Pay Attention

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

January 20, 2019

2 Epiphany/Annual Meeting

          When I am asked about my favorite television shows, I have to confess that other than Downtown Abbey and Call the Midwife, I haven’t had a favorite TV show in probably 30 years.  We just don’t watch much TV at our house.  But what I do love watching will probably come as no surprise to you: royal weddings and presidential funerals.  The choreography of music, liturgy, acolytes and servers, bride and groom or in the case of a funeral, casket, family and friends, all fascinate me.  When done well, all of the parts and people come together effortlessly (although I do know better) to honor the love being celebrated-whether wedding or funeral, and worship our God who makes that love possible.

          Funerals and weddings at Christ Church invoke that same sense of awe in me as many, many people come together to celebrate a life and worship God.  From ushers to acolytes, readers, chalice bearers, and perhaps additional clergy, to Mario and perhaps the choir and other musicians, to all those who make cookies and sandwiches, set up, serve, and clean for the reception, to those who hold the family in prayer, many people with many different gifts and skills go into celebrating love and worshiping God.  That, by the way, is not unlike a Bishop’s visit!

          When I hear Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians this morning, I am reminded of all the ministries here which require the whole body of Christ to offer their gifts so that the body of Christ can function.  Paul reminds us that there are a variety of gifts, services, and activities, but the same Spirit activates them all in all of us.  That means that whether you make sandwiches or preach for a funeral, or whether you help shop for supplies or teach at Vacation Bible School, the Holy Spirit is working through you and when each one of us allows the Holy Spirit to work through us, incredible ministry beyond our imagination can happen.

          This morning, we also see Jesus take a vast amount of water and turn that water into the best wine of the party.  Jesus is not the original party animal here, making sure that that the wine vats never go empty.  What Jesus has done is reveal his glory by taking something ordinary, water, and turning it into something holy, wine.  Jesus has taken scarcity and turned that scarcity into abundance.  Jesus has taken the expectation that the good wine would be served first and turned that expectation upside down.  Early in John’s gospel, Jesus is already revealing the Kingdom of God which makes the ordinary holy, where scarcity is turned into abundance, and where the expectations of this world are turned upside down and inside out. 

          Jesus calls us to do the same.  The only problem is that we are not Jesus.  But we are the Body of Christ, which means none of us is expected to do this Kingdom work alone, but we are all expect to do this work together.  Together, using all of our gifts, we reveal God’s glory to the world whether by working to transform a neighborhood at First Serve with our interfaith brothers and sisters, or touch the lives of our children and other children in the community through Vacation Bible School, or lift up the power of God’s love through a wedding or funeral.  Our challenge as a church this coming year and all years is to let the Holy Spirit work through us, together, to make the ordinary holy, to create abundance where the world sees scarcity, and to turn the expectations of the world upside down.  That work can be messy and we won’t always agree on how to go about the work.  But the Holy Spirit will work even through messiness and disagreement if we let her.  The church in Corinth to which Paul wrote was hardly a model of like minded people always getting along and cheerfully going about the work of Jesus’.  Quite the opposite is true.  They were arguing about who had the more superior gifts, who had the better baptism, who got to go through the line first at church suppers.  The reason Paul wrote the words that we heard this morning was to remind the Corinthians that there is one Spirit that activates all the gifts and no gift is superior to another.  All gifts are needed for the Body of Christ to do her work in the world.

          This weekend, we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was one person who gave his life to the effort to end racism in this country.  But even Dr. King did not work alone and knew that the gifts and courage of many, many people were required to make this country a place of equal opportunity for all people, regardless of race.  One person boycotting a bus or sitting at the counter at Woolworth was not going to be enough.  The letter from the Birmingham jail called on all clergy to join King’s work and held them accountable for failing in their responsibility to do so.  Making the future Kingdom of God that both the prophets and Jesus describe a present reality requires a movement, not just a person. 

          On Annual Meeting Sunday, we are called to see where, as a parish, God is calling us to make the ordinary holy, to turn scarcity into abundance, and to turn the expectations of the world upside down.  Where in our community and the world around us is God already doing that work and asking us to bring our many gifts and join in that work?  From the first Interfaith Thanksgiving service in a long while, to opening our doors as a warming station for the Frosty 5 race on Christmas Eve, to having a presence at Community Day at the Farmers’ Market and a booth at the Ice Cream Social on the Green, we were looking to see where we could make the ordinary holy, transform scarcity into abundance, and turn people’s expectations about church upside down.  In planning those events, we were looking to see what God might be up to in the neighborhood and join with God in that work with all the gifts and skills we have as our part of the Body of Christ. 

          The last line of our gospel reading is this: “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”  Mary Oliver, the poet who died last week, has a poem that sums up for me the disciples’ response to Jesus’ work at the wedding at Cana and God’s call to us as we go about doing similar work.  The poem is “Instructions for Living a Life”.

Instructions for living a life

Pay Attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it. 

Let us pay attention to the work God is calling us to do.  Be astonished at what we can accomplish when all of us use our gifts together.  Then tell about it so that the glory of God is revealed beyond these walls.

Amen.