2 Epiphany Yr C

Many of you know that each fall I travel to my seminary in Austin TX, the Seminary of the Southwest, to attend the alumni lectures, and to meet with five of my classmates. The bond we formed while in seminary goes deep and was formed through much conversation, joy, heartache, and food. We ate in one another’s home at kitchen tables, we ate in the seminary refectory, we ate at Trudy’s, and Rudy’s, at the Red River Café, Kirby Lane, and the Posse. When we graduated, we promised one another we would gather once each year for mutual support and encouragement. Well, that’s the excuse anyway. One of our professors observed and proclaimed, “I’m really not sure what y’all do together, but I do know you eat and drink and have fun!” And somehow in that, Jesus shows up.

At our Epiphany Evensong, we heard Fr. David tell us about the season of Epiphany, the little known and oft forgotten season. During these few weeks sandwiched between the Season of Christmas and Ash Wednesday and Lent, we read gospel stories that show us who Jesus is. That’s what Epiphany means, showing or revealing. Traditionally this story of Jesus changing water into wine at Cana has been called a miracle story, the gospel writer himself writes of signs, Jesus speaks of them as his works. The word sign indicates that its purpose is to show, to be a sign of or toward something beyond itself. Signs speak of why Jesus is significant and why his identity matters to human beings. The gospel writer’s purpose is to evoke a faithful response in us, the readers. When we call this story and the others in John that are like it, miracles, and emphasize that they are deeds which defy the laws of nature, we actually miss the point of the event as it may have been understood by those who originally told the story and heard the story. I think this story is much more about Jesus showing up when people are gathered for mutual support and encouragement, and to have some fun.

The same seminary professor I have already quoted writes in her book on John’s gospel,

Jesus’ glory means something very concrete. Jesus’ glory means that Jesus provides wine when it is needed. Jesus gives an abundance of wine, one hundred and twenty gallons, even if the guests are already inebriated, and Jesus gives an abundance of excellent wine. Wine is wine. At the same time, wine is a symbol of Jesus’ gifts to human beings of joy and life, grace upon grace.

She continues,

The first sign confirms that Jesus is the Word made flesh who provides from creation and engenders life and joy. The confirmation ….. comes from the story of these friends in this village.

-- Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, Conversations With Scripture: The Gospel of John (Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars), p.41-42.

God shows up as people gather and revel in the abundance that God has provided. God’s abundance is not dependent on any one of us; God’s abundance is not lavished on the privileged and withheld from the poor. In fact, as this story shows us, God’s abundance may show forth in odd and unusual places and when least expected. The Lord shows forth his glory.

And yet today I am all too aware of the tragedy that is so apparent around us. War, devastation, earthquake. We are faced with the reality of Haiti. It seems like a place without abundance and only with sadness and tragedy. How does God show up then? Where is God in the midst of the rubble?

Tragedy and devastation no matter where or when it is does not attest to God’s absence. Some may say that tragedy is a result of God’s judgment, but that is not true. We know that disaster and accident are a part of our world, part of human existence. God does not magically remove suffering. God comes into our suffering, God is in our midst. This season of Epiphany is all about God showing this to us. Incarnation is about God showing up. The work that Jesus did and does in his life and on the cross is to walk with us, and to let the suffering of tragedy wreak it’s fury on him, and to take it out of the world with love.

God shows up in you and me and in our prayers and in our help for the people of Haiti. This is about being able to suffer together, and we either suffer together or we suffer apart. Incarnation is about accompanying one another through the suffering we personally feel, or that we feel on behalf of those who seem so far away. And I believe that God suffers with the people of Haiti and with us. I believe that God weeps at the loss of human life, as you and I weep at the loss of human life.

The abundance that God shows is not of riches, nor of the absence of suffering, the abundance that God shows is the abundance of compassion and love. You and I and the people of Haiti are the face of God. If God provides wine when it is needed, then God provides love and compassion when it is needed, and you and I bear that love and compassion into a broken and fragmented world, whether it is lives that are broken, or whether it is buildings that are broken, or whether it is bodies that are broken.

Water that is now wine, bread that is now the body, death that is now life. God shows us in the midst of joy, and in the midst of sorrow, that it is life that has the victory. God shows us that abundance is to be shared. We must provide the water, so that it may be turned into wine. We must provide the prayers that turn into abundance.

Let us pray,

O God, our hearts ache for lives lost
Suddenly
For families’ swallowed
By water and earth
For home and hearth gone
And memories forever changed
In an instant. O God, our eyes look to you
For healing
For comfort
For hope
For direction.
O God, our arms reach out to do all that we can in whatever ways that we can for as long as is needed for neighbors and friends and for those so far away.
Amen.

(Prayer borrowed from St. James on the Parkway, Mpls MN.)