A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 17 January 2016, the second Sunday after Epiphany, by Rune Nielsen. The
scripture readings that day were Isaiah 62:1-5, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, John 2:1-11.
Let us pray.
Dear God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be found
pleasing in your sight. Amen.
We know that
Jesus performed many miracles: he healed the sick, enabled the lame to walk,
gave sight to the blind, and brought the dead back to life. So when we look at
Jesus’ first miracle, the turning of water into wine, it may seem rather
mundane and insignificant by comparison. Was Jesus simply warming up his
miracle-working powers by performing a small miracle? In today’s gospel
reading, Jesus himself seems reluctant to change the water into wine. John 2
says that “When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have
no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?
My hour has not yet come.’” But Mary doesn’t let Jesus pass up the opportunity
to help out. Jesus’ mother “said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’”
Despite the
initial hesitation from Jesus and the seemingly small scope of the miracle,
this miracle holds great meaning and importance that should not be overlooked. Wine
is a symbol of celebration, joy, and thanksgiving. The turning of water into
wine at a wedding, the celebration of the union of two people, reminds us of
the importance of being in union with other people. Being in a union brings us happiness,
and when we are in union with life, our community, and with God, we can find
true happiness.
It is indeed
very noteworthy that this miracle took place at a wedding. As we well know,
weddings are very expensive events. The average Hong Kong couple now spends
over HK $300,000 on their wedding. That’s a lot of money to spend to provide an
atmosphere of happiness. In the wedding Jesus attends in Cana, the wine has run
out, which may be due to a lack of funds for the party. He transforms 150
gallons of water into wine. But Jesus’ miracle does more than fix a financial
dilemma. It affirms Jesus’ bond with the church community by enabling the
community at the wedding party to continue celebrating. Clearly Jesus values
his union with the community.
Union with community/ other people:
Being in unity with a community is so important
that God Himself is in a union with a community. The apostle Paul writes that Christ
and the church community are in a special union that is like a marriage. Paul
explains that Jesus loves the church like a spouse, for Jesus would give up
anything for the sake of the church. Paul would certainly agree that a marriage
is empty without Christ—empty like the water vessels before Jesus had them filled.
I once attended a wedding where the presiding pastor gave a special piece of
rope to the couple being married. The rope was a combination of three cords
twisted together. Two cords represented the couple and the third one
represented Christ. The pastor explained that all three cords are needed for a
happy marriage.
As the scholar Charles L. Rice once wrote, “the
deepening relationship of two people opens toward a greater awareness of the
larger community and what it means to find a place of service to mankind.” In
serving a spouse, we learn how a union is supposed to work, with mutual respect
and caring between people, and we can expand that to our understanding of how
Jesus cares for us. But marriages are not the only way people can have Christ
in their lives. There are other kinds of unions we can have with others. People
can have Christ in their lives as they build relationships of friendship. For every
person, a happy life has three cords: the first is yourself, the second cord
represents community with other people, and the third is Jesus Christ.
One community we can be in union with is our
church community. Today’s scripture reading says that Jesus used “six stone
water jars for the Jewish rites of purification”—religious objects—to hold wine
for a wedding. God wants us to be happy, and to share that happiness with
others, as people share happiness at a wedding. One place we can share that
happiness is at church. The church is a union of believers, and as a union we
celebrate together. Sometimes we think of the church as a very solemn place,
but God’s house is meant to be filled with joy. The church is the community of
God’s house, and it is the community that celebrates the grace of God for all
humanity and the sacrifice God made for us when his son died on the cross. As a
community, we celebrate Jesus’
resurrection, we celebrate Holy
Communion and we celebrate in
worship.
Union
with God/ Jesus:
A second union
we need in our lives is a union with God. Jesus’ presence at the wedding in
today’s gospel passage shows us that God celebrates being in union with us. Isaiah
62:5 says “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.” As the
church and as individuals we should enjoy life with God, the holy spouse we
have. Life is meant to be joyful, as at a wedding, and that
is why at my own wedding the congregation sang “Joyful, joyful we adore thee.”
At weddings we remember God who makes our unions with others possible, and that
is a cause to rejoice.
When we are in union with God, we can find many
miracles all around us. With appreciation for God’s work, we can see the world
with new eyes. There are many small miracles of life to enjoy—a blooming
flower, a smile on a friendly face. We can thank God for those things and share
the moment with God, saying “God, look at this! How wonderful is your
creation!” It may be easier to remember to pray when we are in trouble or
experiencing a special time, but daily prayers can be about the ‘everyday’
things with thanks and praise for God. God can be like the person you talk to
at the end of the day. Think of that time when you get home in the evening and
talk to your roommate or spouse or call up a friend to talk about the
interesting things that happened that day. We can do that with God, but as
those things are happening to us. Communication is part of a happy union,
whether we are in a union with a spouse or other people, or with God.
We can also show our union with God through the
act of communion. It is significant that Jesus’ first miracle takes place at a
wedding banquet because one of the last actions of his lifetime also happens
during a meal. At the last supper, Jesus instructed his disciples about how to
commemorate being in union with him. We re-enact that event when we take
communion, which is our symbolic act of eating Christ’s body as bread and drinking
Christ’s blood as wine. The dictionary definition of ‘communion’ is “the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings,
especially on a mental or spiritual level.” We can ‘commune’ with Christ both by taking part in
communion at church and by prayer. Like a wedding banquet, communion is a cause
for joy to know that God wants us to taste fullness of life.
Union with life:
Another kind of happy union we can have is a
union with life. Christ died that we may have fullness of life. We ourselves
may not witness the turning of water into wine, but there are ‘small miracles’
in our lives that hold great significance for us. These unite us with life as
it is meant to be lived--joyfully. The miracle of a newborn baby is something
precious that is cherished for a lifetime. Recently my older sister gave birth
for the first time. As I looked at her baby over Skype I looked at the child as
I had never looked at a baby before. It was miraculous to think that this
beautiful little child was just beginning its life! There are other miracles we
can find around us, such as the miracle of companionship, or the miracle of
nature we see out in the countryside. These miracles may not be worldwide
wonders, but for us personally they are great bringers of joy in our lives.
A union with life treasures everyday moments. As
the writer Carl Armerding states, the changing of water into wine is Jesus’ way
of “using the ordinary to accomplish the extraordinary.” The ordinary things in
our lives are windows to the extraordinary work of God because they give us
epiphanies. Right now we are in the season of Epiphany, the time after Jesus
was presented to the Magi, the wise men. The dictionary definition of
“epiphany” is “a moment of sudden and
great revelation or realization.” Certainly the wise men had an epiphany when
they realized the special importance of the Christ child. Visiting a newborn
child is a common thing to do—we are often eager to visit or see photos of
friends and relatives’ new babies. But when the wise men prepared to see Jesus,
they had a special realization that this child was God with us. A union with
life is spent rejoicing in epiphanies.
Epiphanies bring us
great joy. When I saw my sister’s child for the first
time over Skype, I had an epiphany. I realized exactly how precious her little
child was. In the season of Epiphany ordinary things in the life of Jesus are
transformed into the extraordinary. Jesus’ baptism with water—plain, ordinary
water—revealed his glory as the son of God. In today’s gospel reading Jesus’
glory is reveled again in the transformation of water into wine at a wedding.
This union with life reveals to us the epiphany that God wants us to be in
union with God and with other people, and that is something to be happy about.
What these unions mean for our spirituality:
These three unions, unions with life, with
community, and with God, bring Jesus’ transformation of water into wine to a
personal level for us. We can ask ourselves, “Will I taste the wine Jesus
transformed for me?” It seems like an easy choice—to enjoy the blessings of God
or to not enjoy the blessings of God. But it gets more complicated than that. We
want the happiness of a wedding to last every day of our lives, but we must
understand what it is that we choose
to be happy about. Furthermore, we need to see that what we can truly be happy
about is not based on the material world we face, the material world which
gives us good days and bad days. The most valuable thing we can be happy about
is based on Jesus.
The second necessary question we must ask
ourselves is “Will I also taste the blood of Jesus, shed for me?” Jesus paid a
price for us, a terrible price. When he suffered on the cross, he faced
violence, humiliation, and great emotional distress. Likewise, we know that
this world is filled with violence, fear, and injustice. How can we expect to
be happy in a world like this? As the author Fuyumi Ono wrote, “A person is not
truly happy because she is blessed. A person who is truly happy is happy
because she has found happiness in her heart.” True happiness does not depend
on miracles. True happiness is putting faith in the God who loves us, knowing
that no matter what happens God is our Savior who restores us to full life. Being
in union with God brings true happiness.
Our unions with other people reflect our union
with God. If we respect others as children of God and love them as ourselves,
we form a bond with them that shows us how God values us. However, when we form
unhealthy relationships with other people, we are pushing God out of our lives
instead of inviting God in to share the wedding banquet with us.
It is significant that it is during the third day
of the wedding party that the water became wine, for Jesus arose on the third
day after his death. On the day Jesus came back to life, sorrow was transformed
into joy. We can be joyful in small things, small miracles and epiphanies, because
we have true happiness from knowing that Jesus loves us and suffered for our
sake. Jesus did all of that because he wants to be in a union with us. When we
are in a union with God, with life, and with others, we experience the joy God
meant for us to have. Miracles are signs of the coming of the Kingdom of God. We
know that the greatest joy is yet to come in the fulfillment of God’s kingdom, just
as the best wine at the wedding was saved for last. Until God’s kingdom fully
comes, we can face the pain of this world by living in union with others and being
grateful for Jesus’ union with humanity. Amen.
# posted by Kowloon Union Church : Sunday, January 17, 2016
