January 20, 2013 Second Sunday after Epiphany

A Sermon preached by Canon Anne E. Kitch

Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, PA

Second Sunday after Epiphany  C

January 20, 2013

Isaiah 62:1-5, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, John 2:1-11

Expansiveness of Heart

Did you know the light increases at both ends of the day, but not at first?  We are in that time of year (at least in this part of the world) when the days are getting longer. For the first time in my life, I was made aware of a difference as the time of daylight expands. It doesn’t do so evenly—at least not at first. Through late December and into early January, the sun rises at about the same time, but sets a little later each day. At first, only seconds are added to the amount of daylight we experience. Then gradually, the sun also begins to rise a bit earlier, so that now our day is expanding at both ends adding about 1 ½ minutes to the day.  Even as we experience the winter more deeply, we are in a season of increasing light.

We are also experiencing a delightful juxtaposition, because in our church year we are likewise in a time of increasing light.  This season after the Feast of the Epiphany is a time of increasing brightness and revelation, a time during which we read scripture stories that uncover for us more and more about just who Jesus is. We begin with the Feast of Epiphany itself, when the magi followed a star to discover the Christ child—the light of the world. We hear about the Baptism of Jesus and the voice from heaven saying, “This is my son, my beloved.” We hear about the first miracle of Jesus at the Wedding at Cana.

Like any of the seasons of our church year, Epiphany can echo a certain season in our spiritual lives as well.  Our spiritual lives are not static anymore than the rest of our lives. We have our spiritual ups and downs, our spiritual scrapped knees and moments of comfort, intervals of despair and periods of hope, seasons of the mundane and times of great celebration. Thus there are times in our spiritual lives when we experience epiphanies, moment of sudden revelation or insight.

Our spiritual lives do not always match up with the church season. What I mean by this is you can feel like you are spiritually in the desert of Lent, while the church is celebrating Advent.  But just for a moment, in this time and in this place, I want you to imagine with me that it all lines up. Our spiritual lives are in sync with the church season which itself reflects the increasing light of this time of year. And in this moment, become aware of the light of Christ expanding within you.

In a life of Christian formation, in a life of prayer, we can learn to pay attention and become more aware of the ways God’s gifts increase in us. Sometimes insight comes in small ways—sometimes in moment of great epiphanies.

I had one such epiphany recently when I encountered the story of the Wedding at Cana.  It came up last week in the daily readings. I have to confess that this story is one of those familiar stories for me, so much so that I hardly know what to make of it when I hear it. You know how it goes: Jesus and his friend attend a wedding, the wine gives out, Jesus’ mother pulls him aside and there is this interesting mother-son moment. Then comes the miracle where Jesus turns water (gallons of water, by the way) into wine. And it turns out to be the best wine ever. And in case we miss any of the significance of this event, the writer of John’s gospel tells us it is the first sign Jesus did.

But when I encountered the story this time, I head something new. It was about the wine. Jesus’ wine was the best. And it came when it seemed there would be no more.

Jesus’ gifts are the best. And they can come at times when we think all good is gone.

This is the season of increasing light, when the days are getting longe,r and for the first time in my life I am more aware of how the daylight expands. The best gifts come with Jesus. A life in Christ is expansive.

“I've always loved the observation by the steward” writes Episcopal priest and author Suzanne Guthrie, “that this ‘best wine has been reserved for last.’ In a life of prayer, flavor, body, depth and refinement, strengthens more fully in the gradually deepening experience of Christ.” *

Like the light at this time of year, like the light of manifestation during Epiphany, a life with Jesus keeps expanding. Our gifts increase. Along with an increased awareness of how God is working in our lives and in the world, comes the opportunity to expand our hearts.

St. Paul reminds us that we all have gifts given to us by God. Spiritual gifts. We each have different gifts; there is a whole variety. Now note the reason we have these gifts-- “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Our gifts are to be used for the common good. To do something for the world. To be a part of increasing the light and love of Christ to those around us. Because not everyone is experiencing abundance. Our gifts, our abundance, our expansive knowledge of love is to be used for the common good.

When we think of inspired people who use their gifts, we often think of saints or heroes. On this day it is easy to point to Martin Luther King, Jr. as someone who used his gifts for the common good. But Dr. King would not have accomplished much of anything without all those others whose names we do not know who continue to work for justice and peace. There are those whose names we do not know who bring healing to someone who hurts, or spend the night away from home in order to offer shelter for those who are cold. And then there are those whose names we do know who minister to us when we are not experiencing abundance. In giving us wonderful gifts, Jesus invites us to exercise an expansiveness of heart.

Jesus was there at the wedding of Cana when the wine gave out. These words, “when the wine gave out,” writes Benedictine monk Bruno Barnhart “express something of the profound and manifold sorrow of the human condition. The wine is always giving out. And as the day wears on, we are more and more aware that we cannot replenish it from our own resources.” ** And we don’t have to.

When the wine gives out, Jesus is there. Jesus’s wine is the best. It comes when it seems like there will be no more. Jesus’ gifts are the best. They come at times when we think all good is gone. In a life of Christian formation, in a life of prayer, we can increase our attention to the expansiveness of God’s gifts within us.

The light of Christ continues to expand in our lives and in the world. Expect your gifts to increase. Share your abundance. Practice an expansiveness of heart.

* Suzanne Guthrie, from her blog Soulwork Toward Sunday: Epiphany 2 (Year C) www.edgeofenclosure.org

**Bruno Barnhart, The Good Wine: Reading John from the Center as quoted by Suzanne Guthrie in Soulwork Toward Sunday (see above).

Epiphany 1 - The Baptism of Our Lord

The Ven. Richard I. Cluett

Both the Isaiah passage and the story of Jesus’ baptism bring us Good News. And the good news is this: that a relationship with God, the blessing of God, the love of God, the mercy of God, the presence of God are ours from our very beginning, through whatever life brought us yesterday or is bringing us today, all the way into forever.

It is through Jesus that we claim our inheritance as a child of God. It is through Jesus that we too are named as God’s very own, as God’s beloved, and it is through Jesus that the promises of God to Israel told by Isaiah become God’s promises to us. And it is in the waters of baptism that we affirm our identity and we are named as God’s very own child, God’s very own girl, God’s very own boy, God’s very own man, God’s very own woman. And we are given God’s community as our own.

Maya Lin, designer of the Vietnam Memorial, explained why she thought the memorial seemed to have such a strong grip on the emotions of the American people. “It's the names,” she said, “the names are the memorial. No edifice or structure can bring people to mind as powerfully as their names.”

What is your name? Say it to yourself. God says through Isaiah, “I have called you by your name, you are mine.” It is a guarantee of so much. It reminds Israel of their creation and their creator, of being created and formed by God. It banishes fear and announces redemption. It offers God's protecting hand in fire and flood. God woos Israel with a declaration of love and confesses that Israel is “precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you.”

What is new in the Baptism of Jesus is that this gift, this knowledge, this identity, this call are for all people – for everyone, without restriction, without merit, without limit, without requirement. Not even the requirement of John the Baptist that we repent.

In our tradition, we usually receive the baptism of Jesus as a child, before there is any need of repentance. We are the beloved of God before, during, and after repentance. The baptism of Jesus was God's Revelation of that Good News, and our baptism is the sign that Good News is for us, too.

As we all know, there is ample opportunity in one’s lifetime (at least there has been in mine) – ample opportunity to repent, and repent, and repent, and repent as we live out our lives and live in this relationship with God and with other people. The Good News is that no matter what, no matter whom, we can be baptized in the name of God: Father, Son, ad Holy Spirit, and know that we are the beloved of God.

It is in the waters of baptism that we receive our identity as we are named as God’s very own. And it is in the wild, raging waters of Life that our identity is tested and that God’s promises are tested as well.

I want to ask you this morning, “Where do you find the ability to hang in there in this world? Where do you find the ability to keep going when the going really gets tough? Where do you find the ability to continue to believe in love in a world that is filled with hate? Where do you find the ability to continue in a world that is addicted to violence? Where do you find the ability to continue in a world that is filled with so much suffering and pain? Where do you find the ability to continue to believe that ultimately God's kingdom will prevail and God's will, as revealed in Jesus, will be done in all of creation? Where do you find the ability to be a disciple of Jesus in this life?

It is possible to live this life missing the obvious; miss­ing the vision of God; missing the presence of God; missing the radiance of God's glory; missing the empower­ing, comforting Word of God's love.

What we can lose sight of is the powerful, available presence of God in Jesus, in us, and in this life. We are so in touch with the limitations of our selves, the reali­ties of life. We know, so well, the difficulties and the hills that we must climb that it is easy to miss what God is doing; to miss the truth that it is in all circumstances of life where Jesus is to be found.

As one writer put it, “Whether it is our own failures or illnesses, our economic uncertainty, academic struggles, family tensions or life’s precious moments of joy, God is with us… through it all.”

It is precisely into the confusing, anxious, chaotic, haunt­ed, sometimes amusing, comfortable, and occasionally boring lives such as the life that is yours and mine that God comes. God comes – power­fully, presently, per­sistently to change our lives, to give us our identity, to prescribe where home is, to express love, and to give us our calling, our vocation, our ministry, and our community. We are God’s People.

Some of what we symbolize in the sacrament of baptism is that Home is the Kingdom of the God whose love is limitless, whose power for life is eternally available and whose work we are to be about.  Theologian Hans Kung has said that "Christians live in the already and the not yet," but we who are called have to de­cide to move into the not yet, decide that God’s promise is true.

What we read of Jesus' baptism, what we observe in the bap­tism of an infant, what we dream of in the long night hours is true. God is in this life. His spirit is upon us. His love is consis­tent. His power is ours. And he has shown us His purpose and our purpose.

As Jesus was called to move out of Nazareth and to go deep into the waters, so we are called to move deep into God’s kingdom and God’s promise of Life.

What is your name?

Thus says the Lord…

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by your name, you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

For I am the Lord your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

I have called you by your name. You are mine.

Thus says the Lord.

Epiphany-January 6th

The 2^nd Sunday of Epiphany
January 6, 2013
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa

Good morning!  Happy New Year!  And, Happy Epiphany!  And it is happier now that we have heard that sweet voice.  Thank you Massa, thank you!

So here we are.  In the Gregorian calendar, we know that we have had our twelve days of Christmas, and this being the day that we mark the end of the Christmas season—that Christmas season where we are drawn into the humble mystery of the word made flesh.  And we have been faithful in our prayers, and we have visited that holy crèche and I pray that in this Christmastide, that you were fed with love and nurture and pare of one another, and in doing that, you have enjoyed the very face of God. 

But today we mark the end of the Christmas season.  And we begin; we pray the beginning of the season of carnival and light.  I don’t know about you but there are certain things that I’m a stickler about and ending things and beginning things are one of those things that I struggle with sometimes emotionally.  It’s a family gift or curse, depending.  But after today, there will be no more Christmas music played in my car or in my home.  And there’s a 50-50 chance that the Christmas tree will come down tomorrow.  That’s 50-50 because there seems to be a heavy lobby to leave it up.  And for the first time in years my tree is not dying—I can’t believe it, it’s still alive, it’s still taking water—even as of this morning.  The best tree I ever had.  So it’s 50-50.  But today is the day that we end this season and begin a season of carnival and light—the season of Epiphany. 

This is a season that will lead us for a few weeks until the days of reflection and fasting that await us in Lent.  In some European countries such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the season of Epiphany which begins, of course, on this day, the feast of the Epiphany, this season of carnival and light will be celebrated by children who will dress like three wise people that which we receive from our biblical story.  These children will dress like these three wise people of long ago and they will visit houses in their neighborhoods in their roles as these wise people and they will sing songs.  This is Russell’s idea—thank you Russell for having Massa sing to us.  They will visit homes and they will sing sweet songs like the one we just heard.  And they will tell their stories in song of paying homage to this King of Kings, who lies in a manger.  They are rewarded for their visits with praise and with cookies—enough cookies already . . .

In Latin America, the celebration of Epiphany in some places goes like this.  There it is the three wise people who come bringing gifts to children—not so much St. Nick.  Children write letters to the wise people telling them of their desire for their own goodness in the coming year and what gifts they possess.  And the worthiness of their goodness that enables them to receive gifts from these wise visitors.

In France, and yes I’m going to try it even with Mimi sitting in the front row.  In France, La Galette des Rois, The Day of Kings is celebrated with parties for adults and for children.  And the Galette des Rois or cake of the kings is served.  If you come here at 5:30 on this afternoon, and I pray that you will, bring something to share and be ready to dance.  We adults and children will gather in such a celebration and the cake of kings will be cut and shared.

In Spain, the children fill their shoes with straw or grain and place them by the door so that the camels of the three wise people might have something to eat.  That seems very wise to me.  The next day, they find again cookies and sweets or gifts in their shoes. 

All these traditions have developed over time.  And they speak to the rootedness of the biblical story of that hope filled and miraculous birth of a prophetically promised messiah, born to bring goodness and hope and worthy of homage and praise even by leaders and kings of the world’s distant empires.  These are warm and sweet traditions.  And we may observe our own in the season of Epiphany and they serve us well when they draw us near to the story and when they draw us near to the powerful promise of God’s presence in our own lives. 

But, and there is always a but, but let us also be careful on this feast day of Epiphany when we come again anew to the Epiphany story—this story of stars and of kings and of gifts and of travel and of promise and of hope.  Let us be careful that we do not be seduced into the potential to domesticate the story to the point of missing its intentional fierce character and its potential to call us to a new truth in a new year.  That truth that when we dare to follow the stars of the night that lead us closer to the power of the Christ.  We like the wise and most powerful ones of ancient times might be compelled to take a long and hard journey.  This was not an easy journey for these wise men.  Looking into the star they used the gifts that they possessed.  Reading those stars compelled them; it disturbed them.  It stirred them to leave the comfort of what they knew and set out on an undetermined journey.  A journey that would first land them in Jerusalem, the rightful place to look for a king of Israel.  Only there to be confronted, seduced and enticed by the power of the day in the person of Herod, who attempted to deceive them in the midst of his certain reading of threat to his power and control.  This was not an easy journey.  These wise men from afar using the gifts that they have been given to the best of their abilities.  Following the star and journeying afar taking with them the purest of treasures in the hopes that they might kneel before one they have not yet met but whose promise they intuitively dare to give homage.  We too might find ourselves in the truth.  In the truth of this fierce story of what it means to come into the presence of God new and new and new.  That it can be disturbing in the best best possible way.  And stirring in the best best possible way.  And it may lead us on a journey that we never expected to take.  It may demand our time.  It may demand our talents.  And it may demand our treasure.  And it may beg from us the most precious of what we have to be offered.  And if live into this fierce story, we might also be quite aware that once we encounter and new the Christ, the road home is never the same.  We’re always looking for another route home.  Make no mistake, the story we read today is real.  Our leaders come from afar seeking what they have intuitively known by the reading of the stars to something that is worthy of the best of who they are.  The politics of the day will have them in the audience of Herrod who has demonstrated he will do anything to eliminate the threat to his rule.  And that is the threat of Caesar’s rule.  This was real to the folks living in these ancient times.  The story of the gospel begins as this hoped for salvation for the nation of Israel promised by Isaiah to a people captive and living under another rule whose days often could be desperate buy whose hopes lived long.  “Arise, shine,” Isaiah says, “for your light has come.  For darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness ______ peoples but the Lord will arise upon you in and his glory will have poured over you and nation’s shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”

Today is the day.  Today is the day is what the story tells us.  Arise and shine for our light has come.  On this day in our story, the reader begins to recognize that the one who lies humbly in a manger is worshipped by these leaders of all nations beyond Israel.  And the ancient truth that lies in that manger will stand against the harsh reality of Caesar and all that it means to live under oppression.  So on this day for us here now in this place, you and I have the opportunity to stand in the truth of this story— the fierce truth of it.  And to dare again to take a journey with these wise men.  A new year begs a new beginning.  Where do we dare follow anew the stars that will lead us to this holy one?  What new roads or paths are we willing to take especially when they’re inconvenient?  What precious things of our own being do we have to offer?  What gifts shall we bring to this new year, this new reality, this new opportunity?  And if we dare to go, are we willing to do so knowing that our path home cannot be the same?

Amen.