Epiphany II January 17, 2010

Epiphany II
January 17, 2010

Can’t you just see her?
A little woman, late 40’s, standing with her son and his friends, at the wedding reception.
Having a good time, but suddenly sensing a disturbance. The servant waiters, anxious, whispering to the steward.
She whispers to her son, “They’re just about out of wine.”
Jesus looks at her, startled. “Is that any of our business, Mother—yours or mine?” (The Message)
In the way of mothers, she keeps on looking at him—silently but significantly—you know that look!
Jesus says, “What?! I’m just here as a guest with you and my friends. It’s not the right time. My hour has not yet come.”

Mary knew all about “the right time.”
She knew all about making plans—like getting married to Joseph and having children who would grow up and settle down near her, and give her grandkids.
But she also remembered how one fine day an angel broke roughly into her cherished plans. How he said, “You shall conceive and bear a son.”
How she tried to send him away by answering, “But I’m not married yet.” In other words, “it’s not the right time, “ or, “my hour has not yet come.”
And how suddenly she forgot about “her time,” “her hour”, and said “yes,” and felt all her plans come toppling down around her.
But 30 years later, as she stood there in Cana next to her son, she had no regrets. None. She had exchanged her time for God’s time, her plans for her God’s surprising plans, and she had no regrets.
She called the servants over and told them, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Jesus looked around and saw the bride and groom radiant, talking to friends.
Then he looked at the men around him, his new companions, Peter and Andrew, Philip and Nathaniel.
He knew they were waiting for a sign that God was with him. A miracle. Something big, something memorable—not changing water into wine at a simple wedding reception..
It didn’t matter. His mother was right: “Fill the jars with water.”

So often we insist on waiting for our own “hour” to come.
We’ve got our plans, we’ve got our lives all mapped out. Then –snap!”—God, in the form of the people and situations around us, intervenes, and our plans lie broken on the floor around us.
God’s voice doesn’t usually boom out of the heavens, nor, usually, does God send an angel to dismantle the lives we imagined we would live.
No. Most commonly God calls us through what’s happening around us.

That’s what happened to Martin Luther King.
He was on the trajectory for success. He had his PhD, a wife and kids, and at the age of 26 had just been called a pastor at a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama.
He had plans. But on Dec. 3rd, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus to a white man and was arrested. The African American community gathered to plan their strategy. All the other black leaders had had a contentious history with the city government. Martin Luther King was new in town. No one knew him yet. So King was asked to lead a boycott of city buses.
I suspect he might have been tempted to answer, “Not now. My hour is not yet come.”
But Martin Luther King realized that whatever timetable he himself had in mind, God’s hour had come. In this hour an opportunity was opening for the black community to act and it was his hour to lead it.
He said, “Yes.”

This week we’ve been following the unspeakable events in Haiti.
What is God calling us to do in this hour?
It seems so little that most of us can do. Later on, there may be a call for volunteers, but in the chaos there now it seems better to let the people already there and the international forces get to work. For now, we can give our money to relief efforts and our hearts to prayer.
You see that we have an insert today from Episcopal Relief and Development. ERD is already very active in Haiti. Food and medical relief is already on its way to Haiti through the Dominican Republic.
When Wavell returns from his trip, we will make a significant donation to ERD from the church. In addition, I urge you each to respond to the request in the insert and make a personal contribution to ERD or some other organization.

But beyond financial aid, this hour of the tragedy in Haiti calls us to prayer.
This is the sort of situation where we might very well feel overwhelmed. What difference can our prayers make to all that suffering?
I believe that even though it is a mystery, prayer changes us and changes the situation for which we are praying. I believe that my prayers, your prayers, for the people of Haiti may directly ease a child’s, a man’s, a woman’s physical or psychological suffering, may give a jolt of extra energy to a searcher or relief worker, may bring a moment of consolation to someone whose misery we can’t even imagine
We’ll never know the results of our prayer. That’s ok—we will know that in this hour, we’ve taken time out of our own concerns to hold the people of Haiti up in prayer/
Let us now pray: Quiet your minds. Let yourself be aware of God’s presence. ……… In your hearts, your imaginations, hold up to God the people of Haiti. You may have a particular image in your mind from television or newspaper reports. That’s fine. .. Now see God’s love surrounding, embracing, enveloping those broken people . . . You can imagine God’s love as light, as warmth, as calm. . . .Hold this image in your heart and mind. …….Let God’s love flow through you to them …….. Give them to God. . . Amen.