EPIPHANY 3-C

GOD WITH US

What is the story of your life?

Where does it start? What was the context?

As you look back over your life what are the highlights? What are the moments of tragedy and loss that helped to define you? Who did you share your time with? What did you learn?

A colleague of mine was telling me a story about her father. It seems that this man had lost his mother, who died giving birth to twins, when he was two and a half years old. Now, he grew up on a farm in PEI with lots of friends and family and extended family, he lacked for nothing.

When he was older he would talk about his life, he would say “When I was two and a half...” and then explain about his mother’s death and what had happened to him.

The unfortunate thing was that if you asked him, why do you use a pitch fork that way – he would begin the answer, “when I was two and a half...” and go on from there.

He was stuck.

I am stuck. I am stuck in a number of places... when I was 15 I ran away from home. That’s a big one for me. When I left high school I joined the military. That is another place I got stuck for a while.

What about you? Where are you stuck?

The people of Israel lived in what has come to be possibly the most contested piece of real estate in history. That was so for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that it is the place where the camel route east meets the Mediterranean sea; and so was the perfect place to ship things by boat or camel to get them to someone else’s empire.

From the days of Alexander the Greek through to the problems between Palestine and Israel today someone has been fighting over that piece of land. There have also been times of exile.

The greatest of these was when, for forty years, the people were carted off as strangers in a strange land – to live under Persian law in the city of Babylon. Remember, 40 years in the Bible simply means a whole generation.

Then they are told to go home to Jerusalem. Their dreams have come true at last. There is celebration, and joy. Until they get back to the abandoned and destroyed capital of their homeland.

I know I am telling you a story you have heard before – and you know why? This is what constantly happened to these people.

You see, they were also exiled in Egypt for a while... they were exiled to Assyria for a while... Along the way they were conquered by Alexander the Great, by Caesar Augustus, and even by the Byzantium Empire.... then the Persians, then the Crusaders, until the 1500’s when the Ottoman Empire conquered it and divided the country into four separate regions in their fiefdom.

Believe it or not 400 years of conquest was ended when the British conquered Israel in 1917. In 1948 it once more became Israel, ruled by Israelis.

If your homeland was destroyed; if you were forced into exile; or let’s look at it from a smaller scale, our own human scale: if you lose your job, if your spouse dies, if your marriage ends... how easy is it to get stuck?

How easy is it to just start defining yourself from that moment – nobody loves me, nobody wants me, God hates me... whatever it would be that would creep its way deep down inside you and make it impossible to move beyond that event?

So why is that not true for the people of Israel? What happened? How did they keep going again and again? For that, we need to go back to the book of Nehemiah.

The Israelite’s return was a crushing disappointment. The walls of Jerusalem were in ruins. The great temple was a mound of rubble. The countryside was a wasteland. A hard-nosed administrator named Nehemiah and a scribe named Ezra stepped up and organized a series of urban renewal projects that included building a new temple and new city walls.

When the work was finished, everyone in Jerusalem, including the children who were old enough to understand, gathered in the town square. The Israelites were safer now, and they had a place to worship.

They asked Ezra to fetch a scroll he'd brought with him from Babylonia. The scroll contained the first five books of the Bible as we know it. Ezra opened his scroll and began to read its stories--stories of creation, of Noah and the ark, of Abraham and Sara, of Joseph and the coat of many colors, of God releasing the Children of Israel from Egyptian captivity, of Miriam and Moses, of the Ten Commandments and God's other instructions for creating a community.

The stories were written in Hebrew, but by then the Israelites were speaking Aramaic, the language of the Persian Empire. So Ezra translated the stories into the people's everyday language. Meanwhile, thirteen priests circulated among the people to "give instruction in what was read," Nehemiah says, and to "explain the meaning."

That's the point of reading scripture, you know, to get the meaning it has for you. On the way out of church one Sunday a worshiper said, "That was a powerful sermon you preached this morning, pastor. Everything you said applies to somebody I know."

The people in Jerusalem hoped there were connections between Ezra's scroll and their circumstances that would apply to everybody. That's why they asked Ezra to fetch it. That's why he translated it. That's why the priests explained the meaning of it.

And then hundreds of years flaked away and the crowd experienced it. By which, I mean, those former exiles discovered where they were in the story God was writing. They had wandered so far from God and had forgotten so much about their faith that there was a huge gap now between the way God wanted them to live and the way they were living.

A sense of loss and shame overwhelmed them and they broke into tears. Ezra said, "Don't grieve, and don’t cry. This is a day of remembering who we are and who God is. Go home, prepare a feast, and share it with those who don't have anything. Because this day is holy to God and the joy of the Lord is your strength."

Nehemiah's account ends with the people celebrating and sharing gifts of food and wine, because their long season of amnesia was over. Their sacred memories were alive again. They could face the hard work that lay ahead assured of God's presence, God's love, God's guidance, and God's strength.

And don’t think the story ends there. Each and every time the people of Israel, the people who follow God, have found themselves in the face of trouble, a prophet has arisen and reminded them about where they fit in God’s plan – about what God’s hope for the future is.

All of that is preamble. All of that was known by the people living in Nazareth. Jesus grew up in a town that was part of an area ravaged by Roman troops the year before he was born because of an insurrection... the people knew all about losing everything...

And Jesus stood up in the Synagogue and said:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour."

God is with you; God will raise you up, God will set you free... That is the Good news. That will bring us through whatever present crisis we face. That will give us the strength to move on.

Let us pray:

“As we reach for your Spirit, God, you reach for us. You bring us courage and hope, comfort and peace. Help us to remember that. Help us to act out of a place of faith in your goodness; grant us a vision of the future that will help us to deal with our past. For we are free in your love. Amen.”

EPIPHANY 2 - C

BEING TRANSFORMED
“Water into Wine” seems like a very strange thing to think about this week. As we see images of Haiti and all the devastation, death, lack of resources, we realize that is it water, not wine, that is needed, desperately needed to sustain life, to offer healing and hope.

Let’s take a moment and think of the people of Haiti, especially those in Port au Prince and those here closer to home who are dealing with the loss of loved ones or still waiting with dread in their heart…

But even in the midst of tragedy the Good News has a way of breaking in. So let’s look a little more closely at Jesus first miracle and what it might be saying to us.

Here Jesus is at a wedding; and there is lots of water… a substance that offers refreshment, nourishment, and even life… but there is no wine. This might not be such a big deal, but let’s think of it another way, there is not much celebration left… they have what they need, but nothing more.

I remember hearing of a man who had a heart attack in the middle of the night and was rushed to the hospital. His heart and breathing stopped on the way but he was revived in the ambulance. After this near death experience he found that life appeared quite differently. He was actually excited by awakening to each new day. Sunrises and sunsets were more wondrous. The colours of nature appeared brighter. People who he thought were dull suddenly became interesting and joy to be with. Life itself was a gift. Each moment was to be enjoyed and lived to the fullest. In describing this experience he said that it was like a rebirth with everything fresh and new. He said that his life could never be the same. It was completely transformed – it was something to be celebrated!

*

There is always a deeper meaning to the stories of the Gospels. We are meant to see deeper into the events and ask what is really going on. This first miracle is a miracle of renewal and transformation.

This is not just a story of providing more wine at a wedding when the supply provided by the host had run out. This act is saying something about the meaning of Jesus' life to all of humanity. He came to bring new life to people. His life was like new wine. The kind of life that a lot of people were living and are living today is like water kept in huge jugs allowed to go stale. To taste the new life of Jesus is to be transformed.

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There is something about coming to experience Jesus that leads to transformation. A lot of people call it “grace” and others, “love” but it is not just the message Jesus preached, it is the reality of God’s presence as shown to us by Jesus that has the power to transform us. If we can allow ourselves to feel it and experience it, God’s love brings new life.

There is a book by H.A. Williams, former Dean of Trinity College, Cambridge entitled True Resurrection (Holt, Rinehart & Winston). When you read it you see examples of renewal and transformation in the lives of a variety of people… Williams calls these “instances of resurrection.”

He tells of an artist, at first only painfully aware of an utter emptiness and impotence. He finds his imagination gradually stirred into life, and discovers a vision which takes control of him and which he feels not only able but compelled to express. That is the taste of new wine. His life has changed from water into wine.

He mentions a scientist with a favorite theory breaking up in his hands as he pursues his research. He is left with no home in which to house the quantities of evidence he has collected. His life has become dull and lifeless. Then a new, more adequate theory gradually takes shape in his mind which makes him even more at home with his material than he was before. It is transformation from water into wine

His next example is of a married couple finding their old relationship, once rich and fulfilling, slowly drying up into no more than an external observance to the point where it seemed impossible that these dry bones should ever live again. Then a new relationship emerges, one that is deeper, more stable, more satisfying than the old one, with a new quality of life which is inexhaustible because it does not depend on the constant recharging of emotional batteries. Their marriage has turned from water into wine.

Williams goes on to speak of an individual who finds life less and less rewarding. He seems to be in this state because he is compelled by an attitude to always play it safe, even though playing it safe takes away from his life of any real content or fulfillment. In the midst of his despair, however, he finds the ability to take risks and in spite of threatening danger builds into his life a broader base of experience. In dealing with this experience his real person is brought into being. He discovers a richer, more satisfying life. He finds the taste of new wine.

Finally, Williams comments about people who are never the same again after a severe illness or the premature death of someone they deeply loved. While it is true that sometimes they shrivel up. Their ordeal often allows people to be in touch with a deeper dimension of life, and be more aware of everything in the process.

I'm sure you have seen these kinds of things in the lives of people…. Perhaps you have experienced them yourself.

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I’ve certainly experienced this sort of thing in my life. I have had those times when I thought that a door has been closed only to realize that another door has been opened, or at least a window has been opened which has allowed me to see a new opportunity.

I have had jobs seem to disappear, relationships end, I have even had times when life seemed to be nothing but an empty grind with little substance to it.

The thing is, when those doors closed, and everything seemed lost, it was often then that I heard God urging me on to something else, I can look back on almost every instance and honestly say that God was with me and perhaps even leading me to where I was supposed to be.

Don’t you think this is what the parable is all about? After all, Jesus himself said that he had come to bring us life, abundant life!

What about you? When you think back on your life where have you had that experience of transformation or that taste of new wine?

When life has lost its meaning and obstacles have conspired to drain life from us we need to listen for the source of spiritual strength and inspiration that is available to us. There is always an answer to our situation. It may not come as we expect or when or where we expect but that is the exciting part of it. We can be certain that it will come.

That is the transformation that God has promised. That is the miracle Jesus was trying to show us. Look deep into yourself! Where is your new zest for life to be found?

Baptism of Jesus

A LITTLE TOUCH OF GOD

I have been thinking a lot about embracing your identity.

In High school I studied painting and graphic arts. But I grew up wanting to be a soldier and enlisted right out of high school. In the summers I worked as a veterinary assistant, making fibreglass white water canoes, and as a camp director. Then I went to University for a long, long time and wanted to be a professor. To pay the bills I worked in churches and as time went by I realized I wanted to be a minister. All of my life I have also been writing things; books, articles, poems...

I played basketball, taught canoing, was pretty good at semi pro rugby, became a punk and shaved my head in a green Mohawk, pierced some ears, owned a mustang, and a minivan, got married, had kids...

I have lived in most of the provinces in Canada and some of the United States.

I worked as an international observer in Central America, specifically Guatemala.

I am sure most of you have pretty complex lists as well... So, here is the question: Is that who you are?

There are a lot of missing years in Jesus life. I think they are the years when he was impossible to corral into sandals in the morning – let’s call that “two”; or perhaps the years when he would not eat anything but dates and changed his robes six times a day; we will call that “pre-school”;or the times when he thought he knew more about everything in the world than his parents – let’s call that the “teens”; maybe no one wanted to remember Jesus in the 20’s when he spent all his time snubbing his nose at elders while partying with his friends and pretending he was cooler than everyone.

Here’s the thing, Jesus grew up not really knowing what he wanted to do with his life. So did you. So did I. But there comes a time, could be when you enter your 30’s like Jesus, or 40’s or even your 70’s when things just don’t seem right; when the things that are supposed to be making you happy just aren’t. Or perhaps it is that something just clicks and you see it all differently.

In his book Craddock Stories, celebrated preacher Fred Craddock tells of an evening when he and his wife were eating dinner in a little restaurant in the Smokey Mountains. A strange and elderly man came over to their table and introduced himself. "I am from around these parts," he said. "My mother was not married, and the shame the community directed toward her was also directed toward me. Whenever I went to town with my mother, I could see people staring at us, making guesses about who my daddy was. At school, I ate lunch alone. In my early teens, I began attending a little church but always left before church was over, because I was afraid somebody would ask me what a boy like me was doing in church. One day, before I could escape, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was the minister. He looked closely at my face. I knew that he too was trying to guess who my father was. 'Well, boy, you are a child of. . .' and then he paused. When he spoke again he said, 'Boy, you are a child of God. I see a striking resemblance.' Then he swatted me on the bottom and said, 'Now, you go on and claim your inheritance.' I left church that day a different person," the now elderly man said. "In fact, that was the beginning of my life."

"What's your name?" Dr. Craddock asked.

He answered, "Ben Hooper. My name is Ben Hooper." Dr. Craddock said he vaguely recalled from when he was a kid, his father talking about how the people of Tennessee had twice elected a fellow who had been born out of wedlock as the governor of their state. His name was Ben Hooper.

That is what this moment is for Jesus. He did not need to be baptized by his cousin in the Jordan. A lot of what Jesus chooses to do from this moment on would be about fulfilling prophecies from people like Isaiah – but nowhere in the Old Testament does it talk about anyone being baptized...

This is something Jesus did for himself.

We will never know what it is that precipitated this change. Maybe Jesus was listening to John preach when he realized what he was supposed to be doing with his life; maybe he had been lying awake nights with this nagging suspicion that there must have been more... who knows...

What we do know is that he chose, he chose to make love the most important thing in his life. He chose to live out God’s laws and passion with his whole being; he chose to embrace who God intended him to be.

Who are you meant to be?

Now don’t hear this the wrong way – maybe you have already accepted the path that you are supposed to be on. I am pretty sure this is exactly how I am supposed to be using my gifts – and a lot of you are probably in the same boat. Still – it did take me a long time, and there are days when I am still not very comfortable with it...

There is another thing at work here. Another thing that Jesus accepted in this moment which changed everything; Jesus accepted that he was a child of God.

When he rose up out of the water he heard God say, ‘this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.’

You see, what gave him the strength to accept his role, his identity, was the firm belief that he was loved by God. It was about letting go of ego, abandoning the need to impress friends and relatives, letting go of the pain and anger, and seeing himself for who he really was.

So how about that? Do you accept that you are God’s daughter? Do you truly k now you are God’s son? That is, after all, what baptism is meant to signify – adoption into the family of God... or recognition that you were already there to be begin with.

We just need to accept it, like Jesus did... and even Jesus took three decades to accept it.

Martin Luther reformed the entire church; he began Protestantism and fought against injustice, being imprisoned, de-frocked, and the whole nine yards. During all of the time that he was doing these seemingly superhuman things, he was plagued by a sense of unworthiness and despair. To drive back those demons, he kept an inscription over his desk that read, "Remember, you have been baptized." Often, he would touch his forehead and remind himself, "Martin, you have been baptized."

I don’t know – I wonder if we take it seriously enough. I have to admit, I have never touched my own forehead. I have never reminded myself in a physical way that I too have been baptized... but perhaps I should.

God’s love is there for us, and there is a lot of power, safety, and hope that can come through embracing our identity as God’s children.

It will make all the difference.

CHRISTMAS 2 (EPIPHANY)

IN THE BEGINNING



In the Beginning... well, a lot happened in the beginning really: God created the heavens and the earth; the stars were spun on their orbits, the word was...

Here is the interesting thing about storytelling – it is good to know what the author has in mind. A good storyteller never says anything without having a reason to say it; and when you start a story with “In the Beginning” you are really talking about the future.

I know it doesn’t sound that way – you might think that the story is about the past. Most stories about the past start differently though; they start with “a long time ago...”

“In the beginning” is like a point form list; as soon as you hear it you should be hearing that the story has to do with past, present and future. First of all, this happened, now it is happening this way, and later, you can expect....

So let’s use that particular bit of wisdom and look at our gospel reading again...

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”

That is the past... The Word, or in Greek, Logos, the creative and imaginatory power of all life, was part of what created this whole ball of wax. Nothing was created without that artistic flair that the logos brings.

“What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.”

This is the present... as it relates to the past. At least for the storyteller... the logos which is the light of all people has always existed; and John has come to tell us about that – and about how the logos was incarnate in his cousin Jesus, and we did not listen, and well, we know the whole story of Jesus pretty well from other places, John wasn’t writing a biography, he was writing theology...

“But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God... and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth... from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace... “

This is the future, at least in a sense. John has told us the story of faith: God always was, God was revealed in Jesus to us, but we didn’t understand, if we come to understand we become children of God and come to know grace and truth.

A lot of the time we are looking for the trees, and we miss the forest. When it comes to church and our faith we are thinking that there has to be some sort of difficult ritual, or secret truth that we are missing. I am pretty sure if we were having a cup of coffee with Jesus he would look at us and say, ‘nope... it’s just love, that’s it.’

Every single time we come across a prophecy, or a bit of wisdom, or a teaching, or even someone speaking with hope and conviction in the Bible, they are talking about love. Sometimes they use the word “grace” to describe the love of God, but it is love nonetheless.

This is the reality of faith that can change your life, this is what we are adopted into as children of God, this is what it really is all about.

So here we are at the beginning of another year, the future lies before us, and the question is, what is the faithful response?

I think we begin again. I think we recognize that right here, right now, the word has come among us, and is with us, and God’s grace is being poured out for us to connect to, and love surrounds us... I could keep saying it in as many different ways as I can imagine, but what I really want this year is for us to hear it. Not just with our ears, but with our hearts.

And what we need to hear is that God loves us. God loves us even if we are young, even if we are old, even if we look funny, even if we swear when we hit our finger with a hammer, even if we drink too much rum and eggnog when the season gets stressful, even if we grew up abused, even if we screw things up, even if we are divorced, even if we are poor, even if we are rich, even if we are grumpy...

Again, the list could go on and on and on.

The point is that God loves you... YOU!

This year we are going to focus on just that one simple truth. I am going to say it so many times and in so many ways that you will get sick of it. But maybe, just maybe, we can convince some people. Perhaps if we work really hard, we just might get people asking some tough questions.

The reason the Bible starts with Genesis and tells you that God is in all things, the reason that John begins his gospel and says that God is in all things, the reason that people who otherwise felt lost and helpless listened when Jesus spoke, is because our faith is a story that is unfolding with a purpose, and that purpose is for us to realize the power we have within us, the potential that is God’s love.

The Wise Men looked out of the window, saw a star, and realized that everything had changed, and to use a Biblical turn of phrase, died to their old selves and set out on a journey; now it is our turn.

What we see along the way will change us forever, and I guarantee that it will be a change for the better. Let’s get started.