makes anew. Let us trust in the fulfillment of the promises that He is there, that He is good, that His mercy is greater than anything that we could ever imagine. Let us rejoice in the wine that is better than we could ever desire. Let us partake in the marriage feast of the Lamb. Let us enter into that deepest promised relationship with the Lord. For He has called and we have heard and here we are, let us now be continually made into new creations and let us rejoice in all He has done.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, Amen.

A Homily for Epiphany I

Text: Proverbs 8:22-36

Let the words of my mouth and the mediation of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer. Amen

            The Old Testament lesson today is taken from the book of Proverbs. I don’t know that we spend very much time reading or thinking about this book, and that truly is a shame. For though it is not a tremendously poetic book, or a book filled with vivid and delightful stories, it is nonetheless filled with meaningful little sayings. These sayings lay a foundation of wisdom that acts as a guide for us to live a good life.  This is a life ordered after the way and the will of God.

            The book of Proverbs begins with what is in fact a very poetic section where a father gives advice to his son on how to live the good life.  The father explains to his son, who will soon be going out into the world, the meaning of wisdom. He contrasts wisdom with folly. Wisdom and folly are presented as two women. One is promiscuous and seeks to ruin people, while the other is like a rare gem, more difficult to search out, but who brings good and well-being to those with whom she interacts. Wisdom is personified in the second woman.  While she may not be the easier path, she is the better path.

            If we can remember back to the sermon series of about a year ago, you will remember that we spent a day talking about the “Fear of the Lord”.  The “Fear of the Lord” is the beginning of Wisdom. The “Fear of the Lord” is not a tyrannical over-lording, but rather a right perspective on how we are to approach the Creator of all things. While God desires us to approach him, it is not as we might approach our buddy, and not even as we would approach a king or a president, but rather as we would approach someone even grander than the grandest person we can imagine. We approach Him with a heart that is willing to submit to his will. Too, we understand him as a just judge who can either dole out a penalty or grant mercy to us.  We know this penalty is death.  If we chose to live in His mercy, it is a life with Him. For the Lord does not wish to rule over us in tyranny, but rather as a loving king over his faithful people. It is in the next chapter of proverbs that we are reminded of this very fact, that if we wish to have wisdom it starts with the “Fear of the Lord” (Proverbs 9:10).

            Wisdom, though it starts at the Fear of the Lord, leads to life.  When we talk about biblical wisdom we are not talking about scientific knowledge or literary insight, though in reality these aspects of knowledge are subsets and submissive to the wisdom of the Lord. Instead wisdom is that which leads to a good life. It’s the life filled with God. For when we chose wisdom we chose life.  When we flee from wisdom we bring death upon ourselves, for sin and folly lead to the deterioration of both the body and the soul.

            The statement that the “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom”, is prefaced by the section which we read today.  Today we see that Wisdom is linked strongly to the Lord and to creation.  The Lord is the source of all wisdom and in wisdom the heaven and the earth were created. Whether we believe in theistic evolution, intelligent design or look to the bible as a defense of a six day creation, it is nearly impossible to deny that there is order in creation, that there is a pattern in which things came into being. In being a part of the church and the covenant, we see this pattern as both wise and good.

            From the beginning, Wisdom was with the Lord. In some translations, Wisdom is stated as being created, not simply possessed, by the Lord.  For it seems that in order for Wisdom to be possessed by us, it must be a thing that the Lord created. It is His to pass on as he choses.

            There are some that confuse Wisdom for Christ. In some ways this passage seems to parallel passages such as the beginning of St. John’s Gospel.  But here wisdom is not a creator, but rather a part of creation, a guiding aspect. The whole earth was created in wisdom. Wisdom was not the creator but a part of creation. It was in wisdom that the Lord created; however Christ was the very word that He uttered and it was through that uttering that the heavens and the earth to come into being. The Logos was the creative force in the action of creation.  So while Christ- who is God- is linked definitively with wisdom. He is not the person named Wisdom in proverbs.

            It is wise for us to seek after Wisdom; for Wisdom builds us up and draws us nearer to God. For wisdom teaches us to approach Him and all of creation; it protects us from folly and sin, and instead directs our hearts towards God down the good road. Wisdom teaches us to discern good from bad; as we grow in Christ we grow in wisdom; in fact Wisdom is a part of the recreating process, which we partake in as we are continually being made anew by the spirit of God.

            We learn at the end of the passage that Wisdom leads to life and the favor of the Lord. Wisdom is the very backbone of the Lord’s covenant with his faithful people. It trains and disciplines men and women in His way. Folly on the other hand is the rejection of this. In rejecting wisdom we bring death upon ourselves. We seek after things that destroy our souls and our lives. Instead of delighting in the Lord’s goodness we delight in the things that will eventually lead to death.

            What then does this have to do with the Epiphany of our Lord? It is at Epiphany that we remember the wise men coming to the Lord.  It is here that we first see that the new covenant will be open to all people. It is in the wisdom of the Lord that we come to understand that the Jesus who was born of a humble origin some two thousand years ago was not only some special child or a good teacher, rather He was the Lord himself, the King of Kings. It was in Him that the covenant was opened to all people and it was in Him that we were invited to join into this bond.

            The first covenant with Abraham promised that through his offspring he would bless all the nations. Christ is this blessing, promised long before. For Christ, being both God and a Jewish man, was a descendant from Abraham. He was the blessing for the whole world. In His life and death lies the source of life for all of humanity.  So it is that we see that in the feast and the season of Epiphany, the gates to the Source of Life are blown open for all people. We are all invited to know this.

            We are invited to partake in the great paschal feast. Jews and gentiles, rich and poor, all of the people of all nations are invited in. It is in the true Wisdom that comes from God that we see Christ not only as a good teacher, rather as Lord and Savior. It is in Wisdom that we grow to know Him better. We are invited to drink the cup of salvation and to rejoice in the joy that comes from it. The choices are simple, do we seek the Lord, seek wisdom and seek life, or do we reject Him and descend towards death.  Life and wisdom are found when we seek and rejoice in the Lord. It is in the season of Epiphany that we learn that wisdom and salvation become available to all.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

A Homily for the second sunday after Christmas

Lesson: Isaiah 61:1-3

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer. Amen

            In the lesson from Isaiah today we are introduced to a speaker who says that the spirit of the Lord is upon him. If we look at it as an isolated unit it is unclear who the speaker is in this verse. For it is not the writer and it is not God, but rather some other voice.

            So when we look at it in the grand scheme of scripture we come to realize that the voice is non-other than Christ’s voice. For we may recognize these words better from St.Luke’s Gospel when Jesus is speaking in the synagogue at his home in Nazareth. For it is there in the early part of his ministry that we start to get a glimpse of who He is, and it is there that He receives no honor; for it is very difficult for someone to return home and not be remembered from all the other stages of his life because of his previous experiences and relationships there.  Even though He was the perfect Lord, He was still completely human, which meant that He cried and like all children probably got in trouble once or twice. (We might remember a certain incident at the temple when he was only 12).

            We begin to see how Christ fulfills the prophecy in this lesson. Yet despite the actualization of this prophecy, he was not the Lord the people of his time expected, for the jails did not burst open and the captives were not released on account of him; neither were the poor suddenly wealthy; nor were the people set free from the Roman occupation.  Indeed, this passage does not speak of temporal blessings but rather of spiritual ones.

            Christ has come to make wealthy the poor in spirit, to allow them to experience an intimate relationship with God. For without His grace we could not be in a relationship with God.  During the past few weeks we have talked a good deal about the first curse brought on by Adam’s fall in choosing sin, and how Christ restores that first relationship with God.

            Christ frees those who are captive to their sin, frees them to be able to worship God as we are able to now; frees us to approach the otherwise unapproachable throne. He heals the broken hearted, and draws them into his presence, comforting those who cry with the firm promises of life with him.

            However, it is easy to over spiritualize a passage such as this. For even though this is very much a real part of the ministry of Christ, the church is to be His body and we are to be intently interested in serving the poor and the needy and to love the imprisoned. We cannot merely say that we now love God and walk away from all other things in the world. For the church now has a responsibility to the poor, to the needy, to the broken hearted, the imprisoned and to those who are held in captivity, whether it be those who are held captive to their addictions and sins or those who are in held in very real captivity, such as the American pastor who has been held captive for some time now in Iran or the bishops and nuns held hostage by the Syrian rebels.  While we enjoy freedom we must be their voice.

With this in mind we cannot forget that the church is filled with these people too.  We are to love those who are in need of God’s amazing grace and meet them in both their temporal and spiritual needs. It is easy to forget that we must do this. I watched a short and rather cheesy video put together by a bible church that reminded me of this. The young man walks out of his house and immediately every thing in the world starts to annoy him. Finally, while waiting for his coffee at a coffee shop a man walks up to him and gives him a magical pair of glasses that helps him to see all the problems of the people around him, he realizes that the guy who cut in line recently lost his job and wanted to give his child something to smile about, or that the scary punky looking man just longs for love, or that the barista is struggling with addiction. Finally he sees the kid that he starts his day with and realizes the kid just needs someone to care. The point is this: we may not be able to make a huge difference in someone’s life, but can extend to those around us the same astounding grace that we’ve been given by Christ. We can avoid being quick to be frustrated, and we can greet even strangers with a smile, a hello and even a prayer in our heart for them. For we do not know how far a gentle smile from a stranger may go in someone’s life. And let us not be so foolish as to believe that even in our little church that there aren’t some people who might just need a hug or a simple –“ hello dear friend – how are you today? “

This is a part of what it is to be the Church, to be beacons of hope in a dark and dying world. We are not to be our own lights but little mirrors of Christ’s hope and love. We are to reflect his love, by living in relationship with Him and his people. Over time we learn how it is to shine our light, which comes from Christ and subsequently show the world His love, which resides in us.

            Christ came to make clear that a day will come when all will be made right, that in the end sin will be cast out of the world and we will be able to freely follow God and live in perfect communion with him. For though this process has been started, sin and the devil still roam this earth freely and it is best we not forget that fact; for we can see the tragic consequences of it in the world around us. In the poor, in the brokenhearted we see something missing. We see the utter devastation of sin.

            Though we find joy in Christ today, this is but a taste of the joy to come when the world is set right. Though we grieve our sin and the sin that causes pain and sorrow in the world we know that all these things will one day be set right.

            It once was that all churches faced east as a constant reminder that Christ will return, “as the lightning comes from the eastand shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” In the church facing east it acted as a constant reminder that we are to be looking for the coming of the son of man -- for all things in the liturgical church point towards something greater than the actual item or action. They point to the resurrection, or the coming deeper communion, or the preparation in our hearts by the Word for the deeper worship of God. The liturgical worship of God and his church are dim images of the beautiful truth that is found in his Gospel. Though these images are left over from a time when literacy was not a high priority, through them the Gospel became accessible and could be proclaimed to all people.

            Yet there are stories even today about these images being used to show men and women the truth and joy of life in Christ. I heard once of a soldier in a foreign country meeting a Christian priest. The priest asked the man why he didn’t follow Christ, the soldier was unsure of what this meant and so the priest took him around and showed him the icons in the church and explained the gospel to him. Though I do not know the end of the story, it seems from what I heard his life was transformed. For though a language barrier existed the images and icons in the church helped this man to understand.

            Likewise we are to be little images of Christ in the world around us. Being shining lights of the mercy and joy that is found in him, and ever waiting patiently for the coming days of justice. For we look forward to the day when we are no longer separated from God, we look forward to the day when the poor no longer want, and injustice is no longer allowed.

            It is in Christ that we have hope even in our mourning, perhaps especially in our mourning. For though we may follow him day in and day out, it is inevitable that there will be heartbreak in this world. There will be disappointment and discouragement even if we follow the Lord perfectly. For the world is still stained with sin, and sometimes we simply need to pass through these times and a life time may go by before we understand the greater glory we’ve experienced because of the times of tears.

            Even in the times of heartache and pain we have a sweet promise. The last verse today reminds us of this.  

to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
    to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
    the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

 For instead of ashes we are promised joy.  Ashes are of course a sign of repentance. Ashes are a sign that the inevitable course of human existence is death, Death is what is promised when we do not repent.  But in this reading,  we are promised something beautiful instead of ashes.  The translation we use promises us beauty, but more literally, a beautiful headdress. This headdress is placed upon us, a sign of a glory greater than us.

These promises do not come from within ourselves; it is not of our creating, but rather, the joy and praise that comes from God placed upon us. We will be able to rejoice in Him and praise him with the right praise that we long so deeply to give him. For God is the source of all life and all things and from Him comes all things.

            Even in describing the people as oaks of righteousness we realize that they are planted and sustained by God – by Christ. Our righteousness does not come from within ourselves but from God. It is from our life in the Holy Spirit that righteousness flows. For God plants us in the right way and the spirit leads us on the right path. Not being given to being blown about and bent over like birch trees, but firm and upright and unwavering like oaks.

            Yet none of this is for our glory, though we receive the benefits of it. It is for God’s glory. For in making us rejoice and delight in His goodness, His mercy and His beauty, it is His glory that is reveled. It is his splendor that shines dimly through us.

            We are brought here by the sovereign will of the Lord. We are washed in His righteousness, brought into communion with Him in word and spirit. We are set on the right path, that we might do his will in the world. In all of this is His splendor shown forth. We are made beacons of his joyful and beautiful light. Though we may grow weary, though our hearts may ache because of the wages of sin, we have this great hope that is found in Christ, for HE is the one whom the spirit of the Lord resided upon. May our hearts take encouragement in this promise and may we learn what it is to be little lights reflecting the light of the hope and grace and love that we find in Christ.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, Amen.