Abundance

My opening sermon of 2016.  The sermon text follows the video.

For the people of Jerusalem, Isaiah’s words must have sounded naïve at best, delusional at worst. How can one who claimed to speak on behalf of the Lord God Almighty look around and say that they were the beloved of God? To claim that Jerusalem was a crown of beauty for the Lord, a place in which the Lord finds delight, surely rang a hollow and painful note for those left in the holy city.
For at the time this third major section of the book of Isaiah was being written, it is likely that there was little of the former grandeur left in Jerusalem.  The walls have been thrown down, the city sacked, and the temple reduced to rubble.  The promise of a never-ending reign of King David’s line seems as in shambles as the city itself.  While scholars argue about the exact dating of when this section of Isaiah was written, it seems clear that it falls sometime after the Babylonian sacking of the city and exile of many of the civic and religious leaders, yet before the serious work of rebuilding the city and temple could begin following this national tragedy.
In short, Jerusalem is a city in crisis, populated by a people in crisis.  Isaiah clearly identifies how Jerusalem sees herself; in verse four the prophet promises that “You (Jerusalem) shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate…”
Forsaken.  Desolate.  These are not lightweight words; not the words of someone who has had a few bad days, someone for whom things could go a bit better.  No.  These are the words of people for whom all hope seems lost.
On the 12th of April, 1999, Holocaust survivor, Nobel laureate, and renowned author Elie Wiesel was asked to speak at the White House as part of the Millennium Lecture Series.  In his 20 minute address, entitled “The Perils of Indifference,” he presents a passionate and compelling argument for why indifference, rather than hate, is the most dangerous human response to tragedy - and it gives a clear understanding of how his Jewish faith informed his experience.  
During his speech, Wiesel told the gathered dignitaries, “Rooted in our tradition, some of us felt that to be abandoned by humanity then was not the ultimate. We felt that to be abandoned by God was worse than to be punished by Him. Better an unjust God than an indifferent one. For us to be ignored by God was a harsher punishment than to be a victim of His anger.”
To be forsaken - to be abandoned by God.  These words might have just as easily been spoken those many centuries ago by the people of Jerusalem.  Whether forcibly migrated to Babylon, or left behind in the ruins of the city to try and survive, it is no surprise that these are a people feeling forsaken; feeling abandoned.
Of course, we all know what it is like - feeling forsaken - feeling abandoned.  It doesn’t take having your city burned to the ground by an invading army to understand what a lonely and desolate place this world can be!  We have all experienced, at some point in our lives, even if only for a little while, what it is like to feel forsaken and desolate.
For each of us the experience is different.  For some, that feeling came when the job they thought was steady and reliable came to a sudden end, and predictability gave way to fears of unemployment.  For others, it came when their husband or wife or child became sick, and nothing the doctors did made any difference.  Some were shattered when a relationship they had poured themselves into seemed to crumble around them; others simply feel empty because they fear they will never live up to the expectations placed on them - by a parent, a spouse, a teacher, an employer - or the hardest taskmaster of them all - ourselves.
For most of us, these times of forsakenness are not long-lived and are part of the normal ebb-and-flow of our lives.  However, in those moments we can be left feeling desolate and alone.  Our lives can feel like land parched for water and nourishment; like a place where life will never thrive again.  It can be hard to imagine how life will ever be normal again; what if we truly have been abandoned?
The prophet Isaiah speaks words of hope to the people of Jerusalem and to us - and this is the important detail - these words of hope promise much more than simply a restoration of things to the way they were before.  God’s promise is not simply, “I know the walls have been torn down and the temple destroyed, so I will fix those things.”  Rather, God promises a radical shift in the relationship between the people and God.
No longer is the relationship simply about God being God and the people being the people, no, the relationship is to be much more intimate than that.  Throughout the later part of Isaiah the prophet repeatedly uses marital language to describe the new relationship between Jerusalem (symbolic for the people of God) and the Lord.  The Lord is to be the bridegroom, and Jerusalem his bride.  
Now, it is true that this imagery is not without its challenges for us as modern readers of scripture.  Conversations around marriage, and what marriage is and should be, are wide-ranging and pervasive in both church and society.  So, I want to be careful to not read too much of a modern understanding of marriage into this passage.  The important detail for me in all of this is not what this passage says about the proper relationship between two people in marriage, or what this passage says about understandings of marriage in the ancient world, but rather the simple idea that God desires to know us and be known by us.  No longer is God to be distant, but rather God is to be here with us and for us.  And this isn’t simply a promise of God’s presence, it is a promise of God’s joy.
We see the fullness of this new relationship in Jesus Christ - God for us and with us.  In the Gospel of John we read that Jesus performs his first sign on the third day at a wedding - in the middle of a joyful feast.
I find it interesting that John doesn’t call this, or any of the other events in his Gospel, a miracle.  Instead, John calls it a sign.  While it may seem like a small distinction, it points to a larger truth.  In John’s Gospel, everything points to something else - this is a Gospel full of symbolism and signs.  So, for John, it isn’t the event itself that is particularly important, but instead what the even tells us about who Jesus is and what he is about.  Unlike the other Gospels, John doesn’t make heavy use of parables, instead we find Jesus’ own actions serving that role.
We might read the story of the wedding at Cana a little differently, then - think of it as one of Jesus’ parables: “And then Jesus said to his disciples, The Kingdom of God is like this…  There was once a newly married couple in a small town, feasting with all their friends and relatives.  They had even invited some local religious teachers.  During the feast, the wine began to run low, and the steward looked at the couple with a disapproving glare as he was called away by one of the servants.  The couple felt a sense of shame and guilt begin to wash over them, for they realized they had no money to buy more wine for their guests. However, when the steward came up to the couple a few minutes later and began speaking of barrels of the finest wine, the fear and shame gave way to relief and joy - albeit paired with some confusion.”
If we were in one of the other Gospels, the writer would likely then add a comment about how the disciples didn’t really understand at first, and how they asked a lot of questions about where the wine came from, and why it was important that the jars were from the ritual purification, and all about the details of the miracle.
But John, I think, is saying something different.  The Kingdom of God is like this - when the wine runs out, Jesus doesn’t just fix the problem with a few bottles of the cheap stuff from the discount rack at Tesco.  No, he provides with abundance, both in quality and quantity.  One commentator claims that based on the size of the stone water jars, and the claim that it was the finest wine, that in today’s prices Jesus provided over £250,000 worth of wine for that small town wedding.
And maybe even more importantly, Jesus provides without the couple even knowing, or asking, or expecting.  According to John, the only people who knew what really happened were the servants who drew the water from the jars, and Jesus’ mother and disciples.  The steward, guests, and couple have no idea where this abundant supply of the finest wine has come from.  The gift comes unlooked for in a moment of deep need.
This past week in the Presbyterian Outlook, an independent magazine that reports on the Presbyterian Church in the USA, a columnist wrote this in response to today’s reading: “This isn't a fairytale, this isn't happily ever after; this is salvation, God for us and with us in sickness and in health, rich or poor, better or worse, a relationship that not even death can part.”
That my friends, is the good news that God is speaking to you and to me today.  Even in our moments of forsakenness - our moments of desolation - God is for us and with us in the person of Jesus Christ.  We may not always see him, we may even feel like we are all alone.  But it is at that moment that he is in the cellar with our friends saying take those jars - fill them to the brim.
Thanks be to God.