January 19, 2025: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard.  Amen.

Eleven years ago this very day, on January 19^th 2014, I stood in this pulpit for the very first time as your Rector.  Neither you all, nor I, could never have known what was to be when we first began to be joined as priest and parish.  One thing for sure now, is that I feel blessed to be in this long relationship with you.

That isn’t to say it doesn’t take work, or that there weren’t difficult times.  There’s a saying out there that many a pastor write up a resignation letter on Sunday nights…only to throw them out on Monday mornings.  And then there was the pandemic.  Lordy! That was a strenuous time for clergy and laity all over the church. Of course, there are always tough times in any relationship of love – and that is what this is you know. 

At my installation, the Rev. Melissa Hall, who just recently announced her retirement from St. James in Upper Montclair, preached about this being a marriage of priest and parish.  Marriages, as you know take work, but it is well worth every bit of it.  And it is about a wedding that we hear about in the gospel of John today.

Now, I know I told you’all that we are in Year C of our lectionary readings, when we are supposed to hear from the Gospel of Luke.  But, since the 4^th gospel doesn’t get its own year, we hear bits of it splattered across the three other years.  And sometimes a story is only heard in one gospel – like the one about the good Samaritan – it is only in the Gospel of Luke.  This narrative, about Jesus and his mother Mary at a wedding in Cana is only in the Gospel of John, so it is good to hear it today, because it reveals something to us – and Epiphany is about revealing.

As you know by now, after being prodded by his mom to respond to the situation, Jesus doesn’t just meet the need at hand, he goes far beyond it.  Those jars would have been equal to nearly 1,000 bottles of wine – that’s a lot of chardonnay and merlot flowing into those cups at that wedding party.  And it wasn’t the cheap box stuff or Two-Buck Chuck.  It was the finest of wines. 

But the question is – what is revealed here?  That Jesus has good taste in wine?  Maybe he did, but no.  Is it that he liked a good party – yeah, I think he did, but no.  It is that Jesus responded with overwhelming abundance to the scarcity at hand.  Jesus was revealing for us how the kingdom of God works – that when we experience scarcity, God responds with abundance – to those who are empty, you will be filled with grace upon grace.

And as we enter into tomorrow, we need to hold that in our hearts – because we face the juxtaposition of two major events:  The inauguration of the incoming president and vice-president and the national holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   At first glance, this may seem like someone’s idea of a joke, given the rhetoric, beliefs, and actions of those about to take positions of leadership in our country – that their installation into power would come on the day in which we honor a man who fought against all that they stand for.  But for followers of Jesus, it is a clarion call to take notice of King’s voice and the faith of this follower of Jesus as we enter into a time of scarcity for so many, and so I think it is good that they are on the same day. 

For at this moment, while people – some of them sitting next to you in the pews, some of them known to you in our community – fear they may be deported, fear their marriages may be made illegal, fear the loss of their children, their healthcare, their legal rights, their very freedom – there are others who think – this is a political thing and the church should stay out of it.  Nothing could be further from the truth, and the Rev. Dr. King made that perfectly clear in his life and in his ministry.

I have told you all this before, but it bears repeating every time on this day, that sadly there are so many people out there who either believe the church doesn’t care, or that we shouldn’t care.  Yet they will say they admire Dr. King.  Do they even remember what he said in a speech in 1967?  The Rev. Dr. King said, “Before I was a civil rights leader, I was a preacher of the Gospel. This was my first calling and it still remains my greatest commitment.

You know, actually all that I do in civil rights I do because I consider it a part of my ministry. I have no other ambitions in life but to achieve excellence in the Christian ministry.”

And he sure did, did he not?  He had a great gift for his prophetic witness, a gift that St. Paul, in the epistle we heard this morning, made clear came from the Holy Spirit.

In his letter to the church in Corinth St. Paul wrote, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.”

Do we honestly think the Holy Spirit gives these gifts so we can remain silent in the face of injustice, or turn our backs on our sister or brother who is in need, or worse – participate in the oppressive systems that bind God’s children?  Can we, given what we know about Jesus? Absolutely not.

And one thing we also know is that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. not only was gifted by the Holy Spirit, he made sure those gifts were used to proclaim the good news of Christ.  And because of that, King also had a few choice things to say to those in the church who remain silent in the face of oppression.

King wrote a letter from a Birmingham Jail – written to clergy, including some in our own Episcopal Church, who were trying to tell him to slow down in his pursuit of justice, to not get people all riled up, to not be such an “extremist” disturbing the peace of the status quo.  Just a reminder of that “status quo” these clergy felt was important to maintain: segregation was still legal, full voting rights were still a dream, people of color were murdered, justice was only for white people, and freedom – true freedom – had not yet been achieved, nor is it still.  Some clergy – followers of Jesus – thought that keeping the peace was more important than the suffering of their sisters and brothers.  Not all mind you – many marched alongside him, including my own childhood pastor, the Rev. John Laney, whose stole I am wearing today.  Yet King was feeling the opposition of others, and while jailed, responded directly to them.

In that letter, which I have shared with you before, King wrote, “Was not Jesus an extremist in love? — “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.” Was not Amos an extremist for justice? — “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” … Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist? — “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.”…So the question is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?”

Indeed.  What kind of extremists will we be? 

Will we be extremists for Christ, or for secular governments?

Will we seek the comfort of keeping the peace while children of God are oppressed, or will we follow Jesus?

Because as we know from his life – Jesus was an extremist.  He did not stop doing what he was called to do because of temple laws, cultural norms, or to play it safe in the shadow of the Roman Empire.  Jesus responded to scarcity with abundance, pain with healing, oppression with freedom, hate with love, death with life, darkness with light. It was for this he lived, and it was for this he was willing to give his up his life on the cross.

Today we are nourished here in community and at this table by that same Jesus, who set an example for us on what we are to do. 

Tomorrow we enter into an era in which our unique spiritual gifts will be called into action – gifts of prophetic witness, of wisdom, or even the working of miracles. 

We will be called to the utterance of knowledge in an era of disinformation and lies.

We will be called to respond with the gifts of healing by the spirit for those who are fearful, who are marginalized, who are oppressed.

We will be called to use the Spirit’s gift of prophetic witness, as the Rev. Dr. King did, and be a voice for the voiceless, and taking a stand against injustice of any kind.

And we will be called to abundant grace in response to the scarcity of love in the hearts of those with secular power who wield that power unjustly – praying that they may have their hearts filled with the grace of God’s love – for their own salvation, and that of the world.

Tomorrow we will be asked to reveal who we are – the body of Christ today. And what we need to ask ourselves is:  Will we meet the moment?  Will we go where we are called and use the gifts we have been given?  Will we respond to the scarcity we encounter with an abundance of grace.  Or, will we turn our backs and walk away?

Before we answer that, remember again that there were people telling Jesus and King to be quiet – some of them religious leaders of their day. Eventually in both cases, they were killed – but they were never silenced. 

So in this pivotal moment in our nation’s history, I ask you to consider all that you heard today in the gospel and the epistle, and whether you believe the church is called to remain silent, or to public witness.

And before you answer, hear this from that same letter from a Birmingham jail.  In addition to what I quoted earlier, there is a part of the letter in which he responsed to those who questioned why he would lead protests against segregation in Birmingham, and calling his acts “unwise and untimely.”  King wrote, “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea.…

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men [and women] willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”

“The time is always ripe to do right.”

The time is always ripe to follow Jesus.

The choice is yours.

What will you do?

Amen.

For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):

Sermon Podcast

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox

Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge

January 19, 2025

Epiphany 2 – Year C

1st Reading – Isaiah 43:1-7

Psalm 29

2nd Reading – Acts 8:14-17

Gospel – Luke 3:15-17, 21-22