EPIPHANY 2 2021

READINGS: ISAIAH 62:1-5, 1 COR 12:1-11, JOHN 2:1-11

An interesting little vignette while entering India last week.  I had been asked by the Mathieson School to take that most vital of pieces of equipment with which all the best people travel - an angle grinder.  At immigration and customs, I had left the profession section blank, as all the advice is that Government of India regulations are very jumpy about clergy.  The customs officer of course duly asked me what my profession was and I answered priest. The form was then completed, after which she pointed to the X ray screen and asked me what the piece of kit was in my bag.  “An angle grinder” I replied. Said Customs officer paused for a moment and then asked,      “What sort of priest carries an angle grinder?” to which I responded “A practical and ready one. Sometimes also Anglican.” Fortunately, she saw the humour of this slightly bizarre encounter and waved me on.  So I hope you’ll forgive two insights from the children of the Matthieson School, as I’ve just come back from there, to illustrate two points I’d like to make in this great season of Epiphany.

Teaching in India is, I guess, a very different experience from teaching in the UK.  Teachers in India are not attacked or abused – on the contrary, they are respected. They don’t fear knife crime or verbal abuse, and are thus free to get on with the job of teaching.  They are also not afraid to set clear boundaries, and to say that this form of behaviour is good, and this form is behaviour is not good. So in one of the many question and answer sessions I had with the children, who are insatiably curious and ask 20 questions a minute, I asked them what their religious faith meant to them, and to give me one positive example of how their religious faith affected their daily life.  There was a clear majority answer to both questions.  To the first question, “ What does your religious faith mean to you?”  They generally answered “blessing.”  To the question about the practical outworking of their faith they answered “Abundance and generosity.”  Remember that these children are from the poorest of the poor economically, but are, as they observed of themselves, incredibly gifted, talented, quick, and blessed.  They are from many different religious faiths, and no they had not been schooled by anyone to answer my questions, as no one knew what I was going to ask them. They had however been practicing various Indian temple dances, most of which involve elaborate hand and body gestures of blessing. So Blessing and Abundance are the two things I’d like to speak about briefly, as for me they are what this season of Epiphany is about, and they come through today’s readings.

First Blessing.  Do you feel aware of the fact that you are blessed? Do we feel that we are blessed in our life together?  If we do feel that we are blessed individually and corporately, what difference would does that make to our lives?  Does it make any difference?  What does blessing mean anyway?  Part of an answer comes through today’s reading from the Prophet Isaiah. He says, “ You shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord will name… You shall also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.”  In other words, each one of us individually and separately is known to God and cherished and loved by him as the unique individual that we are. Of course, it’s not always easy to remember this, especially when the going is tough.  We cannot know how the people of Haiti are feeling today in the face of the appalling devastation wreaked on them by the earthquake, but what I do know is that blessing and generosity can be extended to them in their hour of need by those who have the resources and the means to help. That may be us in our small way, and we will be hearing more from our Christian Aid rep, Peter Hodges at the end of this service.

Sharing resources make communities healthy and strong. This is what the Apostle Paul means in his letter to the Corinthians, which we heard just now, when he says, “ There are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit,” and goes on to remind his hearers that the Spirit is given for the good of all – acting together, corporately, not as atomised and fragmented individuals.  All gifts and ministries in the church, whatever they are, are given for the good of all.    So this is the basic point about blessing.  That as we are blessed, so we bless.  A priest for example, cannot bless people in God’s name unless he or she knows that he is blessed himself.  It’s the same analogy about love.  We cannot love, and will be incapable of love, if we do not know ourselves what it means to be loved from our own experience and history. So too with blessing - we bless one another in the name of God.

This leads to second point.  Abundance and Generosity.  In the account of the wedding at Cana in Galilee, we heard the well-known story of Jesus turning the water into wine at a wedding party. I’m particularly fond of this – we have no record of Jesus at a religious ceremony for a wedding but we do have a record pf his attendance at a party. The wedding at Cana is of course one of the three central Epiphany themes, together with the visit of the Magi and the Baptism of Christ. The story can be read on many levels. One of them is as a Eucharistic reference, which speaks of the abundance and generosity which central to this love feast, the agape, the Eucharist.  But I believe it also speaks more generally about the attitude of celebratory abundance, which ought to characterise our lives together in church, community, and society.  Sadly, churches are all too often known as centres of carping and whingeing criticism, where “ they” are doing things which we can’t be bothered to assist with, but would far rather take a swipe, especially if it’s behind someone’s back. This isn’t St John’s, of course, but at the beginning of a New Year and new decade, it would be no bad resolution to set ourselves, to become a more abundant and generous Church.  Becoming more abundant and more generous is actually easy – all it takes is for everyone to contribute generously of the gifts and resources we have, be that in offering of time or in offering of material resources.  For that reason, we are inviting people to spend a few minutes and answer our questionnaire about the ways in which we can play our part in the mission of the church. Please complete this, even if it’s just to remind us of what you already do.  We are the church together when we do this, and share the load. When we actually live like this, the sky’s the limit, and we can achieve great things together.

So at this particular wedding feast, let us pray for the grace of God to live as a community of blessing, where we bless one another in the name of Our Lord.  When we do this, we will actually become the community of abundance and generosity that we were created to be.   Trust me – it works. Christian Aid this Lent are running a programme called Count Your Blessing 2010. I commend it, and again, Peter Hodges will have copies of this if you’d like one at the end of this service.  Many people, myself included, believe that St John’s is on the verge of something really tremendous if only we count our blessings, share our blessings, and become a community or blessing and generosity.  I started with India so I’ll end with it.  One of the great travel narratives in Arabic literature is the travel diary of Ibn Batuta from the fourteenth century.  He was shipwrecked on the Malabar Coast of South West India.  After being shipwrecked he was then robbed and mugged by thieves who left him for dead wearing only his underwear.  But at the end of this journey, he wrote, “ During my life and my travels I have encountered nothing but the best of fortune and the continual blessing of God.” Thanks be to our Abundant and Generous God for his many blessings.