Agents of Miracles: Sunday, January 17

Second Sunday after Epiphany C

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Epiphany is the season of God being revealed; the showing forth of God’s kingdom into the world.

In today’s Gospel reading, we are given a picture of the Kingdom of God.  It is a vision of abundance—a celebration—a wedding banquet with wonderful wine that never runs out and the best is saved for last.  A time of joy, fellowship, and hospitality.  This is how we are meant to live. This is how we are to worship.

So what do we do when life doesn’t hold up to this vision; when it falls short, either in our lives or in the world around us? A week and a half ago Laura, the United Methodist Campus Minister, and I took three UWSP students to the Twin Cities on a mini-mission trip.  We worked at a Thrift Shop that supports incoming immigrants, as well as those with no or limited incomes.  We also volunteered to help with dinner service at a downtown Minneapolis Salvation Army Center. There are 4 serving times for dinner---3 of them are “in-house” communities and staff, people recovering from addiction, and then the last serving time is a general audience---mostly the homeless or impoverished.

I was the first person they met when they got to the front of the line—handing out the trays with the main entrée.  I greeted them, smiled, tried to make eye contact. Two faces stick with me.  One was a man, probably in his 40s, who was a resident in one of the recovery programs.  As he walked forward in the line, he was leaning against the wall, kind of sliding along.  Simply walking forward in the line was a struggle.  His face was shockingly white.  My first thought was: He is really not well.  It was all he could do to take the tray and keep moving.  Not much of a reaction; he did attempt to answer questions: Would you like gravy? He exuded sorrow, helplessness, and isolation.

The other face also belongs to a man; he came in with the last group.  Carrying a backpack and a plastic shopping bag, I think he was probably homeless.  He wore glasses, had a smile, very genial and pleasant.  He looked to be in his 70s.  Since he was there, getting a meal, I could only surmise that there was no where else for him to go—no home, no family, no close friends who could or who would take this senior citizen in for a meal, a bed, a hot shower.

Of course, I do not know the entire story of either of these men.  I do not know if they have burned bridges or hurt others or simply not led lives that helped them to connect to others.  Ringing in my head that night were these words: Whatever you do for the least of these……Leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost…..

What do we do when life is this….this hunger, this deprivation, this disease, this poverty, this brokenness, this need?  When life is homelessness, poverty, unemployment or lack of medical care---the lives of those who walked into that shelter looking for sanctuary---or those who come here seeking help----or those who walk amidst us in these communities of Point and Plover?  When the wedding banquet celebration seems just a dream and the Kingdom of God appears to be non-existent?

As disciples of Jesus, this is where and when we come in.  When reality, ours or anyone else’s, does not match the picture of abundance we find in the wedding banquet---when there is no abundance, no joy, fellowship or hospitality---then like Mary: we take action.  We call on the Divine; we become instruments of the Divine, so that God’s Kingdom can break forth into the broken reality.

This changing water into wine we hear about in John’s Gospel is classified as a miracle; it’s a sign of God’s power in the world.  Friends, we are capable of this.  We are agents of miracles.  It starts as simple as asking one question: how are my gifts called to respond to this situation?

St. Paul tells us: “To each of us is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

We are infused with the Holy Spirit in order that we can be agents of the Kingdom who change the present broken reality, bringing it closer to God’s vision.  Changing water into wine.

Earlier we prayed: “Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacrament, may shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory….”  Each time we gather on the Lord’s day, we are miracle agents.  We gather to thank God, to praise God, to make God known, to know God, to worship God, to reveal God’s Kingdom.  We gather to recreate that wedding banquet in a very real way. 

God is the audience of our worship; not us.  This is God’s banquet, not ours.  It is a party thrown at our expense.  It requires our planning, our time, the giving of our efforts—to make bread, to read the story, to serve at the altar, to sing the praise, to lift others in prayer.  We throw this party at God’s request—inviting God’s party list to the banquet.  From the youngest among us to the longest-living.  From the wealthiest to the impoverished, the powerful to the powerless, the weakest to the strongest, and every and any other description on the human spectrum.  All are to be welcomed in order to see and know God’s abundance, love, and hospitality. Worship is not about receiving; it is about giving.  And in the giving, we receive.

Liturgy---a public work of the people performed at private expense---is not something done primarily for those who provide the liturgy.  It is a gift, a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving we make for God and for others, so that God’s Kingdom can be tasted and seen----made real for a time in the midst of the chaos and suffering of the world---so all can come to believe the Kingdom is real.  The Kingdom is now.  The Kingdom is here.

There are always two streams of time flowing in our lives: the mundane, everyday counting of time, in hours and minutes, called Chronos.  While we wile away the hours in chronos time, Kairos time is also unfolding.  Kairos time doesn’t have the calculated measurements like chronos time; it is indeterminate.  This is God’s time---a broader, wider, ever-flowing river that exists around, beside, and outside of Chronos time.

In this first miracle of John’s Gospel, changing water into wine, it is the third day of the wedding banquet.  These wedding banquets lasted for seven days, historians tell us---seven days of time set apart from chronos time.  For these people, everyday life was about working hard, day after day, in order to have enough.  But, at a wedding banquet---this set apart time---it’s all about hospitality and abundance; joy and fellowship.  At a wedding banquet, to run out of wine is a big problem.  And it couldn’t be solved by simply running to Copps or Trigs.

Running out of wine isn’t just embarrassing.  It’s a social disaster.  Wine is a sign of the harvest---of God’s abundance, joy, gladness and hospitality.  To run short of wine was to run short of blessing, not a great way to start a marriage or the building of new relationships.  A disaster.

But, friends, do not fear.  It’s the third day.  The third day.  The day when God acts, God happens, God resurrects, and God saves in order for disaster to be averted.  Here the two streams of time, chronos and kairos, interwine.  In chronos time, the servants have nothing to serve.  Mary obviously swims in Kairos time.  She recognizes her ability to act in a way to avert the disaster.  And even though Jesus doesn’t even recognize God’s movement unfolding at first, Mary takes action.  It’s time. She tells her son. It’s time. The time to act is now.

Like Mary, when we see situations and events in our life, in the world around us that do not match up to God’s kingdom of abundance, joy, fellowship and hospitality---then it is time to act.  It is the time to ask ourselves how our gifts may be used.  It is Kairos time---time to call on the Divine to use us to intervene and shine forth the Kingdom.

When we only perceive from chronos time, we will often believe disaster hasn’t been averted. The truth is God does not always save us from pain, from suffering, from tragedy or disaster. Living in chronos time, we can see nothing but the brokenness.  Kairos vision requires we get a broader view.  Kairos vision grants us the ability to know that God always desires and is willing to redeem, to resurrect, to restore, and to give new life.  We are called to be agents of this redemption, this resurrection, this restoration.  No less miraculous.  Reconciliation and restoration leads to salvation; it leads to our wholeness.

As disciples, those illumined by God’s Word and Sacraments, we are called to facilitate God’s timing to pierce through the clouds of everyday life---offering a glimpse of the Kingdom in the midst of poverty, pain, and suffering. 

Theologian David Lose writes: “Every moment we live in Jesus has the capacity to mediate the Divine.” Through small acts of kindness and large acts of generosity---through the gifts of patience, acceptance and understanding---under the influence of love, true love that acts for the benefit of the other, the common good---in the worship that is designed to gather any and all in, even at the expense of our personal preference or our comfort and expectations, ---we have the ability to shine forth God’s grace, glory and love into this broken world.  Changing water into wine.

We are called to be the prophets---like Isaiah who declares: I will not keep silent; I will not rest; I will not be hushed until God’s people know salvation….until the Kingdom shines on the hill for all the world to see and know. Until God’s glory radiates over the face of the earth. We are prophets. Let us not be silenced.  Let us not be hushed.  Let us not rest.  God’s Kingdom come; God’s will be done, inside this building and shining out beyond this walls, from this time forth forevermore.  Amen. Amen. and Amen.