Sunday, January 19, 2025

Second Sunday after the Epiphany
Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 128
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
John 2:1-11

As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you.

My mom and dad owned a bar in Pennsylvania quite a few years ago. The bar was part of a larger building that included an apartment for them on the second floor and extra rooms they sometimes rented on the third. One night there was an accident, and the bar was badly burned by a fire. There was some smoke and water damage upstairs, but the building was livable. They just needed to restore the bar.

Since they had to do work on the building to repair the damage, they decided to make some changes. The new bar was larger and the doorways to the back rooms were more convenient. The silver lining of the fire was that in the end the bar was much nicer than it had been. It was more welcoming, more convenient, and more fun. Something wonderful came out of disaster.

We have heard much in the lectionary for the past few months from the prophet Isaiah. He was addressing the exiles that had been taken so far from home, sharing God’s promises with them so that they might have hope. They were living in a strange land with strange people far from the land of their ancestors and the throne of their God. Their life in Babylon was not bad; as a matter of fact, they prospered in Babylon, thanks to God’s grace. Yet, there was always an underlying desire to go home. They were disappointed when they finally arrived in Jerusalem because they found that the city was desolate. Those who had been left behind did not have the resources to repair all that had been broken, so it was never restored from the destruction of the battle decades earlier. It must have been disappointing to return to such a sight.

God made this promise: that which is desolate today will be restored tomorrow. The promise offered a new hope, a hope that Jerusalem would once again be the city where God’s people would worship the LORD. Its beauty would shine the glory of God to the nations once again.

As we look at Israel as a type of what was to come, we can see that the Church is much like the people of God in the Old Testament. We were exiles, separated from our God by our unrighteousness. According to His promises, He restores us to a new relationship with Him through the forgiveness that comes from the cross of Jesus. Yet, even when we return home, things are still desolate. Though I am forgiven, I’m still a sinner. Though I am cleansed, I am still imperfect.

We’ve heard it said, “Please be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet!” We, the Church, are home, but there’s still work to do. We are cleaned and changed and restored and made beautiful. We are built into a temple in which God is dwelling and will dwell. He does this because He is delighted in us. He loves us. He wants us to be part of Him and His Kingdom. And the world sees the glory of God because He dwells in our midst.

We inherit that promise of restoration. God baptized us into the body of Christ, which is a perfect machine called the Church. We are all part of that machine, with our own gifts, vocations, and opportunities. We often try to put square pegs into round holes when we really need to help one another discover exactly what God intends for our lives. We embrace willing participants and put them into the positions we need to fill, without considering whether it is what God is calling them to do, and we do nothing to help others discover their place in God’s work.

Too many of us do not know our spiritual gifts, so we try to do things we are not designed to do.

There are tests online that can help you discover your own spiritual gifts. The tests seem ridiculously simple. One test has sixty questions that seem almost redundant. They ask the same thing in three different ways. Those questions help us to look at spiritual gifts from different perspectives. Do we see ourselves as a teacher? Do others see us as a teacher? Is God leading us toward being a teacher? In the end, those sixty questions help us to see whether we have the desire, the gift, and the calling to teach. These questions discover the gifts which can be used in very tangible and practical ways in the ministry that you do in your congregation or in the world. They don’t seem very spiritual, but they are gifts that God has given to be used in, though, and for the church to share God’s grace.

The tests are often designed with statements about actions or experiences to be ranked as consistently true to rarely true. Some people think that because they do not answer consistently true on any of the questions, that they really don’t have any gifts. Some people do not even realize the things they do in the congregation are the evidence of God’s Spirit in their lives. They do tasks that seem so ordinary, so temporal, that they think they have nothing to do with God. Think about the cleaning lady or the administrative assistant: how can scrubbing toilets or printing bulletins glorify God?

It can be unnerving to try to identify our spiritual gifts. After all, it is easy to think that prophecy and preaching, teaching and healing are spiritual gifts, but it is not so easy to say the same thing about service or administration. Too many are afraid that the results will show a gift because they don’t think they could accomplish. They don’t realize the variety of ways that each gift can be used in the church. For example, a person with the pastoral gift is simply someone who has the confidence, capability, and compassion to provide spiritual leadership and direction for individuals and congregations. Though the most obvious way of using that is to be ordained as a pastor, people with the gift of pasturing might also be a study or small group leader, a new member sponsor or a counselor. I’ve even seen the gift manifested in the lives and vocations of parents!

Those who are born by the Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord are given everything necessary to do God’s work in this world. One has wisdom, another knowledge, yet another faith. Each part of the church fits perfectly. All of us are bound together by the Holy Spirit and it is by His power that we have the ability to share the Gospel and meet the needs of those who are lost and perishing in this world. He calls us to provide His Word that they might hear, to bring healing to their lives, and to share His love with all who cross His path. What are your gifts? How is God calling you to serve Him in this world? At your baptism in Jesus’ name, your Father gave you gifts to use for His glory as you live your life of faith.

What is the work we are called to do? It begins with believing in Him, and in that faith, God will use you to share His message of hope and healing. It takes us time and encouragement from others to find our place in His Kingdom, but as we grow into discipleship, we see God’s hand in our lives.

God’s grace was given for you; God’s lovingkindness was manifest in Jesus Christ for each individual child of God. This gift is truly life changing. And while this gift is personal, it was given to make you part of the body of Christ. He came to make you one with Him. He sent the Holy Spirit so that we would be joined together in faith. We share in His Spirit not for our own sakes but for the sake of others. And we need one another. We can’t do it all alone. Paul wrote, “Now there are diversities of gifts.” He lists nine: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues and interpretation of tongues. We are each given a portion of these gifts, a part of the whole, in good measure, to be used in acts of mercy and grace. When we combine our gifts with those of our brothers and sisters in Christ, the machine that is the Church will work as a single body. God is glorified in all our actions, no matter how inconsequential and hidden they seem. Our spiritual gifts are often given for very mundane and material purposes.

Are we perfect? Of course not. As individuals we are still sinners. And the Church is made up of a bunch of sinners. We all need Jesus. We all need God. We all need the Holy Spirit, and because the Holy Spirit works in and through us, we can accomplish incredible things.

Our scriptures this week speak of God’s abundant love and how it is manifest in our lives. The Gospel lesson seems so frivolous; the gift seems so outrageous. Why would God care that the host of a wedding ran out of wine, and why would He go to so much trouble to create so much of such a fine wine? The pots were empty, so it would have taken a crew some time to fill them before Jesus could make the transformation. For us, the last drop of wine means it is time for the party to end, time for the guests to go home. But Jesus created hundreds of gallons of wine that would last for days, a wine so fine it should have been served when the guests could still appreciate the taste.

This was a sign of God’s abundant love for His people. He cares about the mundane needs of those who believe in Him. He cares about our financial problems. He cares about our reputation. He cares about what the world thinks of us. We see that also in the Old Testament lesson. The exiles returned to Jerusalem to find that it was desolate, destroyed. But God promised that it would be rebuilt so that the world would see that Israel had not been abandoned. For many people, life’s difficulties are proof that the God of our faith is not real or true. The nations looked at Israel with distain because they thought that they believed in a God who would abandon them. God promised that they would see His abundant love and mercy and grace because He delights in them.

It is not that God wants to give His people with a bunch of material possessions to make us happy or to make us appear prosperous. It is also not that a lack of material possessions is a sign that someone has fallen out of God’s grace, for there is mercy in our suffering and hope in our troubles. Instead, we see in our scriptures that God knows us so deeply and so personally that He loves us with an extravagant generosity that honors the very core of our being. He doesn’t give us what we think we want but fills our hearts with the desire for the good things He knows are right for us. He is so intimately bonded with us that He reaches our spirits with His love and manifests it in the most miraculous and ordinary ways. He does this for the sake of the world, so that they might see His glory and believe.

It is interesting that the Gospel of John uses the setting of a wedding for Jesus’ first sign. God used marriage as a parallel to His relationship with the Church. He marries us, binds us with Him in a way that is eternal, never to be separated. We are His bride and will be forever. Sadly, we try to define our relationship with God in other ways. We call Him friend, teacher, Father. These are words that can and should be used to define our relationship with Him, but they represent relationships that in this life are temporary. Friends can be separated. Students move on and they often surpass their teachers’ knowledge. Even the parent/child relationship is temporary. Eventually every child must leave home to follow their own life. But the relationship as husband and wife has been defined as “until death do us part.” And God’s love for His people is eternal. We will not die because He died for us. We will live because He gives us life.

The psalmist shows us what life is like when our relationships are strong. “For you will eat the labor of your hands. You will be happy, and it will be well with you. Your wife will be as a fruitful vine, in the innermost parts of your house; your children like olive plants, around your table.” This blessed life begins by loving God. “Behold, this is how the man who fears Yahweh is blessed.” Life lived in faith in the kingdom of the world is meant to mirror the life God has planned for us in kingdom of heaven. We are His wife, and we are blessed to be fruitful, to provide God’s grace to the world. We are meant to use the gifts we’ve been given to meet the needs of our neighbors. I might be given one gift, and you another, but together God will use us to bring peace and joy to the world. God’s Spirit works in and through each of us, together as one whole body.

Jesus could have done nothing for the host at the wedding banquet, but instead He was exceedingly generous. We don’t have to do anything, either, but when we’ve been given such a great gift, when we have been forgiven everything and blessed with more than we could possibly expect, how can we not let God’s generosity flow through our own lives? It might seem unimportant. It might not seem like the right time. But we never know how God might use us in a miraculous way, turning water into wine for someone, perhaps even for their honor.

Why does honor matter when there are so many in the world who are suffering? Why did God put so much importance on the honor of the family at the wedding in Cana? To honor someone is to value them and God values His people. He also values His creation, all men including those who reject God’s Word. God gives us gifts because He wants everyone to be restored to Him. He loves the whole world enough to be merciful, to bring the exiles home, to restore their world so that it is wonderful. He values all and wants us to know peace. He has promised to make what is desolate into something beautiful. So, He calls us to use our gifts in a way that will reveal His grace so that all might turn back to Him.

There’s a photo that has made the rounds on social media of a shelf in a liquor store. The sign above the shelf says “Water” but the shelf is filled with bottles of wine. The caption says, “Jesus was here.” We laugh at the joke, but what does this miracle, or sign, have to do with the Kingdom of God? Why would John use this particular event as the first of the seven signs, the miracles with a message, which showed that Jesus was the Messiah? Even if it wasn’t His plan, why is this the way Jesus began His ministry?

The wedding was a symbol of the arrival of the Messianic age, both in Judaism and early Christianity. The Old Testament text shows this promise. Isaiah repeats the promise that they’d heard so many times: though you are Forsaken and Desolate today, your name will be changed to Hepzibah which means My Delight is in Her. The people of Israel had turned from God repeatedly throughout their history; they suffered the consequences, but God always brought them home. He allowed the exile so that His people would turn to Him and Isaiah encouraged God's people with His faithful promise.

See, God delights in His people, and He is faithful, even when we are not. Jerusalem would be vindicated and restored. She would be like a crown of beauty or a royal jewel in the hand of the King. God would rejoice over her. This passage uses the image of marriage: the restoration that God has promised will be like a bridegroom marrying a bride. The relationship between God and His people is like a family: intimate, close, real.

The abundance of wine was also a symbol of the coming of the Messianic age. Many Old Testament texts reveal the promise that the extravagant goodness of God would be revealed. Jeremiah wrote, “They will come and sing in the height of Zion, and will flow to the goodness of Yahweh, to the grain, to the new wine, to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd. Their soul will be as a watered garden. They will not sorrow any more at all.” (Jeremiah 31:12) This imagery continues today in the Eucharistic feast as we celebrate a foretaste of the feast to come.

The Messianic age was promised to be a time when God would display His glory. It seems a little odd, then, that this miracle was kept hidden from those who were there that day. This miracle was very personal. The only ones who knew what happened were Jesus, Mary, the servants who filled the jars with water, and the disciples. Even the steward had no idea; he was surprised when the good wine was held until the guests were already drunk. The bride and groom and their families may have never even known that there was even a problem.

This first big sign seems so insignificant compared to the other signs that John lists in the stories of Jesus. Jesus heals the official’s son, a paralyzed man, and a man born blind. He walks on water and raises Lazarus from the dead. He feeds five thousand people. How is God glorified by a bunch of drunk partiers? We might find we are asking the same question about the work we are called to do in this world. “How will you be glorified by this?” we might ask, “It seems so mundane and unimportant.” But God is merciful in ways that we do not understand. He just asks us to be obedient and to respond to the needs that come our way.

God does not do miraculous things for fame or glory. He does what He does out of love for His people. That’s the kind of life He calls us to live. We don’t have to make a grand gesture or do something that will bring fame or power. We don’t need a billion dollars to do God’s Work. He calls us to serve our neighbors in their very mundane and unimportant needs and He gifts us with everything we need to do it. Jesus’ first miracle was a behind the scenes gift of mercy. The same will be true for the opportunities He sends for us to serve; they will be intimate, personal, real. In the end they might even be hidden; the one served may never know that God has done something incredible. That’s not the point: God is glorified by the very act of obedience; you praise God by doing what He is calling you to do and by trusting that He will provide everything you need.

Israel was exiled because their relationship with God had been broken. God used their time in Babylon to remind them of His grace, to turn them back to Him. The Church has not been much different than the people of God in the Old Testament. We have failed to live up to His expectations. Israel was a type of what was to come. We were like exiles, separated from our God by our sin, but God restored our relationship with Him through Jesus Christ and made us new. Yet, even when we are returned home, things are still desolate. Though I am forgiven, I’m still a sinner. Though I am cleansed, I am still imperfect. God is able to use our failure for His glory. What might have been disastrous turns out to be an incredible blessing.

“Please be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet!” As God’s people the Church, we are home but there’s still work to do. We are cleansed and changed and restored and made beautiful. We are built into a temple in which God is dwelling. He does this because He is delighted in us. He loves us. He wants us to be part of Him and His Kingdom. And the world sees the glory of God because He dwells in our midst.