Sermon: The Third Sunday of Epiphany

Preacher:

Date:

Sunday 20th January 2013

Service:

Cathedral Eucharist

Readings:

1 Corinthians 12.1-11

John 2.1-11

The miracle of water and wine: a miracle of transformation when least expected, a sign of abundance and generosity in the setting of hospitality, a revelation of glory in Jesus Christ. Cana is a model for, and type of, the church in its gift to the world.

The time of Epiphany moves us on. Last week we were at the muddy banks of the River Jordan, where, in a character defining account for this Cathedral Church of the Holy Spirit, Jesus was baptised and the Spirit descended upon him. Today we are in the town of Cana in Galilee. Three threads tie the baptism and Cana together: first, the presence of Jesus, second, water, and third, a manifestation of glory: an epiphany.

Water, and access to water, is a live political issue in the State of Israel today; much as it has been throughout the history of the Holy Land. Water is critical to its life and prosperity. Recently demands on water have quite literally been seeing rivers run dry, the water level of the Sea of Galilee is plummeting and the Dead Sea will probably be dead and gone by 2050: a bitter reversal of the prophetic vision of water flowing in the wilderness.

Flowing from the rains and melting snows of Mount Hermon in the north, water runs into the Sea of Galilee, an abundant lake teaming with fish and refreshing the whole region. Out of the southern point of Galilee runs the Jordan River, flowing past Jericho and bringing life into the Judean wilderness, where it finally plunges to the lowest accessible point on earth and meeting the dense mineral deposits that kill the life of the river as it becomes the Dead Sea.  Life filled waters meandering to death. This is an image of human life lived in the dispensation of death; life not lived in its fullness that moves inexorably to death and sterility.

The sign of Cana is the water of transformation that leads to abundant, transformed and overflowing life. This is hinted at by the prophet Ezekiel in his vision of water flowing from the Temple (Ezekiel 47): what sounds initially like a plumbing disaster becomes a vision of the dispensation of life flowing from God. Ezekiel sees water in the temple rising up, ankle deep, knee deep, waist deep, and then head deep, the waters flow out and become a river, a river with trees and life. And then, picking up on the topography of the land, he describes how the water enters what he calls ‘the sea of stagnant water’; but that water becomes fresh. ‘Wherever the river goes’ says Ezekiel ‘every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish, once these waters reach there’. He describes the trees lining the banks, a vision picked up by John the Divine in Revelation, and their fruit will not fail, ‘because the water for them flows from the sanctuary’.

That is a refreshing liturgical vision of transformation into the dispensation of life. The water of Ezekiel echoes the flowing water of the creation over which the Spirit brooded. Water is life giving, powerful, dangerous.

Transformation is life giving, powerful, dangerous. Canon Julie last week sketched out and painted in vivid colours how the Cathedral’s vision sits under the vision of a renewed and transformed world in the Kingdom of God, and the decisive character of our dedication to the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit that moved in the beginning of creation moves to bring us into the life of the new creation, a move described so animatedly by Paula Gooder in her Cathedral lecture last week, as we die and live in Christ. Baptism is that figure of drowning into Christ’s death and rising into the fresh air spirit of his life.

The sign of Cana takes the promise of water, and points to the wine of the Kingdom and the Spirit: the water of life is itself transformed into wine. That is where this morning’s epistle draws it’s inspiration: by the Holy Spirit we confess Jesus is Lord, and through his name, in the power of the Spirit we are equipped with the needful gifts of grace that animate the life of the church, but spill out beyond to the common good, and are seen in the utterance of wisdom and knowledge, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, interpretation of competing voices.

So if water is such a good image of life, then what’s the wine about?  Wine is ecstatic. That is to say it makes us stand outside ourselves. That can be taken too far of course in literal terms, but in mystical terms ecstasy is the movement outside ourselves into life in Christ.

The Eucharist is, in that sense, ecstatic; it takes us out of ourselves into a glimpsed vision of the world renewed, with waters that flow for life. Here we drink the new wine of the kingdom, the best wine, not the inferior, as a foretaste. Ephrem the Syrian writing in the fourth century sees the wine as representing praise. And in a hymn he unites wine, hospitality and banquets,

I have invited you, Lord, to a wedding feast of song,
but the wine – the utterance of praise – at our feast has failed.
You are the guest who filled the jars with good wine,
fill my mouth with your praise.

We arrive at this banquet and find the invitation to transformation. At Cana there was hospitality offered to the guests; but it is also the place where a particular guest became the host, a generous, abundant host. Here is the centrality of Christ, to whom we, like Mary, point others.

Each of us was conceived and born held in water and blood. As Mary, his Mother, and the Beloved Disciple stand at the foot of the cross, John records in his gospel that both blood and water flow from Jesus’ side at the crucifixion as the centurion lances him. Jesus pours out his blood for the life of the world; as wine mixed with water is poured out in the Eucharist.

This Cathedral Church is subject to and open to that Spirit-breathed-transformation as together we deepen our vocation to transforming conversation, generosity and Christ-like relationships, fed as we are by bread and wine transformed into our spiritual food and drink, the body and blood of Christ.

And then we go from here, and may that abundant life spill out and over from us as we live our lives this week - at home, at work, at school, at university – as we offer the wine of the Kingdom meeting the waters of life already in the world, that all may glimpse the signs of God’s glory.