Let It Flow

Isaiah 62:1-5; John 2:1-11

January 20, 2019

“On the third day …” That’s surely among the most familiar phrases in Christian history. “On the third day, He rose again in accordance with the scriptures …” says our most ancient confession, the Nicene Creed. The Apostles Creed, likewise, says, “the third day He rose again from the dead.” The phrase shows up a dozen or so times in the New Testament, pointing always toward this fundamental promise of God’s unimaginably abundant grace that flows freely even in the face of death.

So, by the communicative property of familiarity – which I just invented – this story that begins “On the third day” must tell us of Jesus’ most significant miracle. Right? Well, at least for the wine connoisseurs among us!

What a neat party trick! Turning water into wine, and not just any wine, but the good stuff, at the end of the party, when no one is going to know the difference because they’ve all had more than enough!

Still, one wonders, why did the author of John’s gospel choose to tell this story, and, moreover, choose to put it in such a prominent place – the first sign, the first miracle of Jesus’ ministry?

The lectionary pairing with the text from Isaiah suggests one reading: this sign at a family gathering, a simple domestic setting, in a town so small that it is never mentioned in the Hebrew scriptures, is a sign that God’s promises, being made manifest in the life of Jesus, are for everyone. “Your land shall no more be termed Desolate […] so shall your God rejoice over you.”

Even if you are people of no great significance living in a town so small that it goes unmentioned throughout the holy texts of its people God will still rejoice over you. Thus, John’s gospel begins its account of the life of Jesus with this simple assurance that the good news is for all people, and that grace flows as freely as wine at the wedding feast.

Moreover, this story suggests that signs of such assurance are all around us if we have eyes to see; and, critically, we don’t have to be rich and powerful and privileged to have such eyes. Who notices in this story? The servants. The waiters and busboys are the ones with eyes to see.

Remember, this is a wedding scene. It seems likely that family patriarchs are on hand. Perhaps some religious official – at least the local rabbi – is on hand to offer his blessing. The most prominent members of two families are probably present, as well. Yet they do not see this sign of God’s abundant grace; the servants see it.

And so does Jesus’ mother, who offers the most significant theological instruction in the story: “do what he tells you.” In other words, if you want to see signs of God’s grace, if you want to participate in the unfolding of God’s grace in the world, then do what Jesus tells you to do.

That is the heart of the gospel, for John and for us. If you want to be a disciple, then do what Jesus tells you to do. If you want to be a disciple, then follow the way of Jesus in the world.

This is one of those wonderful confluence days in the life of the church: we’ve ordained an elder this morning; it’s also the Sunday of the Martin Luther King holiday; and it’s the second Sunday after Epiphany, when the lectionary points us decisively in the direction of the ministry of Jesus.

Such a time calls forth confession, in the two main meanings of that word.

Calling forth and ordaining leaders in a community’s life is a time for confession as owning up. It is a time to confess that none of us is worthy of the callings to which we have been called. It is a time to recall Barbara Brown Taylor’s observation that “Being ordained is not about serving God perfectly, but about serving God visibly, allowing other people to learn whatever they can from watching you rise and fall.” I would add to that, by watching you rise again by the grace of God flowing forth around you.

If a community calls forth leaders who do not possess the self-knowledge and moral imagination to acknowledge and confess their own faults and failings, then sooner or later – but probably sooner – the entire community is going to suffer through the inevitable failure of leadership that flows from such self-ignorance. This will be true no matter the size or scope of the community. Such failures of leadership lead to institutional failures, and, in time to systemic disfunction. We need look no further than the White House to see a particularly pertinent example of such a failure of moral imagination.

Calling forth and ordaining leaders in a community’s life is a time, as well, for confession in the sense of stating clearly what we believe about the community’s life. Who is it that we say we are, or want to be, that we should call forth women and men to lead us boldly in the direction of our hopes and aspirations?

We Presbyterians of the PC(USA) are a confessional church. When we ordained Tom a few minutes ago one of the questions I asked him touches on this explicitly. We ask every person ordained in the church – deacons, ruling elders, teaching elders – this question: Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?

That question does not assume that everyone will agree on the meaning or the significance of every line of every confession. After all, our Book of Confession contains eleven confessional statements dating all the way back to the time of Constantine in the 300s, and including, most recently, a confessional statement that emerged from the Reformed tradition struggling under the weight of apartheid in South Africa in the early 1980s.

As a denomination we have begun the process of considering another 20^th- century document for inclusion in our Book of Confessions: Martin Luther King’s Letter from the Birmingham City Jail. We used a few lines from that letter in our prayer of confession this morning.

King’s letter, written in 1963 while he was in jail in the midst of the Birmingham campaign, was addressed to eight self-identified “liberal” Birmingham clergy who had published a letter in the local paper early that year scolding King for stirring up trouble, for pressing too hard, too fast for change, and for being an “outside agitator.” King did not write back to them telling them that they were not Christians or arguing that their faith was somehow invalid. He did not argue the finer points of theological interpretation and insist on perfect agreement. Instead, he pointed them in the direction he believed God was calling the church and the nation, and invited them to be faithful to that calling to an authentic justice that could be the ground of true peace.

We do not assume that every ordained leader in the church agrees on a single, authoritative interpretation of all of a confessional heritage spanning almost 2,000 years. Rather, that ordination question assumes that we agree on the importance of an ongoing community that has held itself up to honest questioning, deep reflection, and profound disagreement over many generations. It further assumes that, even in disagreement, the community is bound by a common and core commitment to wrestle with its own confessional heritage because we believe that all of it points, ultimately albeit imperfectly, toward Jesus.

We should also confess one last thing: we look at this heritage in fear and trembling. We do not look with a trembling born of scorn for where those who came before us got it wrong. No, we look with trembling born of fear of following where they got it right.

That is to say, let us confess, that following in the way of Jesus rightly fills us with fear, with terror, for when we point ourselves that way we are turning our faces toward Jerusalem. We are setting forth on a path trod by those whom Dr. King’s critics called “extremists.”

But, as he answered them from jail, “I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist in love – ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.’ Was not Amos an extremist for justice – ‘Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.’ Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ – ‘I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.’ Was not Martin Luther an extremist – ‘Here I stand; I can do none other so help me God.’”[1]

May all of that wisdom and agitation expressed down through the ages point us ultimately back to Mary, mother of Jesus, and her simple instruction, “do whatever he tells you.”

May we have the courage, at least, to try in our own lives to let grace flow all around us, to let justice roll down like a mighty water, to love without exceptions, to go boldly where Jesus beckons, to be so extreme as that. Amen.

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[1] Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham City Jail,” in A Testament of Hope (San Francisco: Harper, 1986) 297.