Sermon on January 16, 2022: Epiphany 2
A sermon for the second Sunday after the Epiphany, by the Rev. Daniel T. Moore
The Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church is the Most Reverend Michael Curry, who is the 27th presiding bishop of our church, as well as the first Black presiding bishop.
Before Bishop Curry was the presiding bishop, he was the bishop of North Carolina, and he was bishop there while I was a student in seminary, in Durham. And I was privileged to be able to attend services and lectures and ordinations that he would come often and do for students at the seminary. If you aren’t very familiar with Bishop Curry, I’d recommend taking some time and watching some videos of him and his preaching. Bishop Curry is a very gifted preacher, as anyone who watched the royal wedding of Harry and Meghan a few years ago would know. He is evangelical in the very best sense of that word. He knows the Good News, the evangelium that is worth evangelizing, and he knows how to connect this good news with our ordinary, real-life experience, in a powerful and prophetic way.
There’s a video of Bishop Curry from some years back, when he’s being interviewed, and he is telling a story about a young man and a young woman, and it’s a story worth sharing. You can read the transcript below—or better yet, watch Bishop Curry tell it himself:
There was a woman who became an Episcopalian in the 1940s, and she was dating a young guy who was a licensed Baptist preacher, and she took him to her church. Both of them were African American. The church where they went was all white. This was in the 1940s, in the segregated heart of America.
When it was time for Communion, the man stayed seated in the pew, and the woman went up to take Communion, and was the only black person in the congregation, and he waited to see what would happen. Because not only were they taking the bread, but he noticed that they were all drinking from the same cup—and he had never seen black folk and white folk drink out of the same cup, or from the same water fountain.
And so she went up to take Communion, and the priest came, and in those days only the priest would give Communion, and he was going along saying, “The Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven… the Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven…” And then the priest came along with the Chalice, “The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s Blood was shed for thee…” And the priest got to the Black woman, and said the very same words, and extended her the Chalice.
The man who was dating her was still watching from the pews, and that man said that any church where black and white drink from the same cup has discovered something I want to be a part of, and that the world needs to learn about.
That man and that woman were my parents.
This is the sacrament of unity that can overcome even the deepest estrangements between human beings.
The Eucharist can overcome even the deepest estrangements between human beings.
We are in a time of year when Martin Luther King, Jr. is celebrated and spoken of. We observe a federal holiday in his name on the third Monday of each year—tomorrow. Quotes are shared, and days of service are performed, like the one here at St. Paul’s sponsored by our Outreach Committee. We will hear selections of the “I have a dream” speech shared widely, quotes like this one:
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
When Martin Luther King Jr. gave that speech, Michael Curry was just 10 years old. He would have heard and digested Dr. King’s words. Michael Curry is himself a descendant of enslaved peoples in North Carolina and Alabama. And so when he tells the story of his parents going to church back in North Carolina in the 1940s, I can’t help but wonder if he was thinking of those very words, and the dream of Martin Luther King Jr. His mother, a daughter of former slaves, drinking from the same cup as the sons and daughters of former slave owners; a few decades before King ascended the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to give his speech.
As Bishop Michael Curry says, The Eucharist is the sacrament of unity that can overcome even the deepest estrangements between human beings.
In today’s Gospel reading, we hear about a wedding, the wedding feast at Cana, and it’s about a wedding, yes. But it’s about much more than just a wedding. And we need to put on our 3-D glasses if we want to see what else is going on. The wedding is on the verge of crisis. The wedding is on the brink of being canceled. The unity, the conviviality, the celebration of love and of marriage is at risk of all being destroyed.
Why? Why is it? We hear it straight from Jesus’ mother: they have no wine.
They have no wine. And unless we begin to glimpse the deeper truth, then we will only conclude that this is just another party foul, just another sloppy host who didn’t plan enough for his party. But that’s not what’s going on. What’s going on is that this feast, this celebration was in mortal danger. The wedding feast is like the Church; the wine which has run out is like the Sacrament. The people at the wedding are like us, because they can’t seem to get it together and they are at risk of deepening their estrangements.
They have no wine is a metaphor for a Church that becomes entrenched in its deepest estrangements, rather than breaking them down. When the barriers of estrangement have gone up, and it is only people of this race and not that, only people of this nationality and not that, only people of this orientation and not that who are invited to the wedding feast. Who are invited to receive Holy Communion. And whenever a church or churches play to that kind of logic, the sacrament of unity will vanish. In other words, they will have no wine.
But the good news, for us, is that we are not the ones who have to make it. We can’t—can’t do it, never have, never will. The spiritual truth is that we cannot in and of ourselves manufacture unity and overcome estrangement. Human nature is what it always was, and I didn’t live through the 1960s but it might as well have been yesterday, and there is no such thing as a march toward progress so long as human beings are leading the way. That’s part one of the good news, and here’s part two: we know who makes the wine. And what is the other thing that Jesus’ mother says to the folks in the story? “Do whatever he tells you.” Put your 3-D glasses back on, because the fact is that the Ever-Blessed Virgin Mary is saying these words directly to us: Do whatever he tells you.
Bring him the water. Bring him your self. Ordinary. Maybe a little dingey. Maybe down right undrinkable, unpotable, unable to love your neighbor as yourself. Do whatever he tells you and bring him the water so that you yourselves may be made sacramental, transformed into a people who can overcome even the deepest estrangements between one another. Remember that wine is made of water that has become something richer and fuller and more vibrant than what it once was. The good news is that the grace of God is sufficient to make us into a holy people, just as Jesus took water and made it into wine.
In the marriage liturgy from The Book of Common Prayer, there are a series of prayers that are said over a couple. And one of them is exactly what Bishop Curry was saying. The prayer asks God to, make the couple’s life together “a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world—so that unity may overcome estrangement.” When Jesus turns water into wine, he does so for this very reason: that unity may overcome estrangement. For those who are married, yes. But he is always doing it for the whole Body of Christ, the Church.
And when we open our hearts to his sacramental work, you know what? We will always have wine. We will never run out. There will always be enough. It will only keep on flowing, and flowing, and flowing; and the best will always be saved for last.
I have spoken to you in the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.