The Eureka Moment

[Once a quarter, the Three Churches- San Rafael's three Episcopal parishes (St. Paul's, Church of the Nativity, and Church of the Redeemer)- do a sermon swap. The rector, vicar, or deacon from each church goes to another to preach. Here, the Rector of Nativity preaches at Redeemer.]

Nativity at Redeemer: The Eureka Moment
The Rev. Stacey Grossman
Rector, Church of the Nativity
January 18, 2004

Church of the Nativity We bring greetings from your sisters and brothers in Christ at Nativity. Many know that this is the beginning of the week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and often think of this as a week to cross denominational lines and reach out that way. That is right, but we can just as easily consider extending our hands between our own parishes. Please join me in prayer this week as we pray for each other and move more and more into unity as Christ would have us do.

Just a word about The Church of the Nativity: We were founded in 1957, the same as this Church of the Redeemer. We started in the garage of a parishioner- we still have the original altar- and moved in 1964 to a beautiful hilltop in Marinwood…known as a Bishop Pike Church…at the end of a cul-de-sac, a little tucked away. The congregation is an older one, and we also have a great Sunday School and are committed to the younger families who are living in to the area. Like you, we don't have a parish hall, and are working hard on using our space to its best advantage. We have an active healing ministry as well as a nursing home ministry. Together with this congregation, we feed the homeless on a regular basis. People at Nativity are excited that I am here today (I think that's a good thing!) We plan to do this visiting on a regular basis.

We find ourselves in the season of Epiphany. We waited through Advent with Mary, Joseph, and an entire world starved for a Savior- and then experienced the birth of Jesus: God is with us, and, along with the shepherds and the animals, we now come seeking understanding.

That new understanding, that new insight, sometimes comes instantly, as a Eureka! moment of blinding insight. When it happens like this, we should thank God profusely. More often, it comes more slowly, like the Magi following the star.

This is the image I have for our three Churches working together, that together we will watch and listen and follow as the Spirit guides us into new relationship. We are clearly on a journey and have not yet reached our destination. We are- and should be- excited that the ship has left the shore under full sail, but we do not yet know where we will land.

Last Sunday, we celebrated the baptism of Jesus. Jesus prayed and the heavens opened and the Spirit descended and God's voice was heard, and again we are called into deep listening, listening for the voice of God among us as we pray and work for the kingdom of God.

Today, we hear the story of Jesus turning water into wine. This story is commonly referred to as Jesus's first miracle, but John uses a different word: he would call this a sign. He doesn't want us to get hung up on how or why. John wants us to focus on Epiphany, God showing Godself to us, God's faithful people.

So I'd like to suggest that this story is about a sign - not so much about some mysterious magic over some jars of water - a story about God taking something that is very plentiful, and ordinary, and in an act of generosity and hospitality, making it something the wedding guests would never forget. The Good News of this story is not so much in the making of the wine but in its offering. Which is of course what we are commanded to do: ". . . and here we offer and present unto thee O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies"

My prayer for our Three Churches is this, that as we understand God's epiphany to us, God will take what is plentiful among us: energy, spirit, vision, mission to our community, the gifts for ministry that Paul talks about, that we allow ourselves, ordinary people living ordinary lives, and allow God to transform us into something extraordinary.

And this is not for us alone.

Paul told the people of Corinth "to each is given the manifestation of spirit for the common good." And as we continue to work together, to know and understand deeply each others gifts, we will also find new signs, new understandings of the common good. What is it that our community needs? What is it that ordinary Episcopalians can offer?

I can't end today without a word about the day we celebrate tomorrow. In 1955, a middle aged black woman, an ordinary woman, refused to yield her seat on a bus to a white man. Some say Rosa Parks was just tired. We would say now that she was simply tired of living under oppression. Like the magi, like Jesus, she allowed herself to experience Epiphany, which caused her to act in an extraordinary way. Water was changed into wine that day.

At that same moment, a 26 year old pastor in Montgomery, Alabama, an ordinary man leading an ordinary life, found himself leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott in support of Rosa Parks' arrest. There were plenty of reasons this wasn't the right time, but Martin Luther King Jr. allowed himself to experience Epiphany, which caused him to act in an extraordinary way. Water was changed into wine that day.

Our three San Rafael Churches are on an Epiphany journey. Let us pray for the courage and openness to be taken by God and changed from water into the finest wine.

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