Consider your call...

The following sermon was preached on Sunday, August 27, 2017, for the ordination of Dr. Cambria Kaltwasser to the ministry of the Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.

A couple of weeks ago, I texted Cambria and asked her if she had any idea what scripture she would like for her ordination. I was preparing for a three month sabbatical from my pastorate at the Lawrence Road Church and I knew that, what with one thing and another and a pre-sabbatical to-do list that was merrily begetting baby to-do lists of its own, time was going to get short very quickly. 

So when Cambria wrote back and suggested this passage from 1 Corinthians, my first reaction was “Sweet!” I mean, easy peasy, how hard could it be. It’s an ordination sermon on a text where foolishness is featured prominently. Ministry. In the church. In 2017. Obvious foolishness. Done. 

Of course, when you pastor a church that sits smack dab in the middle of the hyper-aggressive secularity of the Northeast Corridor, a church sandwiched between the joblessness, poverty, crime, and racial unrest of Trenton to the south and the big estates, old money, and uber-privilege of Lawrenceville and Princeton to the north, the notion that the message about the cross is foolishness to pretty much the entire world is not exactly a newsflash. 

Those who study these things tell us that over 60% of millennials believe that Christians are a judgmental lot, while nearly 70% of young adults say that “anti-gay” best describes most churches today. I don’t need the Pew Research Institute or the Barna Group to tell me this. The one constant of my conversation with the brave souls engaged in youth ministry at my church is how to actually do the love of God, never mind the cross of Jesus Christ, in our current social and political environment when our youth have never heard of a loving God, when more than half the thirty or so teens and young adults who show up for Wednesday night dinner and fellowship don’t know if they were ever baptized, could care less than nothing about a Sunday School or church that has historically cared less than nothing about them, and are pretty much there for the free food.  

Ministry. Church. Obvious foolishness. Done. What with one thing and another and the state of the church in America and the world today, how hard could it be to put together an ordination sermon on 1 Corinthians 1:18-31?

Not hard at all, except for the fact that we’re here today to ordain a woman for whom the descriptor “foolish” would not be the first word that comes to mind, a woman wise by any standard, conversant in the language of the academy, a scholar who has been immersed for a decade in the accumulated theological and ecclesiological knowledge of the ages, both here as graduate and post-graduate student and abroad as a Fulbright scholar. And to top it off, not just a scholar, but a Princeton Seminary certified expert in the message about the cross Barth scholar, a newly minted doctor of the church. 

And, well, as it turns out, despite my best efforts, Cambria isn’t being ordained to a mission outpost in the secular wilds of urban New Jersey. God has called Cambria to Iowa, to  Northwestern College, a “…Christian academic community,” in the words of Northwestern’s mission statement, “engaging students in courageous and faithful learning and living that empowers them to follow Christ and pursue God's redeeming work in the world…and prepares them for fulfilling careers and faithful lives as thinking Christians.” 

As one of the Lawrence Road folks commented when he learned of Cambria’s call, it’s hard to get more inside baseball than that. Cambria will, by and large, take her place in a community of relatively like-minded Christians, teaching Christian young adults who have been raised in the church, millennials who unlike so many of their peers, are not unfamiliar with the message about the cross and the teachings of the church. 

And not for nothing, but it does not escape my notice that there are a lot of smart, wise, highly educated people gathered here who have a significant investment in all kinds of knowledge. I’ve been present at ordinations where the preacher managed, in the course of his sermon, to offend nearly every person present. Let me just say that as I approached this text today, I was not unmindful of the aggregate wisdom and learning that this beautiful college campus represents.

Because the truth is that although the church has historically used Paul to call out the myriads ways in which the wise of the world have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, this passage from 1 Corinthians is about as inside baseball as you can get.

Paul here is not all that concerned about outsiders to the faith. As much as we might like to make this about all the folks out there for whom the message about the cross is foolishness, this one’s written for us who believe, especially for us who believe who are gathered here today for a completely inside baseball rite of the church, especially for us who lead a Christian academic community, especially for us who lead the church of Jesus Christ, especially for you, Cambria, who after today will not only wear the mantle of doctor of the church, but also the stole of minister of the Word and Sacrament.

Paul has no illusions about the world and its wisdom. Paul sees clearly the world and its addiction to human knowledge and human power and the desire to control and dominate and oppress. Paul sees the world, the wise ones, the scribes, the debaters of this age, and he dismisses them with the wave of the hand as ones who are perishing. 

It’s us, the ones who are being saved, the believers, the called, us who claim to follow Jesus that Paul is worried about.

And not without reason. The message about the cross is foolishness because the way of the cross is hard and the world wants easy. The church of Jesus Christ wants easy. As my mom used to say, we want to have our cake and eat it too. 

We in the church want the comfort of our buddy Jesus while we clasp tight to our bosoms our teddy bears of prejudices and bigotry and violence, our love of military strength, our admiration for great wealth, and our exercise of unfettered and unquestioned privilege. We in the church proudly wave the rainbow flag of inclusion, of love of God and neighbor, and stand silently by as the alien and the stranger in our midst are shut out and banished. We in the church bask in God’s kindness, mercy, grace and forgiveness and call those who disagree with us sinful, bad, enemy, less than human, irredeemable and unforgivable. 

The church needs you, Cambria. I told you that ten years ago when you came to the Lawrence Road Church as part of Princeton Seminary’s teaching ministry program. It was true then and it is true now, now more than ever. The church needs you to remind us of what we the church are about on behalf of the world. The church needs you to remind us in the words of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the USA, that the church is …”called to undertake [its] mission even at the risk of losing its life, trusting in God alone as the author and giver  of life, sharing the gospel, and doing those deeds in the world that point beyond [itself] to the new reality in Christ.”  (Book of Order G-3.0400)  

We need you, Cambria, the church that you join today as a teaching elder. We need your clarity of vision, your unwavering focus on the cross of Christ and the ethical demands that the cross places on us who claim to follow Jesus. We need you to use the mind that God has given you, the education that you have worked so hard to claim, and the compassion and kindness and humility that are a gift from your family and in the power of the Holy Spirit part of your very nature. We need to use those things to teach and re-teach and teach once again the foolishness of a loving God to a church that is so tempted by human wisdom and human strength. 

And God will be with you. This is the core of a cross-centered faith, the foolishness of God made visible on Golgotha, the message about Christ and him crucified. God is with us. This is the promise of the cross, Cambria, for you as you ascend the mighty pulpit of academia to take up this awesome, fearsome calling for which God has been preparing you since before you were a twinkle in your daddy’s eye. God will be with you. When you walk into a classroom filled with 18-year olds who are not yet quite awake, God will be with you. When you speak truth to power, God will be with you. When you insist on Christ in a world that looks to culture, God will be with you. When the powers and principalities of this world are arrayed against you, and they will be, when life and death hit you in the face and knock you to the ground, when the work is hard and the words won’t come and you are most deeply and profoundly afraid, in exactly those moments and days and years, in exactly those places, God will be with you.  

In 1918, the summer that he wrote his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans and changed the face of theology forever, Karl Barth hung over his desk  copy of Grunewald’s Crucifixion. In it, John the Baptist stands alone, a bit diminished and a little ways off, a Bible open in one hand, the other hand pointing an incredibly long and bony finger towards the horribly crucified, dead Christ, strung up on the cross. Over the course of his long career, from his days as a young pastor until his death, Barth kept that painting where he could see it as he worked, referring to it over and over again in his writings. For Barth, as for John the Baptist, the call on his life was to be a faithful witness who could only point to Christ and him crucified. 

So it was, he wrote, the awesome and only task of the theologian and the church itself to point to a “wretched, crucified, dead man…[We] cannot,” Barth said, “and must not do more than this. 

But [we] can and must do this.” 

The church needs you, Cambria. We need you to tell us the truth. We need you to keep us honest and hold us accountable. We need you to keep us focused and proclaiming Christ crucified, the One who is the source of our life, who became for us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.  

This glorious day has been a long time coming, Cambria, but you’ve got this. The Lawrence Road folk are so proud of you and of what you’ve done. We are so hopeful for where you will lead us in the future. From your family in New Jersey and for them, too, I offer this. 

Lift high the cross, my friend. And keep on pointing to Jesus.

Details, details, details

“Try not to prepare for your vacation as you would for your own death.”

Several months ago, as sabbatical became a reality, I jokingly quoted this admonition from a New York Times article on how to ruin one’s time off. The gist of the article was that if one tries to prepare for everything that could possible happen while you are away, you will never relax enough to actually go away and have a good time.

Seems self-evident, doesn’t it? Obviously, enjoying time away from one’s job is a matter of letting go and trusting that one is not actually indispensable, that work will get done, timelines will be met, life will go on, the sun will rise and set. For someone like me whose work is ministry in the name of Jesus, that would be mean living out of the truth that it’s Christ’s church, Christ’s work, Christ’s beloved brothers and sisters – and that Christ will be present in all of it, even if I am not. That would mean trusting that Sunday will come and church will happen and hymns will get sung, prayers will be offered, holy hugs will be dispensed, and somebody will be standing in the pulpit come Sunday morning proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.

Easy-peasy, right? All I have to do is actually do what I say. Walk the walk, as they say, instead of just talking it. How hard can that be?

Well. For me, harder than you think. Or maybe you knew how hard it was going to be for me and it’s only me who has been surprised by the 2am bouts of anxiety.

About 18 months ago, the executive director of the English School at the Lawrence Road Church resigned. Jessica was the founder of the school and had led it for more than 12 years. It is not an overstatement to say that the school was her idea, the product of her creativity and imagination, the evidence of her dedication, her baby. So, hoping for a seamless transition, on her way out the door, she handed us a flash drive that contained, no joke, every detail and document, every procedure and protocol, every spreadsheet, pretty much everything that had crossed her desk in the 12 years of the school’s existence. In the months since then, it has become axiomatic that, whenever there is a question about the English School, someone will inevitably say: Check the flash drive…

So here’s the deal. I am surrounded by wonderful gifted people who make sure worship happens every week, not just now as sabbatical looms, but every week. I would put the Lawrence Road deacons up against anyone anywhere in the provision of compassionate, loving, and faithful pastoral care, not just now, but week in, week out. The church staff are at the top of their game, not just now when I will be away, but every day. Our ministry leaders lead—not just now, but always, not because they have to, but because God has called them to this and they are faithful ministers of Jesus Christ. I’m part of all that, but not indispensable to it.

And I know that. And what I’ve realized is that I’m not worried about worship or pastoral care or Christian Education or Properties or Finance or Outreach or Parish Life or any of that. Nope—my peeps have got that—and the love that God has given this congregation to share with one another and the community comes from a bottomless well. That love will carry them through.

What’s keeping me awake, my friends, is the undeniable fact that I’m the only one who knows where I hid the key to the supply closet. And my sweet husband, who will be on sabbatical from the church, too, may well be the only person living who knows how to turn on the ancient steam boiler that heats the sanctuary.

So I’m pulling a page from Jessica’s book. The Lawrence Road folk have the Jesus stuff covered. But if anyone needs the code to the sanctuary router, check the flash drive.

John 11 Grace Unbound

There once was young man in the prime of his life. My goodness, he was something. All you had to do was ask him and he would tell just exactly how something, something he was.

Mind you, not everything in this young man’s life was roses. He didn’t think so anyway. All you had to do was ask him and he would tell you just exactly how hard his life was. You see, he had a brother who was kind of a tool. All he did was work all day and then come home, eat, and go to bed. The next day, his brother would be up at dawn, work all day, come home and eat, and go to bed. The next day, well, you get the picture. It was hell living with his brother. Seriously, a living hell of uber-responsibility and boredom.

And then of course, there was the young man’s father. Everyone thought the old man was a prince, a king, a king of kings even. He was honest, loving, generous, and really, really healthy. Disaster, thought the young man. The old guy is too good to get himself killed by accident and too healthy to die anytime soon. I’m stuck here, the glorious, gorgeous, madly in love with himself young man thought. Stuck here in Nowhere Town with the brother from hell and the utterly divinely wonderful father who won’t get out of my way. What is an up and coming prime specimen of man like myself supposed to do?

And so the young man determined his plan to take charge of his life, to make himself into the man he always knew that he was destined to be. He would ditch the tool, snitch the old man’s money, the money that ought to be his, that would be his one day anyway, and he would run like the dickens toward the lights of the city and the life he knew should be his. And in that moment, the young man began to die.

Life was pretty fabulous in Somewhere Town. The up and coming young man had everything he could want, everything his father’s generosity, his father’s money, could buy. He had the cool leather jacket, the Ray-Ban shades, the cherry red Lamborghini. He had a different girl every night. He had the best tables at the best restaurants and the best wine to drink while he waited—not very long because of course he was really really cool and up and coming—for the very best of the best food.

Life was really really good—until one morning, the up and coming young man stuck his debit card in the ATM and was rewarded with the blue screen of death flashing: Insufficient funds…Insufficient funds…Insufficient funds. Well, how could that be? He had tons of money. He tried again…Insufficient funds…Insufficient funds. Well, OK. Fine. I’ll just use my credit cards. Denied. Denied. Denied. The fancy hotel kicked him out. The car was repossessed. The girls politely declined. And the maître d sneered. And he died just a little more.

He was hungry. Very, very hungry. So hungry that the slop he gave the pigs looked – well, a little tasty. Every the banana peels and the orange rinds and the leftover heels of the bread looked a little more appetizing. Until one morning, as he munched on a potato skin spread with lovely coffee grounds, he came to himself. Even my father’s slaves have better food to eat than this. Perhaps if I just apologize, perhaps if I throw myself on my father’s mercy, perhaps if I promise never, ever to be such a dumb apple ever, ever again, perhaps my father will let me sleep in the barn and eat a little of the leftovers from the table. I am as good as dead. I will go home before I die. And so, the very down on his luck, nearly dead, and oh so dirty young man crawled and hobbled his way toward home.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch….the older brother fumed. As if his life of incessant work, work, work hadn’t been bad enough, now, when he finally gets done working and comes home, just looking for a little peace and quiet, he has to deal with the sounds of his father’s weeping, the sight of his father’s grief. For crying out loud, that no good son of his father was gone. Why could nobody else see what a good thing that was? Why were all the neighbors standing around the yard, weeping and wailing, sitting in the parlor, eating them out of house and home? What was his father thinking to mourn so long and so hard for someone who had treated the both of them so badly?

My son is dead, his father cried. My son, whom I love is dead. And, as the older brother stormed from the house in anger, he did not know, he could not see, just how dead he was, too.

And then one night, as the father stood at the gate deeply disturbed in his soul and weeping for love of his sons, he saw far off in the distance his beloved younger boy. The father, filled with compassion, ran to him, threw his arms around him and kissed him, shouting as he went, “Celebrate! Kill the fatted calf! This son of mine was lost and is found; he was dead and now he is alive! And so the neighbors and friends and servants—and even the animals in the yard—jumped for joy, praising God and giving thanks.

But the elder son stood in the dark. My son, beloved son, come out of the dark, the father called. Why should I, the son shouted back. I’d hate to interrupt all the fun—who needs me at a party for that son of yours? I need you, the father called. I love you. I cannot bear to lose you. Come—out of the dark.

That’s the invitation. That’s the gift that is waiting for each one of us. That’s the call that God desires above all else to place upon our lives and our deaths. Come out of the dark. Live. Let go of all that binds you, all that holds you in the grip of deathliness. Let go and let God give you the gift of life. That is the invitation that drew the younger son home. That is the invitation that called Lazarus from the grave. That is the invitation we hear through the darkness that so often surrounds us.  I love you. You are mine. Come—out of the dark.

We want to take this story of Lazarus and consign it to the ash heap of history or worse yet, to myth, to airy tale. That was then, we say, when people were less sophisticated and wise than we are, when modern medicine hadn’t made the difference between death and deep unconsciousness or coma so clear. This is now when we all know better. We want to say that dead is dead and therefore, if Lazarus even existed, he couldn’t possibly have been actually dead, or, in the words of that great philosopher Monty Python, a definitely deceased ex-human being. We want to claim either a rational explanation for Lazarus’ amazing comeback—or else that the incident didn’t happen at all—but was merely a metaphor for the rejuvenating effect of Jesus’ charismatic personality on the people who followed him.

Of course, that’s what we want to do. Because if we were to allow God this type of power, the power to roll back the stone, to call us forth from the grave, to command sin and death to unbind us and let us go, if we were to admit that the miracle of life rests in the hands of our holy God, then all of our excuses for remaining in the grave would be seen for just that, excuses to stay dead when we could be enjoying life abundant and giving thanks to God. If we were to admit this kind of power to our God, then standing outside in the dark and refusing to come in to God’s marvelous light would be shown for the stubborn sinful stupidity that it is.

This is what I believe. This is what I have seen over and over again in the lives of God’s living saints, in your lives and in mine. This is what I know to be true. God has the power to stand before the open grave of our lives and command the demons of sin and brokenness and death to unbind us and let us go. God can do this—because God has done it. The younger son was restored to life. Lazarus came forth from the grave. Jesus the only Son of God rose from death into new and eternal life. God can do this. God can do this for you and for me and for all the saints who have gone before and for the saints who are yet to walk the earth. God can throw open the gates of hell. God can call forth the living from the dead. God can defeat the power that death continues to hold over us. God can because God has.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the stone has been rolled away from the grave. The lost have been found. The dead have been restored to life. The party is on and we are all invited. Come out of the dark and rejoice.

John 8:1-11 That Woman

Go your way and from now on do not sin again.

There are days when I am delighted that this story of the woman caught in adultery is written in brackets in my bible (NRSV). On those days, I find it comforting that the authenticity of this story is suspect enough that translators have separated it from the rest of the text. Because on those days I don't much like this story.

I hate the premise of the story, the fact that this woman was caught in the "very act" of committing adultery. I have visions of a bunch of peeping Toms sneaking around outside her window waiting for the clothes to come off. Yuck. The fact that Jesus gives this nonsense a minute of his time is beyond distasteful. 

Then, there's the small matter that unless this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery all by herself, there's someone missing here. I want to know where the woman's partner is and I keep waiting for Jesus to want to know that, too.

And then, of course, there's the whole mercy thing. I hate that this might be what unconditional grace looks like, because there are days when what Jesus does here feels pretty darned conditional to me. "I do not judge you...but don't do it again." Which, some days, sounds like a not terribly subtle threat—you better watch out, you better not sin, 'cause mercy may not come this way again any time soon.

There are days when I am delighted that this story of the woman caught in adultery is cordoned off with brackets in my bible. Because it is, and because its authenticity is therefore questionable, I can disregard this piece of John’s good news as no good news at all, and I can ignore the claim it makes on my life. If it's not really a Jesus story, then it doesn't really apply...to me...right?

I attended a Baptist seminary. Conversion stories, personal salvation narratives, were big there, the coin of the realm. Being a Presbyterian, I didn't have one. Presbys tend to answer the "When were you saved?" question, with "2000 years ago on Calvary." Yes, it's a snotty answer, but, hey, any port in a storm, right?

This time the question that came was a little different. Not so much when, but why. Why were you saved? Having the whole "2000 years ago on Calvary" thing ready to go, the question threw me for a loop. "Why?" I asked, playing for time. "Ummmm, because...Jesus...loves me, this I know???"

Well, yes. Jesus does love us. Enough to save our sorry selves from the mess we sinners make of our lives, over and over again. And that is grace. 

But my seminary questioner was right, too. Mercy, grace, salvation ought to make a difference. Paul says that anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. To be given mercy, to receive grace, to be saved, is a second chance to be a new creation.....or a third, or a fourth, or a fifth...to be different, to live free, to go and sin no more. 

Grace upon grace, mercy upon mercy, never-ending, new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. It changes you, if you'll let it.

 Go your way, and from now on do not sin.

Mercy, grace, a second chance. Here's hoping that, someplace down the line, the woman's partner had the sense to take the same deal.

What Mary did... John 2:1-11

One of the hardest things a parent ever does is to leave her child in someone else’s care for the very first time. For some, it’s handing a three page list of instructions to the babysitter (who may well be a grandma or grandpa, who raised 12 children of their own – but still!) and walking out the door. For some, it’s checking the diaper bag for the fortieth time as the baby goes to daycare. For some, it’s waving at the hind end of the school bus as it pulls away from the curb.  For me, it was the first day of nursery school.

You see, there’s this little dance that happens. Moms and dads with brave smiles frozen on their faces arrive with little ones held firmly, and I do mean firmly, by the hand. As they enter the building, there is much encouraging chatter – “You’ll have a great time – you’ll see.” “Your teacher is so nice, you’ll love her and she will love you.” “Daddy will be right back, I promise.” It’s a little hard to tell who is trying to convince whom that everything will be all right.

Finally the moment comes and the teachers with firm but pleasant smiles begin to move the parents to the exits. One last hug and the door to the classroom swings shut. But do the parents leave? Well, some do, the ones with six more children, all older. But most just stand around in the hallway or outside on the grass, chatting, pretending to themselves that they could leave, and will, when they've finished catching up with old friends. They are the ones who listen to each other with only one ear, the other tuned in to a frequency that only they can hear, the sound of their child’s voice. And then, there are the ones like me who had no shame at all and simply sneaked back to the window to take one more little peek just to make sure.  

Eventually, even I got in my car and drove home. At some point, you have to put it in the hands of the Lord and walk away. 

But that kind of trust comes very hard for us in this culture in this time and place. In agriculture economies, those who live off the soil know from their earliest days that there is a great deal over which they have no control. You can toil from dawn to dusk – but hailstorms and clouds of locust, drought and dust, frost and famine still come, crops still fail, and sometimes nothing can stop that. In the technologically advanced West, however, we have been brought up on the cultural myth that our destinies are within our power to control. Deeply ingrained in our collective psyche is the belief that there is no problem that humankind faces that does not have a solution; we may not have the solution in our hands yet, but make no mistake, the solution is out there waiting for some Louis Pasteur, some Thomas Edison, some Alfred Nobel, some Bill Gates to discover it. In fact, sociologists tell us that one of the great difficulties of Western life post-9/11 is facing up to the sudden realization that there may in fact be threats to our security and way of life that we cannot, in all times and places, control. As one New York City security chief has so famously said, “We are always in the process of defending ourselves against the last threat.”

We have a lot to learn from the mother of Jesus, Mary. Present in the home where a wedding celebration is being held, she realizes the wine is all gone. She turns to her son, Jesus, who is also there, along with his disciples, and says, quite simply, “They have no wine.” Jesus wiffle/waffles around a bit, distancing himself from the problem, the place, the time, even his mother’s implied demand, but his mother never flinches. She knows her son, she knows where he came from, she knows what the God who gave him to her can do, and she believes.

So many of us, western Protestants, in particular, have problems with the mother of Jesus.  Too passive, we say. Too classically female, always just standing around taking what’s handed out to her, waiting to be filled up by the Holy Spirit like a car at the gas station. We like Peter or Paul much better – the men of action, rushing here and there, baptizing, building, preaching, making things happen. 

But we have much to learn from this woman, Mary, who does not wait for the actions of others but intentionally and with purpose rests her life and the life of the son whom she loves in the hands of God. Far from being passive, hers is, next to Jesus’ own, perhaps the most active faith in view in the New Testament. We have much to learn from Mary about who God is and what God can do.

The question is:  Can you and I live as she does? Can we lay down our need to control, our need to follow an agenda that we set, our need to provide for ourselves in all things, and say to the Lord, “Let it be with me according to your will?” Do we have the energy, the perseverance in prayer, the openness of spirit to trust not only that our Shepherd will supply our need in the big things of life, but that even when the wine runs out, the Word made flesh can and will provide? Can we live as Mary did, as visible signs of God’s glory in the world, pointing always to the One who came into the world that we might receive grace upon grace upon grace upon grace?

It doesn’t seem like much of a problem, does it, that Mary hands over to her son? The wine ran out – big deal. Go to the liquor store; plan better next time. Even Jesus doesn’t seem entirely sure up front that a lack of wine for the wedding feast meets the criterion for the in-breaking of God’s grace to the natural ordering of the universe.

But no God-in-a-little-box for Mary. Mary is sure. Whatever the need, Mary is sure that the God of abundance will provide. She knows this God intimately for she has experienced God’s abundant grace in her own life and has seen God with her own eyes active and present in Jesus. For Mary, God has made a baby where there was no baby; God has made a way where there was no way. Mary knows that Jesus is God’s son as much as her own and that with God all things, even the impossible, are possible. And so she turns to the servants and speaks profoundly out of her own experience, “Do whatever he tells you.”

And suddenly, where once there were only six stone water jars, now there was wine, the best wine, more wine, much, much more wine than was needed, wine flowing like water, blessing the disciples, the guests, the bridegroom, even the snooty wine steward, with the intoxicating taste of God’s amazing grace, precious wine poured out eternally as a gift and a sign pointing straight to the heart of God. Once where there were only empty lifeless stone jars, now there was abundant life – grace upon grace upon grace upon grace.

The question is: Can we do what Mary does? 

Can we live this way? Can we stop thinking that God’s amazing grace is either the result of our own hard work or some kind of a hocus-pocus hit-the-lottery kind of trick? Can we lay down what we think we know of the way the universe is ordered and believe against all evidence to the contrary that God is in the business of doing the impossible, turning water into wine every day, quietly, miraculously, astonishingly supplying the need of a hungry, thirsty, broken world?

Can we live the faith of Mary? Can you and I live as she does? Can we lay down our need to control, our need to follow an agenda that we set, our need to provide for ourselves in all things, and say to the Lord, “Let it be with me according to your will?” Do we have the energy, the perseverance in prayer, the openness of spirit to trust not only that our Shepherd will supply our need in the big things of life – but that even when the wine runs out, the Word made flesh can and will provide? Can we live as Mary did, as signs of God’s glory in the world, pointing always to the One who came into the world that we might receive grace upon grace upon grace upon grace?

It’s time and past time to stop worrying that we’re running short of wine. It’s time and past time to stop putting God into a little box that has no room for the miraculous, time to stop proclaiming that this and only this is what God can and will do. It’s time that we took a look at the stone water jars of our lives and trust the God of abundance to fill them up and refill them and fill them again. Grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. Jesus did this, the first of his signs in Cana in Galilee and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. 

The question is:  Do we?