Annual
Meeting Sunday
January 17,
2016
Isiah
62.1-5; John 2.1-11
+ Today is
our Annual Meeting Sunday. And I’m always pleased when we can get together to
celebrate St. Stephen’s. There’s a lot to celebrate, after all.
Now, I know some of you might be
groaning. Not another celebration, you’re thinking. We, that’s what we do here. We do that a lot here.
And we do it very, very well. It’s very natural to us. We celebrate at the drop
of a hat here. And that’s a very good thing to do. After all, God is doing very
good things here. We should celebrate that.
Now, I know it might not seem like
there’s a lot to celebrate maybe in our larger Church. This week, of course,
the Primates of the Anglican Communion met—the primates are the presiding
bishops of each church body of the Anglican Communion. The meeting was, for the
most part…let’s say…a bit disappointing. We, in the Episcopal Church, were reprimanded by
them in that meeting for our so-called “breech” of Catholicism by our vote last
summer for marriage equality. And as a result, we had our wrist slapped. And a collective finger was wiggled at us. And
we were scolded.
*shrug*
So be it.
As Bishop Chilton Knudson of the Episcopal
Diocese of Maryland wrote to her diocese:
“The sky is not falling!”
It’s discouraging, yes. It’s disheartening.
It’s disappointing to see that equality is still not a common denominator in
the Church.
For us at St. Stephen’s, that’s no surprise.
We’ve been here before. But, we know this: We as a congregation certainly made
the right choice for us in what did in December. We sided with Christ and his Gospel, as we
try to live them out in our congregational life. And oftentimes, as I have said again and
again, choosing in such a way often means receiving wrist slaps (or much
worse). It often means treading through discouragement and disappointment. It
often means being seen by others as representing everything wrong so we can do
what we feel is right.
But, God is doing very good things for us, despite what Bishops and Archbishops
might say. Well, there was another
Bishop who said some good things. Our own presiding Bishop, Michael Curry, probably
said it best—and his words are words that could be used for everything we do
and have done here at St. Stephen’s:
"Our
commitment to be an inclusive church is not based on a social theory or capitulation
to the ways of the culture, but on our belief that the outstretched arms of
Jesus on the cross are a sign of the very love of God reaching out to us all.
While I understand that many disagree with us, our decision regarding marriage
is based on the belief that the words of the Apostle Paul to the Galatians are
true for the church today: All who have been baptized into Christ have put on
Christ. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for
all are one in Christ.”
All are one in Christ. See, the sky
is not falling In fact, look! There’s a wide and beautiful sky before us. And
we should celebrate that.
In our Gospel reading for today, we
also get another celebration. It is the
wedding at Cana. It’s such a great celebration the good wine has run out and
the wedding feast is about to crash quickly. Yup, I’ve been at those weddings
too.
That I think is the gist of this
experience from our gospel reading.
It is not just some magic trick Jesus performs to wow people. It is not some action he
performs at the whim of his mother. He
performs this miracle and in doing so instills joy in those gathered there.
But more than that, by doing this he
does what we always does when he performs a miracle. He performs miracles not just
for the benefit of those at the wedding. It
is for our benefit of us as well. Because
by performing this miracle, he is giving us a glimpse of what awaits us all.
If we look closely at the story and
at some of the details contained in it, we will find clues of the deeper
meaning behind his actions.
First of all, let’s look at those
jars of water. This is
probably the one area we don’t give a lot of thought to. But those jars are
important. They are not just regular jars of water. They are jars of water for
the purification rites that accompany eating in the Jewish tradition. That water is essentially
sacred. We talked about this last week when we talked about the waters of
baptism. It is used to purify people and things. A good Jew at that time would
wash their hands in this water so they could eat their food.
There’s a wonderful phrase that perfectly
captures what Jesus did: he turns the “waters of purity into wine.” And not
just any wine. But abundant wines that bring about a joy among those gathered.
In a sense, what Jesus has done is
he has taken the party up a notch. What
was already probably a good party is now an incredible party. It’s a beautiful image and one
that I think we can all relate to.
And I think it speaks loudly to us
on this Annual Meeting Sunday. We, at St. Stephen’s are planning this coming
year. We are looking ahead. We
are planning a year in which there are so many great and wonderful
opportunities and possibilities for us as a congregation.
God has blessed us—and blessed us
abundantly, here.
When God blesses, it is not just a
little blessing here and there. It is abundant blessings. It is like the purification water turned into
abundant wine.
The best part of this view of the
wedding at Cana is that Jesus is saying to us that, yes, there is joy here in
the midst of us, but a greater joy awaits us.
When these things happen, it is very
much like a wonderful wedding feast.
When they happen, the
waters of purification are turned into the best-tasting wine because we will no
longer have to worry about issues like purity.
We can certainly see God working in
the ministry we do together here at St. Stephen’s. There are abundant blessings in our midst. They are surrounding us on this day in which
we gather to plan another year.
As we plan another year of looking
for and finding Christ in our midst. Another
year of following Jesus in all that we do. And as we do, there is a sense of joy at
this—a joy very much like the joy one feels at a wedding feast—that is, a
wedding in which true love is celebrated and blessed.
So, let us look and find
Christ in this water turned to wine. Let
us continue to find Christ in all the wonderful blessings we have been granted
here in our congregation and in our own lives. And when we do, we too will be amazed at all
the wonderful and amazing ways God has blessed us and supplied us to continue
to do what we do best—to love, and to love fully and completely.
The sky is not falling. There is
beauty, even today, even despite the bitter cold, despite the hardships of
life, despite the scolding from those in authority, despite the frustrations of
ministry.
The prophet Isaiah says in our
reading today,
“You shall be a crown of beauty in
the hand of the Lord,
And a royal diadem in the hand of
God.
“You shall no more be termed
Forsaken,
And your land shall no more be
termed Desolate…
For the Lord delights in you.”
God delights in us. How
amazing is that? God delights in us! That is what we should be celebrating
today! Amen.
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