Isaiah 62:1–5
Psalm 36:5–10
1 Corinthians 12:1–11
John 2:1–11
Year C
Prayer from ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson:
Merciful God, hear our cry for mercy in the wake of the earthquake. Reveal your presence in the midst of our suffering. Help us to trust in your promises of hope and life so that desperation and grief will not overtake us. Come quickly to our aid that we may know peace and joy again. Strengthen us in this time of trial with the assurance of hope we know in the death and resurrection of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
I.N.I.
Well, it’s true that my house has not looked better except right before our Open House Sunday. We like having company because it gives us an excuse to clean. And it is amazing how the messes pile up, no matter if you’re a family of one or ten (even the very next day after the Open House!)
The current huge mess is in Haiti, where an already mostly poor country (70% live in extreme poverty) with a fragile infrastructure all but completely collapsed under the rumbling of the earth’s tectonic plates last week.
There are messes all around, whether you want to run your white glove over our government’s airline security measures, the management of military deployment, or agreeing on health care overhaul.
As much as we try to put a veneer over our family life, our job security, or even our church’s sense of unity, there still are spillages, reality checks, and problems.
Clean up in aisle ten!
I must say that one of the most rewarding parts of cleaning the house was getting to the dirt that most weeks was only quickly run over by the vacuum, and some serious disposing of the accumulated stuff rather than shoving it in a corner.
God bless it!
But beyond the parsonage itself and the new paint, it was in the company that made the last Sunday afternoon holy. It was that some of you visited us, laid claim to the partnership that we share in God, and willingly offered readings and prayers for our daily lives in our homes. In a very real sense, you consecrated our lives that are bound to get messy again.
Here is a way to live faithfully in this season following glitter and festivity, which is called the Time of Epiphany, a return as it were to the Ordinary: to see with eyes wide open just what impedes our unity in Christ, to give a name and begin a work shine up what is dull, and to invoke the holiness of God on our messy world, despite and against what others with certainty call ugly or unworthy.
There are patterns already established in biblical experience and story, which bring glory to the ordinary, which shine light in dark and forgotten places.
In the glittering words of the prophet Isaiah, whom is represented in the First Reading today, God’s people in exile are provided a way home. Generations had passed, with only stories from grandpa and grandma waxing nostalgic about the glory days of Jerusalem. Now the path was cleared for a return to the land. Coming back to the Jerusalem, as everyone could see, looking at houses in ruins, the temple obliterated, grandma and grandpa’s memory got a severe reality check. You could hear the children, say, “this is the Holy City?”
Clean up in aisle ten!
The prophet Isaiah could have run away, or like Elijah hidden himself in a cave. But instead he trumpeted a new kind of reality, bathed in the light of restoration.
Isaiah waxes words with shimmer and ping.
Isaiah emphatically dismisses the dejection Israel must have felt from years of trouble as refugees, and dreams a promised future where
the name Forsaken becomes Delight
and the name Desolate becomes Married
God cares so deeply for the people that Isaiah declares that Godself will be the project manager for a revitalized city. In the love poem from Isaiah it is as if a house blessing is offered that consecrates the lives of God’s people even knowing they are bound to become messy again.
And in the Gospel story of the wedding at Cana, again the extraordinary shines glory on the ordinary.
Ordinary, nothing. Boring. Lame, that’s more like it. That party needed a better planner! Can you imagine the murmuring about the wine running out? Can you imagine the mass exodus once the guests knew the party was doomed? Even, Mary, Jesus’ mother began a little kvetching. You can see her raise her eyebrows and cluck her tongue at her son. “Pssst. They’re out of wine. There’s goes the party!”
Jesus’ response was less than polite to his mother. She could have taken him out by his ear. But he did say something that we are to hear again in the gospel of John, about his timing. Jesus’ hour to come was that depth-charged moment of glory revealed in suffering, of enthronement on the cross, of yet another wedding: God’s life to our death. God’s forgiveness to our sinfulness. God’s restoration to our devastation.
Jesus dismisses his mother’s gossip, but acts on it anyway. In a big way. Extreme makeover, wine edition.
As a sign of glory now and glory to come, Jesus gladdens a partnership in love, which begins with a glitch!
God bless it!
Jesus, son of Mary, Son of God consecrates the world through his life revealed in glory, as if his blood and water fills dry ritual jars and his passion and suffering cleanses desolate and longing hearts.
No longer a failed wedding reception, but a call for the Chicken Dance and a Conga line, claiming a world bent on its own destruction and naming it worthy of new life. Abundant life.
What is it that needs renaming and reconsecrating?
Haiti, whose history with the United States is one big mess, a former haven for slaves, its former dictators props for foreign government, an island of futility, does not need ill-guided Pat Robertson to damn it. Haiti, a victim of earth’s own volatility, needs Christ-minded communities to rebuild.
Lutheran Disaster Response already has partners in assistance, and a program that will designate 100% of gifts given. The ELCA has phones open this weekend from 9 am to 6 pm EST today and tomorrow to receive calls and donations. Let’s call Haiti not worthless but worth it, its own crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord.
Christ the King looks to mark 50 years of mission in Nashua this year and the next. What are some names that we can give to this celebration? How about Jubilee, while we look to free ourselves from indebtedness? Or maybe A Year of Sabbath, as we deepen our spirituality, in our connections to God and the God in each other? Or how about Welcome 50, as we look to be more intentional about whom we invite and how we invite to share the good news of Christ?
Here we sit, on a Sunday morning, as we are used to doing each week. In reflection on our own individual lives and our lives together, we are likely to kvetch a bit and names places that seem to have run out of wine. Someone has lost a job. Someone has a medical test this week, with a new diagnosis. Someone is dealing with a father who is out of control. We might pray about it. We might offer our laments, because messes happen even in the face of the best of clean-up attempts.
As we seek God’s glory and light, we might taste wine and bread in Holy Eucharist and be filled and be clean. In our weekly feast we find that we are consecrating our messes yet again, with Haiti and Christ the King and our lives and world. While we receive Jesus in all our human circumstances, whenever the wine runs out, and Jesus shows glory, we will discover that Haiti, you, and I are not worthless but worth it.
And in the word of the psalmist, we say to God
How priceless is your love!
With you is the well of life, and in your light we see light.
God bless it!
I.N.I.
The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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