January 20, 2013 "Whine Changed to Water"

Isaiah 62: 1-5 John 2:1-11 Whether it is a natural outgrowth of the latter days of January in Upstate New York, or the circumstances of the world in the 21st Century, for many many months the news of the world has been depressing, when as Christians we are to be a people of HOPE, of GRACE and ABUNDANT JOY. The context and settings for these passages from Isaiah and John, are Not placing a Wallmart Happy Face over life to mask sorrows, going on as if unchanged; but rather naming of what has been and Lament, a Whine and complaint, we long to have changed and transformed by the Grace of God into boundless sustenance as plentiful and pure as Water in Nature. Perhaps that is part of our difficulty with this familiar miracle in John's Gospel, that rather than replenishing our resource of what we desire, what we know we need is for the cause of our WHINING to be CHANGED to a Pure Abundance as of WATER. Yesterday, the sky was blanketed by thick cold grey snow clouds, and where the sky ended at the horizon, the waters mirrored the heavens with an impenetrable, unending gray. Even the black of roads and parking lots had been bleached to gray with the cascade of melted salts. For the last several years we have endured the robo-calls and prophecies concerning grid-locked government and the economy. With tomorrow's inauguration, little if anything will have changed. Unless someone does something, we are stuck where we have been, with hate and hurt and fear. First there were shootings in a Movie Theater, killing and wounding an auditorium of people in Colorado who simply had come to be entertained, to be distracted from life. Then a Hurricane... where every event seems to be described as the Storm of the Century, this was a Super-storm that caused unprecedented destruction of Neighborhoods and Cities and Industrial corridors, across 37 States. Then an Early Elementary School in Connecticut. The last many weeks over Christmas and the New Year, there has been at least one set of shootings a week of fire fighters and neighbors and schools, people who simply were in the wrong place at the wrong time. For 60 Chapters, the Prophet Isaiah has described the devastation and suffering of Israel, as they endured unending war and terrorism, aimed at who they were and what they represented as a Superpower. Once their safeties and securities were plundered, their leaders, their children, were carried off and seduced by other cultures. Those who were left, were unable to provide for themselves. The infrastructure of cities collapsed. For 60 Chapters Isaiah has preached and prophesied for the people to listen, and to change, preached and prophesied that God would overthrow the Babylonians. Suddenly, their tormentors, those who had conquered Israel and carried them off in bondage, were themselves destroyed. But simply because punishment has ended does make one redeemed. Endurance of time apart, does not make us new. In these verses the prophet Isaiah preaches and prophesies to God. FOR ZION'S SAKE, I will not keep silent! FOR THE SAKE OF JERUSALEM, I will not rest! This week, I visited several of our older members in nursing homes on the far east-side of Syracuse. One had gone from living alone, to Assistance at home, to Assisted Care, to Nursing Home, to Hospital, where they were trying with physical therapy to regain strength to walk. Lack of exercise and sitting had caused the water in their body to pool in their ankles and legs. Blood clots in their lungs were not only painful, but life threatening. Standing in the doorway of their room, they broke down in tears. “I didn't think anyone cared any more. I had even given up, God cared. I thought perhaps, having taken my spouse and my friends, God had forgotten me here. They tell me I need to walk, I need to eat better and grow stronger. What I have wanted to do was be with my husband. All I really need is to know someone cares.” Our role as a people of faith is not to try to be God to people. Our function as believers is not to be religious. Our purpose, our responsibility, is to be like Isaiah, LAMENTING to a Closed Grey Heaven, that God not forget, that God would be moved, for the sake of Jerusalem that we not rest until redemption comes. The truth of life is that God is consumed with care for the Cosmos, creating ever new worlds. Concerned with Poverty and abuse and slavery, pestilence and wars, and injustice. Sometimes it seems this world forgets, that God forgets, the purpose of LAMENTATION of prayers of petition, are not the same as a Wish List sent to Santa. Our prayers are not for our desires, for what we want or what would give us a thrill, but that God would change a hard reality to have life. Throughout the world, WATER is seen as a life-force. Marriage while laden with tradition and expectations is about finding a partner to share life. Even more, MARRIAGE is also about responding to make a change at a time in our lives. When I meet with couples in preparation for MARRIAGE, the first question we address is, “HOW DID YOU KNOW YOU WERE READY TO BE MARRIED?” Which is different from How did you meet, how did you decide tis was the right person, or even what does your mother think. This is a question of whether you are at a stage in life, where you are prepared to share who you are, and to live your life for the needs and sustenance of another. When Jesus and his disciples and the mother of Jesus went to a wedding at Cana in Galilee, it was a routine event of life. Weddings in the ancient Middle east, were not about the speaking of the Vows, or the sharing of the Kiss, or where they were going on a Honeymoon. Weddings were a six day long Feast of Celebration by the families for the world. To run out of food or drink, would be perceived as a lack of commitment from their family, a sign of scarcity, and possible end of love for the couple. We read how the Mother said to Jesus “They Have No Wine” then saying to the Servants, “Do whatever he tells you” and we react WHAT A JEWISH MOTHER! Here they are in public, and she is needling her son to do something, to fix the situation. We hear Jesus' reply to his Mother “WOMAN, WHAT HAVE YOU TO DO WITH ME. My Hour Has Not Yet Come!” And we think, HOW HARSH! But like God, Jesus is involved and pre-occupied with many important things, with his disciples, with being at the Wedding, he will not intercede unless called upon. The question of Jesus ability to turn WATER into WINE is not about MAGIC POWERS or How He DID It, but that this one who believed in him, believed he could do something. In the time of Slavery here is America, those who were bought and sold as slaves saw themselves as being like the Slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt. In the Spiritual “GO DOWN MOSES” they took the Biblical narrative of Moses pleading their case, and God setting the People free, as being their own story. The same had occurred for the Puritans leaving England. These saw crossing the ocean as being the crossing of the Red Sea and arriving in this new land as being the Promised Land, only to discover this was a wilderness. What occurs to me, is that Pharaoh's enslaving people, and all the occasions of oppression in our history are times of evil crushing people. And the plea, to set my people Free is a cry to God for compassion, for caring, to not forget. What also occurs to me, is how often we today overlook the miraculous. This week, in late January, in Upstate New York, the temperatures reached 60 degrees! This morning after the dark and grey, the skies are an iridescent blue. This morning gathered in this place, we do not forget those who are in crisis and in need. We know that the losses brought by Superstorms, as well as those from the death of children and neighbors we do not move on from and forget. Problems in our leadership and our economy, will not be fixed overnight, and must be corrected. SO let us name what needs to be named, but let us not only WHINE, let us change whining into sources of Sustenance and REFRESHMENT, recognizing the abundance, the super-abundance that comes from THIS BEING HIS BODY and HIS BLOOD, atoning for our loss and sin and believing in a new and EVERLASTING COVENANT.