Rugby, Tennessee 37733
Phone: 423.628.5627
christchurchrugby@etdiocese.net
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Another oldie but goodie: Do you know how many Jewish mothers it takes to change a light bulb? The answer is: none. “Don’t vorry about me; I’ll just sit here in the dark.” I think of that little joke every time I read the story in John about what is reported to be the very first miracle that Jesus does – turning gallons of water into good wine. You’ve probably also heard how we know Jesus was a Jew: He lived at home, unmarried, until he was 33 years old. He went into his father’s business. He was sure his mother was a virgin, and his mother was sure he was God. So here we have this good Jewish boy, out for a night with his buddies, going to a big party – and his mother is there! What’s more, she tells him what to do – 33 years old! “Oh, mother …” he says (like all sons when their mothers embarrass them), and, like a good, bossy, Jewish mother, she ignores his protest and blithely tells the servants standing by to do whatever her boy tells them to do. (“Don’t mind him; I know better; he’s going to do miraculous things, so do what he says.”) Episcopalians, of course, love this story, because it seems to suggest that Jesus takes no offense at all at the idea of partying and drinking. And I can’t help but get tickled at how John ends this little section about Jesus making wine out of water and everybody imbibing freely; he says, “… and his disciples believed in him.” Well ye-es! Wouldn’t you? I really do like it that we get a glimpse here of Jesus and his friends in relaxed mode, having fun. In spite of our assertions about Jesus’ humanity, we usually tend to emphasize his godness more than his humanness – the ways he’s different from us more than the ways he’s just like us. In this little story, (and I like to think that it is not accidental that it is set right at the beginning of his adult ministry), we see somebody we can identify with – somebody who can get irritated with his mother; who can party and drink wine; I’ll bet he even danced. I was talking with a clergy colleague the other day; he was telling me of his plans for an upcoming Vestry retreat; he says he always begins by having each person share his or her “spiritual autobiography.” I asked how he distinguished between a “spiritual” autobiography and any other kind of autobiography, and he agreed that there really isn’t any difference. As long as I’m on this theme about us Churchers – us Christians – I might as well go on and say that Paul (in today’s Corinthians lesson) is on to something really important, but he conceives it much too narrowly (or perhaps it is that we read it much too narrowly). Like most Christian writers and apologists, Paul seems to want to make a distinction between “us” and “them,” so he talks about “spiritual” gifts (as distinct from …?) But I want to suggest that the truth he is on to is much broader than the way Paul says it and/or the way the Church tends to interpret it. Paul is talking about God as spirit – so far, so good. He says that there is one spirit that animates all human activity – in other words, God in all (technically, “panentheism”); the one spirit, he says, manifests in a variety of ways (and then he lists what seem to me to be churchy or “spiritual” ways); so here’s my amended list: one is a gifted musician and song-leader; one is an accomplished firefighter; one writes the community newsletter; one is a good jokester; one serves the food in the restaurant; one sells goods in the shop; one decorates the town for special occasions; one does crafts with the children; one studies and writes about nature; one visits the sick and the shut-ins; one writes a note of sympathy to the widow in her bereavement – and so on and on…All these activities (and you could name many more besides) are inspired by the One, and they all work to the creation and building of community. Now, if there is a distinction to be made, and if one needs to be made (and I’m not at all sure that it is useful to be making distinctions), but if there is one, it may be simply this - that the only special function of the Church (as distinct from any other human community) is to name, proclaim and celebrate the reality that there is one animating spirit that makes use of each of us – of our individual and unique gifts - in such a way as to make us into community. I may be giving Paul a bad rap: in another part of our record, there is a story about Paul in Athens, Greece, speaking to a group of people; he says something like this, “I notice that you are a community here and that you even have an altar dedicated to an unknown god; I just want to tell you who that is – that God is the animating principle - the animating spirit that under girds and breathes life into all that is; that one God lives in you and me.” And I have a friend who puts it this way: the laws that drive economic activity, or that are revealed in history or physics, or mathematics, or music – they are all one – they come from and reveal the one spirit who informs and inspires all that is. Or, as Paul says, in yet another place, “All things work together for good …” And, finally, as I and others have said, you have to believe it to see it: you have to believe that all things work together for good to see all things working together for good. And that is what we are about here.
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