Homily for Sunday, February
23, 2014 Graves Chapel
Matthew
5:38-48
Jesus
said, "You have heard that it was said, `An eye for an eye and a tooth for
a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you
on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and
take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one
mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not
refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
"You have heard
that it was said, `You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say
to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may
be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and
on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you
love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax
collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what
more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be
perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
My brother, who sometimes comes to these services,
calls me “the prophet of love.” Now, since he is my big brother, Larry’s
intention is to tease me, but I don’t mind. I don’t believe I’m the prophet of love, but our gospel
lesson for today includes the words of the one who was the greatest prophet of
love the world has ever known. Who else but Jesus would say, “You have heard
that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say
to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”? All of the actions as well as the words
of the one we call Jesus were filled with love. He lived what he preached,
turning the other cheek to Pilate and Herod, praying for his persecutors,
extending the hand of love to reputed sinners, healing those who seemed
incurable, and restoring the dead to life. His life was a miracle of love.
But
some of the words about love in today’s lesson offer a real challenge to those
of us who want to emulate Christ’s love.
It is really hard to turn the other cheek when someone wounds us. Some
wounds are just not easy to forgive. And how many of us would find it easy to give
all that we have to others in need?
I think everyone here is willing to give a coat to someone who needs it,
but would we give our last warm article of clothing? Just what does Jesus mean when he tells us to be perfect?
After all, we are just human. Can
we really love others the way that Christ loves us?
When I was thinking about how to explain the kind of
love that Jesus exemplifies, I thought of his first miracle at the wedding in
Cana. I think this miracle doesn’t get enough attention. Since it isn’t one of
the extraordinary healings, it seems rather pedestrian. The whole changing
water into wine episode has been an uncomfortable story, unfortunately, for
some churches that forbid the use of alcohol. Back in the days when this chapel
was a Baptist church and I was a child here, I remember being told that what
the people of Jesus’s day called wine was really more like grape juice. And
grape juice was what we got at communion here. Each of us had a little sip of
grape juice from a tiny cup; there was no shared chalice and no wine. I’m still
not much of a wine drinker, but I think drinking the blood of Christ from a
shared chalice of wine is a better reenactment of the Last Supper it is
supposed to commemorate. Sharing bread and wine at the Lord’s table is the most
important action we Christians undertake to demonstrate we are all members of
the same body—the body of Christ, the body of the church, one family. (But I do admit that, when our mother
had to put things away after communion here, Larry and I raced to drain the
leftover grape juice from all of the untouched glasses.)
What
if instead of discounting the first miracle, when Jesus changed water into wine
at a wedding reception, we embraced it for all it has to teach us? Remember, it was Jesus’s mother Mary,
after all, who instigated the miracle.
Don’t you love that scene? They are at a family wedding, and when the
wine runs out, Mary wants to save her relatives from embarrassment, so she tells
Jesus to do something! He initially resists, but then asks for several jugs of
water. And he doesn’t just change all of that water into any old wine. The
steward who tastes it acclaims it to be the best wine. In that scene,
the importance of wine—the blood of the eucharist, the blood of Christ—is prefigured. Since most of the other miracles
performed by Jesus have to do with tragic aspects of life—when he heals those
who are ill or disabled or brings the dead back to life—how lovely it is that
this first miracle is set at an occasion of joy! How splendid that Mary guides
her Son to perform his first miracle, as an act of familial love! For me, it
reinforces the idea that the Lord is always present with us, in the midst of
our family gatherings, in times of joy and of sorrow, and that miracles are always
possible. It is a reminder to be grateful for those everyday miracles of simple
blessings that we often overlook.
What could be more fitting to represent the
establishment of a new religion, one based on love, than a wedding? In some of his parables, Jesus refers to
himself as the bridegroom. And how is Jesus like a bridegroom? He is faithful. In the Hebrew tradition, the period of
betrothal (or engagement) tested the faithfulness of the groom to his
betrothed. The wedding itself was the proof of that faithfulness. A bridegroom
is filled with love for his chosen one, just as Jesus loved and continues to
love his people. As any bridegroom
would feel, Jesus’s love for us is a very tender, protective love. The church
has long been called “the bride of Christ,” and we are the recipients of a love
that is faithful, intimate, exclusive, and true. As the “bride of Christ,” we
respond with our own tender love, our fidelity, our willingness to serve Christ
in one another, our trust.
The miracle at the wedding at Cana is not just a
light-spirited event in the life of Jesus that can be easily overlooked. That
miracle foreshadows all of the joy, love, and communion each of us can
experience in the church. The
collect for today, the seventh Sunday after the Epiphany, has long been one of
my favorites for its bold statement about the nature of love, and it would be a
good prayer to say at a wedding:
O Lord, you
have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your
Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts your greatest gift, which is love, the
true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted
dead before you.
Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus
Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and
forever. Amen.
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