So Shall God Rejoice Over You

A Sermon for January 20, 2013 (Epiphany 2, RCL C)

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for The Church of Saint Mary

Texts:             Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 36:5-10; John 2:1-11

Primary Message:  God’s will is for loyalty, fidelity, holy love in every relationship

Call to Action:          Practice holy, Christ-like love in all relationships

Title:               So Shall God Rejoice Over You

“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 God rejoice over you” (Isaiah 62:5).

My dear friends in Christ: each one of us is called to live faithfully as God’s covenant people.

The season of Epiphany has traditionally centered upon three stories in which the glory of our Lord Jesus was manifested in tangible ways:

-at his baptism in the river Jordan, at the transfiguration on Mount Tabor, and here, at a wedding reception in the small village of Cana.

Marriage is important in the Bible, as a way of ordering relationships and also as a metaphor for the relationship between God and the people of God.

And, as we all know, marriage is an important topic today within our society and within the church.

  

Let’s talk about marriage this morning, and let’s begin with a little research.

For most of you, I’ll bet that it’s been a number of years since you’ve been at an Episcopal wedding. So please pick up a Prayer Book. Share with your neighbor, if needed. Turn to Page 423 where we will find the liturgy called The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage.

This liturgy begins with the traditional greeting which goes as follows:

Dearly beloved: We have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman in Holy Matrimony.  The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation, and our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee.  It signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church, and Holy Scripture commends it to be honored among all people.

Did you catch that part in the middle about the wedding at Cana? “Our Lord Jesus Christ adorned this manner of life by his presence and first miracle at a wedding.”

At a wedding, we gather together to witness and to bless a new covenant made in love.

But what does it mean to bless such a relationship? In fact, what is it that we do when we bless anything? What does that actually mean?

My soon-to-be brother priest, Kevin Kinsey, who serves the parishes in Aroostook County, told me just the other day that St. Luke’s parish in Caribou is getting a much-needed new furnace. And so the parish is planning to gather soon in order to bless that new furnace.

Well, what does that actually mean? I’ve heard of the blessing of firetrucks and motorcycles and boats. I myself have been asked to bless horses and dogs and rosaries and Bibles and houses. And, you may remember, that there are many times when we are called on, in fact, to bless God, especially in the Psalms. “Bless the Lord, O my soul” (Psalm 104:1)

What does it mean for us to bless something, or someone, or even God? What is this act of blessing?

The Church recently published a new theological resource which seeks to answer questions such as this, and to provide some framework in which to understand the blessing of a committed relationship. (I Will Bless You and You Will Be a Blessing: Liturgical Resources 1) 

This book explains the Church’s act of blessing as a threefold-action in which we join in God’s work of blessing the world.

First, we acknowledge and give thanks for the grace of God which is already present.  You and I, the Church as a whole – we can never create God’s grace. We do not manufacture grace: we notice it, we acknowledge it, we recognize it, and we give thanks for it. The act of blessing never creates something which is not already there. 

A number of the early church fathers suggested that when Christ turned the water into wine, what he did was to recognize the grace already present in that gift of water, and to release it to attain its full potential!

So it is with us at all times. The grace of God always precedes anything that we do. The first aspect of blessing, then, is always thanksgiving and praise that God has been at work in this place, in these people, before we ever arrived.

The second movement of blessing is to ask. Jesus taught us very clearly that asking is at the core of a healthy heart and life. “Ask and it will be given to you” (Matthew 7:7). When we bless someone or something, we ask that this object or these persons might continue on as bearers and channels of God’s grace.

What do people ask for when they bless a new furnace? That the darn thing keeps on working, doing what it is supposed to do! What do we ask for when we bless the Lord? That God will continue to be God: pouring out goodness upon the world graciously and generously.

What do we ask for when we bless a couple uniting themselves to each other with vows of life-long faithfulness? That, through the agency of the other, each one might be enabled to attain their full potential, to be fully and completely who God has created them to be!  That together they may be more Christ-like than they ever could be alone.

The third aspect of blessing is the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to bear witness to Christ in the world. “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him” (John 2:11). There is always an outward dimension to blessing. We receive a blessing ONLY in order that we might give a blessing to others. As disciples, we are called to bear the fruit of the Spirit. But fruit is created  to be eaten! It must be eaten in order to pass on the seed. This is how fruit is meant to work.

My friends, as we talk together about the marriage in the days to come, and we discuss the act of blessing people, I pray that we all remember what it means to bless something or someone. It is about recognizing the grace of God, asking for that grace to continue, and going out to bear the fruits of the Spirit.

Notice, please, that there are no pre-requisites to this act of blessing. 

Kevin Kinsey up in Caribou is not going to check on the type of furnace before he blesses it! I don’t only bless certain types of houses, or crosses made only of certain materials. When the priest offers the blessing from the Altar at the end of the Eucharist, it is offered to all: those who received communion, and those who chose not to do so; those who trust in Jesus Christ, and those who are not ready to do so; those with knowledge and understanding of Scripture and the ways of God, and those who are without.

When we bless a couple who are standing before God and the people of God in order to make vows of life-long faithfulness, the gender of those making such vows is irrelevant. First, we acknowledge that God has already given to these people an abundance of grace. The very fact that two people are willing to stand up and publicly make vows of mutual love and care until they are parted by death means that God has already moved in their lives with grace and power!

We recognize that, we acknowledge it as a miracle, and we ask for it to continue. 

In the year 2000, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church (General Convention website), passed a resolution which identified the following characteristics of what the Church has always, and will always, expect of couples in a committed, covenant relationship:

“fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful [and] honest communication, and the holy love that enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God” (Liturgical Resources 1: p.24).

A relationship that bears such godly fruit is worthy of our blessing. The challenge today for all of us here at Saint Mary’s, and in the Church as a whole, is not to defend our tradition of marriage, but to live it! To practice it! To make it a reality!

Not all of us are called to live within this kind of covenant. St. Paul famously declared his opinion that the single, celibate life is the best path in which we can serve God (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:32-35). Not all are called to live in a special covenant relationship, but we are all called to live faithfully as God’s covenant people. 

This is what matters: to love God and to love our neighbor, to trust in the free gift of grace through Jesus Christ, and to bear witness to that love in all of our thoughts, words and deeds. 

May it always be so among us here. Amen.

Gave Himself for Me

Sermon for Proper 6 C RCL 6/13/2010, Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: 1 Kings 21:1-10, 15-21a; Psalm 5:1-8; Galatians 2:15-21; Luke 7:36-8:3

I must confess to you that I truly love the stories of the prophet Elijah, that feisty and fiery man of God who was fearless and brave and filled with the Spirit of God. Throughout the summer, we will be hearing the stories of his life and of the life of his successor, the prophet Elisha. If you have not read these stories in a long time, or perhaps ever before, let me strongly encourage you to pick up your Bible at some quiet point over the course of this summer, and read through the 2 Books of Kings, 1st and 2nd Kings. These books might not be quite as saucy as the mystery thriller or bodice-ripper novel that you are eyeing up for the beach, but these ancient stories and rich and deep and offer much in the way of intrigue and insight.

Without question, Elijah is one of the most important figures in the whole of the Bible. Today, we see him in his characteristic role of speaking truth to power, serving as the conscience of the powerful, to remind them that they have a duty to protect the innocent and to serve justice within the community.

More specifically, Elijah was called and commissioned by God to controvert the wickedness of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. In a very real way, his calling was direct and personal. God knew the thoughts and desires of Ahab, and knew the scheming greed of Jezebel, and sent Elijah to protect the innocent who stood in their path.

After all, God is the one “to [whom] all hearts are open, all desires know, and from [whom] no secrets are hid” (BCP P. 355).

In the Gospel of Luke, we are today presented with a woman very different from Queen Jezebel: the anonymous sinner, a woman of the city, who wept at Jesus’ feet, seemingly for no other reason but for the great love and compassion that she felt when he was near.

Both of these stories point to the direct and personal nature of God’s interactions with us. It is not enough to consider the gracious salvation that God offers to humanity in the abstract, and to give thanks for God’s actions with a detached sense of gratitude. With God, there is no abstract.

Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” It is the same with us today: Jesus has something to say to me, to you, something direct and personal to the state of our hearts today. We must open ourselves and allow the word of the Lord to our hearts directly and with immediate effect.

Like the woman of the city, we have to come to Jesus himself. This Christian life that we are leading: it is always direct and personal. It is never indirect and theoretical.

We are called to come to Jesus, the living Christ who loves you and gave himself for you. This is the same message that we hear in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Commenting on this letter of the apostle, the great St. John Chrysostom, the Bishop of Constantinople in the 4th century, spoke these words in one of his homilies:

"What are you doing, Paul, making common things your own, and claiming for yourself what was done on behalf of the whole world? For he says not [the Son of God] “who loved us” but “who loved me”…Burning with desire toward [Christ], [Paul] utters this. ..He shows that each of us ought to render as much thanks to Christ as though Christ had come for him alone. For God would not have withheld this gift even from one person. [God] has the same love for every individual as for the whole world.”

This is the peculiar distinctiveness of the Christian Church. It is not commitment to an ideal that brings us together, like a political party or philosophical club. It is our personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and our personal relationships with one another.

There is so much misunderstanding about this in the world around us. Just a few weeks back, I received a phone call that displays this perfectly. Haven gotten my cell number from the Church of the Ascension voicemail, a woman called me and asked, “Yeah, I’d like to know, Pastor, does your church do weddings?” You know, that’s a pretty odd question, I think. So I said, “Yes, we bless the marriages of our people in our church. Yes, that is what we do. And who, may I ask, is calling?” She quickly replied, “Oh, I am calling for my mother-in-law. But we’re not church-goers. We believe in God but we don’t attend any church right now.”

Well, I thought at that moment, if that’s the case, then why bother with getting married in the church at all? I didn’t say it this time, but my usual response is, “Well, my friend, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. If you’d like to join the church and learn more about Jesus, then I’d be glad to talk with you about getting married in the church. Otherwise, you’re putting the cart before the horse.”

Think about it, my friends: to say that you believe in God but will not be part of a church community is exactly like saying you believe in marriage but are not willing to be married! You like the idea of being married but you are not willing to make the direct and personal commitment to another particular human being, which is what marriage is all about! It's like saying you believe in education but are not willing to ever enter a classroom! Like saying you believe in the practice of medicine but are unwilling to consult with a trained doctor!

Likewise, many people like the idea of God, but they have no plan to invest in a direct and personal relationship with Jesus, and so they are not ready or willing to make the commitment to be part of what God is actively doing in the world by joining together in the fellowship of the church.

But what really matters in life is not the abstract ideas in your head, but the practical, real-life, daily living with others, working together to do something important, to be something important, to live in a loving relationship with Jesus and with those others who have been baptized into his family.

This is why in reality I cannot be a Christian if I am unconnected to the Body of Christ! For then I am an orphan, cut off from my natural family. Then I am a Christian in an abstract sense only, but not in any sense that is real or meaningful.

And that is why I say over and over again that there is no such thing as Christianity. That abstract idea doesn’t exist. But what does exist is a real-life person, Jesus Christ, who is in relationship with real-life human beings, who gather together to love one another and to serve the poor, to worship and to learn. What does exist is concrete and tangible real: it is Jesus and his church.

What about you? How has Jesus spoken to you directly? Can you join with St. Paul in his passionate affirmation of what Christ has done in his heart?

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:19).

May it be so among all of us who are called by the name of Christian. Amen.