Episcopal Church of the Messiah

Worship Service Sermons

January 17, 2010

My mother tells me that when my sister was little, the easiest way to get her dressed was to tell her that she wasn’t allowed to get dressed that day.

"But, but - I want to wear my clothes!" Kathi would protest.

"Well – maybe just a shirt," my mother would negotiate.

"My pants! I want to wear my pants, too!" Kathi would respond.

And so it would go, until she was finally clothed, and mother and daughter were both happy, each having accomplished what she wanted..

Most of us bridle at directives. Like my sister Kathi, we don’t like to be told what to do..

What if we don’t like what is requested of us?

What if it doesn’t work? After all, we’ve never done it that way before…

What if it is too hard? What if it doesn’t taste good? Feel good? Is scarey? Is embarrassing? Doesn’t make sense? Is plain ol’ dumb?

We want to have at least the illusion of control.

And his mother says, in this, our introduction to Jesus as an agent of transformation, "Do whatever he tells you."

Fill the jars with water.

Step out of the boat.

Distribute the 5 loaves and 2 fishes.

Go wash in the pool of Siloam.

Get up!

Let down the nets.

Come down from that tree.

Take away the stone.

Crazy requests! We want wine – and we fill the jars with water? The disciples are going to feed 5,000 with the contents of one basket of food? Peter steps out onto water as though it were land? They roll back the stone to the stench of Lazarus three-days dead?

What Jesus asks his followers to do doesn’t make sense!

It doesn’t make sense – but it works!

What if the response to Jesus’ command to "Fill the jars with water" were something like: "Why? Those jars are for the rites of purification – we can’t use those! What are you going to do with water? You want me to walk all the way to the well for water, when what we need is wine? You’re crazy! How embarrassing – to offer the guests water instead of wine! What are you thinking?!"

Scripture doesn’t record any explanation or negotiation. Just the request of Mary that the hearers "Do whatever he tells you," and the compliance with Jesus’ request to "Fill the jars with water."

And we experience the first sign of Jesus’ ability to transform the nature of things: water becomes fine wine.

The Jews of Jesus’ time knew that Word shapes Behavior: Hebrew Scripture urges them to "Choose Life" by following the Words of the Law as recorded in the Torah.

Jesus shows them how following another Word, the Word made Flesh, shapes behavior.

Notice how Jesus takes us from the simple to the more difficult; from the exterior transformation – of water, of food, of death or disease – to the interior – from paucity of spirit to abundant life.

Fill the jars with water is the first step, our introduction, to doing whatever he tells us. It sets us on the path which culminates in Jesus’ directive to "Love one another as I have loved you."

Fill the jars with water.

Love one another.

So often our response to such directives is: "That won’t work." Or, "that only works if…" or, "in this instance…" or, "when…"

Go the extra mile? Give the shirt off my back?

Find abundance in poverty?

Turn the other cheek?

Love my enemies? Only if they’re disarmed. And I don’t turn my back on them. Or they love me first. A peaceful response to violent behavior sometimes seems – well, foolish. Self-destructive. It doesn’t make sense! It’s so – well – counter-cultural!

And yet – isn’t that what we experience in Jesus? The world in which "normal" is turned on its head? Behavior isn’t "what’s always been" but something radically different?

Our sense of "normal" is "the way things have always been." What we’re used to. What we have come to expect.

Jesus is saying: things can be different.

It is the paradox which changes the paradigm: water does become wine; poverty does become abundance…

What if we approached our life’s problems doing, as Mary requests, whatever Jesus tells us? What might this world look like?

Are we courageous enough to do so?

Can we risk appearing foolish? Being embarrassed? Being scared? Feeling out of control? Trusting?

Because if this world were "turned on its head," through our radically-different, Gospel-driven behavior,

A peaceful response would transform violence.

The open hand would loosen the grasp of the closed fist.

We would all choose life as it is manifest in the Word made flesh.

We have examples in our own time of such radically-different, Gospel-driven behavior – people who did, as Mary directed, "whatever Jesus said."

Think Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we celebrate tomorrow, who learned to turn anger into positive energy and hatred into love, armed only with the power of nonviolent resistance.

Think of the "University Martyrs" in El Salvador, who dared to confront the privilege of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America with the Gospel message of the "preferential option for the poor."

Think of Nelson Mandela, who even after years of torture and imprisonment for his struggles against Apartheid, could invite his jailers to the dinner celebrating his inauguration as President of South Africa, and facilitate a process of reconciliation rather than revenge.

Dominic Crossan, a theologian and author of Jesus, a Revolutionary Biography, imagines a dialogue between himself and the historical Jesus. The historical Jesus speaks to him: "I’ve read your book, Dominic, and it’s quite good. So now you’re ready to live by my vision and join me in my program?"

"I don’t think I have the courage, Jesus, but I did describe it quite well, didn’t I, and the method was especially good, wasn’t it?"

"Thank you, Dominic, for not falsifying the message to suit your own incapacity. That at least is something."

"Is it enough, Jesus?"

"No, Dominic, it is not."

And I, like many of us, have often heard myself asking a version of the same question: I know the stories, Jesus. Is it enough?

No, Carolyn, it is not.