Jan. 18, 2004

Epiphany 2

John 2:1-11 (NLT)

The next day Jesus' mother was a guest at a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration. The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus' mother spoke to him about the problem. "They have no more wine," she told him.

"How does that concern you and me?" Jesus asked. "My time has not yet come."

But his mother told the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

Six stone waterpots were standing there; they were used for Jewish ceremonial purposes and held twenty to thirty gallons each. Jesus told the servants, "Fill the jars with water." When the jars had been filled to the brim, he said, "Dip some out and take it to the master of ceremonies." So they followed his instructions.

When the master of ceremonies tasted the water that was now wine, not knowing where it had come from (though, of course, the servants knew), he called the bridegroom over. "Usually a host serves the best wine first," he said. "Then, when everyone is full and doesn't care, he brings out the less expensive wines. But you have kept the best until now!"

This miraculous sign at Cana in Galilee was Jesus' first display of his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

Sermon: In Defense of Marriage

In light of this Gospel reading, I suppose we need to talk about marriage today. Marriage is under fire today in America. Right here in New Jersey the Assembly recently passed a law that moves us one step closer to changing the definition of both marriage and family. This law creates a new category, “domestic partners.” And it extends to these domestic partners many of the same benefits now reserved to marriage. For example, this law will require insurance companies to begin offering domestic partners the same coverage as married couples, allows a surviving partner to gain property rights and other survivor’s benefits, and it will require a divorce-like proceeding in order to end a domestic partnership.

Many people are not even aware that it happened. Many more people ask, “What’s the big deal?” Why not let people make their own definition of marriage? So what if little Johnny has two dads, or Suzie has two moms? And so what if you call it a marriage, or a domestic partnership? Whose business is it anyway?

Whose business is it? According to the Bible it’s God’s business, and that makes it everyone’s business- married, single, celibate, divorced, remarried, or just plain scared to death of the very idea of trying to make that kind of commitment to another person. No matter who you are you have a stake in this because it is part of the whole fabric of God’s creation, and all of us are part of that.

This is a great Gospel reading that we have today. Jesus launches His ministry of signs and wonders, where? There are so many places He could have chosen for this great moment of Epiphany, the showing forth of His identity, His power. Where might you have chosen? In the courtyard of the great Temple, the center of religion? No. On the steps of Pontius Pilate’s governing hall, the seat of political power? No. In the marketplace, the first century shopping mall, and center of commerce? No.

He performs His first miracle at, of all places, a wedding, and the reason for the miracle is marvelously practical. Not some hyped up ego trip carefully choreographed for the maximum media coverage, but a quiet, simple act of kindness to supply enough wine for the wedding guests to have a proper celebration of the happy occasion- the beginning of a new family.

When Donna and I attended the AAC meeting in Virginia last week, Kendall Harmon made an important point about the Bible. He said that from beginning to end the Bible is a book about marriage. It starts with Adam and Eve, it continues with God marrying Himself to the people of Israel, the prophets constantly using the language of courtship and marriage to describe God’s love for His people. It continues with Jesus celebrating family life, preaching the Sermon On The Mount, the strongest message ever preached on the sanctity of marriage. And it ends in Revelation with the culmination of God’s plan being what? A wedding banquet, the marriage feast of the Lamb and His Church.

Let me ask you something. Do you ever listen to love songs on the radio and think how easily, with just one or two changes, those love songs could become worships songs? Take this one by Celine Dion that was popular a few years ago.

If That’s What It Takes- performed by Celine Dion

When the storm rises up, when the shadows descend,

Every beat of my heart, every day without end.

Every second I live, every promise I make,

Now that’s what I’ll give if that’s what it takes.

I will stand like a rock, I will bend till I break,

Till there’s no more to give, if that’s what it takes.

I will risk everything, I will fight, I will bleed,

I will lay down my life if that’s what You need.

Through the wind and the rain, through the smoke and the fire,

When the fear rises up, when the wave’s ever higher.

I will lay down my heart, my body, my soul,

Hold on through the night and never let go.

Every second I live, that’s the promise I make,

Now that’s what I’ll give if that’s what it takes.

Composed by Jean-Jacques Goldman

Dear friends. If that’s not worship, I don’t know what is!

But you say, that’s just a love song, and it isn’t even Christian. Perhaps, but remember the 5^th chapter of Ephesians?

Quick Bible quiz: Can anyone tell me what the subject of Ephesians 5 is? It’s the passage about husbands and wives. It’s a beautiful description of the kind of love between husband and wife that makes marriage more than satisfying, it makes it holy. It is a definition of love that goes far beyond feeling, or emotion, or romantic attraction. It is a description of the willful self-sacrifice of one soul for the good of another. And this is what St. Paul says about marriage:

“²² Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”

Look at those words closely: submit, love, give yourself up, be holy. I find it more than just interesting, it is absolutely comical how our society rebels against a Bible verse like this one, calling it “chauvinistic”, archaic, out of touch with reality, and yet every day on the radio we hear a hundred love songs that say exactly the same thing.

I will risk everything, I will fight, I will bleed,

I will lay down my life if that’s what You need.

I will lay down my heart, my body, my soul,

Hold on through the night and never let go.

Every second I live, that’s the promise I make,

Now that’s what I’ll give if that’s what it takes.

What St. Paul was describing is the same attitude described in that song by Celine Dion.

I would submit that almost everyone makes that kind of commitment at some point in their life. It’s part of our nature to do this.

Every human being has this instinctive desire

to give totally of oneself

to something outside of oneself.

The question is, to what or to whom have you given this kind of commitment? Who, or what have you married?

Some people have married their job, their career. Some people have married money, wealth, success, political power. Some people have married themselves to physical pleasure, lust.

In God’s design of the human race, we are made for two great marriages, one earthly and one heavenly. We were made for marriage at the human level between a man and a woman, and whether or not you ever personally choose a spouse and get married, you are still called to bear witness to the divine plan of God that can only be expressed through the life of family. Marriage is the foundation of the family, and the family is the foundation of the rest of society.

The second marriage we were made for is to God. Going back to that passage in Ephesians, after describing the husband-wife relationship, St. Paul ends with this surprising statement: “This is a profound mystery, but I am talking about Christ and the Church.” Somehow we have simply got to stop thinking of the church as an institution with a life and a mind of its own making, and begin to see the church as the Body of Christ, a living organism with Christ as the Head. I’m so glad we are using Eucharistic prayer C during this season. I always love that phrase, “And in the fullness of time put all things in subjection under Your Christ, and bring us to that heavenly country where with all Your saints we may enter the everlasting heritage of Your sons and daughters, through Jesus Christ our Lord, the firstborn of all creation, the Head of the Church, and the Author of our salvation.”

I wonder sometimes if we really believe that, that Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, and that because we are “sons and daughters” the Church must be seen as family, not a business, and not a social club.

I recently heard someone refer to another member of this church as her “spiritual mother.” I thought, what a beautiful statement. And what a great reminder that is of the nature of the church. All through the New Testament we continually see family language used in the church. The early Christians called each other “brother” and “sister.” Paul described himself as a “spiritual father” to Timothy, his young apprentice in ministry. John addresses the church as “my dear children.”

Get it? Family life, in God’s design for the family, is to be a preparation for the binding of hearts to God for eternity.

Every time we attend a wedding, we are witnessing a natural human response to a supernatural plan that has been in place since the beginning of time.

What better time and place could Jesus have picked to reveal His true identity than a wedding. And in our marriage liturgy we always begin the wedding service by recalling this moment in the Gospel with these beautiful words: “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.”

Do we really believe that? Do we truly believe that God commands us to honor marriage, not just because it is a traditional institution that we have upheld for a long time, but because marriage was ordained by God for His own purpose in defining what sort of creatures He made us to be?

What then, will be the consequences of our government passing laws that dishonor God’s design of marriage and family? I implore you to pray about this. Pray as though you had a personal stake in the passage of this law, because you do. Pray as though the working out of this law would threaten the very foundation on which a healthy and well ordered society is built, because it will. Pray as though something unspeakably precious and holy in God’s sight has been trampled underfoot by foolish men, because it has!

There are some beautiful prayers for family life in our Prayer Book. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who sets the solitary in families: We commend to Your continual care the homes in which Your people dwell. Put far from them, we pray,

every root of bitterness, the desire of vainglory, and the pride of life. Fill them with faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness. Knit together in constant affection those who, in holy wedlock, have been made one flesh. Turn the hearts of the parents to the children, and the hearts of the children to the parents; and so enkindle genuine love among us all, that we may always be kindly affectioned one to another; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

God our Father, you see your children growing up in an unsteady and confusing world: Show them that your ways give more life than the ways of the world, and that following you is better than chasing after selfish goals. Help them to take failure, not as a measure of their worth, but as a chance for a new start. Give them strength to hold their faith in you, and to keep alive their joy in your creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.