Sermon for January 19

Sermon for January 19, 2024 Second Sunday of Epiphany

Gifts and Old Jars

Friends in Christ, Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our Gospel lesson today is about a wedding and an extravagant gift. Our second reading picks up on the theme of gifts. Our God is a gifting God.

First, the wedding. There was a wedding in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus and Jesus and his disciples were there. Weddings are joyous occasions and then, as well as now, they are wonderful excuses to have a party. In the first century, I have read that it was not too unusual to have a wedding party that would last for up to 7 days. That’s quite a party.

Now, our story tells us, halfway through the wedding, only on day 3, they run out of wine. This would be very embarrassing for the bridegroom. He didn’t plan ahead enough to serve his guests. This is a problem.

Jesus is nudged by his mother into solving the problem. Jesus is somewhat reluctant since he knows that solving the problem will reveal who he is or at least that he is from God. But he does step forward to put things to rights. He tells the servants to fill six large stone jars which usually held water for the Jewish rites of purification. These jars were big! Each one held 30 gallons. The servants filled the jars and, lo and behold, the water, when poured out, is tasted to be the very finest wine imaginable. Now, where there was a problem and scarcity, there is now extravagant abundance of 180 gallons of wine for one whing ding of a party! There is more than enough wine to last the rest of the wedding party. Jesus has provided more than what was needed.

This does indeed reveal that Jesus is not your usual wedding guest. Jesus, though, was not the only one active in this story. The servants trusted him and did what he told them to do and his disciples believed in him.

And what message is there in this story for you and me as we face a new year, new challenges in our lives, new opportunities, the situation here at Immanuel? Trust the giver, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Do what he calls us to do and believe in him.

Is it really that simple? And who are we in this story? Are we the jars in need of filling? The servants needing to listen to Jesus and follow his directions? The disciples who believe? Or are we the wine to be poured out for the benefit and joy of all? I believe the answer is ---yes, we have a role as all of those.

Well, let’s take a look at our second lesson of the day. Perhaps it will give us some help. Paul is writing to that fractious, devisive new church in Corinth. They are having trouble getting along with each other. They are fighting over who has the best gifts from God, who is the real Christian and what should they do with the gifts they are given.

This lesson is not talking about the gift of wine at a wedding but all the gifts we are given and what we are to do with them. And we are definitely not given gifts to fight about them.

Now, I am just your visiting pastor and I really don’t know you, though I have preached here once before. But I don’t know of a church anywhere, that has not had big disagreements about any number of things just like the church at Corinth. So I assume that is true here too, if not now, then in your past. If not then, it will be true in your future. It’s just the way we are. We have trouble getting along with one another. We have trouble with our differences. We have trouble recognizing and valuing our own and each other’s gifts. Sometimes we have trouble welcoming new and different gifts in our well established groups of friends.

In the beginning of the letter to the Corinthians, Paul blows his top in anger that they could be so petty and fractious, dividing themselves into this little group or that little group because of their history, specifically, their baptismal history, their ‘church” history. They had trouble living with their differences as Christians. In our passage for today, Paul has settled down a little and is explaining that there is one gift that is the most important. The one gift that is given by the Holy Spirit to everyone is to say, Jesus is Lord.

We are given the gift of the Holy Spirit in our baptism. That Holy Spirit grows in us and gives us the gift of being able to say, Jesus is Lord. To say “Jesus is Lord” is the universal gift of the Holy Spirit to all Christians. And here that was something we thought we did that all by ourselves. No. It is a gift.

And after that all our gifts are differences. There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

Why are we given all these different gifts? So we can get into arguments and fight? So we can gather together with those who think just like us and we can kick out people who don’t see things our way? Do we have a pure church of everyone who thinks, serves and acts like I do?

No, we are given our differences as gifts for the common good. Paul is bold enough here to say that we need each other and our very differences have a purpose for the common good of the church. The Holy Spirit gives us all gifts. As an old saying goes, “God don’t make no junk.” What’s more, no one person gets all the gifts, not even the pastor, especially not the pastor. Everyone is given gifts and all are important for the common good. Different gifts are given to all and all are needed. Diversity is not just politically correct. It is Spirit given and very Biblical.

Now, since I do not really know you, I don’t know what all your gifts are. But I am sure you have them, in abundance. You are a gifted people. Each one of you is a gifted person. And Jesus is still busy filling up your jars with wine, filling up each of you and your congregation with ever new and wide ranging gifts.

Now sometimes we need tools to recognize the gifts that are given. One of my favorite such tools is the Meyers Briggs Personality inventory. What I like best about it, is that it emphasizes that that each and every personality type is a gift. There are no bad personalities, just different ones. We need all the gifts and no one has them all but everyone has gifts simply in who they are. Sometimes that is a real eye-opener to those who take that test and learn a bit about it and how it applies both to them and to others around them and to our relationships with each other.

Another tool which is even more simple and equally powerful is a little exercise I remember doing in a Women of the ELCA group in a congregation many years ago. We played a little game of musical circles, sort of like musical chairs. Two circles of women, an inner circle and an outer circle moving in different directions when the music is going, stopped when the music stopped and faced each other. Then each person told the one opposite them what the gifts were they saw in them. It was a powerful thing to hear another person identify your gifts, some of which you did not know you had. Point of the game was to affirm each other and to identify for each other the gifts that were seen.

So – what are your gifts? Each one of you and as a congregation together? And how is Jesus filling your old jars with new gifts?

Is there some new gift God is developing in you? Some way of using your gifts you have never really considered? Have you been open to receiving new gifts, new people, new ideas, different, new ways of God working in you, through you, for you, for others?

The servants listened to Jesus. Listen to Jesus in prayer. And do what Jesus calls you to do and recognize new gifts that are given to you and to others.

We have been gifted by an incredibly generous God whose gifts come with abundance to accomplish all that we do for the common good. These gifts are not to be held in jars. These gifts are not to be held tightly in us. They are to be poured out for others, for the common good.

Look around to see the gifts already given to you. Recognize and affirm those gifts. And be ready for the new gifts God will give even when they are different gifts from what you expect or think you need. Receive the gifts of God and join together to use those gifts for the up-building of the community of faith and the up-building of the greater community around you. This is what our gifts are given for.

And celebrate! Jesus likes parties and celebrations. He even contributed enough wine for a 4 day party. Lutherans have all the right words to have a party but we seldom pull it off. Seldom do we find a way to be as celebrative and joyful as a 4-day wedding feast with 189 gallons of wine. We tend to focus on what we don’t have instead of the gifts already given.

When we look at what we don’t have its like running out of wine at the wedding. Right now you do not have a regularly called pastor. Sometimes, when a door is closed a window opens and new ways of doing things are found.

Are you the servants? What is Jesus asking you to do? How is Jesus trying to fill your old jars? Or is Jesus asking you to pour out your gifts as the servants poured out the wine?

We are gifted by God in a myriad of ways from our basic personalities, our histories, the world around us. And above all we are gifted by the extravagant love of Jesus who poured out his lifeblood to bring us God’s own love.

Oh Lord, Jesus, Open our jars, our hearts, our church to receive filling. Help us to listen to your directions and follow them. And open our jars, our hearts and our church to pour out your love. Then may we celebrate your gifts to us and our gifts from and to others.

Thanks be to God. Amen.