SERMON - The Second Sunday of Epiphany

“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.”

I mused that I thought the “honeymoon period” had finished during a meeting last week, and how my desk seems cluttered with complex and confusing problems. I then remembered that my desk always seems full of complex and confusing problems. Such is the nature of ministry in the 21^st century.

Sometimes at meetings, I say things that I shouldn’t. You know, you have been sat there for an hour, biting your tongue, and someone says something controversial. With a mixture of frustration and disappointment, I usually make the classic mistake, the unforgivable faux pas of saying exactly what is on my mind. I always get home thinking that I shouldn’t have said what I said – perhaps I should have nodded more and not been so indignant.

I once made the mistake of sitting in a meeting wondering whether it was a good use of my time, and whether I couldn’t be doing something more productive. The question I asked myself was “Did God in all his wisdom mean for me to be spending his precious gift of life in this way?” This was undoubtedly a dangerous question that should have gone unasked, mainly because it creates frustration, which leads to me being honest about what I am thinking, which leads (usually) to people being upset.

The next time I am in a meeting that is going a bit wrong – the ones where I am usually disagreeing or being disagreed with, I would love to stand up with a flourish, recite the first verse of Isaiah 62 and walk out.

“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.”

How much trouble do you think that will get me into? Mmmmm I’m not sure.

It has to be a question for all right thinking Christians though – whether we are using the gifts that God has given us wisely. Each morning we wake a miracle has occurred – that we have been given another day of life, to spend as we will. With 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.

Today’s readings are all about the “Riches of God’s grace” – as it says in the reading. And to top it all, the Gospel reading is the one where Jesus performs his first recorded miracle – at the wedding feast in Galilee.

In many ways this seems quite a difficult miracle to understand – 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 ?

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, that 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”.

This morning 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 all its people.

So often the Church has tried to buy popularity, or to strive for popularity by making concessions to things which are wrong, but Jesus never sought to compromise his beliefs in order to be popular, and as a Church we shouldn’t either. We are called to proclaim the gospel, and that gospel will sometimes be at odds with what the world wants. Protected and supported by God, we will never be abandoned if we seek to proclaim the good news of Jesus.

On the contrary I think people respect a firm belief, and will respect the person for that belief… As Christians we cannot shut ourselves away from the world – we are called to live in a world where there is sometimes pain, but there is always God. We were not, I don’t think, put on earth to hide ourselves away from society, but rather to mix with the rest of society who may, through our words and actions, be led into a relationship with Jesus. So the first observation is that as Christians we must be at the party !

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 and the wine there, but the huge 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 they had a better quality wine than before.

The link here is that whenever we eventually 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.

Miracles do happen, and they continue to happen today, miracles of healing, miracles of transformation and so on, and perhaps the greatest miracle of all is that God continues to love each one of us, regardless of anything we may do or say, he loves us – that love the same yesterday, today and forever…

At about 10 O’clock last night I was unhappy with this sermon, and it underwent a radical edit. As I sat there with less than half the words I started with, I thought that there was one thing that I was missing, and it was all about the opening verse of Isaiah 62. I know I had said about meetings, then the wedding feast, about God’s generous love and the importance of Christians being able to party, being part of the world, not apart from it.

What I really wanted to say was something about the urgency, the crisis in the world that we have, because people don’t stand up and be counted for the sake of peace and justice. How we should ALL have a voice when it comes to demanding food for the hungry and fair pay for the poor – and I thought how the church has let so many people down over the years. WE ALL NEED TO DEMONSTRATE OUR COMMITMENT TO BUILDING THIS BETTER WORLD – AND STAND SHOULDER TO SHOULDER AGAINST THOSE WHO WOULD WANT TO KEEP THINGS JUST AS THEY ARE. KEEPING US SILENT.

As I decided to call it a day, and press the print button – I thought how good it would be if we started and finished sermons sometimes, not with the usual “in the name of the father….” Or the rather abrupt AMEN - But with our text for this morning…perhaps it would remind us all (especially the clergy) of the job we have done, and the great task still left to do.

“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.”