Wow, Jesus Was Here

One of my favorite pictures circulating is a photograph of a supermarket clearly not in PA because there is alcohol being sold. But it shows a shelf where the sign above it says “Water” but on the shelf are endless bottles of wine. And the caption of the picture is “Jesus was here.”

It’s tempting today to focus upon the mechanics of how the water becomes wine. Or even just that this story reveals Jesus’ power to perform this miracle, which it does. But here, in the gospel of John, it’s helpful to remember that after the opening of telling us that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, we hear that Jesus has come to show us “grace upon grace.” One gracious gift after another. That beyond the gift of the law, Jesus has come to make the fullness of God known. And  after calling disciples, the first place we see Jesus is at a wedding.

Most of you know that I am planning our daughter’s wedding. Weddings can be a  huge social event that calls everyone to be there. And I for one would like to return to Jesus’ day where it was the GROOM’S family that hosts the party.
The tradition was not that you invited your closest. You invited everyone. Imagine having to host this whole Valley. According to tradition in Jesus’ day the family is to provide enough food and beverage for everyone, EVERYone- for a week. Imagine hosting this whole Valley for a week.

But here we are the disaster strikes as the wine is running out. So what happens? Has the family planned poorly? Tradition says the guests were supposed to send wine ahead for the feast. Have the guests been stingy? We hear that many alre already drunk from the steward. Have some been overindulging without thinking of others? Then again, maybe Jesus has something to do with the problem.
Jesus has only a couple days before called Nathanael and Andrew and Simon Peter and Phillip. And yes, they were invited but you know how sometimes you hear of last minute people you have to invite even if you didn’t want to? Maybe Jesus was supposed to be a solo guest or maybe a “plus one” but then he met Andrew and Simon and Phillip and Nathanael and they ALL went to the wedding. He clearly exceeded his “plus one?” Maybe Mary is telling Jesus, “Now LOOK!” Well, we don’t know.

What we DO know is that when the glasses are empty, the party’s over.
Imagine the groom’s family announcing that it is unexpectedly “last call.” They will be ashamed, perhaps even angry. They have the taste of bitterness in their mouths. And the servants are flustered and scared. They know the taste of fear. And the taste that will stay in everyone’s mouth will be disappointment and shame.

Then imagine the commotion of filling those jars, each the size of this trash can, but stone. Not with a water faucet but filling buckets at the well and hauling them up and hauling those jars back and trying to do it quickly- how exhausting! And what if this is all just a mess? How many times on the way to the well, and with each bucket and hauling these ridiculously heavy jars back do you think the servants thought, “are you out of your ever lovin’ mind?!” Can’t we just do a couple jars?

Kind of like how we might feel sometimes somewhere between listening to God and the end result. A couple jars ought to be enough, you know? I mean, really. And in the midst of those thoughts of shame and anger, bitterness, fear- is division.

What happens next demonstrates certainly Jesus’ power, but even more I think it shows a deeper glimpse again of God’s heart. Extravagant, abundant, joyous.
In the face of the prospect of no more shouts of “here’s to the bride and groom!” Just when it looks like devastation- celebration! Unifying joy!
Did you notice that after the water becomes wine there are no divisions?
Grace- Exceeding all hopes- not just some average cheap wine, the best! Not just enough for this day or even this wedding, but for weeks! Imagine the reputation of the family who goes from the brink of shame to the family that blessed the whole Valley this way! The bitter taste of humiliation and anger and shame and fear becomes the sweetness of celebration and blessing beyond compare.The exhaustion of the effort melts away.
Grace upon grace.

Each gospel begins with some moment of Jesus’ ministry- the gospel of John opens with this wedding. The gospel has begun by proclaiming that from God’s fullness we ALL receive “one gracious gift after another.” Grace upon grace. Abundant, extravagant, joyous grace.
And here is the first sign of this God- Jesus at the wedding. With grace flowing freely for everyone, EVERYONE! No portion control, no guest list. EVERYONE.
The best feast EVER!
Grace- a sign so we might come to believe.

Interestingly enough the last sign Jesus shared with his disciples comes after the resurrection is the same. The disciples have seen Jesus and received the Holy Spirit, yet they have gone their ways, and the guys are back to fishing. And they are there and all night they caught nothing. Jesus, in the midst of their frustration, and perhaps fear and humiliation- no fish in sight- tells them to put the net in again. And they do what he says. Perhaps thinking- Are you out of your ever lovin’mind?! But they listen and before they know it they can barely haul it in. Grace upon grace. And they remember how he makes them one.
And there will all that fish,  then  he tells them to feed and care for others like that.
To bring grace into the world so that others might know Christ and know our extravagant, abundant and joyous God.
Jesus’ shows us that this grace transforms the world as we think we see it .
Changes people as we think we know them.
That just when you think it is too big of an “ask” or that we’re not up to the task, grace intervenes.
Just when you feel overwhelmed, grace intervenes
Just when you think You are not enough or there is nothing more, grace intervenes.
And each time, God uses people like ordinary people those servants at the wedding, like the disciples, like you and I.  And when we listen, extraordinary life changing happens.
How might God be calling you and me, each of us to “grace” the world around us?
What signs might God show through us?
May the Spirit guide us so that when we have been somewhere on God’s command,  people might see grace and say, “Wow, Jesus was here!”

Let's Not Contain This

Today's lessons: Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Children’s message: today I handed out “Hello My Name Is” stick on nametags and next to the space for the name I had drawn a cross. We talked about having worn a name tag like this for class or maybe somewhere we have been. And I sort of joked with the whole congregation about how those name tags don’t always stay where they belong- they end up on shoulders or pants, but then I talked about how in Isaiah, God tells the people “I call you my name, you are mine.” The name tag can remind us as we put our name on it, that God calls us, knows us by name. And is with us. Then we talked about what day it is- Baptism of our Lord. And I asked why I put that cross on the nametag. When else do hear our name and there is a cross. And we came to baptism – where God says, I call you by name and you are mine. When Jesus was baptized God called him “Beloved.” God say- “I love you!”  The cross reminds us how God tells us- “ I know you by name, you are mine and I love you.”

The Sermon-“Let’s Not Contain This”

Today I am right here in the midst of you because it seems a little odd to me that I would preach about God in the midst of the people while standing way over there. Our lessons today lift up that God is with us in our lives. The people who heard Isaiah were in exile. They were not at home, not comfortable in their own skin, longing for a different world. And they hear- “ You are mine and I will be with you and rescue you.” And yet, in this strange place, and in a troubling world, it was pretty hard to believe when it seems like God is at a distance. Maybe sometimes we have felt that way, that God is at a distance. And so it seems that to God is was time to make God’s presence more visible and known, and into our midst Jesus is born. Today we hear that Jesus is baptized. And in Luke, we don’t get all the debate between John the Baptist and Jesus about whether John could baptize Jesus or should. For once, Luke is not so wordy. Instead, Jesus just shows up at the river Jordan. Yes, John has been preaching of one who is to come, but there is no special fanfare, Jesus just slips on in with the people being baptized. Right there in the middle of it.
If you’ve ever played in a stream or at the river’s edge, you know what happens when lots of people are splashing around- it stirs up all the mud and the stuff on the bottom we don’t really want to know about. But there Jesus is, right in the middle of our real lives in all the muck and mud. Showing us that God chooses to immerse God’s self where we really are.
And as if that’s not enough, the heavens open and God speaks. It’s one of the moments in Scripture I most wish I had seen as it happened. The heavens opened. And while I don’t know what that really looked like, I know that people hearing that who believed that God was somehow contained in the heavens would see that the final barrier that seems to separate us is gone and we hear God not only say this is God’s Son, but “I am REALLY PLEASED” by what is happening here. And then, as if THAT is not enough, as Jesus is praying, the Spirit descends and I imagine it’s not just a fluttering down, but the Spirit dives- right into Jesus, right in our midst, right in the middle of God’s world.
God’s initiative, and choice is to echo what we hear in Isaiah, that God will go to the four corners of the world and in all things to bring us together. And that is the baptism of Jesus. God immersed, holding nothing back. It’s powerful and it's the gospel for us.
And it’s different than our ways of being immersed. When I think of being immersed I am reminded of this ad from many years ago where a woman has finally gotten the kids out of her hair and away from her work and she closes the bathroom door and there is a bathtub and she sinks in and says,” Calgon, take me away!” In real life I have tried that but by the time I get to that tub, the water is cold, and it never quite worked like TV says it should. That’s one way of being immersed- take me away.
The other is what I see as we look around at our world. And it’s a pretty frightening place. Lots of things to make us afraid, or angry, or bitter. Lots of things we wish someone would save us from. And these days there is a lot of speech and a lot of promises people try to make about how they will save us. And most of them involve containing or restricting. As we are immersed in all of the rhetoric, what we really say to others is “go away.” One way or another we want to restrain what distresses us. Take me away, or go away.
That’s not God’s way.
God shows us that God is all in, holding nothing back in the birth, and the baptism and ultimately the cross of Jesus. Because Jesus knows that there in all our muddy water we will begin the way to the cross. That’s what God’s love will do to save us, to rescue us and to show us God’s love.
And just like that water, it can’t really be completely contained. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to contain water? There’s always drips here and there. God’s work in that water can’t be fully contained. In fact it’s expansive. Much bigger than we imagine. Immersed to save and rescue all of us. Even those who we find it the hardest to imagine.
God in Christ’s baptism shows us what it means to be fully immersed in our real world.
We who listen as Jesus says,” Follow me” and live the life of the baptized share in God’s initiative.
We are called to live a life of being immersed in the world. Not cut off, immersed.
Not caught up looking for other saviors, but confident that it is only our God who saves.
And who gives us the power to stay immersed in the world-
No matter that it may seem like the water is up to our nose, no matter how chaotic, God is immersed with us in it all.
And gives us the power to share what has been shared with us- “You are mine. I Love you. I have saved you.”
We are called to live among the world where all need to hear this word, trusting in faith that God is with us all.
Saying, “You are mine. I Love you. It pleases me that we are together-let’s not contain this.”
AMEN

Do You See What He's Done?

On Maundy Thursday I offer individual absolution and laying on of hands. After this I also offer corporate forgiveness in the name of Christ,  not only for those who did not come forward, but for our sins as community.
This was the message later...



Do you know what he's done? What Jesus has done? Tonight we don't hear Jesus talk about Holy Communion. It's what makes the Gospel of John different. We come here on Maundy Thursday expecting to hear "do this in remembrance of me" followed by words about bread and wine. WHAT IF...instead we were given what we hear in tonight's gospel as the way of remembering that last night with the disciples? We'd be washing feet each week. You seem underwhelmed. Or maybe overwhelmed.

We'd be told to strip away all of what gives us our status, and empty ourselves of our ideas about it all. And wash each others feet. All the dirt, and the scrapes. The wounds and literally sometimes all the crap that our feet drag around. Just as true in all the places we come from as Galilee. And cleansed, loved, and forgiven. Do you know what he's done?

And it's not just about the feet. It's about the love. Servant love. That loves our unloveliness. Servant love.

Years ago our daughters were arguing over having to clean up the mess in the room they shared and at the height of the row, I heard one of them bellow, "I AM NOT YOUR SERVANT!!" Followed by stomping down the stairs to present the offending sister in hopes I would do something about it
So often, we too want to say, if we're being honest, in the middle of people and situations we encounter, "I AM NOT YOUR SERVANT!"  and do the same.

Do you know what Jesus has done?

He has not only gotten down on his hands and knees, and entered the grittiness of our humanity, he's cleaned up the mess. And he's done it for ALL, even Judas, knowing full well what is to come.

Knowing the very real fact that evil will take up residence in Judas and lead him to be someone it's hard to imagine he'd become. And it will take up residence in Peter and lead him to speak words he swore he never would.

Henri Nouwen writes that we, "People who live close together, can be great sources of sorrow for one another. When Jesus chose the 12, he chose Judas among them. He's called a traitor, literally in the Greek, 'one who hands another over to suffering.' And the truth is that there is something of the traitor in each one of us. Because each of us hands over our fellow human beings to suffering- somehow, somewhere. Mostly without intending it, or maybe even knowing it. When we are willing to confess that often we hand over those we love ( and those we are called to love) even against our own best intentions, we will be more ready to forgive those who mostly against their will, are the causes of our pain."

Because we all muddy the water.

We are called to remember- to re-live- what Jesus has done- for you, for me, for us all. To be shaped by his servanthood and to hear again the command-love each other like this.
He summons us to come and be cleansed and then draws us into a different world
of communion and community
And it can't just be about being with the ones we like.
It's also about being with the misunderstood, the betrayer and the enemy whoever we imagine them to be.

When it's all stripped away we see who we really are- all of us.

Then... we see, just how profound it is what Jesus has done

That we can't stop God's love and forgiveness. We can't stop God's commitment in Christ
To humanity at it's stinkiest and most busted places.

Do you see what Jesus has done? What Jesus does still?
Love EVERYONE like this
Remember