Sunday: 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany
Reading: Luke 4:14-21
Preacher: Anne Benvenuti

About ten days ago, Jim Steen was one of a group of us who sat around the table in the Byllesby Room, reflecting on the texts for today's liturgy. Jim was considering whether to preach on this text--the wedding feast at Cana--or the passage from Luke which shows us Jesus standing up in the synagogue to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. As you know, he chose the Luke passage for his last sermon here, and left Cana to me, but with some reluctance because, you see, he wanted to talk about Mary as a Jewish mother. The memory of that moment has come back to me several times because I so wonder what he would have said about Mary as a Jewish mother! I may never have the answer to that question, but reflecting upon it led me to some interesting insights of my own... and I will come back to this later.

Meanwhile, looking at my still shiny and new calendar, I see it was just a month ago we celebrated the magical birth of baby Jesus, and three weeks ago that we recalled the visitation of the wise men from the East and their gift for the infant Jesus, then, a bit out of sequence, we have had the adult Jesus reading in the synagogue, and today we hear that his mother has asked for a miracle. Even with a change in sequence, its a mere five weeks from birth to the demand for a miracle--no wonder Jesus replied that his hour had not yet come!
Of course, I understand that liturgical time is like that, so compressed that we get every possible spiritual theme into each year. But don't you, too, feel it? The way that time flies and you are not ready when so many things are asked of you? I often feel it. I felt it that day as we reflected on these readings, and I imagined preaching in Jim's absence. But then, most often, I get over myself, find what it takes and do what is needed. And I suspect it's like that for many of you, too.

Gospel commentators frequently mention the lack of pizzazz in Jesus' first miracle. "Water into wine" sounds almost like a magic trick--my kind of magic trick, mind you--but not what you would expect as the first public demonstration of The Messiah. Maybe that's why Jesus wanted to wait, so that he could do something spectacular, in the right time and the right place, for his own grand unveiling. Or, alternatively, maybe he was trying to delay the inevitable, knowing that, once the cat was out of the bag, his life would never be his own again; that they'd be on him day and night for miracle after miracle.

Yes, this is a pretty natural interpretation of Jesus and his first miracle, and I am prone to such natural interpretations. In this very human story, there is so much to see about the way God is expressed in the synergies of the universe right down to our own small lives on earth... So, let's go in our imaginations to the wedding feast at Cana, and put ourselves over in the corner of the hot gossips. Can't you just hear it?

"They've run out of wine already! Well, they never could plan an event"

"And, really, the wine was not very good to begin with, the water almost has to be better!"

"Oh, I think that being out of wine may have something to do with the crowd they call their friends, look at them, drunk already."

"Speaking of fools, look over there, Mary and Jesus; she thinks that boy is God's gift to the world!"

"Boy! Isn't he almost thirty? It looks to me like a case of failure to launch."

And over in another corner are Mary and her adult son, Jesus. She concerned that the couple celebrating their marriage would be embarrassed, he seemingly rather sullen. Perhaps he did not want to attend a wedding with his mom that day. But what did she want from Jesus? Did she want him to run to the store? Did she perhaps want him to get on with it, work a public miracle and launch his career? And Jesus, what's up with him? When Mary brings him the problem, he sounds like a smart-mouthed adolescent to me. "Woman, what concern is it of ours?" By contemporary standards, Jesus looks uncomfortably familiar, the adult son who has not yet managed a life of his own, but who has mouth to spare. But Mary simply told the help to do as he directed. And it seems to me that she really boxed Jesus into a corner where he had to either to do something, or fail to do something; and then he'd look either mean or helpless. So, even though he didn't think the time was right, he did something.

Did he perhaps doubt that he could solve the problem? Or maybe he knew and Mary knew that he could do something to help, but he just didn't feel ready. Maybe that's why he did this first public miracle so quietly, so unobtrusively. He told the help to fill stone jars with water and then to take some of it to the maitre de, who found the wine good enough to serve. No sweeping off of a cover to reveal something where there was nothing. No trumpets, not even a dove over his head, or a voice from the heavens; just the smack of human lips on some tasty wine-- and a little chastisement for the groom, this time for his foolishness in saving the good wine for drunks.

The whole story makes a lot of sense when you look at it in simple human terms; it tells us something important about the way God gives so carefully, so gracefully, that one person's needs are met in ways that develop someone else's unique potential. It shows that each of us is God's gift to the world, and the world, with all its needs, is God's gift to us...

Whatever his reasons, Jesus let the cat out of the bag as quietly as he could, "go and have the stewards taste it." Maybe he didn't feel ready to face the critics in the morning paper, or the job performance review. And, a lot like a us when under pressure, he was irritable. But he did what was needed. He had a gift that matched the need at hand, and, with a little pressure from his mom, he offered it.
And how do we become God's gift to the world, if not by giving ourselves? And how do we find the courage to give ourselves if not by pressure from others? ... How often has it been that a push, or even some serious nagging, from your spouse, or your kids, or parents, got you to make the extra effort, the embarrassing effort, the not-ready-yet effort-yes, the effort that met a need, and that caused you to grow into what you might not otherwise have become. Who amongst us has experienced such a push from our former rector, Jim Steen?

Can't you just hear him saying, "Do what she tells you to do" and walking away, leaving you to figure it out?
Our culture tells us in so many ways that our gifts are really important. It tells us to hone our talents so that we can compete, so that we can be the best, so that we can take home the most and biggest prizes...And it also says that, if you fail to win the big prizes, you're a loser. But, in God's economy, as soon as you give yourself, you're a winner.

So let's decide anew today to give our talent away, and not to be reduced to just selling it; let's give it away because we can, and because someone needs what we have. Let's give ourselves, even when we feel small and pathetic compared to someone else, even when we might not feel ready for the grand unveiling we may have imagined for ourselves.

Let ordinary life be this miraculous, that every single one of us has gifts that are the answers to deep yearnings in the hearts of others, others who are not far away, but right there across the aisle from you, or right in your home, or in your work place. Isn't this what our Jewish mother, Jim Steen, did for us? Pulled out our gifts and matched them with---sometimes even threw them at--needs in the community.
Today let ordinary life be this miraculous, that you-you with your self-doubt and your crabby moods-are God's gift to the world. (Gesture) The gifts of God for the people of God. The gifts of God for the people of God