Please bear with me and try to stick with me today as I tackle a difficult topic: the Transfiguration.  I will attempt, in this sermon, to explore the significance of the Transfiguration.  By that I do not mean that I will try to define what it means, as though it meant one or two or three things, but I will try to get at what it signifies, what it points to, because above all, the Transfiguration is a sign that points us to something.

   At a very basic level, the Transfiguration links Jesus to Moses and Elijah.  Jesus has taken three of his inner circle of disciples up to a mountain, and there Jesus is transfigured, takes on an other-worldly aspect, a sort of angelic luminescence, and beside him appear Moses and Elijah, the greatest and second greatest of the prophets, according to the text of the Old Testament; or, alternatively, the embodiments of the Law and the Prophets, the two main parts of the Old Testament.

   At this level, the Transfiguration points out the continuity of God's revelation from the beginning.  Moses, who was understood to have written the first five books of the Bible, and Elijah, who would be a sort of parallel figure for the later prophets, stand with Jesus, the bringer of the Gospel, and confer with each other about the fulfillment of the Gospel in Jesus' "departure", which probably refers to crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension all in one.

   Beyond this level of Biblical continuity, the Transfiguration is also a small window on eternity.  For a moment, the veil that separates the physical world from the spiritual world is parted and the one spills over into the other, perhaps in both directions.

   The figures in the scene are all boundary crossers, people who in one way or another bridge the physical/spiritual divide.  Elijah is one of three people named in the Bible who were assumed bodily into heaven.  The other two are Enoch, in the early part of Genesis, and Jesus himself.  Although the book of Deuteronomy tells us that Moses died and was buried in a valley in Moab, at the time of Jesus there was a popular tradition that Moses had also been assumed into heaven.  Echoes of this tradition are found in the New Testament book of Jude (verse 9), possibly in Revelation (11:1-14), certainly in a book of the period called "The Assumption of Moses," and perhaps here in the account of the Transfiguration.

   At any rate, the Transfiguration seems to represent a moment in which the two spheres, physical and spiritual, come together in a blatant way, infiltrating and informing each other.  For the disciples this would have been a kind of foretaste or hint at that which was awaiting them and all people in some form.

   The scene also has echoes of other such scenes, other theophanies in the Bible.  The three figures from heaven echo the three visitors who came to Abraham and Sarah to affirm God's promises and covenant with them.  In that scene there is also a certain ambiguity, a certain indefinability about what is going on.  The three figures are somehow all God, and somehow God is one of them and the other two are heavenly messengers.

   The Transfiguration also echoes the time when Moses brought the people of Israel to Mt. Sinai.  He left the people at the foot of the mountain, but took a small inner circle with him as he ascended the mountain into the fiery and smokey presence of God.

   The Transfiguration has echoes of the scene where Isaiah sees God seated on a throne in the Temple, with two seraphim calling back and forth in a song of praise and adoration.

   What is different about the Transfiguration from all these scenes is that the main character in the story -- in this case Jesus -- is not seeing the theophany, he is the content of the theophany, and is being seen by the secondary figures in the narrative.  The Transfiguration is not for the benefit of Jesus, but rather for the benefit of the disciples.

   As I reflect on the Transfiguration, two passages from the New Testament also come to mind.  The first is the passage in which Jesus says to the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, "...the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.  Now God is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive." (Luke 20:37-38 and parallels).  The second passage is Paul's lengthy discourse on the nature of the resurrection body in I Corinthians 15.  Paul's point is that in the resurrection, we will have bodies, but they will not be physical bodies, but spiritual bodies, bodies of some quality or aspect or nature that is different from what we now know as our bodies.

   The Transfiguration is a kind of snapshot of those resurrection bodies.  For a moment, the disciples saw the form of what is to come.  Or did they?  Did they see the actual form, or did they see simply the "image of the likeness of the glory" of that form, to borrow a phrase from the prophet Ezekiel.

   The Transfiguration leaves more questions than answers, but it does point us to something.  It especially points us to Jesus as the one who parts the veil for us, to reveal the glory of God and the glory of what God has in mind.  For many early Christian writers and thinkers, the Transfiguration was also a sign of who we are as human beings.  Gregory Nazianzen writing in the early 300's put it this way:

"The Great Architect of the universe conceived and produced a being endowed with both natures, the visible and the invisible: God created the human being, bringing its body forth from the pre-existent matter which he animated with his own Spirit... Thus in some way a new universe was born, small and great at one and the same time.  God set this Hybrid' worshipper on earth to contemplate the visible world, and to be initiated into the invisible; to reign over earth's creatures, and to obey orders from on high.  He created a being at once earthly and heavenly, insecure and immortal, visible and invisible, halfway between greatness and nothingness, flesh and spirit at the same time... an animal en route to another native land, and, most mysterious of all, made to resemble God by simple submission to the divine will." (Oration 45, For Easter, 7)

   In the Transfiguration, in a flash, the disciples see a sign, an image of humanity in its fullness, embodied in the persons of Moses, Elijah, and most especially Jesus.  But it was still only a sign, a glimpse, a hint, and cannot be taken as complete.  As I said, for a moment, the veil was parted and the two realms crossed into each other.  Peter, James, and John were given a gift, a troubling and exhilarating gift to carry with them, to ponder, to reflect upon, and eventually to share with others.

   The temptation is always to look for a "meaning" or set of "meanings" or "teachings" which can be derived from these texts.  I think the Transfiguration in particular is not suited for fixed meanings.  Rather it is an encounter, largely unexplained, which points to Jesus, to eternity, to continuity, and to God's goal for us.  It is a text which is best pondered and meditated upon, with an open mind and an open heart to see the glory of God revealed.  Amen.

      Three of our readings for today talk about blessedness and "cursedness," of being blessed and being cursed.  I often wonder about what it means to be blessed or to be cursed.  In ordinary speech, we usually say, "I've been blessed..." when we are talking about the good things in our lives.  For example, parents might say, "we've been blessed with three lovely children," or someone might say, "I've been SO blessed: I have nice house, my health, friends, family..." etc.

   The word "curse" we generally don't use in the literal sense anymore.  Rather we apply the word to foul language, calling "bathroom language" and "gutter language" cursing.  Of course, real cursing means to call upon the spiritual powers to do bad things to someone.

   Nevertheless, we do still sometimes say that someone is cursed when things seem to go wrong for them all the time, or we might say something like, "this whole project was cursed from the beginning," if it seems like things just never work out.

   The Bible speaks of blessings and curses in particular ways, and three of our lessons for today touch on some of those ways of understanding blessing and curse.

   The reading from Jeremiah puts forward the idea that those who trust in humans for strength and turn away from looking to God for that strength are cursed.  What is the context here?

   First, we must remember that Jeremiah was sent by God to warn the leadership of Judah that God's judgment was coming on the nation because they were breaking the covenant which God had made with them.  The leadership of Judah believed, at that point, that they could maneuver their way out of trouble by making alliances with Babylon's enemies.  But God said, "No!  Don't go there!  It will only lead to trouble.  Put all your trust in me, and I will save you."

   The leadership of Judah was, of course, thinking to preserve their power and independence through strategic alliances and military might.  God was more concerned with preserving the integrity of the people and the covenant.  Had the leaders of Judah surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar, the city of Jerusalem would have been spared and only a tribute imposed on the people.  The course of action pursued by the king and the nobility led to the complete destruction of Jerusalem, and the exile of all the surviving ruling class, priestly class, merchant class, and artisans.

   Indeed, those who trusted in human strength at that time were cursed, were doomed to a bitter end.  The underlying message here is that trusting in God means that things may not be how we like, but God will guide us to the better way, if we only listen.

   Psalm 1 puts forward the idea that those who avoid bad company and seek out the ways of God are blessed.  What's the context here?

   Psalm 1 is a wisdom Psalm, out of the wisdom tradition of ancient Israel.  The wisdom tradition was most interested in the practicalities of living a life faithful to God.  Here, the psalmist and wisdom teacher is speaking at a very personal and individual level.  If you, the individual, seek out positive, up building company, and pursue spiritual things, you will do well, you will be happier, more grounded, more centered, more balanced.  That's really all that this Psalm is saying.  On the other hand, goes the second part of the Psalm, if you hang out with negative, destructive, manipulative, and dishonest people, you will get sucked in, dragged down, and find that your life is full of negativity, destruction, dishonest relationships, and deception.

   It is interesting that those who edited together the Psalter, this hymnbook of ancient Israel, put this Psalm first.  It functions as a kind of invitation to enter into God's Way, the Way of God, and it implies that the life of honest prayer (which is what most of the Psalms are) and worship, is a key component of this journey.

   In our reading from Luke, Jesus puts forward the idea that those among his disciples who are hated, excluded, reviled, and defamed on account of Jesus are blessed; while those who are rich, have eaten their fill, are laughing and well spoken of, are in trouble, "cursed" in a sense, because the false prophets were also treated this way.  It is an interesting twist on the idea of blessings and curses, but again: What is the context?

   First, let me say that I do not think that Luke's Beatitudes are simply his different version of Matthew's.  Rather, I think that Jesus probably delivered Beatitude-like speeches and sermons on many occasions, each time modifying and adapting the particulars to the situation, the audience, and so on.  I think what we have in Matthew and Luke are two similar versions, but clearly spoken in different situations, with different intentions, and probably at different stages of Jesus' ministry.

   The audience in Matthew is ambiguous.  It's hard to tell whether Jesus is talking to everyone or just to his disciples.  In Luke, however, it is clear that Jesus is speaking only to his disciples, only to the inner circle.  So, he is saying to them, his committed followers and students, "Look, if you are being given a hard time by people for following me, then you are doing the right thing.  God bless you!  But those of you who came from wealthy families and are used to eating your fill, going to parties, and being highly spoken of, those days are over!  Woe to you, you're going to hate what's ahead!"

   I think this Gospel reading in particular, but also each of the other two readings in their own ways, show that blessing and curse are not absolute categories.  Blessings and curses are particular to, and relative to circumstances.  What is a blessing to one, may be a curse to another, and vice versa.

   So when we bless and ask God for blessings, what are we doing?  First of all, I think when we ask for God's blessings, we are actually saying that we are letting go and turning the matter over to God.  But I think that we usually don't mean to be saying that.  Usually, when we ask for God's blessing, we have some pretty firm ideas in our heads about what we want that blessing to produce.  In other words, we turn God into a kind of Santa in the sky who give us the presents we ask for, or gives to others the presents we want them to have.  But really, to ask God's blessing is a prayer of release: God, you guide, you fulfill, you direct, and help me to get out of the way.

   Curses, of course, are frowned on in the Bible.  Paul, in his letter to the Romans (12:19-21), interprets the passage from Deuteronomy where God says, "Vengeance in mine, and recompense..." (32:35) to mean that revenge is God's domain, and anyone who takes revenge into their own hands is trespassing on God's turf, because God is the righteous judge who alone can see all that goes into anyone's actions, and therefore is alone able to give a completely just judgment.  Our judgments always arise out of partial understanding, and often out of a lot of personal bias.  In a similar vein Jesus says, "Love your enemies" (Luke 6:27), and Paul leads into his section of vengeance with the words, "Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse them" (Romans 12:14).

   A curse is not really a surrendering to God, but a demand of God to do one's dirty work.  Now, many of the Psalms verge on this, but stop short.  They will call on God to "defeat my enemies" and "undo the plots of my accusers" and so on.  But I think the Psalms are not so much teaching as they are honest prayer, prayer from the heart without editing for social acceptability.  At the same time, using the Psalms really makes you think about what an enemy might be.  In the early centuries of Christian interpretation, the enemies which God is to smite were understood to be the inner impulses that lead us into evil acts, or the mental and emotional struggles that lead us to depression and despair.  Those were the real enemies, the inner enemies.  But even if we keep the more literal understanding that was probably in the minds of the authors of the Psalms, they never ask for a curse, the merely ask for God to protect from enemies.

   But Jesus, and Paul inspired by Jesus, move to the next level.  Yes, turn it over to God, but do so with a blessing on your lips and in your heart.  This is the narrow way, the better way.

   So, if a blessing, when asked of God, is a turning over to God, with love and hope in one's heart; then what does it mean when we bless, when we say, "Go with my blessing," or "I give my blessing"?  I think when we offer our own blessing, we are simply offering our good wishes and good hopes for something, in an act that is just shy of a prayer.  So maybe when we ask for God's blessing, we have moved to a full prayer, and are asking, "Please God, be favourably disposed to this person or thing or matter.  We turn it over to you, asking you to find favour."     (The parallel in a curse would be to say, "We turn it over to you and hope you destroy it!")

   So, as Jesus taught, let us always bless and ask God's blessing.  Let us also be aware that blessings are diverse and different, and blessings sometimes are hidden inside harsh and difficult situations.  In all this, let us trust in God's strength and guidance.  Amen.

      This Gospel text for today, and its parallels in Matthew and Mark, get me wondering what our mission is.  What are we, who think of ourselves as Christians, here for?  What is our purpose, our mission as followers of Jesus?

   This story of the amazing catch of fish and Jesus' words, that these fishermen would now be catching people, make it seem that our mission is to catch people, to bring them in.  And indeed, there are a few other passages that give the same impression.  For example, in chapter 14 of Luke (verses 15-24), Jesus tells the Parable of the Great Banquet, in which the main character invites guests to come to a great feast, but they all make excuses.  The host finally sends his servants out telling them to compel people to come in off the streets, just to fill up the room.

   In chapter 10 of Luke, when Jesus is sending out the 70 disciples on their mission to teach and heal and cast out demons, he says to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few" (verse 2).  Here the image is of the 70 going out to harvest people.

   So we have people being caught like fish, invited or compelled like guests, and harvested like grain.  I can see how people can get the idea that our main purpose is to go out and bring people in.  But is that really what Jesus was getting at?

   What bothers me about our main purpose being the bringing in of people, is that it makes the Church essentially a self-serving organization whose main purpose it is to grow.  It is a kind of cynical, hollow, and even imperial vision of what Jesus was about, and yet Jesus was anything but cynical, hollow, or imperial.  So he must have intended something different.  The urgency of his sending out and his invitation in must have been something else than just gaining followers.

   I think to get at that "something else", we have to look again at the content of Jesus' teaching and actions.  His teaching was that God is near, God is even among us and within us.  It was that God seeks out the lost, the rejected, the ones whom the holy people and the powerful people of the day don't regard very highly.  His actions were about restoring people to their communities, people who had been ostracized or rejected because of something they had done, or some disease or circumstance that had come upon them.  He was also one to try to bridge the gap between the rich and powerful on the one hand, and the poor and powerless on the other.  In the meal he shared with Zacchaeus the corrupt tax collector, he got a "have" to share with the "have-nots" by returning everything he had taken dishonestly from them, and then some.  Jesus' words at this miraculous change of heart were, "today salvation has come to this house... for the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost" (Luke 19:9-10).

   Jesus was bringing people into something, but it was not an organization or a religion.  Rather, Jesus was bringing people into restored relationships, to God and to each other.  Salvation, wholeness, shalom, as Jesus intended it, seems to be this restoration of broken relationships.  We could use the word "sin" to talk about the broken relationships, but that word has come to mean so many things to so many people, that it often gets in the way of understanding the dynamics here.  So let's simply describe what Jesus is addressing.

   Israel then, just as the world today, was torn apart by animosities, greed, exploitation, and rules made and enforced by powerful people for their own benefit.  This created a lot of outsiders, a lot of shunned people.  I sometimes wonder if Jesus' own experience in Nazareth, of having been born under questionable circumstances, and perhaps being regarded as an illegitimate child by some, didn't lead him to know and embrace the lot of the shunned.

   At any rate, Jesus was bringing people into community, acceptance, relationship.  He was also declaring that God does not shun or reject these people, but rather looks for them, seeks them out.

   So when Peter and the other fishermen are said to be fishing for people, it is not to make them card carrying members of an organization, but to restore them to God and their communities.  The same for the banquet scenario.  The same for the harvest image.

   So what does that mean for us?  We gather here to hear about the message of Good News that God sends us in Jesus.  We want to learn from it, and I think, be moved to action by it.  We gather to worship and give thanks for God's "saving" message.  But there's another one of those bugaboo words like "sin": "saving", "salvation".  We have been brought up to think that means mostly getting to go somewhere nice when we die.  But the message and actions of Jesus seem to be primarily about a "salvation", a wholeness, now, in this life, with these people.  This is salvation that restores people to God and to each other.

   So, it seems that our mission is not to bring people into our organization, but rather to find those places where people are divided from each other, and proclaim reconciliation, forgiveness, acceptance, and embrace of each other -- in other words, to be matchmakers between people who don't like each other.  Or, by the same token, where people are alienated from God, to act as matchmakers between them and God.

   Furthermore, in our time, this healing, this restoring, this salvation, is also between people and our planet, or rather, the planet that God gave us for a home.  We are at odds with this planet.  We fight and pillage and exploit it, and now we are beginning to get the push back.  But just as Jesus in his time said, "Repent, the Kingdom of God is here; it's not too late," so we can proclaim the same message.  It is not too late to be reconciled with God's gift, the earth; but it will mean that we must repent, turn around, change some things.  That's what repentance means: to turn around.  To change things.  To make a new start.

   Recently I was reading over our congregation's mission statement, as I was getting ready to prepare my annual report.  Our mission statement goes like this:

"To live Christ's teachings and share them with others; to nurture and strengthen spiritual growth to embody Christ in the world."

   I think we got the mission statement right.  Now we need to move from statement to action.  Amen.

      Today's second reading picks up where we left off last week.  If you were here last week, or read my sermon online, you may remember that Paul wrote this letter to the congregation he had started in the city of Corinth in Greece.  This congregation seems to have had many problems, many arguments and fights, and some deep divisions around numerous issues.  In the section we read last week, the section we now label as Chapter 12, Paul was asserting his understanding of the body of Christ.  He sees all those who claim Christ as being parts of a larger, cosmic and mystical reality he calls the body of Christ.  This is not merely "pretty poetry" for Paul, but the description of a real entity we participate in at an underlying level.

   Having put this vision forward, Paul now moves to the glue that holds this entity together -- namely, love.  But for me to call it a "glue" that holds the body of Christ together, is really not a very good description.   Although it is John in his first Epistle who asserts that "God is love," I think Paul is here thinking along the same lines.

   Keeping in mind what he was getting at in Chapter 12, here in Chapter 13, Paul describes in beautiful and in cutting language what love is, and insists that in the body of Christ, no matter how great our gifts and abilities and accomplishments may be, if there is no love, they are nothing and we are nothing.  Again, I think this is not merely "pretty poetry" but rather an understanding that love is that something-or-other, that energy or entity that flows between and among the parts of this body, the life blood that brings spiritual oxygen to the cells, and when this something-or-other, this love is missing, the cells die off -- not physically, but spiritually.

   There was a Bizarro cartoon recently which showed a man standing before Peter at the "pearly gates".  Peter says to him, "You were a believer, yes.  But you skipped the not-being-a-jerk-about-it part."  This is a very simplified version of what Paul is getting at.

"If I speak in heavenly or earthly tongues, but do not have love, I'm just making a lot of noise.  If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have so much faith that I can move mountains, but don't have love, I am nothing." (I Corinthians 13:1-2)

   The love that Paul is describing is, of course, divine love, godly love, spiritual love, a kind of love that transcends biology, transcends the self, sees past the surface.  One of the chief characteristics of this love is that it produces freedom.  Love, as Paul describes it, leads to freedom.

   Now think about that for a minute.  Most of what passes as love or gets called love in our society does the opposite: it enslaves, it clings, it smothers, or it creates victims or opens the door to manipulation.  "Falling in love," as we generally understand it, is a pursuit based on biology, and it seeks to bind people together for biological reasons.  When a marriage is then based on "being in love" in the sense of continuing the intense emotions of "falling in love", what happens when that biologically driven endocrine system response is no longer there?

   But the love that Paul talks about is a love beyond this.  If a couple can transcend their "in-love-ness" and come to love each other in Christ, as mutual partners of something greater than themselves, they can begin to be with each other in some very different ways.  They can begin to be life partners in ways which combine the support, encouragement, and help of love, with the freedom of love.

   But marriage is just one little slice of how this works itself out.  When we say that God is love, many people think that means that God should intervene every time something goes awry for someone.  But for God to be love, God must let us choose our life and choose to be in relationship to God and also live with the consequences of our choices.

   I think this is an important insight for sorting out theologies from each other.  Whenever a theology suggests that God controls us, or that God isn't big enough to take "no" for an answer from us, there is something wrong with that theology.  How sad and tragic that so often through the history of Christianity, the leaders and the people who made up the Church could not distinguish between their own need for control, stability, uniformity, and order, and their calling from God.  How terrible that violence was perpetrated in the name of Christ, when Christ insisted that violence was not at all his way (cf. Matthew 5:1-12, 21-26, 38-48 and parallels in Luke); or that Christianity could be enforced, when the Jesus movement began as an alternative to the enforced systems of the day.

   Understanding a theology of love as underlying the Christian perspective on God and on our purpose goes a long way to guard against getting sucked into the empire building tendencies of some Christian theologies.

   Love produces freedom.  It produces freedom for the one who is being loved, and it produces freedom for the one loving.  This is a spacious love.  "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful..." (I Corinthians 13:4-5).  See how spacious this love is toward the one being loved.  The one loving has no envy or arrogance, but is at peace within him- or herself, at peace with the peace that Christ alone can give.  Remember, in John's Gospel, when Jesus is with his disciples at that last meal before he was arrested, he says to them, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives." (John 14:27)

   The one who loves as Paul describes is also the one who has inner peace as Jesus describes.  They are part of the same fabric, the same spiritual reality.  Again, to go back to Paul's words, the patience, kindness, lack of envy, lack of boastfulness, lack of arrogance or rudeness is there because this peace is there.  This is a spacious love because this is also a spacious peace.  It is an eternal peace experienced in the here and now.  It is spacious because it comes from the vastness of God's self, poured into us through God's spirit.

   Some come to this gracious and spacious peace and love as a gift -- it is second nature to them.  For the rest of us, it comes as we immerse ourselves in God's presence through intentional means: prayer, reflection, devotion, and so on; as we surrender increasingly our lives and hopes and agendas and axes and hatchets to God's immense peace and love.

   This love that Paul describes is also a practical love, in the sense that it acts.  It acts to bring goodness to every place and situation it finds itself in, but not to control or bend to its will.  This is not simply love for the like-minded, nor love to make me feel better because now those people are somehow more like me.  Again, Jesus insisted that this love be especially for those who are hard to love, those who are different.  That's the training ground, so to speak, for this kind of love (Luke 6:27-36 and parallels in Matthew).  And Just as Jesus said, "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?... [Rather] love your enemies..." so too Paul wrote "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink... Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:20-21).

   So in practical terms, this is what this love does among us: it overcomes all evil with good, and it does so with inner peace and does so producing freedom.  If something else comes out of it, for example, simply trading one evil for another, or producing inner agitation and restlessness, or binding people and taking away freedom from them, then this is not the love the Paul is writing about, and it is not the love that comes from God and is God.

   Let us pray:  O God, you are love.  Fill us with yourself.  O Christ, you give peace, such as we cannot find here on earth.  Fill us with yourself.  O Holy Spirit, you are true freedom.  Fill us with yourself.  Amen.

       In the book of Acts we read the following about Paul's conversion experience, which led him to go from being Saul, the persecutor of the followers of Jesus, to becoming the most important of the Apostles:

...Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.  Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.  He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"  He asked, "Who are you, Lord?"  The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting..." Acts 9:1-5

  This encounter not only turned Saul from being a persecutor of the Jesus movement ("the Way") to become Paul, the foremost of its missionaries, but it also left a deep personal mark on him in terms of his understanding of Jesus and the followers of Jesus.  Note that, although Saul was persecuting the followers of Jesus, in the vision which Paul had, Jesus says, "Why are you persecuting me?" and "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."  In other words, Jesus, and the community that gathers around Jesus are one.

  One of the key images that Paul uses for the Church, the community of those who follow Jesus, is "the body of Christ."  As we heard today in the second lesson, Paul wants the people in the troubled congregation at Corinth to see that they are not merely individuals who each happen to say something positive about Christ, but that they, all together, are the very body of Christ, and that each of them is a particular part of that body, essential to the healthy functioning of that body.

  I think we often miss just how literally Paul understood this image.  For him it was not just "pretty poetry" to talk about the followers of the Way as the body of Christ.  Instead, it was very much the assertion of a spiritual reality, a mystical fact.

  Earlier in that same letter, Paul gives some instructions about Communion.  Here he uses a phrase that, many centuries after Paul had written it, was used as a sort of legal technicality in western European churches to limit children's access to Communion.

  The phrase is this: "For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves."  Taken out of context, it is easy to see how someone might think that this means that a person has to "understand" Communion before receiving it.  However, read in its context, it is clear that Paul is not talking about "understanding" the body of Jesus in the bread, but rather discerning, perceiving, recognizing the body of Christ which is the community.

  The issue in this part of Paul's letter is that the people of Corinth were gathering for their Communion feast in the manner common to the social feasts of that culture.  The rich ate much, the poor ate little, and the slaves had to stand by and watch while the free people ate.  In that society, group meals reinforced the social hierarchy.  Paul comes in and says, "This is a load of nonsense and contrary to the message of Jesus!  You are the body of Christ, and if you gather for Christ's meal without recognizing this fact, then your gathering is just another embodiment of the social death in which you all live anyway!  No, when you gather, gather as members, as parts of the one body, and share this sacred meal as one body, not as a social hierarchy!"

  By the same token, Paul probably understood the words that Jesus spoke at the Last Supper slightly differently from how we generally understand them.  In the version of the words which he reproduces in his letter to Corinth, it says that Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you.  Do this in remembrance of me."  Paul, trained in the strictest school of Judaism, would have understood the significance of Jesus' action.  The bread at the beginning of the Passover Feast which constitutes the table fellowship, was used by Jesus to constitute a body which extended beyond his single human body to become a body made of all who remember him.

  If it was hard for the people back then to get what Paul was getting at, it is probably even harder for us today, because our culture has become one of radical individualism.  How are we to take seriously this mystical vision of Paul, that we who are "in Christ" are Christ -- not individual little Christs, as we usually say, but all together the body of Christ.  We can sort of get the Hindu and Buddhist concept of being divine somehow, because this has a loose relationship to the Biblical concept of being created in the image of God.  But this is still thinking on an individual level.  Paul, meanwhile, is thinking very much on the corporate level.

  Some of the early Christian thinkers and writers caught the gist of what Paul was getting at.  Gregory of Nyssa, for example, one of the pillars of eastern Christian teaching, but also much respected in the west, when he wrote about being created in the image of God, he did not think of this merely in individual terms, but rather in terms of the grand sweep of humanity, from beginning to end.  He writes:

It is the whole of human nature, extending from the beginning to the end of history that constitutes the one image of Him who is. (On the Creation of Man, 16)

To say that there are Œmany human beings' is a common abuse of language.  Granted, there is a plurality of those who share in the same human nature...but in all of them, humanity is one. (That there are not three Gods)

     Today we are finding some important support for this kind of thinking in some surprising areas.  As the world shrinks, and we see the impact of human activity on the systems of the earth, we are coming face to face with the oneness of our existence here on earth.  Back when the Chernobyl nuclear power plant failed and a cloud of radioactive particles made their way around the globe, we got our first good sense in concrete terms of how we are one.  What happens in one part of the world has an impact on people in other parts of the world.

  Subatomic Particle Physics, commonly called Quantum Physics, has highlighted to us how interconnected everything is at the deepest and most basic levels.  The simple act of observing something or someone brings about physical changes in the one being observed.  There is no such thing as true objective observation.  We once thought that we could create controlled experiments and really see how things behave, but we have had to concede that the very act of creating a controlled experiment influences the subject and the outcome of the experiment.

  Natural Systems Theory points out how in any human social system, whether it be a family, a classroom, a workplace, a circle of friends, or a church, the emotional activities in one part of the system play themselves out in other parts of the system.  Even the act of leaving a system, of cutting off, provokes changes in the system.  Again, there is no such thing as being uninvolved, as being "an innocent bystander."  There are only different forms and degrees of connectedness; and I suppose in that sense, different degrees of responsibility.

  This is all merely to say that Paul seems to have intuited, or perhaps received by divine revelation, what we are now discerning in the universe through scientific observation -- that there is a connectedness that works at a deep and subtle level.

  But for Paul and for us here, that connectedness is an intentional one which we know as being in Christ, and therefore being the body of Christ.  Or, to put it differently, were we to realize just how profoundly we are connected to each other, even when we do not see ourselves as the body of Christ, then we might be more intentional at being the body of Christ.

  So how could we be more intentional.  The energy which flows between the parts of Christ's body is key.  If there is negative energy, the body is weakened and made sick.  If there is positive energy, the body is strengthened and made whole.  From our human side of this energy formula, this means that we pray for each other.  We hold each other in prayer.  Somehow God works through our prayers, uses our prayers.  Why God doesn't just do whatever without waiting for us to pray about it is a mystery.  As Luther points out in his Small Catechism, the kingdom of God comes even without our praying for it, but when we pray we pray that it would also come among us.  For this current topic, what I take from this is, that somehow when we engage in the act of prayer for each other, God's energy, presence, transformative spirit, whatever you want to call it, is activated among us.

  My prayer is that we would begin to see each other as parts of the same body.  That we would stop thinking in terms of organization, structure, "those people at the church", "those people who don't volunteer for this or that", and instead see the physical manifestation of Christ's body here among us and made up of us.  Then, we might see differences as the differentiation (the hand is not an eye, the ear is not a foot) necessary for us to be the body of Christ in this place.  Amen.

      Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. A man came up to a fellow and said to him, "Sir, I don't know you, but I must ask you a question. It's kind of personal, but I'm dying to ask you. Would you be offended at a personal question?" The man was a bit taken back but said, "Well, I guess not. What is it?"

"Well, I'm just curious. Would you mind telling me if you are wearing a toupee?"
The response came back immediately, "No, of course not!"
But the person persisted. "Sir, you can be candid with me. I won't think any less of you. Tell me honestly, are you wearing a toupee?"
By now the man was getting a bit ticked off, and said, "Absolutely not" and started to leave.
But the fellow would not be dismissed, he held on to his arm. "Please sir, be patient with me. Honestly, you are wearing a toupee, aren't you?"
By now the man was really uncomfortable and just wanted to get away from the pest. And simply to get rid of him said, "Well, if you insist, OK. Yes, I'm wearing a toupee."
"Really? You'd never know it."

The people of Jesus' day had lots of questions about Jesus. Their questions centered not so much on Jesus' appearance, but on the question: just who is Jesus?

A hospital emergency room nurse received a call from a very excited man who screamed, "I'm going to rush my wife to your hospital. She is having a baby!"
"Calm down," said the nurse, "and please answer a few questions. Is your wife in labour?"
"Yes, I think so," the man replied.
"And is this her first baby?" the nurse asked.
"No," came the reply. "This is her husband!"

In our text for today, Jesus answers the question just who he is. As our text opens, Jesus has already been baptized by John the Baptist. He has been given the full gift of the Holy Spirit. He has also begun to call his disciples. Now he heads north to his hometown of Nazareth. When he gets there, he discovers that he is invited to a wedding in the large village of Cana about ten miles away. One of the members of the wedding party must be a relative of Jesus for his mother, Mary, is present at that wedding. Normally, only men were invited to the wedding celebrations. Women were there to help out if they are related.

Weddings could last up to seven days. The guests were expected to help out by bringing food and wine. The Bridegroom or the Chief Steward, who was similar to our Master of Ceremony, would taste the wine brought and would bring out the best wine first.

Jesus comes to the wedding celebrations with his disciples. It seems like they didn't bring any food or wine. When the wine gives out, Mary approaches her son who is partly to blame. "They have no wine." It could be that she expected Jesus to go to a neighbouring village to get some. However, Jesus answer seems strange, "Woman, what concern is that to you and me? My hour has not yet come." It is possible that Jesus' reply means that he will not act before it is his time to act. Also, the hour he talks about is the hour in which he finally reveals fully who he is and why he has come. It is the hour of his death on the cross and his resurrection. The hour he talks about does not refer to a clock or a time of day, but it refers to the significant moment, the time in which the Saviour of the entire world will die and rise again for the salvation of the world.

However, at the wedding Jesus will reveal some of who he is. Mary, who most likely is puzzled by her son's reply, nevertheless knows that her son will do what is best so she says to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." In the house there are six large stone jars for the rite of purification. Before anyone ate, water from these jars would be taken and poured over their hands, not in order to make them physically clean, but in order to wash away any religious impurities. If a person touched someone, who had touched an unclean animal, or a corpse, or a known sinner, or a gentile and ate, that person would be unclean in the eyes of God and could not worship for seven days. As a precaution those who were religious would wash their hands before all meals so that none of the uncleanliness would enter them and make them unfit for worship.

Jesus tells the servants, "Fill the jars with water." The servants fill the six stones jars with water most likely from a cistern. Then Jesus makes the strangest request, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." Why would Jesus ask them to take flat stale water from the cistern and give it to the chief steward? But they do as Jesus requests. The chief steward tastes the drink and smiles. The drink is wonderful for to the servants amazement the water, all 180 gallons of it, is no longer water but wine. The chief steward then calls over the puzzled bridegroom. "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."

We are told that this is Jesus' first sign and that the disciples believed in him. A sign in the Gospel of John is something that reveals some of Jesus' glory and purpose for being on earth. The guests had no idea what had happened. Only Mary, the servants, and the disciples knew. Jesus did this for the sake of his disciples. In John's Gospel Jesus does seven miracles or signs. They are like object lesson. They reveal what Jesus wants the people to know. In this case the sign was for the benefit of the disciples. It was a belief in those days that one of the signs of the coming of the Messiah was that there would be an abundance of wine, an over abundance of wine. Jesus is letting his followers know that he is the Messiah. He is the fulfillment of the promise of God to Israel.

Wine was also a symbol in those days of God's gift to the people. In a time when water was usually unfit to drink, wine added to the water made the water safe to drink. It also gave joy to the people. It became a symbol for God's salvation. It was also believed in those days that when the Messiah comes and establishes the Kingdom of God, there would be a huge wedding banquet with the people of God and with God and God's representative.

Jesus shows the disciples that he is the true bridegroom and that the time for the Marriage Feast without end is about to begin. Also, Jesus lets his followers know that the Jewish rites, which are good in themselves, have now been replaced with what is even better, by Jesus. For us we see the water tuned to wine as representing the wine of Holy Communion in which in and with the wine we receive the blood of Jesus who died on the cross for our salvation and the salvation of the world. We receive what he accomplished on the cross for us. The disciples saw the sign and believed. They may have not fully understood who Jesus is, but they believed that he is the one sent by God.

The sign of changing water into wine at the wedding in Cana reminds us of the Wedding Feast that is waiting for us. It will be a joyous time, one that will last forever. Jesus is the bridegroom. He will take us to be with him forever. The wine also reminds us of the blood that Jesus will shed on the cross for our salvation and the salvation of all creation.

There is an old story about the great evangelist John Wesley. He was riding across Hounslow Heath late one night, singing a favourite hymn. He was startled by a fierce voice shouting, "Halt," while a firm hand seized the horse's bridle. Then the man demanded, "Your money or your life." Wesley obediently emptied his pocket of the few coins they contained and invited the robber to examine his saddlebags, which were filled with books. Disappointed at the result, the robber was turning away when the evangelist cried, "Stop! I have something more to give you." The robber, wondering at this strange call, turned back. Then Wesley, bending down toward him, said in solemn tones, "My friend, you may live to regret this sort of life in which you are engaged. If you ever do, I beseech you to remember this, 'The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth us from all sins.'" The robber hurried silently away and the man of God rode along, praying in his heart that the word spoken might be fixed in the robber's conscience.

Years later, at the close of a Sunday evening service with the people streaming from the large building, many lingered around the doors to see the aged preacher, John Wesley. A stranger stepped forward and earnestly begged to speak with Mr. Wesley. What a surprise to find that this was the robber of Hounslow Heath, now a well-to-do tradesman in the city, but better still, a child of God! The words spoken that night long ago had been used by God in his conversion. Raising the hand of John Wesley to his lips, he affectionately kissed it and said in tones of deep emotion, "To you, dear sir, I owe it all."

Wesley replied softly, "Nay, nay, my friend, not me, but to the precious blood of Christ which cleanseth us from all sins." Jesus is our bridegroom who shed his blood for our salvation. He gives us the gift of his blood through his Word and through the sacrament of Holy Communion. Jesus fills our lives and our future with an over abundance of salvation and blessings. Our Messiah has come. Our Bridegroom is at hand. The marriage feast is waiting for us, one that will last forever. Let us look at the sign at Cana and the sign of the cross and let us trust in and accept all that Jesus offers.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.