Collect
Almighty God, in Christ you make all things new: transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace, and in the renewal of our lives make known your heavenly glory; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
or
Eternal Lord, our beginning and our end: bring us with the whole creation to your glory, hidden through past ages and made known in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Readings
Old Testament – Isaiah 62.1–5
For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn,
and her salvation like a burning torch.
The nations shall see your vindication,
and all the kings your glory;
and you shall be called by a new name
that the mouth of the Lord will give.
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the Lord delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your builder marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.
Psalm 36.5–10
5 Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens ♦
and your faithfulness to the clouds.
6 Your righteousness stands like the strong mountains, your justice like the great deep; ♦
you, Lord, shall save both man and beast.
7 How precious is your loving mercy, O God! ♦
All mortal flesh shall take refuge under the shadow of your wings.
8 They shall be satisfied with the abundance of your house; ♦
they shall drink from the river of your delights.
9 For with you is the well of life ♦
and in your light shall we see light.
10 O continue your loving-kindness to those who know you ♦
and your righteousness to those who are true of heart.
Epistle – 1 Corinthians 12.1–11
Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says ‘Let Jesus be cursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
Gospel – John 2.1–11
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
Sermon on Second Sunday of Epiphany
An epiphany is a moment when we understand everything, isn’t it? – the moment when God appears in our lives and we “get it”. The story about the wedding at Cana is a moment when God appears, we get the miracle that just happened. But just what is it that we “get”? I want to ask, “Are we swayed only by miracles? Is the fact that Jesus transformed lots of water into wine the only thing that brings us to faith?” This water-into-wine is a wonderful revelation, but is that the only ground on which we stand? What would happen if we no longer believe in miracles?
I remember a song by Hot Chocolate from many years ago, sung with such vigour and hope as “I Believe in Miracles”. Even though it was also called “You sexy thing”, I think it speaks to what a miracle does in one’s life. It certainly describes what the miracle of love does in life – what it has done in my life, and yours? … We need to do a little translation of this song before we can fully address the miracle of love as it enters our lives.
Many of us may have gyrated on the dance floor to the pure joy of this or some other song as it blasted from the wall of sound at some venue of our youth which we now remember with fondness. We may have even met our partners as we sang those words with Hot Chocolate playing as the background to our hopes and desires.
The chorus of the song must be cleansed of the prurient – we need to take the song’s base sex out of our considerations, for we have to ponder worthy subjects while in church. The chorus sings
I believe in miracles
Where’re you from?
You sexy thing
I believe in miracles
Since you came along
You sexy thing
For the words, “You sexy thing”, I think you can hear “You are my life”, or “You are my love”. At least that is how I want to elevate the meaning of this song. This translation of the prurient is in line with the reinterpretation of the bible called “demythologisation”, a project begun a century ago by biblical scholars, who asked “How can we believe in these biblical miracles in the age of the electric light?” Why should we demean ourselves by considering only the flesh? Can’t the miracle of falling in love be seen in the whole of life, body and soul?
So, in order to consider the miracles we have experienced, let us return to the miracle of love, the care between people. That is the only miracle of which I have any experience. What about you? Some lines from that Hot Chocolate song deserve to be considered in terms of the great commandment of loving one another. The good Samaritan could be seen as the figure addressed in these lines:
Where did you come from?
How did you know I needed you?
How did you know I needed you so badly
How did you know I’d give my heart gladly
Yesterday I was one of the lonely people
[Now you are loving me.]
Aren’t these words exactly what the injured man must have thought when he was picked up and cared for by the Samaritan? Here I am in dire need, lying as dead in the road and someone has come to alleviate my pain. I could go on to say
Where did you come from, angel?
How did you know I’d be the one?
Did you know you’re everything I prayed for?
Did you know, every night and day for?
Every day, needing love as satisfaction
Now you’re giving it to me
These lines speak of love as the solution to the problems of life, lifting us up from the desolate isolation of pain. The Hot Chocolate’s song is highly charged, and set with sexual imagery, but we Christians can rise above all that squalid versification to see how it speaks to a refined and noble reality. That reality is confused in life, isn’t it? We are told of the great gulf between the spiritual and the material, that they cannot co-exist – but they do! Our lives attest to their admixture. Paul’s letters and so much christian prose and poetry try to keep these realms separate, that the slings and arrows of the physical deny the spiritual. So many writers demand a rejection of a part of our very own selves, don’t they? However, I don’t think we have to reject the body, but we do have to purify how we behave in the world.
I have to say that it is possible for us to understand the flesh and raise it above the venal. We connect with our loved ones physically – when a touch becomes a caress. – This is clear when we hug our children and our partners – that is quite simply how we express our carnality spiritually, how we are incarnate spiritual beings. All long for that embrace which covers any loneliness with a belonging to one another, when I and my love become one altogether completely. That is what a child feels when the child’s mother kisses a hurt better – that connection of hearts in touch.
This is the ultimate in safe-guarding, isn’t it? People caring with the whole of their being for another, particularly with someone who is vulnerable – like their own child. Don’t we speak of love in terms which encompass the whole of life, that body and soul are wrapped up together in the act of caring for the other with unconditional love. Again, I say this is safe-guarding in its purest form. When the Samaritan picks up the forlorn, almost dead person, does he do it with any other intention than that of helping that virtual corpse back to health and life? I cannot imagine any other motive. Can you?
I am using language much like the language of the Song of Songs, aren’t I? It is the poetry of love. The bible is not averse to speaking in terms of the body and corporal reality along with the spirit, the soul – I think miracles make the point the bible is all about, that we are in the world, confused as we are about body, mind and spirit.
Somehow all of this confusion about just what we are, how we are in the world – flesh, body, mind, spirit – gets straightened out. In an epiphany it all makes sense. This is the real miracle. That ultimately we understand through love, how love unites the whole of our lives through our connection with the other. The Hot Chocolate song, I would like to say, can express that highest experience of love, if we work at it, if we make that translation into the whole of our lives. And we need to do this. We need to work out just how the miracles enter our lives and become that epiphany moment.
Don’t we confess this through the words of the gospel of St John, that the word was made flesh and dwellt amongst us, just as each one of us dwells in the world as incarnate beings. As incarnate beings like the Samaritan and the I of the Hot Chocolate song, let us love one another as we love ourselves. Let us dwell amongst our contemporaries with that joy understanding miracles gives us. I would like to think that love is a miracle even greater than turning water into wine for it abides forever.