Ordinary Time Winter 2007
January 14th,
Each is given the Spirit for the common good
Martin Luther
King Sunday
Worship Leader: Carey
Song leader: Summervills
Speaker: Linda
Texts: Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 36:5-10; 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; John 2:1-11
Isaiah
62:1 For Zion's sake I will not
keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until her vindication
shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch. 62:2 The
nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall
be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will give. 62:3 You shall be
a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of
your God. 62:4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no
more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her
(Hepzibah), and your land Married (Beulah); for the LORD delights in you, and
your land shall be married. 62:5 For as a young man marries a young woman, so
shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so
shall your God rejoice over you.
Psalm 36:5 Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to
the heavens, your faithfulness to the
clouds. 36:6 Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgments
are like the great deep; you save humans and animals alike, O LORD. 36:7 How
precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the
shadow of your wings. 36:8 They feast on the abundance of your house, and you
give them drink from the river of your delights. 36:9 For with you is the
fountain of life; in your light we see light. 36:10 O continue your steadfast
love to those who know you, and your salvation to the upright of heart!
1
Corinthians 12:4 Now
there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 12:5 and there are varieties
of services, but the same Lord; 12:6 and there are varieties of activities, but
it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 12:7 To each is given
the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 12:8 To one is given
through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of
knowledge according to the same Spirit, 12:9 to another faith by the same
Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 12:10 to another the
working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of
spirits, to another various kinds of tongu
one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
John
2:1 On the third day there was a
wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2:2 Jesus and
his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 2:3 When the wine gave out,
the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." 2:4 And Jesus
said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has
not yet come." 2:5 His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he
tells you." 2:6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the
Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 2:7 Jesus
said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to
the brim. 2:8 He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the
chief steward." So they took it. 2:9 When the steward tasted the water
that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants
who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 2:10 and said
to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine
after the guests have become drunk. But
you have kept the good wine until now." 2:11 Jesus did this, the first of
his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples
believed in him.
Contemporary
quote:
The people I distrust the most are those who want
to improve our lives but have only one course of action. --Frank Herbert, author of Dune, 1920-1986
Introduction:
Martin
Luther King’s keen vision and wisdom
continue to speak through the
decades since his death.
Today
I’ll intersperse some of his quotations throughout this sermon
as his words still ring relevant and
true;
he
exemplifies how one person,
passionately committed to his
calling,
offers his spiritual gifts for the
common good…
As
I use his words as an adjunct or commentary on our texts,
notice how thoroughly shaped his
thought and wisdom is by Scripture.
You
don’t have to completely agree with him
to be struck by how formative
these
ancient words of the Bible have been
for the growth of his thought and
vision,
his gift to his
community…
(I’ll
let you know when I’m quoting King; I’ll make quotation marks in the air.)
And
I’ll begin with this one:
Life's most urgent question is, what are you doing for others?
With
that, let’s think about our gospel story today,
a
peek at an unexpected thing
that Jesus ‘does for others’…
the story of Jesus turning water
into wine at a wedding.
This
is a story that lends itself to all kinds of funny takes….
a
Canadian pastor tells the story of a Canadian cop, a Mountie
who pulled over a minister driving
back home from a wedding reception.
The Mountie noticed
that the guy was talking with a bit
of a slur and asked,
“What have you been
drinking, sir?”
“Only water,” answered
the preacher.
Skeptical, the Mountie leaned
forward and sniffed,
“So why do I clearly
smell wine?”
The minister looked away, pondered a
second,
then turned back to the
Mountie and said,
“Well, good Lord—
he’s done it
again!”
And
then there’s the story from an old Johnny Carson show
where an eight year old boy was on
the show
after having rescued two buddies
in
a coal mine outside his hometown in West Virginia.
As Johnny questioned the boy,
it
became apparent to him and the audience
that
the young man was a Christian.
So Johnny asked him if he attended Sunday
school.
When the boy said he did Johnny inquired,
"What are you learning in Sunday school?"
"Last week," came his reply,
"our lesson was about when Jesus went to a wedding and turned water into
wine."
The audience roared, but Johnny tried to
keep a straight face.
Then he said, "And what did you learn
from that story?"
The boy squirmed in his chair.
It was apparent he hadn't thought about
this.
But then he lifted up his face and said,
"If
you're going to have a wedding,
make
sure you invite Jesus!"
(thanks
to J. Paul Mullen, Midrash, for these anecdotes)
Of
these two characters, I think the 8-year-old clearly beat out the minister for
having caught the heart of the text!
The grace and generosity of God:
This
story is a perennial shocker.
And
the closer one looks at it, the more astonishing it becomes—
especially if you grew up in a
context
where alcohol is either frowned
upon,
or the opposite extreme,
abused.
But
the primary issue here isn’t the alcohol;
it’s the grace and abundance of
God….
The
bathwater for the whole host family—
yes,
really; that is what these stone jars held,
water for the purification baths—
the
family’s bathwater is turned into enough wine
to fill between 700 and a thousand bottles!
Some party!
And
yes, the kid is absolutely right:
“If you're going to have a wedding,
make sure you invite Jesus!"
In
fact, if you are going to have any
community event,
make sure that God is invited,
involved…
Because
God absolutely delights
in blessing the community with
overflowing generosity,
open handed abundance….
And
our psalm points out
that this is not just limited to the
human community
but includes the animal community as
well.
“You
save humans and animals alike, O Lord.”
(36:6c)
Not the reality we live with:
But
this isn’t always how things seem to work out….
we don’t see a world
where it is clear that
“all
people may take refuge in the shadow of God’s wings”
to find salvation, healing,
abundance.
Instead,
we see rampant injustice, violence, greed,
heartache
of every kind afflicting our human communities….
We
don’t see an earth where the animal kingdom is universally thriving, either.
It
is a disturbing time….
Changing our reality to fit God’s vision by
the wealth of our diversity:
But
Martin Luther King—like Jesus in the face of an embarrassing social
predicament—
and Paul, in working with the unruly
Corinthian congregation—
staunchly refuse to see the current
predicament
as the final word:
I
believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love
will have the final word in reality.
That
is why right, temporarily defeated,
is stronger than evil triumphant.
And
here’s another quote:
I refuse to accept the idea that man can not
influence the unfolding events that surround him.
A
story quoted online illustrates this well:
A
man walking through the forest saw a fox that had lost its legs,
and he wondered how it lived.
Then
he saw a tiger come up with game in its mouth.
The
tiger ate its fill and left the rest of the meat for the fox.
The
next day God fed the fox by means of the same tiger.
The
man began to wonder at God's greatness and said to himself,
"I
shall rest in a corner with full trust in the Lord
and he will provide me with all that
I need."
He
did this for many days but nothing happened,
and he was almost at death's door
when he heard a voice say,
"O
you who are in the path of error,
open your eyes to the truth.
Stop
imitating the disabled fox
and follow the example of the
tiger."
(I
think this is from Kurtz E, Ketcham
K. Spirituality of Imperfection:
Storytelling and the journey to wholeness. New York, NY; Bantam Books:1992;
wasn’t annotated well online.)
Again,
a relevant word from King:
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous
than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Take,
if you would,
a quick look at the two texts
printed in your bulletin.
Both
the psalm and the epistle, like the gospel reading,
affirm the incredible graciousness
and generosity of God.
And
both celebrate the breadth
of what last week’s reading
from the Epistle to the Ephesians
called
“the wisdom of God in its rich variety”….
Today,
we hear:
“There
are varieties
of gifts, but the same Spirit;
varieties of service, but the same
Lord;
varieties of activities,
but the same God….”
And
here is the key to the whole text:
“To
each is given the manifestation of the Spirit
for the common good.”
In
all the rich variety of Spirit-at-work in our community
there is one common purpose:
the common good.
Yes,
gifts are given to individuals,
but the gift is for the community.
It
is not to give the individual an ego boost,
a sense of accomplishment or value
although it may do those
things.
But
the Spirit’s primary purpose in giving gifts to us
is to bring the grace, the loving
abundance of God,
directly into the community.
All
our service, all our activities need this focus—or we have completely missed
the boat.
Like
Jesus’ astonishing use
of
the seemingly irrelevant and humble resource of bath water
to meet a need,
we
too are asked to look at the resources we have around us
with new eyes, new insight
and
find
ways to transform them for the blessing of the community.
Paul
goes on in the verses just beyond our reading to talk about
the body of Christ in the world
which is made up of –
Us.
He
urges us to care for each other, for “if one member suffers, all suffer with
it.”
There
is no ‘Other’, no ‘them’,
no stranger
in the
body of Christ; there is only Us.
Elsewhere,
the Apostle Paul makes it clear that the circles get drawn even larger to
include all of humanity (Every family in heaven and on earth takes its name from the Father, Eph 3:14;
Paul talking with the Athenians: In him
we live and move and have our being. We too are his children, Acts 17:28)
and even all of Creation (All things on earth and in heaven are reconciled to God by making peace through
the blood of his cross, Col 1:20, Creation
itself will be set free from its bondage and will obtain the freedom of the
glory of the children of God, Romans 8:21)
Jesus
concurs with this;
in the parables of the judgment of
the nations
and in the parable of the Good
Samaritan
he
makes it painfully obvious that
“What
we do to the least of these, God’s children, is doing it to God….(Matthew
25:31-45)
and
that loving our neighbor as our self
means responding to anyone our lives
touch with mercy. (Luke
10:25-37)
As King
put it:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
We begin with what we have:
So what
do we do? How do we become the tiger
instead of the disabled fox? How do we
begin to identify and utilize the gifts each of us have for the common good,
for our community?
King:
Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole
staircase.
Here is
a story from African-American history told by Warren Clark
where someone simply took the next
step:
There were several different kinds of slavery. The kind of slavery in
Spanish Florida allowed many Blacks to be free. In 1805, Pensacola was part of
Spanish Florida. As a free African American, Julee Panton developed a business
in real estate. With a keen eye for buying and selling houses, she became
prosperous. She is legendary in Pensacola’s Black community to this day for
using her business profits to buy slaves and set them free. Once the former
slaves had worked to pay back the slave price, she used the money as a
revolving fund to buy more slaves and set them free. When Pensacola became part
of the young United States, great pressure was put on the free Black community
to limit their enterprise. Nevertheless, Pensacola had one of the largest
communities of free Blacks of any city in the South. Julee Panton’s cottage in
the Historic Pensacola Village has become a museum of African American history
in west Florida.
Julee
Panton knew she could not change
the whole system of slavery.
Rather
than rail at the injustice,
she used her skills to do what she
could do.
One
person at a time, she helped form a community of freedom.
We all
have different skills.
Just
like Julee Panton,
we have the opportunity in life to
use our skills
to help others have better lives.
We are
most effective when we identify an injustice,
assess what skills we have that can
help right that wrong,
and then use our resources to that
end.
There are many modern-day Julee Pantons among us, quietly and
persistently using their skills for the good of their communities....
– Warren Clark (emphasis added)
Conclusion:
Each
of us is called to be a part of the body of Christ,
to continue the work and ministry of
Jesus in the world…
to let our individual gifts
grace
our communities with generosity, healing, self-giving,
for the common good.
As
we wrestle with our sacred text, the Bible,
as those ancient words
speak again to us--
we,
like Martin Luther King,
will find ourselves deeply shaped and sculpted
by these ancient words.
We
will not all respond in identical ways; there will be
“varieties of gifts, but
the same Spirit;
varieties of service, but the same
Lord;
varieties of activities,
but the same God….”
But
each is given “the manifestation of the Spirit
for the common good.”
So
as we participate in the larger communities around us—
whether human or animal,
local or global—
how
will we respond to the unexpected
needs that crop up?
What will we do to transform the
limited resources at hand,
perhaps….even the
bathwater??
I’ll
close with yet another quote from King:
Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.