God of Always More

Not Julia Child, but I Love Lucy

Proper 12a 2014 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?

Many things can be said, and many things have been said about God. God is good; God is loving; God is our creator, our redeemer and our sanctifier. But one thing is certain: however much we may say about God, however much we may believe about God, we will always be left at the end of our speech, falling speechless before the indescribable majesty of the greatness and glory of God. And what is true of God’s incomprehensible being is also true of God’s generous giving and doing. Just as we cannot describe all that God is, so to we can never come to the end of the goodness that God has done for us. Our God is the God of Always More. As Saint Paul so beautifully put it in his letter to the Ephesians, “God can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” Such is the overflow of God’s richness, the generosity of God’s outpoured love for us and for all that God has made.

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I want to turn this morning from our focus on the story of the patriarchs that has formed our readings from Genesis over the last weeks. I’m not entirely sure how edifying to our theme would be the tale of Laban’s “bait and switch” with his daughters Leah and Rachel — and the fourteen years that Jacob had to work in order to win his beloved, and her sister and their maids into the bargain! Surely this fits in with the theme of abundance, but not quite in the way I’d like to address it, so we’ll let the story of Four Brides for One Brother rest for another time!

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So let’s turn to Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Paul is someone who knows the amazing power and the extent of God’s grace, and he speaks of it often. Today’s passage is no exception. Not only does God answer our prayers, but God sends his Spirit to help us to pray! How amazing is that! God, through the Spirit, prays for us! When we have worn out our voices with singing and reached the end of our praise, when sorrow has wounded our hearts, when pain, disappointment and doubt have blunted the edge of our faith, God himself, through the Spirit, reaches out to us and into us, penetrating the depths of our hearts and interceding there with sighs too deep for words. For our God is the God of Always More, and even in prayer God does what we in our unworthiness dare not, or in our blindness cannot ask. God prays for us when we can not or dare not pray to him, for our God is the God of Abundance, the God of Always More.

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There is no way around it! That is, technically, what “incomprehensible” means — God is too big to encompass, to grasp, to contain. And our Gospel today brings this message home, in the five parables that form the reading. Both the image of the pearl that is worth as much as the jeweler’s whole stock in trade, and of the catch of fish so full that the fishermen can afford to be picky about the ones they want to keep and throw the other ones away, both of those capture this notion of abundance. But I’d like to focus on the other two parables, leaving in the middle that one about the treasure hidden in the field. I want to turn to the other from those mercantile parables — to the ones in which Jesus likens the kingdom of heaven to a mustard seed and to leaven.

Let me note that these two parables are among the most widely misunderstood of all of Jesus’ sayings. So let me, as Ricky Ricardo would say to Lucy, “’Splain them.” The problem is that people want to trim these astounding images down; they want to find rational explanations for them. They don’t want to face that these parables are not just about the growth of the kingdom under the power of God, but the truly stupendous and amazing growth of the kingdom of God to exceed all expectations— God is the God of Always More.

First, let’s look at that mustard seed. Now I can guarantee you, you can plant mustard seeds as much as you want, but they are never going to grow into trees that birds can build nests in. The average mustard bush grows to be about three feet tall. Unless a bird has very low ambitions, you are not going to find birds building nests two feet off the ground. Jesus knows that, and so do the people to whom he tells this parable. The problem is, most of us don’t. We don’t grow mustard, we buy it in little jars. If he were simply talking about how an ordinary plant grows and spreads, and wanted to talk about one that starts small and grows big he would talk about the cedars of Lebanon, much as we might talk about little acorns growing into mighty oak trees. As they used to say when I was in grade school, Even the mighty oak was once a nut like you!

But Jesus isn’t talking about something little becoming big naturally; he isn’t talking about natural growth at all, for instance, how an acorn becomes a mighty oak: he is talking about supernatural growth, a miracle. Hear — if you have ears to hear — hear it the way Jesus meant it: The kingdom of God is as if a man took a tiny mustard seed, knowing it to be a mustard seed, planting it expecting it to grow into a mustard bush about three feet high; and instead, up popped a tree as tall as a house, a mighty tree that birds could nest in. Jesus wants us to know that we are not in the world of ordinary agriculture, but a miraculous world, the world of God’s Always More — this is more like Jack and the Beanstalk than it is about Coleman’s Mustard; Jesus wants us to be surprised. God is the God of always more.

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The same is true with that yeast and flour. Now, this passage is so badly misunderstood that the translators of the Bible that we use in worship have even changed the language to suit their misunderstanding. They talk about this as if it is just ordinary baking, and say that the woman “mixed” the yeast in with three measures of flour: and so, the picture in your mind is of a woman with three cups of flour making bread. But what Matthew’s Gospel actually says is that the woman “hid” the yeast in the flour — just like that other parable, the hidden treasure in the field. She hid the yeast in the flour. The Greek word is related to our modern word “encrypt” — she “encrypted” the yeast — this is yeast that, for whatever reason, the woman wanted to hide! Perhaps some nosey neighbor had been sneaking into her kitchen and she was just protecting her property — who knows? But this is not about ordinary household baking.

And the reason we know this is even clearer when we realize that a “measure” of flour isn’t the measure that you might use to bake a loaf of bread. The “measures” in this passage — the three measures — aren’t cups, — three of which might go to make a loaf of bread. This is the ancient Hebrew seah, three of which make an ephah. You know how in your Bibles in the front how they always have those tables of measures so you can see, like we have of how many cups make a quart — well three seahs make an ephah. And what’s an ephah? A bushel! This is forty-three pounds of flour that this woman hides her yeast in. This is not an ordinary scene of a woman at her kitchen table making Johnnycake — even enough for a parish supper; this is not a tame and homely message about how yeast just works its way through an ordinary loaf. No, what we have here is the story of a woman who for some reason decides to hide her yeast — but she chooses to hide it in the flour-bin: the worst possible place where you could possibly think of hiding your yeast! In short, this is not a scene from “Julia Child” — this is a scene from “I Love Lucy”! This is not about baking a loaf of bread, this is about coming home into your kitchen to discover that the pantry door has exploded and there is a giant mass of dough pouring out and filling the entire kitchen! This is a message about how the kingdom of God spreads — it is that the kingdom of God bursts forth, even if you try to hide it. The Word of God will not be suppressed, because our God is the God of Always More.

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As we prayed in our collect at the beginning of this liturgy, we asked God to increase and multiply his mercy upon us. We need have no doubts that God will. Our God is the God of increase and multiplication. Our God is the God who gives not only wisdom but life and abundance and victory. Our God is not only the God to whom we pray, but who prays for us and with us, who does infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Our God is not simply the ruler of a kingdom that spreads and grows, but of a kingdom that cannot be contained, that will not be limited, that will reach to the ends of space and time, bursting through all boundaries built up by fear or hate, or selfishness, by despair or lack of imagination. Our God is the God of Always More, and we will never know the end of his greatness, his might, his majesty, power and dominion, henceforth and for ever more.

Presto Change-O

There is more to Cana than miraculous catering...

Epiphany 2 • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give.

We come now to the second Sunday after the Epiphany. Epiphany is the season in which we recall how Jesus showed himself forth, how he revealed himself to be who he was— as “God in man made manifest” — manifestation being a fair translation of Epiphany. This year the season is a bit short because Lent starts so early, but we did have the advantage of the Feast of the Epiphany itself falling on a Sunday two weeks ago, and so we got to celebrate the first great manifestation of the son of God: the revelation to the Magi, or Three Kings, as custom calls them.

Then last Sunday, as on every First Sunday after the Epiphany, we took note of the Baptism of Jesus — another revelation or manifestation of his true nature, when the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove in bodily form, and a voice spoke from heaven proclaiming him to be God’s beloved son.

And today we come to the wedding feast at Cana, which the evangelist John describes at the end of the reading as the first sign by which Jesus revealed his glory and led his disciples to believe in him. But isn’t it striking how different this episode is from the two previous events. At first glance it seems a bit like a parlor trick, or perhaps a little bigger than that, like a stage-show magic act. Why, Jesus even treats the servants in the same way a magician treats his assistants, instructing them to fill the stone water jars and then to draw some off to take to the chief steward.

Yet surely there is more going on here than simply a magic act, a bit of presto change-o. This is the Son of God, not a Las Vegas stage performance, however spectacular. So what is going on in this miraculous change of water into wine?

The editors who assembled the readings today knew what they were up to: for both the reading from Isaiah and the one from the First Corinthians have to do with transformation; and what is more, transformation as a sign and a revelation, a manifestation of the presence of God: an Epiphany.

Isaiah speaks of God coming to redeem Zion and Jerusalem, vindicating them and releasing them from their captivity — raising them up literally like Cinderella, to be taken from the dust and ashes and to become a crown of beauty and a royal diadem. Holy Zion would even be given new names; no longer Forsaken or Desolate, but now Hephzibah and Beulah — well, yes, the translators were probably right to give those names in translation; and their meaning is beautiful — “My Delight Is in Her” and “Married” — I think today very few young women would like to be named Hephzibah or Beulah.

But a change this is, what a transformation, what a wonderful manifestation of the power of God! Lifted from the dust to be set on the throne — no glass slipper, but a royal diadem — all by the power of God.

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And the transformation that Saint Paul describes in First Corinthians is no less wonderful — no less a manifestation of God’s Holy Spirit. It is a result of the action of God upon those people. God has taken these ordinary Greeks — some of them slaves, a few of them craftspeople, merchants, mostly working class, a few of them perhaps well-to-do, but none of them likely of the “1 percent” — God has taken these ordinary people and poured out upon them an abundance of spiritual gifts, each of them given as a manifestation of the spirit for the common good: the ability to speak with wisdom or knowledge or faith; the gifts of healing or the working of miracles; to prophesy or discern spirits, or to speak in tongues or to interpret tongues — and all of this not as a result of classes at Monroe College or the University of Phoenix, or even at the local philosophers’ school, but suddenly and miraculously and from above — a sure sign that this is the work of God and not merely human learning.

So when we arrive at the wedding feast at Cana, we are prepared — and called — to see the transformation of the water into wine as more than Jesus simply acting as a miraculous caterer. There is something deeply important, deeply significant, about this change, and John the evangelist is careful to alert us by placing important details in his account.

First of all note those opening words: “On the third day...” What else happened on a “third day?” Another great manifestation? Yes! And so John starts off right from the beginning, by mentioning a “third day” — we’re up to something important here.

So then notice how he mentions where the water comes from: this is not drinking water. This is water that has been set aside for rituals of purification — John even includes the important detail that the water is in jars made of stone; for under Jewish law stone vessels could never become ritually impure — if you put pure water into them, pure it will remain, until you draw it out and use it. And what did they use it for? This water was set aside for people to wash their hands, which one would do many times in the course of a ritual Jewish meal.

This is the water that Jesus chooses to transform— and the second thing to note is that there is a lot of it; each of those jars holds over 8 gallons — about what you would need for a large wedding party to be able to wash its hands several times during each meal in the course of a seven-day wedding festival, but also obviously much more than enough wine, particularly late in the celebration, as the steward notes - another detail to pay attention to. So Jesus takes water intended for rites of purification, and transforms it into wine for celebration — and not just any wine, but good wine, and not just a cup or a flagon or two, but 48 gallons — that’s about 240 bottles of wine.

So this isn’t just a simple magic trick, something to impress the disciples; but a sign, a manifestation to teach them something about the very nature of who Christ is. Just as Zion is not simply transformed into a free city, but into a royal diadem; just as the Corinthians are not just made into good pew-sitters and member of their local congregation, but are given powerful gifts as leaders; so too Jesus transforms water that had a merely earthly purpose — something as prosaic as washing your hands — into a sign of his kingdom and its coming: wine in abundance to gladden the heart of those invited to drink of its goodness.

All of these things reveal and manifest the glory of God: the restoration of the city once forsaken, transformed into the crown jewel of the kingdom; the astonishing gifts bestowed by the Holy Spirit upon the people of that newly formed Christian community in the Greek city of Corinth; and the transformation of washing-up water into gallons of the finest wine. These are transformations and manifestations far and away more important than the most spectacular magic act, more than a presto change-o or an abracadabra. These are the kinds of things that happen when the power of God sets to work. And God is working still — right here, right now, in your hearts, when you invite him in.

Let us pray. O Lord of transformation, you lifted up the forsaken city from the dust, you poured out gifts upon the people of your church, and you revealed yourself to your disciples by changing the water of purification into the wine of celebration: So send your mighty power and restore, and grace, and change us too, that we may bear forth your message of hope and joy to a world in need of change; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Nothing from Nothing

A miracle on the North Side of Pittsburgh -- a sermon for Proper 12b

Proper 12b • SJF • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what is that among so many?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.”

In the opening scene of Shakespeare’s King Lear the old king is trying to urge compliments from his daughters in return for their getting a share of the kingdom from which he is choosing to retire — very unwisely as it turns out. Two of the daughters are lavish in their flattery — the ones who, as it will turn out, really despise their father and hold the old man in contempt, and eventually conspire to dispossess him completely. But the youngest, Cordelia, who truly loves the old king, is also determined to be honest with him and not hand him a platter full of false flattery. She knows that her love is richer than her tongue. When Lear coaxes her as her turn comes up, “What can you say to draw a third more opulent than your sisters?” The honest daughter responds simply, “Nothing, my Lord.” Lear then warns her that “Nothing will come of nothing.” And so the tragedy begins, as the foolish king imagines that his loving daughter does not love him.

We’ve seen in recent weeks, how it is that old King Lear might have had experience on his side. It is true that nothing comes from nothing. If you want to grow a tree, you need a cutting or a seed. If you want to build a building, you need stone and mortar.

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The pairing of the reading from the Second Book of the Kings with today’s Gospel from John is new to our cycle of Scripture readings. No doubt the editors of this lectionary wanted to highlight the fact that Jesus was acting after the manner of one of the prophets of old when he fed the multitude. What is more important to me about both of these passages concerning miraculous feedings is that they start with some food — twenty loaves of bread in one case, and fiveloaves of barley bread and two fish in the other — and it is from these scant resources that the multitude is fed. Nothing, in this case, comes of nothing, but something from something: both Elisha and Jesus take a small amount of food and they feed many with it.

So this is not a miracle like that of the manna in the wilderness, where bread miraculously simply raided from heaven. Jesus — as I hope you’ve noticed — prefers not to work that kind of miracle. As you may recall, he rejected the devil’s temptation to turn stones into bread. No, he takes five loaves and two fish — which the apostle Andrew recognizes is not enough to feed five thousand people, as anyone would realize — and somehow that food stretches, not only to feed and satisfy that crowd of thousands, but to leave twelve baskets full of leftovers. Nothing comes of nothing, but a great deal can come from something, with the power of God at work.

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A priest friend of mine, Gene White — who I’m sad to say died young almost twenty years ago from a rare form of cancer — once told me about an experience he had while in seminary in Pittsburgh. This was some years ago, as you’ll soon be able to tell. Every seminarian studying for ministry had to learn what it was like to be homeless for at least one night. They were each given a dime to make a phone call in case they got truly desperate — a dime, so now you know how long ago this was! Not only could you make a call for a dime, but there were actually phones on the street where you could make a call.

Gene came from a respectable middle class background, and was at a significant loss as to what to do with himself. With only a dime there was no place to go to, no food he could afford, even in those days when a dime went a lot further than it does today. He was hungry and thirsty, lonely and miserable. Finally he gravitated to the public park and took a seat on a park bench. No doubt he’d seen many homeless or impoverished persons do just that, so I suppose he thought that was how you do it, this is what you do when you are homeless: you go to a park and you sit on a bench. He was naturally reluctant to approach anyone to ask for help — he had never had to ask for help in his whole life — and so he just sat, praying, hard, that something might happen to get him out of this terrible situation.

Well, his prayer was answered, but in a way he never imagined. A middle-aged day laborer in dusty work-
clothes happened to come by, and noticed him, and no doubt saw how miserable this young man was, sitting there on a park bench by himself, with his head bowed. He approached Gene and asked if he needed help. Gene could see that the man was not likely to have any money to give him, but simply said that he was hungry, and didn’t have any place to stay. It took a lot for him to swallow his pride and his upbringing to say those words. The man nodded and said that if Gene liked he could come home with him to have supper with his family.

Gene brightened up at the prospect, hungry as he was, and went along willingly. They walked a good while into the poorer part of town on the North Side — and if you know Pittsburgh you know it’s got some pretty poor parts. The man turned in at the gate of a run-
down house, its front yard littered with odds and ends, spare parts of cars and washing machines. Three or four young children were playing in the dust around these relics of appliances, but they jumped up when they saw their father arrive, and they ran to him and they hung off his dusty work-clothes until the man carried them all inside, and beckoned to Gene to follow.

The man called out to his wife in the kitchen, saying that there’d be one more for supper. She called back, “That’s fine; the Lord will provide.” She came to the door of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron — remember aprons? — and waved hello to the guest. The man invited him to sit on the ratty sofa and wait for supper. They chatted for a while, and then after a little bit the family gathered around the Formica-topped kitchen table. There were places set for all and an extra one for Gene. The china didn’t match; neither did the knives and forks; but that was O.K. The father bowed his head and the family did the same. “For what we are about to receive, Lord Jesus, give us grateful hearts. Amen.”

It was only when the meal was served that Gene realized just how costly this grace was. For what the mother set before the family and the guest was half a loaf of Wonder Bread fried in Mazola Oil. Gene never forgot the sparkling eyes of those little children looking up at him and grinning as they relished this feast of bread fried in oil. And he never forgot the generosity of that family, willing to share that half-a-loaf of Wonder Bread and that bit of oil. They did not feed a multitude that night — except the countless throngs of angels that gathered round that house and savored the rich taste of pure grace and charity.

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Nothing comes of nothing. If we are not willing to offer what we have — however modest it may be, however small and unlikely to satisfy, however little it may seem among so many — then nothing will come of it. But if each of us offers that little, that little of what we have, then we will find that there is more than we expected. Nothing comes of nothing, but great things can come from small things, when those small things are dedicated to God and to God’s glory, blessed and sanctified with prayer for God’s purposes. So let us then give of ourselves, dedicating our small gifts to God’s service, with grateful hearts. Who knows how many they will feed, both in body and in spirit, when we give them with open hands, and in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Sleight of Hand

Now you see him, now you don't! — an Easter Sermon, accompanied by infants awaiting baptism!

SJF • Easter 2011 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.+

It will come as no surprise to anyone here, when I observe that Harry Potter has become a household name. The series of novels and the series of movies based on the novels are phenomenally popular. Almost everybody knows Harry Potter — though I’m curious to know how many of you here know the name of the author of the novels or the name of the actor who plays the role in the films? Show of hands?

My point is that it’s not the actor or the novelist, or even the character of Harry Potter himself, who is at the heart of the fascination and popularity of the books or movies. It is magic — magic itself: that is what draws such an attentive and loyal and fascinated audience.

Now, it may seem odd for me to be mentioning magic in the context of an Easter sermon — but surely there is something magical about the resurrection, isn’t there? In fact, there was an English stage production of a very old English play — one of the first English plays — about the resurrection — the play dating from the 15th century, and the production from just a few years ago, in England, at the Young Vic — in which the director staged the resurrection scene precisely as a magic act. The body of Christ was placed upright into a wooden cabinet, and chains were wrapped around it and locks placed on the chains. The soldiers stationed at the tomb shivered in their boots — they were costumed as British riot control officers, complete with helmets with visors, truncheons and transparent plastic body shields — and then at a great clap of thunder and flash of light and cloud of smoke, the four sides of the upright cabinet fell down flat to reveal that the body was gone!

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Surely, there is something magical about the resurrection — as there is something magical about so much of life, and death, and life again. It is no accident that there is an overlap between the magical world and God’s world. Even the magicians’ spell, “Abracadabra,” is said to be derived from a Hebrew phrase that only God could properly speak, “abara k’davra” — I create as I speak. Only God has the power to create — to bring into being that which is not — and to do so simply by saying the words, “Let there be...” With those words all things came into being. More than that, God appears to employ a kind of sleight of hand in dealing with the people of God both as audiences to his magic and as the object or props in that magic. God uses the magician’s standard tool of misdirection to deflect and distract the enemies of his people, dazzling them with pillars of cloud and fire, while keeping his people safe in the palm of his hand; hiding them in the wilderness before bringing them to the Holy Land; preserving them in Babylon until ready to be pulled from his sleeve, or like the rabbit out of the top hat, and returned to the land of promise.

And isn’t it a classic example of a magician’s skill for God to say, as he does through St Paul, “Keep your eyes on heaven, not on earth” and then suddenly to reveal Christ to our startled eyes, standing in our very midst? We’ll see Jesus perform that very magic act next week when he suddenly appears to the cowering disciples in their locked and bolted room, and hear how the disbelieving Thomas misses the first show.

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But this is Easter, and we have before us the first startling reappearance of Jesus after his death and burial. It is almost as if Jesus is trying the trick out on Mary Magdalen before he decides to debut it with all of the disciples. The stage is ready — the stone has already been rolled away, and Mary, seeing it, runs off to fetch Peter and the other disciple — the one Jesus loved. But even when they return they still do not find Jesus — only the linen wrappings and the cloth that had covered his head. Just as in the magic act, all they know is that he has disappeared: he was in the tomb and he isn’t there any longer. Mary even thinks that perhaps someone has stolen his body.

And then, just as in the magic act, he comes walking into the spotlight from off stage. Mary is still so blinded by her tears, so caught up in the fear and sadness that his body has been stolen, that she doesn’t even recognize him.

And then he speaks a truly magic word — not an abracadabra or an alakazam or even a presto change-o — but the truly magic word as personal to us as our own name; in this case, “Mary.” And then she recognizes him. The magic of hearing her own name called in a familiar voice opens her eyes to see what was already there — her teacher and her risen Lord. Such is the magic of God. None of us in this life is likely to hear the voice of God call our name quite so clearly. That will have to wait until the great day when the Lord calls us each by name and we rise from our graves to stand before him, and be welcomed into the life of the world to come. But even so, and even while we are here, we catch glimpses of the power of God and God’s magic. At the baptism of a child, which we will witness today, we call the child by name, and mark that child with the Triune name of God himself: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that double naming — the naming of the child and the invocation of the name of God — brings about a transformation more magical than any work of any earthly magician. It delivers the child from a bondage more deadly than any strait-jacket ever escaped from by a Houdini. For baptism brings that child new life — new life in Christ — and it transforms the mortal body of the child by incorporating the child into the mystical Body of Christ, the blessed company of all faithful people. The child is born again — as each of us was at our own baptism — born again of water and the Holy Spirit, and anointed with the name and power of God.

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Before I close I want to mention one other magical phrase that has some bearing on our life in Christ; and that is, “Hocus pocus.” As strange as it may sound, this magician’s phrase also has its roots in the language of the faith. For it is based on the Latin phrase that translates the words of Christ at the Last Supper, “Hoc est corpus” — This is my Body. We celebrate that great magical mystery every time we gather at Holy Communion, as we do this Easter morning. As he instructed us, we take the bread that in this sacred mystery has become the body of Christ, and we eat the bread which is the sign and celebration of our membership in that body — a membership that begins in baptism.

And we do this because of that Easter morning so long ago when Jesus was raised from the dead and appeared first to Mary and then to the other disciples. The story of God and God’s relationship with his people did not end at the cross. The cross was the turning point, the close of one chapter before the beginning of the next. Jesus was hidden away for a few days between his crucifixion and his resurrection; hidden only so that he might be revealed in greater glory at his rising. It is not simply magic that we celebrate but majesty; not simply something wonderful to behold but miraculously to hold — to hold in our hands, like a newly baptized child, or like a fragment of bread: both of them a sign of the presence of God and the risen life of Jesus. And even more, just as a child is received into the body of the church, so too we receive the body of Christ in the bread of the Eucharist into our own bodies, and Christ becomes one with each of us as we are one in him.

And if that isn’t magical and wonderful, then I don’t know what is! Alleluia, Christ is risen!+

The Sign of the Wine

SJF • Epiphany 2c 2010 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
The steward said, “You have kept the good wine until now.”+

Have you ever heard the expression, You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear? It’s one of those proverbial impossible tasks, like spinning straw into gold, herding cats, getting blood from a turnip, or sculpting with Jell-O. Today we come to the wedding feast at Cana, like uninvited guests looking on from the sidelines, and getting a glimpse of an interchange between Jesus, his mother, and what we’d now-a-days call the head waiter. In this little drama, we witness the first sign through which Jesus revealed his glory, changing water into wine.

Now, just as a sow’s ear is no place to start if you’re making a silk purse, or straw to make gold, or a turnip to get blood, or cats for a parade, or Jell-O for a sculpture, water is not what you start with if you want to make wine. What you need is the fruit of the vine: grapes. The only water that comes into it is the rain that waters the vineyard: it’s grapes that wine comes from, and all of the water from the Creation through the Flood would have done no good to Noah, when it came to making the first wine, if the ground after the flood had not brought forth grapes. Everybody knows that, and they knew it in Jesus’ day just as well as we do now. Perhaps even better: Because every town back then had its winepress, and wine was the everyday drink of just about everyone.

So they knew then as we know now, that water doesn’t change into wine. In fact, water doesn’t really change into anything, all by itself, does it? Left to itself, it evaporates! Even ice and steam have to be frozen solid or boiled up if they are to change into another of H2O’s three states: fluid, vapor, and solid. Let solid ice melt, or vaporous steam condense, and you’re back to plain old liquid water. (That’s our chemistry lesson for the day.) Fact is, you can try to change water all you want, but all you’ll get is wet.

Nor can you simply add things to water to change it into wine, at least not good wine. You may remember the story of the stone soup that I some years ago. Of course water can become soup if you add onions, barley, carrots, meat, and salt and spices. Even if you added “wine concentrate” to water — something to make any wine-lover cringe — you aren’t really making wine — any more than stirring a teaspoon of Tang into a glass of water “makes” it into orange juice! Remember Tang? Whatever you do, no human power can change water into wine all by itself.

So that’s why what Jesus did is a miracle, which isn’t just something to amaze, it isn’t some magic trick, but something to instruct: it is, as our Gospel calls it, not a miracle but a sign — a sign that points to some great truth about who it is Jesus is. It is a sign that doesn’t just amaze but also reveals something about Jesus; it reveals his glory and leads his disciples to greater faith in him. Only Jesus could take water and make it change its very being, its very substance, until it simply wasn’t water any more, but wine — and good wine at that!

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Of course, the sign that Jesus performed isn’t ultimately about wine, but about transformation, about the kind of transformed lives that Jesus calls us to live. The amazement may have been about the wine, but the sign is about the change — the change that begins in him, when he became one of us, and changed human nature.

Sometimes we think that transformation is modifying how we act in response to the world around us. But transformation isn’t about a change in external shape or state or form, like water changing to ice or steam in response to the changing temperature. All of us know, from how many years of new years’ resolutions that have dissolved themselves early in the year, that simply promising yourself that you’ll keep your cool under stress; or telling yourself to build up a head of steam to finish a project long overdue, or that you’ve postponed, just won’t work. The pressure (or lack of pressure) of a changing environment doesn’t really change us but instead reveals what we really are, just as changing temperature and pressure show what ice and steam really are: water.

We will lose our cool under stress, and get burned out when the heat and pressure of responsibility rises, and we do get lazy and unproductive when the pressure is off. So human transformation isn’t about changing how we act or react.

But then is transformation about adding something to ourselves? No, for as we saw with water, transformation isn’t about adding ingredients to make either soup or reconstituted wine, or the beverage of astronauts! That doesn’t change the water, it just flavors it.

Sometimes we think that if only we could add something to ourselves, if only we had more money, or a different job, or even different clothes, we’d become different people. But we all know that more money doesn’t really change a person or a personality. The winner of the lottery may turn out to be just as miserable as she was before, when she discovers all those “friends” she didn’t know she had. A new job may bring out hidden talents, or even perhaps help you develop new skills, but you will still be you. And in spite of the proverb, clothes do not make the man — and he can end up being all dressed up with no place to go! True transformation has to go deeper — right to the heart.

Some years ago, Adolph Coors IV, then heir to the huge Colorado brewing industry, was at a prayer service and believed he had undergone a conversion: so he swore he would give up the beer-brewing business and lead a new life. Shortly thereafter, however, he recalled how Jesus transformed water into wine, and decided it was OK to stay in the beer business after all! His conversion was short-lived and his transformation was superficial and temporary.

The long and the short of it is that on our own we can (for a time) change what we do but we can’t for good and all, and on our own, change who we be. If we aren’t transformed inour very nature, no outward addition or action, or subtraction or restraint of action for that matter, is going to make us something other than what we are.

That water at Cana of Galilee couldn’t do anything or have anything added to it to make it into wine. What it needed was a word spoken by Jesus, to be poured into jars, and to be ladled out and tasted and enjoyed. True transformation doesn’t happen apart from Jesus. Those jugs of water could have sat in Cana from the wedding day to the day of doom, and never would have changed to wine unless Jesus had chosen to do as his mother asked. And when he did, all it took was a word of command to the servants: fill up the jars with water, and then draw out the wine.

So too, we will not change — we can not change — unless we are open to Jesus and the word he speaks to us. Unless we hear his commandment to be filled with his love, and then to pour out that love to those around us, we will never be transformed. We cannot do it on our own. We will remain empty jars standing in the corner unless we are willing to let his love be poured into our hearts, where by means of his word he can transform it into the joyful wine of God’s Spirit, which we can then share in rejoicing and fellowship.

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All of us are keenly aware of the horrific tragedy that has struck the people of Haiti this past week. All of us are, I am sure, strongly hoping that this tragic situation can be transformed. And to some extent it can — as we too are inwardly transformed and empowered by God’s Holy Spirit, in a burst of generosity to send help as soon as we can to those suffering people. As you know, tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day, and we normally take up a collection to support the MLK Scholarship. I want to suggest to you today that we split what we would normally send to that scholarship fund in half, and send the other half to Episcopal Relief and Development for their coordinated push to help the people of Haiti. I think Dr. King would approve, and I hope you do, too. Do you? Through the transformation of our hearts, our offering too can be transformed into practical help — we can’t change water into wine, but we can change money into food, medical supplies, and feet on the ground — we can convert our dollars into life-saving help.

And so in our own small way, may we, who have died with Christ in the water of baptism, heard his word of command in the Gospel, and drunk the wine of his most precious blood, be inwardly transformed by him who died for us, and who lives in us, even Jesus Christ our Lord. +