Sermon
20th January 2013
Epiphany 3
Year C
“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.”
As I sat looking out of the window, beholding the snowy wilderness of
Cyncoed Road, I couldn’t help thinking how great these words are. I actually wanted to shout them out
loud!
What a fantastic sentence for all occasions. You could use it when you are sat on the bus, in the back
pew at the deanery conference, whilst waiting for the cashier beeps your shopping
through the till in Tesco.
Anywhere really! We should
start all meetings with the phrase, and we should have a burning torch on the
top of the lychgate to remind us that our faith isn’t something that can be
hidden, it shines as a light to the community around us.
I can see it now!
It’s important to have hope as Christians, we need to fight against the
apathy and the sense that whatever we do doesn’t make a difference…
A Pseudoscientist from
Cardiff tells us that tomorrow is the most depressing day of the year. The 21st January 2013 is
called Blue Monday apparently, when
the weather, debt, time since Christmas and the failure of New Year’s
Resolutions all converge to depress us all…
So perhaps this should be our ‘battlecry’ , like one of those ‘motivational’ sayings…”For
Zion’s sake…”
So that even in the deepest depths of Winter, when we have little to
look forward to in Church terms, no Christmas, just the quiet reflection of
Lent, we can still light a torch for
faith.
Each morning we wake a miracle has occurred – we have been given
another day of life, to spend as we will.
To accompany this gift of life, God has given us individual skills and
abilities that we can use for good.
What do we do? What can we
do that will be useful and efficient in the building of the Kingdom of God?
We have taken small steps, and things are good. Our New Coffee and Cake Collective is serving the community and the city
twice a week. Morning prayer is
growing (even shocking me) up to six or more people meet to pray for our
church, our mission and the world – every weekday morning! And this year, we’ve got plans to
accompany all the other things we do so well.
So what do we light our burning torch with? Well, just as we start our day here in prayer, we need to
fire up our hope and imagination in God’s grace.
And to top it all, the Gospel reading is the one where Jesus performs
his first recorded miracle – at the wedding feast in Galilee.
The miracle is seen as the antitype
of Moses’ first act of turning the River Nile to blood. Christ is turning water to wine. Seen
through John’s Gospel, because this is the only place it appears, it is seen as
one of the seven miraculous ‘signs’ by
which the divinity of Christ is revealed.
In many ways this seems quite a difficult miracle to understand – One
commentator suggests that;
“It
is easy to see the compassion behind some of the miracles such as making the
blind see or the lame walk, but was there really any need to provide an abundance
of wine at the wedding party?”
I think you know what my answer to that particular theological question
is.
If the miracles of Jesus were just performed in order to provide
compassion, then the answer would certainly be no, but the miracles of Jesus
are given for a much wider reason, and this reason appears at the end of the
gospel reading this morning,
‘He
(Jesus) let his glory be seen…’
The miracles are performed not to show off, not just to be kind and
help the disadvantaged, but to show the power
and glory of God.
Jesus is very much here to show us how God works. “For Zion’s sake HE is not keeping
silent. For Jerusalem’s sake HE is
not resting”.
I want to make just a few observations about this miracle and about
miracles in general. The first is to recognise Jesus was at a
party – often Christianity is
portrayed as quite dull and boring, but I don’t think Jesus could ever have
been described like this. He led an active life, and was obviously very
popular. As a Church we are challenged to seek out the same sort of popularity, not through compromise with the standards
of the world, but by displaying the kind of love and compassion that Jesus did
for the world and for its entire people.
As Christians we cannot shut ourselves away from the world – we are
called to live in the world.
I don’t think, put on earth to hide ourselves away from society as
Christians, but rather to mix it up with all, who may, through our words and actions, be led into a
relationship with Jesus.
This is a long-winded way of saying that as Christians, we are called
to Party
lots!
My second observation about this miracle – Jesus turning the water used
for the purification rites into wine (probably about 120 gallons) – is not just
the link with the last supper or the Nile, but symbolic of the hugely overwhelming
generosity of God, through the work of Jesus.
The wedding party had already consumed
the wine, and now Jesus gives them more than they can ever drink. Not only did they have more than enough
wine, but also they had a better quality
wine than before.
So, whenever we turn to Christ – (however useless and bad we have been)
that doesn’t matter. We will be
rewarded richly, beyond all our expectations. Our cup will not only be full, but overflowing.
If you were filing a report about the first recorded miracle of Jesus,
you would put it under the heading of The importance of going to parties
and the
importance of generosity.
There is a third thing though.
This week is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Not to make us all the same, but to commit to work together, as
different denominations.
The greatest mistake of Ecumenism has been that we have spent so much
time working out what is acceptable to other traditions in terms of liturgy and
order, that we forgot to go back to basics, to the first miracle, and reminds
ourselves clearly what being a Christian is all about.
People go to different churches because they feel comfortable
there. Some people go to different
churches because it is where they first felt God at work in their lives or for
a hundred other reasons.
However the real test of Ecumenism, Unity and Faith is a lot easier to
understand; I’ve got three easy questions for us all;
·
Are you are willing to respect with generosity the
traditions of others?
·
Are you are willing to stand shoulder to shoulder in
calling for a better world?
·
Do you like a party?
If you can say yes to all three, pass us the matches because we are
lighting a burning torch for the Kingdom of God in this place.
“For
Zion’s sake we will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake we will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a
burning torch.”
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