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"Something New Is Happening"
Pastor Andries Coetzee
January 17, 2010
Oak Grove Presbyterian Church
John 2:1-11; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Scripture Readings:  1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says "Let Jesus be cursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

                   John 2:1-11

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come" His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Sermon:     “Something New Is Happening”

As I stand before you today I am relieved that you now know that I have accepted another call as solo pastor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Wooster, OH.  This relief stems from the openness and honesty we can now share with one another, but also from finally sharing the painful news with you that our ministry together has come to an end.  Yet, there is also another reason for my relief, as many months of discernment have now come to an end; months in which I felt restless and sensed a readiness to answer God’s call to new ministries.

The reality for most of us is that the ability to make these changes in our lives is not easy.  After all, we are human beings and find ourselves engaged in relationships with others which challenge and support us.  We have created an environment for ourselves in which we feel comfortable and in which we can find respite from the world around us.

It is traumatic for my family as we get our house ready to put on the market next week.  We dread seeing the “For Sale” sign in the front yard of a house we have made our home with all its wonderful memories of working hard to make it our own, family togetherness, friends celebrating life, and yes, even times of turmoil and struggle.

The reality is that after this past week of de-cluttering our home and painting it a nice Midwestern neutral color, it does not quite feel like our own anymore.  The things that made a house our home are all boxed up and put in a container on our driveway.
It is in the midst of this experience that one becomes aware of all the “stuff” we think we need to make life meaningful.  These past weeks Beth and I have been talking about how we allow these “things” to have power over our lives and how it sometimes hinders us on our spiritual path and keeps us from allowing the Gospel to challenge us and realize God’s calling for us.

See, we fill our lives with material "stuff" in a futile attempt to satisfy our spiritual hunger and thirst, and we even shape a distorted gospel, a prosperity gospel, that says that God actually wants us to have lots of stuff.  This abundance is very different from the kind Jesus shares, very different from the kind that God gave us at creation.  The reality is that the abundance we fill our lives with, leaves us restless and hungry in the midst of excess and longing for the abundance of God, thirsting for God's grace .

It is because we love our lives here in Bloomington, MN so much, that this opportunity for me in Wooster, OH felt like it came too fast and in some ways as a shock.  In my mind I was ready to accept another call this coming summer and then move towards the end of it.  It is for this reason that I resonate this morning with Jesus saying: “My hour has not yet come.”

In our Gospel reading of today Mary reports that the wine has run out and Jesus' first response sounds like a teenager when you ask them to do something in the house for their siblings: “Hey, what's it to you and me?" … "Not now, Mom, later." "Why are you asking me?"

Then Mary set about the task at hand, unconcerned, it seems, about timing and what "the hour" might be.  It is as if she is reminding Jesus of who he is, and the nature of his calling.  After all she knew best as she was the one who raised him to practice "compassionate justice”, to respond to human need." 

As a little child he must often have heard his mother, singing. “And as we know, she sang a revolutionary song, the Magnificat--the anthem of Luke's Gospel. She sang about neighborliness: about how God brings down the mighty from their thrones and lifts up the lowly; about how God fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty.”

And sure enough, once reminded, Jesus does respond to the need at hand.  Running out of wine at a wedding party in Jesus’ time and culture was a huge problem as hospitality was a survival skill, a way of looking after one another in a hostile environment, a way of being looked after in turn. It was a matter not just of comfort or even survival but of honor.
With a simple kind of ordinary, earthy compassion for the hosts who are in a terrible predicament, Jesus responds.  And this compassion literally overflows in today's story; a story about an abundance of new wine, wine that started out as something as ordinary and routine as water in six stone jars used in religious purification rituals.

See it sometimes takes these ordinary events that come to us at unexpected times to remind us of who we are, what we are about, and to help us see the possibilities before us. 

So, here we are today facing this unexpected turn in our ministry together, resonating with Jesus saying “Our hour has not yet come”.  But as it is with Jesus, it is with us today.  As a church that started with the Rev. Gideon Pond who was called by God to work among the Dakota people, we are reminded that we are still about responding to human need, that we are about compassionate justice, and that we do have the resources to provide it in abundance to all of God's children. 

The Apostle Paul says earlier in his letter that everything we have is something we have received,… a gift from God to meet human need, to work for a better, more beautiful, more just world, to speak for those who have no voice or, better, to make sure the voiceless are heard, to stand with those who are stepped on and pushed out, to walk with those who are making their way to a better day.

What is ahead for me and my family, as well as for Oak Grove Presbyterian Church, we are not quite sure.  But, the assurance we have is that nothing is going to come between us and the love of God, … that nothing is going to defeat us or break us, and therefore we can continue to share ourselves and our resources as God will continue to shower us with gifts of everyday love and care, with gifts of bold witness and courage enough for each day and even in years to come as we continue our ministries in new directions .  Amen

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