Epiphany 2C
January 17, 2015
John 2:1-11
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
This week I
got a long email from a friend. She is a Christian, and we've talked a couple times about our respective relationships with God. This email
was a long account of her faith journey, finally leading up to some recent
revelations about her faith and her relationship with God and some steps she
has decided to take in her life to be more dedicated to discipleship.
Throughout the email were phrases like, “I felt God saying to me…” and, “I
listened to what God is telling me…”
Perhaps this
is why, when I read this week’s Gospel lesson, the line I noticed this time
around was Mary’s: “Do whatever he tells you.” That’s good advice, don’t you
think? Whether it comes from the mother of Jesus or not, “Do whatever Jesus
tells you” is certainly advice to take to heart.
The trouble
is, how do you do that? At that wedding at Cana, it was a bit easier, at least
a bit more obvious, because Jesus was there in the flesh, giving concrete
instructions about filling stone jars with water. Now, filling those jars with
gallons upon gallons of soon-to-be wine was not an easy
So how can
we, 2000 years after Jesus walked the earth, still “do whatever he tells us”?
How can we know? It’s an important question to ask ourselves, again and again,
as we encounter ever new stages of life.
So here are
some ideas. The first way to listen to Jesus so we can do what he tells us, is
to read Scripture. Seems pretty clear-cut, right? But the thing about reading Scripture
is that it isn’t like any other reading we do. First of all, you can’t really
skim it, like you might a magazine. It’s not always very entertaining, like you
might hope for from a good novel. It’s not even really like non-fiction, like
the presidential biographies my dad loves so much, or even like theology, which
is most of the reading I have done in the past 10 years. Although it may be any
of these things at any given time, none of them really capture the way the
Bible should be read. Those of you who are participating in our Daily Bible study, in which we are
reading through the entire Bible in one year, can attest to this. Right now we
are still in Genesis, which is mostly stories and is about as close as we’re
going to get to thrilling drama, jealousy, romance and deception. (In fact,
that basically describes Genesis!) But even there – Genesis doesn’t read like a
history book or novel, nor is it meant to, and even with the stories of sordid
family drama alongside stories of great faith, it is not really my first choice
to curl up with alongside my cup of Earl Grey for a nice relaxing evening.
No, reading
the Bible is a very different sort of reading. Though you may read it for
history or entertainment, this is not the way to read it if you are hoping to
hear Jesus’ voice. In order to hear what Jesus is telling you, you must read
the Bible as if it is being written just for you. It’s more like a letter from
a friend – even, a love letter.
Do you
remember, back when people used to write letters? I was an avid letter-writer
when I was younger, keeping in vigilant contact with all my friends from summer
camp. Now, of course, email is the more common mode of letter-writing. I
recently came across an email thread between Michael and me. It didn’t take
long before I realized what it was in reference to – one of the most painful and
sad moments we’ve had in our relationship. As I read our pained responses back
and forth, I remembered the emotions of that conversation, and I could hear his
tone of voice and could sense his emotion as well, because even though these
emails were a part of the difficulty of
That’s how
it is to read the Bible. It is like a letter from someone who knows and love
you, whom you know and love, and it is addressed directly to you. Just as
Martin Luther asks repeatedly in his Small Catechism – “What does this mean for
us?” – this is the question we should be asking when we read God’s Word: What
does this mean for us, for me, at
this moment, at this juncture in my relationship with God? What is the message
that underlies these words on a page?
Another
important way to listen to Jesus and do whatever he tells us is, of course,
through prayer. But prayer is not just talking! As my elementary school teachers
used to say, “You can’t listen if you are talking!” And if we are to listen to Jesus, then we need to not do all the talking. I wish I could
tell you from experience how to do this, but this particular aspect of faith is
not my strength. Listening is hard, especially when God doesn’t really seem to
be talking.
When I was doing my internship as a
hospital chaplain, I met regularly in small group with the other student
chaplains, and together, we set goals for ourselves for the summer. One of the
goals I made for myself was not to be the first one to jump in with something
to say in our small group sessions. I hated silence so much, I would always be
the first to break it, but others really needed that silence to process. So I
made the goal to count to 6 before I said anything. “Six!” my colleagues
laughed. “Why not 10?” Honestly, because six seconds was all the silent
listening I could fathom! I couldn’t believe
they would actually want 10! It became very clear to me in that moment that
practicing silence would be one of my most important goals that summer.
Shiela
Cassidy writes about one of her break-through discoveries about prayer: that it
is “wasting time” with God. For a culture so focused on productivity, I love
this image for prayer. There needn’t be a definite outcome. There need only be
time spent together. Last week a friend of mine, a fellow pastor in a different
part of the country, called me in tears, asking if I had time to talk. The
truth was, I didn’t – it was 2:00 on a Thursday afternoon and I hadn’t even
started my sermon! But I said sure, I had time. For nearly two hours, she
poured her heart out to me about her struggles with her church, and the fear
that she might have to leave her call. I’ll tell you, even though I had so much
to do and accomplish that afternoon, it was so clear to me that this was the
most important place to be, “wasting time” with my friend. Prayer is like that:
it is putting aside the need to accomplish something, and simply listening, for
as long as it takes.
One last way
we can listen to God is through our relationships with God’s people. This one
is tricky – how can you be sure what you are hearing is from God and not from
somewhere else? But God has a way of making you aware of when this is something
you need to hear. My dad tells a story about when he was considering
retirement. The decision was wrought with fear and uncertainty, as major life
decisions often are. He talked about these fears with his friend, before
eventually moving on to other topics. One of those topics was the story of how
my dad ended up in the call in which he spent nearly 30 years. He had announced
his resignation at his previous church, and was leaving June 30. He lived in a
parsonage with his wife and two young kids at the time, so resignation meant that
by June 30, they’d also be homeless. Yet, he had no other call in the works. He
had interviewed with Peace Lutheran in May, but by June, he still hadn’t heard
anything. And so, stepping out in faith, they rented a storage unit and arranged
to housesit for someone for the month of July. Two days later, they received
the call to Peace Lutheran Church.
As he recounted the story to his
friend, it hit him like a ton of bricks – they had stepped out in faith then,
and God took care of them! Why should the decision to retire be any different?
As he described it, “In the loving, supportive context of simple conversation
with a faithful friend, in this process of ‘Christian conference,’ suddenly it
was Jesus who was talking. And the overtone was there: ‘Do whatever he tells
you.’”
Listening to
Jesus can indeed change our lives. This simple advice from Mary, “do whatever
he tells you,” is easier said than done. But as we embark on a journey to learn
how to do this, we can also trust that when we fail at it, Jesus won’t leave us
to drown in our mistakes. He will keep talking, sometimes gently, and sometimes
by such extraordinary means that the abundance of joy and grace is as
unexpected as it is incomprehensible. However his voice appears to us, may we
have hearts open to hear it.
Let us pray…
Abundant God, you will always guide us
toward your voice and your will, if we but listen. Teach us to pray, to read
your Word, to listen to the ways your voice comes in to our lives, and give us
the courage to do whatever you tell us. In the name of the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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