Saving The Best For Last

Second Sunday After Epiphany, January 10, 2016.  Year C

The Rev. Virginia Tyler Smith

“You have saved the best wine for last.”

A long time ago, my friend George told me about his Uncle Robert and his wine collection.  Robert was a wine distributor, and he knew a great deal about the industry.  He had invested early in great vintages at wholesale and discounted rates, and had stored them for years.  Most of the extra money he had, he’d poured (literally and figuratively) into wine buying. At his death, his personal collection of wine was quite vast and very valuable.

His heirs had banked on this wine.  All their life, they knew it was waiting for them, and they looked forward to enjoying it and its financial benefits.  Their father had taught them how to care for the wine, how to store it, when to drink it, and how to enjoy it by matching it with the right foods.

After his funeral, they decided to honor his life by opening a bottle.  They selected a large jeroboam of a wonderful vintage—something they knew their father would have loved.  They drew friends and family together, and carefully opened the bottle. After aerating it, and doing everything else that Robert had taught them about how to prepare the wine for drinking, they poured small glasses to taste it for the first time.

And here’s what they found. It was vinegar.

The family figured that the cork had gone bad, and let air in, causing the wine to turn.  Maybe it was a fluke. They opened another bottle, and found the same thing.  A third bottle was just as bad.  Ultimately, after opening and tasting dozens of bottles, they came to the very sad realization: ninety percent of it had spoiled. The million dollar collection was worthless.

Some were angry—they were counting on the money that the wine would bring. Some were disappointed, because they wanted to enjoy the wine as their father had.  And some, were simply stunned to realize they had waited too long.

We each have things that we wait on—things that we put away because we are busy,

Or because they are too special for every day or things that we wait to share until the right person is there. 

But today Jesus is telling us not to wait.

The story of the wedding at Cana is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry in the gospel of John. 

And we tend to think of this story as a miracle of process: Jesus turns a very large amount of water into wine. 

But REALLY, it’s a story about the product.

It’s not just any wine.  It’s the best wine. 

And it’s not served to temple dignitaries in Jerusalem, it’s served at a wedding in a backwater town, where even the wedding couple go nameless. 

The wedding itself is not what is important—it’s the wine that is important.  Running out of wine would be unthinkable, but so would saving the best wine for last.

Jesus actions do a couple of things.  They tell us that what he brings is uniquely different and BETTER than anything we’ve had before.  And though custom would dictate that the best wine be given first to the highest ranking at the wedding, and the worst wine given to the people of lowest status, Jesus’ wine is available for everyone.

Jesus does not care about what has been served before, or who has received it.  Jesus will give the best wine to all who will receive him.  And we don’t need to worry about running out of this wine.  He’s got everything we need.

So, imagine if you were at that wedding, and all of a sudden you got the best wine. Would you wonder why they had waited to bring it? Would you be angry that we had wasted time on the lesser wine? Would you try to save this wine for a time when we really could enjoy it? 

Or would you simply take the wine, in this moment, and be grateful that it had come to us now?

Jesus is telling us:

Don’t worry about what you had before…

And don’t worry about what you will need in the future.

You have saved the best wine for last….but now is the time. 

This became really true for me this week.  When I originally thought about what to say this morning, I was going to talk about my mother’s porcelain tea cups, and how I’ve brought them in to use in the office, rather than letting them languish in the office.

God had a better idea. Tea cups? Small potatoes!

So instead he gave me a better example.  On Friday, our website got hacked.  What that means is, then you’d type in our website address, instead of learning about us, you’d get redirected to an Asian escort service.  I am not making this up, and for those of you reaching for your phones to look it up, we have since taken the site down.

But here’s the thing: we have been wanting to update our website, and make it a little more user friendly.  I’d been waiting until things calmed down after the ordination and Christmas, until I had it all planned out, until it was ….PERFECT.

But Jesus changed the water of our website into wine this week. Not the wine we expected, for sure, but wine that will give us the opportunity to expand our wedding feast to other guests.

My friends, there is no reason to wait on anything in our lives.  Jesus has turned out water into wine. Not just any wine, the BEST wine.  Do not be surprised at what has been given you, and do not wonder what you are to do.  Do not wait to glorify our Lord until the perfect time, the perfect day, or the perfect hour.  Now is the hour.

 

Drink the wine –in whatever form it takes---while the party is still going.

Drink the wine and see the reality that God has intended for each of us. 

Drink the wine and celebrate what you has been given to you now.

Drink the wine.

What Took The Spirit So Long?

First Sunday After Epiphany, January 3, 2016.  Year C

The Rev. Virginia Tyler Smith

Today, on what is the first Sunday after the Epiphany, we always read about the Baptism of our Lord. Most of the gospels tell the story in a similar way: John was preaching, Jesus arrived, John baptized him, and immediately a spirit came down in the form of a dove, and the voice of the Lord pronounced Jesus to be blessed and to be pleasing to God.

And our other readings lead us up to this. Our other readings tell us of water, and fire, and that great voice, and the glory that is God, and the power of the spirit coming to those who believe.  But I have to tell you, that these readings have always raised questions for me.  For instance: In Acts, we have Peter and John going to those who have been baptized so that they may do some additional laying on of hands in order to bring on the Spirt.

Clearly this passage shows us that the spirit is not something that we choose, but rather, something that adopts us. But does it take the intervention of another—like Peter and John to make that happen? Can the Holy Spirit come on its own? 

QUESTION: did Jesus have the holy spirit within him PRIOR to the dove descending on him….

This is the 3^rd chapter of Luke.  Prior to this, we have the annunciation to both Elizabeth and Mary, we have the birth in the manger, we have Herod looking for Jesus and the wise men coming to celebrate him. We have Joseph taking the family to Egypt and then coming back to settle in Galilee, in Nazareth, we have Jesus teaching in the templet and being lost for three days, finally chastising his parents and saying, “I have been in my father’s house, we have John arrested for what he has been proclaiming….so clearly a lot has been going on related to the unique and powerful presence of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit just shows up NOW???

What was the role of the dove—to bring the spirit? To show where the spirit comes from (above), and what form it takes (something that moves freely through the air)? To show how perfect it is (white).  Or was the dove simply POINTING to the spirit—a portion of the spirit connecting God to this realm.  Was the dove the lens through which God was then able to speak…or was that dove the clue for everyone that “hold on, something big is about to happen here?”

We can’t know what the holy spirit looks like, or how it acts, so we tend to think of it in terms of the dove, or wind, or somethings, that, like the Isaiah reading and psalms tells us, shakes us to our roots.  We tend to think that when the spirit comes to us, that it’s an immense, climactic moment, like when the dove descended to Jesus.  And that a voice will come out of the cloud, and with a James Earl Jones-like voice announce what is the great thing that is happening, or that is about to happen.

But what if it’s not like that at all? What if the fire, and the water, and the voice, and don’t show up, and instead, we’re just left with a simple moment? 

The reason that I ask these questions and sort of poke at some of the more tricky parts is because there comes a point in our reading of scripture when we have to ask the questions of the text in order to understand our own relationship to it.  These texts want us to come on inside. They want us to believe and to be relieved—and impressed—by the power of God in the lives of humans.  But these texts also want to point us to God in a way that shines a light on the holy, and pulls us away from the critical questions.  A spirit-- something like a dove--- came, and now we know that this is God’s son, and that God is pleased.  And in fact, that’s where the story ends. We don’t hear about the response of the hearers, or whether they stopped asking questions of John, we just hear that the spirit came.

This week, I met someone who taught me a lot about that kind of a moment.  Her name is Denise.  Denise is in her early 40’s, and she’s an addict.  She’ll be the first to tell you. She started using when she was 13, because everyone in her family drank and did drugs. By the time she was 21, she had four kids. And she’d be the first to tell you that she wasn’t ready for any of that.  She tried treatment.  Multiple times.  The first time, it was because she wanted to do it for her kids. The second time, she thought it would help her get better benefits from DSS.  She was tired of being homeless. But this was all she knew, and though she felt she was meant for something better, she had no idea where she would find the structure or the willpower.  She got arrested for selling narcotics, and told the judge, “You’d better lock me up.” But then, as she described it to me, Denise’s heart sank when they closed that gate and she was in that cell.  She cried for the first thirty days. She had given all four of her children to other caregivers within her family. What had she done? How could she change? She pondered this in jail.

On the day that they let her out of jail, she immediately went back to using.

Ultimately, she went into an outpatient program in which three counselors started to show her that her life meant something. And though she can’t put her finger on the day, she knows there was a moment when the lightbulb went off, and she found the will to take one small step. Before she knew it, she had 30 days sober.  This coming February 15, she’ll have six years. She’s now living in a supported housing environment, she’s reunited with her kids and her four grandchildren, and she’s taking college level math, studying for a job as a pharmacy tech.

I told her that she had a lot of perserverance, especially to keep up with all the strucutre of her housing, counseling and academic programs.  Here’s what she said to me: “First, I wanted to do it for others, but I had to learn to have a relationship with myself.  And to do that, I have to make a choice. Lot’s of choices, every day. I try every day to have a plan before I leave my apartment, because otherwise it would be way to easy to go back to the chaos. I don’t want the chaos or the drama. I don’t want to look over my shoulder. I was living an animalistic level as an active user. I had one goal. After a while, you’re not getting high, you’re just chasing.  I want to live, not just exist.  I did what I had to do when I was using—no matter what it too—to meet my goal of using. Now I do whatever I have to do to meet my goal of staying clean and living a good and simple life.”

I admire her clarity—but it wasn’t always that way. Something, some conversation, some moment gave Denise the strength to take that first step. She knows it was the Holy Spirit, and she knows that she still depends on that spirit every day.  But she also knows this: she is beloved.

She was the first person in her family to break the cycle.  Generations of a single family have been slave to what Denise calls “the enemy.”  There came a time when Denise was willing to say that she couldn’t do it alone. She was willing to make herself vulnerable, to receive what came to her, in the form of the Spirit, and in the form of good treatment.

And now she shares it with others, as an NA speaker and sponsor, working with her treatment programs as a peer counselor, going into the schools to speak.

I have to tell you that when I sat with Denise, I saw the Holy Spirit in this woman. I saw the light in her eyes that told me she had been given a second chance at this one life, and that with God’s grace, and forgiveness, she is going to make each day count, so that she can be God’s beloved too. 

       

When Denise made that first step—just for that moment, on that day, she lived into what I’ll call a baptismal moment—a time when the spirit descended and when God made his love for us known. But it was only one. 

What was your baptismal moment?  Maybe there is more than one. Think of how many miraculous moments you have witnessed in which somehow the spirit came forth and let you know that what was happening was both important and giving you a new reality.

Think about the coincidences, the near misses, the times when luck was on your side.  It wasn’t a coincidence, and it wasn’t luck.  God has chosen us, even before we knew of God.  And God comes to us many, many times within our lives, to keep drawing us back.

I asked if, when the dove showed up to Jesus in the river Jordan, that was the first time the Spirit was showing up.  The answer is: not by a long shot. The spirit had been there all along, but this was just one of his showier moments.  The spirit shows up all the time, in ways that we don’t anticipate and can’t imagine.  And if we don’t answer, he doesn’t go away. He just waits, until the time is right.

Denise doesn’t remember exactly how it happened that her time became right.  But it did. And I never expected that when I met her yesterday, that I would have the experience of God’s presence that I did.

But what our gospel teaches us today is that, if we are open to the idea that the Spirit can come into our midst, He will.  And while we might expect that he will rattle the trees, and come with great gusts, we also have to know this: it won’t be what we can imagine.  I read something this week that summarizes it nicely: we can spend our lives preparing. We can run around tidying our houses and making everything just perfect.

We can prune the garden, and set out the tray of cookies. We can try to make it all perfect, and sit by the front door and wait. But odds are, that’s not when God will come to us. God will sneak in when we are unloading groceries and walking in through the side door. God will come to us when we’re knee deep in fertilizer, cleaning out the garden beds.  God will come to us when we’re tired, and frustrated, and just can’t fight anymore.  And once again, he’ll offer us a way.

You know, and I know—and the scripture makes it clear-- it’s not up to us. It’s up to him, and it’s on his time. The question is: when he calls, when that moment comes, when he says you are his beloved, will you allow yourself to believe it?  And will you answer?

By the grace of God,  and with his help, I pray we each will.

Amen.

QUESTION: What does it mean to be baptized with fire?

The Writing on The Wall

New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2015.  Year C
The Rev. Virginia Tyler Smith

One of the nice things about the quiet week between Christmas and New Years is that I got to catch up on my reading. I’ve been reading Sue Bender’s great little book, Everyday Sacred. It’s a collection of essays about finding the holy in every day moments, and she frequently talks about experiences that she has at the café in Berkeley California where she gets her daily latte. One of the essays is entitled “White Walls,” and it describes her experience of walking into the restroom at that café on the morning after the restroom had been painted. You see, before that morning, the walls of the restroom has been covered with graffiti. Every square inch. But on that morning, she found clean white walls and simple terracotta tile floors. Ms. Bender muses that it must have taken six coats of paint to cover over the graffiti, but there they were: perfectly white walls.  And then she asks: Are these walls going to be a temptation?

Now if you think about it, bathrooms are the places where we go to do our dirtiest, most intimate things…and they are also the places where we go to clean up. Whether or not we want to, we are forced to enter a bathroom (and admit our humanity) a number of times a day. The bathroom is the only place where it is acceptable to look at ourselves for long periods of time as we make ourselves “presentable.”  The bathroom is where are our truest selves.

And as I thought about what Ms. Bender had written, I realized that we all have imaginary restrooms in our minds, those places where, when we are alone, when we are feeling most disgusting, or most pretty, when we are looking ourselves in the mirror and seeing both the wrinkles and the potential….we also have walls covered with graffiti. 

And the question is: what is written on those walls? When did they get written there?  What did you write, and what did others write “for” you?  What got written over, and what stands out, so that you see it staring at you every time you go into that place?  How do you hear their voices when you look into the mirror?

Our scripture readings for the new year concentrate on the power of names. Paul, describes himself as “a slave to Jesus.”  To the Romans, a Christian community he hadn’t founded but wanted to encourage, describing himself in that way allowed Paul and the Romans to see the new lives they had started in Christ.

Similarly, the gospel passage talks about the naming of Jesus—the baby who is named, who was named, whose name will forever be the name which saves us.

So…as you think about the graffiti on your internal wall, what is the name that you put there, and what is the name that others have named you? Do those names describe you fully? Do they describe you as you want to be?

On Christmas Eve, I talked about the imperfect Christmas. On New Year’s Eve, we have the imperfect self…closing out a year in which we had joys, frustrations, new starts, and some endings.

And I have to wonder, if you had the opportunity to paint the walls, what would you get rid of?  Or what would you keep? Would you be tempted to write anything new? 

In Sue Bender’s essay, she tells us that 24 hours after she saw the perfectly white wall, she returned to the restroom to find that the walls had been a temptation to someone.  There appeared, high in a corner, the words: “Bathroom graffiti is the only form of democracy.”

Why? Because it’s faceless? Because it’s semi-permanent? Because once it’s up there no one can tell the writer that they are wrong?

The next day appeared: “There is a difference between freedom and democracy, Bozos!”

I love that. Only in Berkeley.  However, maybe the second writer is right.  Maybe bathroom graffiti (at least our own internal graffiti) is NOT democratic, and we have the choice about what we put there, who puts it there, and why.

And if that’s true, and you’ve made the decision to paint over the walls, what if you let God, or Jesus, or the Spirit, or even Paul write something new about you. What would they want you to paint over, to forget, to move away from, or move towards? What name would you give yourself, and what name would God and Paul give you?

Where would they write it, and how often would we look at it?

So as the year ends, and the Christ Child is being named….we are free to write, or to not write.  We free to read, or to erase all together.

Sue Bender continued her reflection by noting that on the third day, new graffiti was whitewashed over, but it could still be read if you tried really hard.  I’m not suggesting that we can just whitewash away what has been with us for year. 

Who we are is written on our hearts. But what I am saying is that Jesus sees us, and he loves us, and in loving us, he is telling us that we have the choice in what we keep and what we make new..

Is what we hope to be, what we have written our wall, what Jesus really wants for us? Or is it what we have put there—our form of naming ourselves? How honest is it?  And what is our plan to make it happen?

On the last day, after the whitewashing, Sue Bender saw these words written on the wall: “Nothing lasts forever. Deal with it!”

So true, so true.  So the year is ending, and tonight we say goodbye to some things while making room for some others.

What do you need to make room for, and how will what you make room for make you new, newly named and newly formed, for God?

These are the questions that we write on our wall tonight.  May the God of unspeakable power and unending love bless you this night, and always.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Blessing Of The Animals Oct. 4 2015

The annual blessing of the animals will be held this Sunday, Oct. 4 at the Church.  (This has been moved from the Young's house.)  We Look forward to seeing you with your pets and assorted beasts!

Easter Joy at St. John's: Y'all Come Back!

The joy and hope of the resurrection was felt at St. John's this Easter Sunday.  It was strengthened by a large congregation!  We can be a so much more effective presence of Christ presence in the world when we come together.  Our joy and hope is magnified exponentially.  So this congregant's Easter messages is what father Dan said, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, Love!" with an added "Y'all come back, hear?"

 

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Moving Forward: A New Rector and Strategic Plans

OPINION:

St. John's is in the process of finding a Priest to lead us forward.  We are hopeful and excited and realistic.  We have been working on SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Sensitive. No leader will make a huge difference without the energy and buy-in of the congregation.  That must be clearly communicated or we will not attract anyone unless they know that there is no expectation that they will work alone, to work miracles.  "It takes a village," or in this case a parish.

There are many who already give of their time, talent and treasure.  There are many poised to be asked.  There are those whose physical, mental, and family demand limitations prevent them from doing more than they already do.  We understand that. There are some who make the choice to not be involved more than they do.  As to this last group, we must ask ourselves, "Why?"  Is there anything that we as a community of faith can do to engage them?

Strategic Planning will help us to answer this question and many more.  The Search Committee has started the process, now the whole congregation needs to be involved.  Strategic planning sets goals, not just for our new priest, but for our congregation.  Let's "do this thing" and do it together.

St. John's and the Episcopal Church as a whole, has a great opportunity, a Great Commandment, to be Christ in the World and in our local community in particular.  We have the responsibility to share our Anglican ethos of Scripture, Tradition and Reason informing our understanding of what Jesus wants us to be and do.

- Neil Houghton, Member of Diocesan Standing Committee,
                            Deputy to General Convention 2009-20015