The First of Many - 1/16/2022
Call to worship:
L: Are you troubled by the fickleness of human love?
P: Come and worship the Lord, whose love is faithful.
L: Are you troubled by the harshness of human judgements?
P: Come and worship the Lord, whose judgements are healing.
L: Are you troubled by the pride of human righteousness?
P: Come, let us worship the Lord, whose righteousness is pure.
A: Let us praise the Lord our God, whose love can make us faithful, whose judgements can make us whole, and whose righteousness can make us pure.
Opening Hymn: Have Thine Own Way, Lord #382
1. Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Thou art the potter;
I am the clay.
Mold me and make me
after thy will,
while I am waiting,
yielded and still.
2. Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Search me and try me,
Savior today!
Wash me just now, Lord,
wash me just now,
as in thy presence
humbly I bow.
3. Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Wounded and weary,
help me I pray!
Power, all power,
surely is thine!
Touch me and heal me,
Savior divine!
4. Have thine own way, Lord!
Have thine own way!
Hold o'er my being
absolute sway.
Fill with thy Spirit
till all shall see
Christ only, always,
living in me!
Opening Prayer:
O Christ, our Lord and Savior, from whose waters the faint can drink and never thirst again; beneath whose wings the homeless can take refuge and never fear again; on whose abundance the hungry can feed and never want again, we turn to you now, because there is no other to whom we can turn. We have tried other fountains, only to thirst again; other havens only to fear again; and other homes, only to want again. And so, chastened by the betrayal of our false messiahs, we return to you, O Christ, in confidence and hope.
Epistle Reading: 1 Corinthians 12: 1-11
Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. ²You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. ³Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.
⁴Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; ⁵and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; ⁶and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. ⁷To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. ⁸To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, ⁹o another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, ¹⁰to 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. ¹¹All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
Hymn: I Am Thine, O Lord #419
1. I am thine, O Lord, I have heard thy voice,
and it told thy love to me;
but I long to rise in the arms of faith
and be closer drawn to thee.
Refrain:
Draw me nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,
to the cross where thou hast died.
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer, blessed Lord,
to thy precious, bleeding side.
2. Consecrate me now to thy service, Lord,
by the power of grace divine;
let my soul look up with a steadfast hope,
and my will be lost in thine.
(Refrain)
3. O the pure delight of a single hour
that before thy throne I spend,
when I kneel in prayer, and with thee, my God,
I commune as friend with friend!
(Refrain)
4. There are depths of love that I cannot know
till I cross the narrow sea;
there are heights of joy that I may not reach
till I rest in peace with thee.
(Refrain)
Prayer of Dedication:
O Lord, Vindicator of the abused, Redeemer of the oppressed, Refuge of the exiled, and Fortress of the besieged, we call you by all these names because we have experienced you in all these ways. When we were abused, you vindicated us; when we were oppressed you redeemed us; when we were exiled, you sheltered us; and when we were besieged you strengthened us. So we address you now, O God, just as our ancestors addressed you so many times.
Lord, we are especially mindful of those in the human community whose struggle for existence is so dominated by concern for clothing and shelter and bread that it has yet to become a struggle for meaning. Let us never forget that they are no less your children than we and that, just as you have blessed us with diverse gifts, so you have blessed them.
May our words and deeds bring glory to your name. Amen.
Gospel Reading: John 2: 1-11
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ²Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” ⁴And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” ⁵His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” ⁶Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. ⁹When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” ¹¹Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
Sermon: The First of Many
It is said that there is a first time for everything – a first look, a first spoken word, a first trip on an airplane, and the list goes on and on.
Well, today, we learn, that this list of first times includes Jesus’ first miracle. We must remember that Jesus, having been born in human form, experienced firsts just like we do; except probably not the airplane ride. And just our first looks and spoken words turned into many looks and spoken words over the years, so did the miracles that Jesus performed while he lived among us here on earth.
On this particular occasion, Jesus and many others in his circle of family and friends had been invited to a wedding…a big wedding. This event would span three days and hundreds of people had been invited; it was no small affair.
Oddly enough, however, there was no ceremony. Weddings during this era had no need of a ceremony. Marriage in the Bible consists of a man and a woman, with the consent of the woman’s father or guardian, living together and attempting procreation. So basically, the wedding party or feast that we read about in John is a three-day party celebrating this match.
There was music and dancing, and food and laughter, and of course, there was wine. Tradition meant that you served the best wine at the beginning of the party, while the guests were theoretically still sober enough to enjoy it. The not so fine wine would be reserved until the end of the party when they were too drunk to notice. But woe to the host who ran out of wine before the party was over, and that is exactly what happened at this wedding in Cana.
Whether it was more guests than expected or poor planning on the host’s part, the celebration was threatened because they had run out of wine; the good stuff and the not so good.
Being a good friend of the hosts, Mary, Jesus’ mother, comes to him and tells him that there is no more wine. At first, Jesus dismisses the problem as something for someone else to handle, even saying that “his hour had not yet come,” meaning that his ministry had yet to make that distinction. But then Mary said to the servants that they should do whatever Jesus tells them to do. So Jesus tells them to fill the six stone water jars that were standing there for purification reasons to the brim. And then, when they put the ladle in to draw water, they instead got wine. And not just any wine, but some of the best wine anyone had ever tasted and it was made known throughout the party that this host had left the best wine for the last.
This miracle that Jesus did may not seem necessary or even appropriate to us grape-juice-drinking Methodists, but I can assure you, just as every act that Jesus did and every word that he said had significant meaning, so did this making of water into wine.
Jesus revealed his glory in the midst of a perfectly common event, a wedding celebration where hundreds of people were enjoying some happiness. Note also, that the seemingly only people to recognize that a miracle has even occurred are the servants. It is not the host or the bridegroom or even the steward who tastes the wine and declares that it is the fine wine that has been saved for the end of the party. This is a theme throughout the Bible; that the lesser knowns are the ones who see Jesus for who and what he truly is.
As I said in the beginning, this was the first of many miracles that Jesus performed, and honestly, only a few of these were written down in the Bible for us to read about. But the ones that we are able to read about are meant to bring us even closer to Jesus. Because we are the servants in this story and Jesus has blessed us with so many miracles.
Let this be the first day that you give yourself over completely to Jesus so that He can do miracles through you and with you and for you. Let this be the first of many.
Amen!
Closing Hymn: My Faith Looks Up to Thee #452
1. My faith looks up to thee,
thou Lamb of Calvary,
Savior divine!
Now hear me while I pray,
take all my guilt away,
O let me from this day
be wholly thine!
2. May thy rich grace impart
strength to my fainting heart,
my zeal inspire!
As thou hast died for me,
O may my love to thee
pure, warm, and changeless be,
a living fire!
3. While life's dark maze I tread,
and griefs around me spread,
be thou my guide;
bid darkness turn to day,
wipe sorrow's tears away,
nor let me ever stray
from thee aside.
4. When ends life's transient dream,
when death's cold, sullen stream
shall o'er me roll;
blest Savior, then in love,
fear and distrust remove;
O bear me safe above,
a ransomed soul!
In this place your healing has begun. Now begins the healing of the world. Go in peace.
