Epiphany 2

Sermon by the Vicar

Readings: Isaiah 62:1-5, 1 Cor 12:1-11, John 2:1-11

Travelling as a priest to partners in the Gospel in other countries is always energising, often fun, and sometimes challenging. Two little vignettes – one from a recent visit to the Mathieson School in India, and one from a year ago in Iraq. Partners in the Gospel often ask for things to be carried to them – always legally of course. In India, I had been asked to carry an angle grinder in my hand baggage. When challenged at immigration with the words, “What sort of priest carries an angle grinder?”  I replied “An Anglican one” to which the immigration officer waved me on. In Iraq last year, the Kurdish immigration officials looking at my hair said pityingly “Why are carrying so much hair gel?” I replied “It’s needed for an ordination” “Yes, of course,” he said “It will be a blessing.  Barakah” I speak about these connections because they are, like the sacraments, not optional extras. We are part of the worldwide household of faith in the Christian Church – we learn from each other in mutual trust and commitment, and in so doing are equipped and empowered to do our work. It’s those things I want to speak about today as the readings speak directly to us - they are “Trust and Commit” and “Equip and Empower” as the flip side of the same coin, with which we turn water into wine.

Trust and Commit. Any married person will tell you that without trust there cannot be commitment. Any person who has made solemn vows such as ordination or coronation will echo this – it would be impossible to commit without trust. This is one of the most powerful images of my visit to Iraq a year ago for the ordination as a priest of our friend Milan, who will be with us again in April. Here was a young man in his mid-twenties whose family and community had lost everything in the brutal occupation of so-called Islamic State now committing his whole life to serving God and the community in Iraq, while his family live as refugees in Germany. This was total trust and total commitment of a kind we very rarely see in our own society which would be much keener to speak about “my rights” than “my responsibilities.” The reading from the Prophet Isaiah speaks about this inner motivation “You shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give.” For this reason, in faith and trust, we took the decision as a Parish at the beginning of 2021 to stay open for live, sacramental worship in the safe environment we are. We never closed. A recent study pointed out that since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 47 cases of the transmission of COVID-19 linked to places of worship in England, of which there are 30,000. That is roughly 4 for every 100,000 acts of worship. Add to this the information that in the two Boroughs of Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster there have been no known cases of the transmission of the virus from any place of worship, then our decision to remain open cannot be seen as foolhardy or dangerous, but simply a manifestation of the trust we place in God, and our commitment to the community. Trust and Commit. We have been richly blessed by this decision, and we have blessed our community. And we did so with absolutely no encouragement from our Diocese or the Church of England, who seemed happy to dispense with live worship altogether. Our live sacramental worship has both equipped and empowered us.

Equip and Empower.  Our Christian faith teaches us that when commit to a task, we will be given the resources to carry it out. The ordination service speaks about this very clearly in saying that the individual cannot bear the weight of this responsibility in their own strength, but only with the grace and power of the Holy Spirit. Others in other contexts speak about this mystical experience of grace, especially in situations which have been neither sought nor expected. Both King George VI and his daughter Queen Elizabeth II have spoken about the mystical warming and empowering which the sacramental moment of anointing was for them – in roles which neither of them had either sought or wanted. On a personal level, this was my own experience of ordination, which I will never understand or comprehend. This is the meaning of the second reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians which speaks about the Spirit equipping the believer for the job in hand - whatever it is. And Christian believers are all anointed people through our common baptism. At bottom, what this means is the equipping and empowering which live worship always gives, and why we are compelled to continue with it as a blessing to our surroundings and society. It is not an optional extra. At the ordination in Iraq, both the ordaining Bishop and the two deacons being ordained priest kept the ancient gesture of prayer – right hand held aloft with outstretched palm held upwards. The symbolism of this is that we raise our empty hands to God and receive through our emptiness grace overflowing which both equips and empowers. Trusting, committing, leading to equipping and empowering is what the Gospel for today speaks of through the turning of water into wine. This is what we do. We turn water into wine. Over the last year, the water of the pandemic has been turned by this parish into the wine of hope and renewal. All our three electoral rolls grew, we met our Diocesan Common Fund obligations in full, through the generous giving of worshippers. We supported our partners in the Gospel in India, the Philippines, and in the persecuted Church of the Middle East. We formed new partnerships with a new café and a new nursery, we cared for creation by our new and extended wildflower meadows and the introduction of bees. That’s a tiny snapshot over the last year, as we prepare our Annual Report.

But now we look ahead in full faith as we turn water into wine. I spoke about the pandemic as water. If we viewed the experience as one of a dear friend who is chastising us, we can look ahead in different ways. We are chastised for our lack of sharing, in which rich nations hoard vaccines and poor nations struggle to get any. We are chastised for our undervaluing the things which really matter – our faith, our families and friends, our environment and, above all, we are chastised for our hubris that everything is under our control as masters of the universe. So in this place, we can and do can look ahead with confidence and faith. It is time to move from pandemic to endemic and live with the virus as our chastising friend. It is time for the Church to raise her voice and say we have a unique treasure to offer for mental and spiritual well-being as an expression of our humanity. It is time for an end to restrictions, the threat of restrictions, and the culture of fear and political infighting. A neighbour wrote to me at the end of 2021, “May I thank you with all my heart for your kindness and courage in keeping St John’s open alive and vital in these past two years. All of us will remember this for the rest of our lives- which may not be very long. If “mental health issues” merited half an hour on our news, I reckon that for those of us who travel to St John’s at the top of the hill, they probably with your help, the music, and God, fared better by far than most.”  With this attitude, we turn the water of the pandemic into the wine of faith.

We take this position because our faith leaves us no choice. It’s what we are called to do, and we will continue to do. Let’s turn water into wine in this beautiful Year of Grace 2022, as together under God, we say “Yes, we can.”