The Holy Spirit is active bringing transformation in our lives, our community, and in the world. 

Vicar Andrea Bonneville
Third Sunday after Epiphany, year C 
Texts: Luke 4:14-21 

Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

The Holy Spirit is busy transforming.  Do you hear her?

Moving, stirring, breathing, growing, changing.
Challenging, testing, inviting, stretching.
Energizing, motivating, inspiring.

Systems of oppression and structures of power are being exposed, creation is crying out for healing, walls of division are crumbling. God’s Spirit is active in the world bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives, recovering sight to the blind, freeing the oppressed, proclaiming the celebration of the jubilee.  

Today, Jesus says, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Today God’s spirit is filling your life. Today the Triune God is transforming our world.  Today, here and now.

And yet many are still trapped in systems of injustice, caught in the sin of the world, living within destructive patterns that are hurtful to their neighbors and creation.  

Many can’t escape the noise of fear and shame that lies to us and convinces us that we are not good enough to receive the good news of God’s love and mercy.  Many live in poverty, captivity, isolation and experience loneliness, discrimination, and hate.

It’s hard to believe that transformation is happening and that God is active in our lives when we look around us and see pain and suffering and division.  It’s hard to trust that change is going to happen when the weight of sin and evil weighs us down.  Some days we don’t know if what scripture says God is doing and has done in the world is enough or if God’s promises of abundant love and life will be fulfilled.

But don’t give up on hope. Don’t lose sight of the ways God is active in our lives. Because God, through the Spirit, is transforming you, this community, our neighborhood, our world. With God, transformation is happening, but we know that it doesn’t happen overnight.

When Jesus enters back into his community after his baptism and wilderness journey, people who have known him his whole life don’t notice the transformation that has taken place through the Spirit. And next week we will hear that his community doesn’t respond well to his transformed identity.

But Jesus plants a seed of promise that throughout his ministry he will continue to water and nourish the world bringing healing and justice until God’s promise of love and mercy is fulfilled through his death and resurrection.

And now, as people living in the hope of the resurrection, we take on the task of watering and nourishing until God’s promise can be fulfilled for all of God’s beloved.  Day by day change is happening in unexpected ways in unexpected people, and in unexpected places.  

When we encounter the word of God, hear the promise of a world filled will love, grace, and justice. And when receive glimpses of God’s promises fulfilled in our lives, we cannot help but open our hearts to the transformation that is happening in our lives through the spirit.  

Transformation happens as we hear God’s word through our singing and speaking in our silence and in our prayer. God’s word is being fulfilled today because as we hear God’s word and experience God ‘s word in others, we are transformed by it and through it. This is why it is so important for us to gather in community to worship, read scripture, pray, and serve together, to feast together, to be a part of each other’s daily lives.  

Transformation happens when we confront our biases and behaviors that contribute to division and destruction.  When we take responsibility for our actions and apologize when we make mistakes. It happens when we check in on a friend or take time to laugh, play, and share joy.

Transformation happens when we serve our neighbor. When we give of our time, money, and resources to help others and journey with them.  Like what is happening in our community as we take action to accompany and advocate for an Afghan refugee family.  Or when we continue to provide gracious hospitality to all who come to our door looking for support and love.

Transformation happens as we walk out of these doors proclaiming God’s love and justice through our actions and words whether that be in our classrooms or office, around the dinner table, at the doctor office, or in an interaction with a stranger.  

When we take time to pause and listen to the Holy Spirit, we are guided in ways that will grow our hope and confidence in God’s word active in our lives. And for now, we are nourished by the promises of God’s love and grace that have already been revealed to us. These glimpses of growth, of healing, of reconciling, give us hope to continue to follow the Holy Spirit nudging us toward transformations we don’t even know are possible. 

Moving, stirring, breathing, growing, changing.
Challenging, testing, inviting, stretching.
Energizing, motivating, inspiring.

The Holy Spirit is busy transforming. Do you hear her?

Amen.

The Triune God, through community, is leading us into abundant life and love 

Vicar Andrea Bonneville
Second Sunday after Epiphany, year C 
Texts: 1 Corinthians 12: 1-11; John 2:1-11 

Beloved in Christ, grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

I must admit I am envious of the people in this week’s Gospel story. Together with both loved ones and strangers, celebrating a wedding without having to think about masks, social distancing, showing their vaccination cards, or locating a test.  The weather is warm and the wine is flowing abundantly.  It sounds pretty dreamy, if you ask me.

But even this celebration has a bit of a hiccup as the wine runs dry.  Mary tells Jesus, “They have no wine” which to me sounds like a code for saying “we are experiencing unprecedented times”.

Jokes aside, running out of wine is a serious issue. Unlike modern day weddings, this wedding was likely to last a whole week and there was an expectation that wine would flow abundantly throughout the celebration.

But before I go any further with this metaphor, I just want to create a clear understanding of what we are talking about with wine.  In this time period wine wasn’t necessarily a strong alcoholic drink. It was a slightly alcoholic drink filled with vitamins and minerals and it was safe and clean to drink unlike most of the water. 

If the wine runs dry, the celebration was likely to end. And if it does, it leads to shame and embarrassment for the newlyweds, and also reflects negatively on the community who is supposed to be supporting them. It was after all custom for guests to bring food and drink to keep the celebration going.  

Two years ago, I would have read this Gospel story and sort of dismissed it because it kind of seems insignificant in the larger narrative of Jesus’ healings, teachings, and signs throughout the Gospels.

But over the last two years, it has been reinforced time and time again of how important community is.  We know the heartbreak of having to cancel or postpone time spent with people we love doing things that bring us joy and nourishment and love and support.

It feels like the wine has run dry and we are living in a time of scarcity again as we navigate canceled plans, empty grocery store shelves, limited hospital beds, and physical and emotional exhaustion. We know scarcity, whether it be scarcity of our basic needs, scarcity of resources, scarcity of energy, or joy, or hope. Yet, today in our Gospel story God’s unconditional love, grace, and mercy is revealed to us through providing abundance in the midst scarcity.

And so, if you came to worship today with your glass half empty (or half full for the optimists in the room), I have good news. God is here transforming our scarcity into an abundance of nourishment and hope.

Mary knew it. The disciples were starting to learn it. The newlyweds and wedding guests had no idea what was going on as they received nourishment, joy, and hope that with the amount of fine wine available the celebration was never going to end.  

Jesus’ act of changing water into wine is a sign that with the triune God—abundant life, joy, and hope are here and now.  Jesus even proclaims later in the Gospel that he has come so that we can have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10). 

Abundant life is more than portioning our energy and resources, more than checking off the boxes of our to-do lists, more than navigating division and fear. And is certainly more than hoarding resources and material things. Abundant life is about community.

Because abundance is not abundance unless we can share it with others. We may have abundant joy in our hearts, but our joy can’t be reflected if we do not have someone to share it with. Our meal may be the most delish looking feast, but the food is just going to spoil if we do not have a community to share it with. The abundance of gifts we have through the Holy Spirit are going to get rusty if we don’t use them by living lives of love and service.

Now there are varieties of gifts, Paul writes, 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.

God who created you, who knows you by name, who walks with you in the joys and sorrows in the grief and hope also calls you into abundant life and into abundant community.  Where all are invited, where all are embraced, where all can taste the fine wine that is the nourishment of our abundant life together.  So come to God’s table and be nourished, reflect God’s abundant grace and love for all to see.

We are being transformed with and through community and with and through God to share the abundant gift of God, who is our source of life.

Amen.