A sermon given by Ray Anglesea at St Andrew’s Dawson Street, Crook
Sunday 20th January 2013: 3rd
Sunday of Epiphany
During
the wedding rehearsal, the groom approached the circuit superintendent with an
unusual offer: "Look, I'll give you £1000 if you'll change the wedding
vows. When you get to the part where I'm supposed to promise to 'love, honour and
obey' and 'be faithful to her forever,' I'd appreciate it if you'd just leave
that out." He passed the circuit superintendent a £1000 cheque and walked
away satisfied. On the day of the wedding, when it came time for the groom's
vows, the circuit superintendent looked the young man in the eye and said:
"Will you promise to prostrate yourself before her, obey her every command
and wish, serve her breakfast in bed every morning of your life, and swear
eternally before God and your lovely wife that you will not ever even look at
another woman, as long as you both shall live?" The groom gulped and
looked around, and said in a tiny voice, "Yes," then leaned toward
the circuit superintendent and hissed: "I thought we had a deal." The
circuit superintendent put a £1000 cheque into the groom's hand and whispered:
"She made me a better offer!”
At a different time and in a different place we heard this morning of
another wedding, the Wedding at Cana, taken from the second chapter
of John’s Gospel. It is an event which begins Jesus’ public ministry. There was
music, there was dancing, there was food, there was wine. Everyone was with the
bride and groom on their wedding day. It was such a happy celebration.
John who tells the story of the wedding feast at Cana is without doubt a
brilliant literary craftsman. He uses a series of intimate dramatic encounters,
mini dramas if you like, often called in church speak “signs,” to enable the listener
to be drawn into a dramatic arena in which actions as well as words speak to
us. In short, in this Gospel (which we read at the conclusion of our carol
service) we hear those not-to-be-forgotten words “the Word became flesh.” John
in his gospel will speak to us through the flesh, flesh to flesh, through all
the five senses. This is the Gospel in which we will see Jesus hungry and
thirsty, weeping, touching the eyes of the blind man with the spit of his mouth
and the soil of the ground; confronting the crowd who want to stone the woman
taken in adultery. He will kneel down and write with his finger in the dust.
His feet will be anointed with costly fragrant oil and Mary will dry them with
her hair. Jesus himself will wash his disciples’ feet. We will see a sword
piercing his body and blood and water flowing from his side, and later Thomas
will be asked to place his hands in those wounds. This is a Gospel which
invites us to see, touch and taste the presence of God in the midst of the
suffering of our world. The divine will be made present down here in the sweat
and dust of real lives.
So John starts the public ministry of Jesus in a backwater, nondescript village
wedding. He is present in a wedding feast, in the ordinary happiness of a family event,
in the music, the laughter, the turning of Palestinian plonk into a beautiful rich
mellow sauvignon red. This, according to the events of the day, is when Jesus
reveals his glory, his first sign. Sadly, as it turned out, very few people
noticed what happened, let alone saw any glory. The servants knew where the
wine came from; the steward knew it tasted good, but not its origin; and the
bridegroom seemed blissfully ignorant of everything. Mary and the disciples
knew, and believed in Jesus, but that was it.
Of course we can read this wedding story at various levels, it is the
set epiphany-tide gospel reading, we hear it every year, the third day points
to the resurrection of Jesus; the wine
represents the abundant generosity of God; Jesus attending a mega party with
“the wrong sort” of people upsets his opponents and give his critics ammunition;
instead of sin and rule breaking,
over-eating, over-spending and over drinking Jesus saw possibilities and
abundance. And the Cana wedding also points to the time in heaven when all will
sit with Jesus at the “eternal
banquet prepared for all those who love me,” as I reminded the mourners at my
mother-in-law’s funeral last Friday.
This gospel story is well known to us. But what I would like to talk
about primarily this morning in this little word “glory,” because here at this
wedding breakfast Jesus’ glory is revealed. The word glory was frequently used
last year when the London 2012 Olympics brought stories of sporting triumph,
often against all the odds, of gracious athletes such as Sir Bradley Wiggins,
Sir Chris Hoy, Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah performing in spectacular settings.
Glory was reflected in 29 Gold medals. In the bible on the other hand the psalmist sang of "The heavens telling
the glory of God" (Psalm 19.1); "the whole earth is full of [God's]
glory" said the seraphs whom Isaiah saw (Isaiah 6.3). “Glory to God in the
highest,” sang the angels to the shepherds. In a theological prologue, John
summarises his whole Gospel: "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace
and truth" (John 1.14).
Isaiah tells of God's irresistible urge to scoop his people into this
extravagant revelation of divine glory. Writing when political upheavals
foreshadowed freedom from the Babylonian exile, his excitement was barely contained:
kings would see the glory, as God vindicated this tiny, exiled nation;
worn-down exiles would be a crown of beauty in God's hand, a royal diadem;
their ravaged homeland would be called "Married", "My Delight is
in Her". The details are historical; the enduring message, the continuing
story is that God's glory is revealed when God acts among his people.
Paul's echoed Isaiah's message when trying to order worship in an
immature and irrepressible church: God pours out his blessing with abandon, and
reveals his glory among his people, who are open to the Holy Spirit working
among them. The initiative is entirely God's, and even the exasperating
Corinthians see, and themselves reveal, God's glory in Jesus Christ, the head
of the Church.
But I can’t help thinking that it was in a
backwater village that’s God glory was revealed, where the "wonder of
his saving presence,” was made manifest, was made known - as our opening prayer
puts it. And yes John picks up Isaiah's imagery of marriage's heralding the
dawning of the messianic age that comes in Jesus Christ, but the context was
not Isaiah's international stage, but this village called Cana situated 7
kilometres north east of Nazareth. It is in the lowly small details of human
life that God’s glory is revealed. And this perhaps might allow us to rethink our
concepts of what it means for heavenly glory to be revealed. Jesus' glory
revealed on earth was modest and unassertive. It was a costly glory; Michael Ramsey
identified it with Jesus' utter self-giving to the Father, which breaks the
power of human, sinful glory. And here’s what we have to remember, to take on
board from this story. The crucial thing at Cana was not that everyone was
wowed by something spectacular, but that the disciples believed in Jesus. The
seven signs that John recorded teased and disturbed people enough to raise
questions, but, for glory to be revealed, they needed to be met by faith. Thus,
near the end of his life, Jesus said to Martha: "Did I not tell you that
if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"
And yes we can glimpse, bump into glory in our day-to-day lives if only
we would open our eyes. I opened my sermon with a joke, the same joke I used
for my eldest son’s wedding two years ago. Amongst the lace and roses, the
extravagant hats, Elgar and champagne, speeches and dancing, the dreams and
tears of two people hopelessly in love I saw something of the glory of God, a
epiphany moment if you like, a glimpse of God, a bumping into God. Something of
God’s glory was revealed that day in that stone flint church and the opulent
trappings of a garden marquee. And yes we do not have to be in church to bump
into God, to glimpse God, we can do so sharing a meal with friends, watching a
film (I can recommend the wonderfully film Quartet starring Maggie Smith, Bill
Connolly and Tom Courtney, directed by Dustin Hoffman), just right for you
seniors!
We can somehow get a peak of a greater love and reality all around us
when we see something beyond the material world, you may call these moments
“sacred” joyful, sad, inspirational, melancholic, awesome.... like...................receiving
an undeserved smile from a child, weeping over a broken relationship, gazing at
the stars on a dark night, sipping a cold beer on a summer day with nothing to do,
listening to a Mozart opera or Barbara Streisand, singing at the Millennium
Stadium, Cardiff, that final Sunderland goal feeling inspired by a new product,
holding the hand of a dying loved one, standing at an open grave. Life is
packed with moments of God-ness, epiphany moments. And because the world is an
ambiguous place we so sometimes miss these God experiences because we are so
aware of the darkness and evil that we see or that we hear about on the media.
St Augustine sums it up: "The presence of his glory walks among us,
if love finds room." For those at Cana with eyes to see and hearts open to
love, the revelation of Jesus glory was life-changing. It can be the same for
us when God's glory is disclosed in the everydayness of life - and suddenly our
world “is charged with the grandeur of God” as the poet Manley Hopkins has it. We
are in the Epiphany season of glory revealed in Jesus Christ. Rarely is this
glory revealed blindingly, as at the transfiguration which we shall celebrate
in a couple of weeks; but it is there for the seeing, when suddenly we glimpse,
as though through a crack in the ordinary into heaven, a miraculous foretaste
of the fuller revelation of glory to come (John 17.24).
Then our world is charged with glory, and Cana's simple marriage-feast
takes on a messianic meaning, as God rejoices over us as a bridegroom with a
bride. Dare we believe that we will see the glory of God where we live and
work? Can love find room? Perhaps I should leave it to the closing scene from
the widely acclaimed film Les Miserables
where in the convent the spirit of Fantine leads Valjean peacefully in to
heaven with these words “Take my hand and lead me to salvation; take my love for love is
everlasting, and remember the truth that once was spoken - to love another
person is to see the face of God.” Amen
1 Corinthians
12.1-11; John 2.1-11
.
Ray Anglesea is a self supporting minister
working in Durham Cathedral Bookshop and at St Andrew’s Dawson Street LEP,
Crook and in the wider West Durham Methodist Circuit
