A Love Affair Renewed

Epiphany 2C; Isaiah 62:1-5; Ps. 36:5-10; John 2:1-11; St. Paul’s Smithfield, NC 1/17/16;

Jim Melnyk “A Love Affair Renewed”

Just last Sunday we heard a passage where God, speaking through the prophet Isaiah, says to Israel, “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine….Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you…” (Isaiah 43:1b, 3a).  For me, those are courting words.  I have an image of God standing before Israel with a box of the finest chocolates and dozens of long-stemmed red roses in hand.  Imagine how it would feel to hear God say to you, “you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.”

Now, I know physical and emotional sensuality seems to be one of the hooks for human beings today – whether we’re talking about a commercial for hamburgers or the content of  the TV shows, Movies, and Books that bombard us daily – Game of Thrones, anyone?  If you ask marketing people they will tell you, “Sex sells.”

           

But when it comes to reading, thinking, or talking about the obviously sensual language found in Holy Scripture about God’s love for humanity – something deeper and more meaningful than what the marketing gurus try to sell us – we tend to squirm a bit, don’t we?  Just read about how many rabbis, and then many Christian scholars tried to keep The Song of Solomon out of the Bible.   Consider, also, how God’s words through the prophet Isaiah last week conjure up images of the soft whisperings of a lover – and how, when we put it in that context, it makes a lot of people uncomfortable – perhaps because that kind of love can be so messy, and so risky,  and leave us feeling too vulnerable.  And yet St. Augustine, whose life bridged the fourth and fifth centuries, described the Holy Trinity as “Lover, Beloved, and Love” – and that was meant to conjure up all sorts of images of the intimacy that helps define God – and the closeness with which God desires to have with each of us. 

In another Old Testament passage, this one from Hosea, God tells Hosea of a plan to lure Israel back out into the wilderness where they first met and fell in love with each other, there to seduce her – to woo her and win her back, so that she will forsake the gods of the Canaanites and return to her former love – to her husband who is God (Hosea 2:14-23).

In this Sunday’s lesson from Isaiah, God goes from simply courting to a marriage proposal: “You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you” (Isaiah 62:4-5).  And I have to believe the imagery of a bridegroom rejoicing over his bride is purposeful in all the images it conjures up.  Twentieth century poet W. H. Auden put it this way: “He is the Life.  Love Him in the World of the Flesh.  And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy” (The Hymnal 1982, #463/464).

Auden’s poem is actually found in our hymnal – hymn 463 – and it points to the incredible delight God seeks out in relationship with us.  Mystics throughout the ages have reveled in the mystery of that love – and have long understood the emotional aspect of being in relationship with a God who is described in Holy Scripture not just as Lord, Savior, and God Almighty, but as friend, parent, lover, and spouse.  What an incredible range of connectedness!  And I daresay our world becomes quite dim when we forget or ignore the holy sensuality of God – the desire of God to delight in us – a God who breathes us in like perfume, and whose eyes dance with joy just at the thought of us!

How in the world can human beings created in the very image and likeness of God mistreat one another – despise one another – vilify one another – allow fellow human beings to wallow in poverty – or physically abuse or kill one another?  Why are there needs for places like Harbor House?  Why has our nation fallen so in love with guns, and society become so defensive, and so indifferent or numb to gun violence?  What might it be that causes us to treat one another differently – especially with distain or abuse – simply because of the color of one’s skin, their age, gender, sexuality or politics?  How can people of faith, like so many in the Anglican Communion, turn its back – and in some provinces support life in prison or the death penalty – on a whole segment of sisters and brothers in Christ simply because of whom they love?

When we forget that God delights in us – delights in all of us – that God delights in what Archbishop Desmond Tutu called the whole “rainbow people of God” – when we forget how that same God seeks us out to be part of a heavenly wedding – when we lose sight of the image of God in one another – then we find it easier to hurt one another – sometimes even in the name of the Holy One, and I have to believe that heaven weeps. 

As our Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry said this past week, “Our commitment to be an inclusive church is not based on a social theory or capitulation to the ways of the culture, but on our belief that the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross are a sign of the very love of God reaching out to us all, [and that what] the Apostle Paul [wrote] to the Galatians [long ago is] true for the church today: All who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for all are one in Christ.”  It is God’s desire that no one be named “desolate.”

It has been said that “we are in the habit of dividing the ministry of the Lord into his miracles and his parables and teaching. [The author of John’s Gospel] refuses any such division.

It is perhaps for this reason that he has virtually no parables in his Gospel, and that he chooses this word "sign" for the miracles in order to insist that the miracles are themselves parables” (Christopher Evans, Synthesis Today, 1/23/2016).  So perhaps in the end we should look at the miracle that takes place in the midst of a wedding in Cana of Galilee as an enacted parable – a teaching about the richness and extravagance of God’s love surrounding us and filling us – a sign of the inbreaking of the kingdom of Heaven upon and around us.  As the Psalmist proclaims – “wine to gladden our hearts” (Psalm 104:15).  We can then see in this enacted parable of Jesus hints about his resurrection (“on the third day there was a wedding”) and in the feast itself, allusions to the messianic banquet – the feast that will celebrate the inauguration of God’s rule (The Jewish Annotated New Testament, notes).

Throughout the Gospels, “Jesus’ motivation is love for God and love for God’s people” (The Rev. Lorraine Ljunggren).  Jesus’ actions are not dictated by what is popular in the culture of his day, or what might make everyone like him more – but rather in the belief that as God says through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord delights in us – we are precious to God – and loved by God – and worthy of God’s redeeming action in the world. 

Therefore, “theologically speaking, as followers of Jesus we are to do likewise keeping in mind that we begin with believing we are beloved, too” (Lorraine Ljunggren).  That’s the Good News, my friends!  As broken as we may be at times – as disillusioned as we may become at the brokenness of our world – and it is broken – our brokenness is not God’s final word for us.  God delights in us – God calls us “My Delight Is in Her” – and God loves us enough to throw a huge wedding feast for us in honor of that love.  How in the world can we not love one another if we have indeed been made worthy to be loved by God?

If Jesus’ miracle at the wedding in Cana is a parable telling us about God’s great love for us – if it purposely, or even accidently, alludes to the proclamation of Isaiah we’ve heard the past two Sundays, and the promise of a messianic banquet yet to come – then perhaps it stands to reason that we’re called to turn water into wine as well: By how we live together faithfully as followers of Jesus – by whom we welcome, and how we welcome them – by how we open our doors and our hearts to love and care for one another – even those who differ most from us – even those upon whom the world turns its back. 

The kind of love to which God calls us can be messy, it can be risky, and can leave us feeling vulnerable – but it can also leave us – and those to whom we minister as followers of Jesus – feeling precious.  For God has redeemed us, my friends, God has called us by name, and together we are God’s own beloved.