Sermon by Rev. Russell Daye
St. Andrew's United Church, Halifax

From Fear to Abundance

Isaiah 62:1-5; I Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11
First Sunday of ‘Rejoice, Respond!’

The name of the stewardship campaign we are launching today is ‘Rejoice, Respond!’ The campaign team, without any help from clergy, came up with this name, and it is a good one. There is wisdom in it. We know that blood cannot be drawn from a stone. Neither can energy, passion, or commitment be drawn from the person with no joy. This campaign is about money, of course, but at a deeper level it is about energy, passion, and commitment. Above all else, these things are what we want from you. If these things flow, I am sure more money than we could need will follow.

But first we have to rejoice. We have to find a way to reach into each other and unlock the deep power to live life in celebration that is latent in all of us. This is one of the keys to the gospel. Living as Christ would have us live means moving through our days and our engagements with each other in a vigorous spirit of rejoicing. According to the Gospel of John, the first act of Jesus’ ministry was to turn six huge jars of water into wine so that a wedding feast could go on, lubricated into a mood of jubilation.

As an aside, because I know that some of you get caught on these questions, scholars are not convinced that this was Jesus’ first ministerial act. We don’t know if he really turned 180 gallons of water into wine. These things are unimportant for grasping the truth John asserts. John, by placing this story at the outset of the narrative of Jesus’ mission, is saying in essence, ‘celebration was a foundational element of this ministry.’ It was one of the core things that Jesus was about. He could not weep with those who wept and bind up those who were broken if he were not liberated to laugh with those who laughed and to eat and drink with those who were eating and drinking. As I have said here before, Jesus was a party animal. His drug was rejoicing.

When it comes down to it, is this not the only way to live? Is this not the only viable way to respond to the precious gift of life? Is this not the only wise way to pass the short span of time we have? Then why don’t we? Why, then, do we not rise each day, or even most days, in a spirit of rejoicing? Why, then, do the majority of us have our beating hearts of joy locked up only to be let out on rare occasions? What is it that turns the most exuberant parts of us to stone so much of the time? Why is it that we coat ourselves with such hard and constricting armour? Let us be honest. Most of us would very much like to love more freely, laugh more freely, give of ourselves more freely, dance through this world more freely. Why don’t we?

There are a number of legitimate answers to this question, but one stands above the others. It is a one-word answer: ‘fear.’ More than anything else, fear is what hardens our hearts, is it not? More than anything else, fear is what seizes our muscles, stopping us from dancing or from reaching out to embrace. More than anything else, fear is what overrides the impulse of love or generosity. And one of the sad ironies of life is that those who have the most with which to celebrate and to be generous are often the most fearful.

Having sojourned for greater or lesser amounts of time in a number of developing countries, I have become more and more convinced, upon successive returns to the first world, that we in the wealthy west have more fear than those in much poorer countries. (Perhaps it is not that we have more fear, but that we allow it to control us more, I do not know, but it amounts to the same thing.) To a greater extent, we live in the grasp of fear. We find the same dynamic when we compare classes within our country. Reading the latest Observer, I was struck by Rev. Allen Tysick’s observation about the homeless people he serves in Victoria: ‘I find more generosity, kindness and love among the homeless … than I find almost anywhere else.’ He then reminds us of Mother Teresa’s words: ‘You will always know the poor, they are the ones who have no shoes and are offering you a gift.’

How is it that those with so little could be free to follow the impulse to generosity and those with so much can have this impulse quashed by fear? Is it that we are more apprehensive because we have more to lose? Is it that we have become softer in our comfort and security? Is it that we have less backbone because we carry a lighter load? These responses have merit, but let me suggest another one-word answer: ‘trust.’ Those who have wealth come to trust in wealth. Those who have property come to trust in property. Those who have position come to trust in position. They become the perceived source of our security. But there is no security in these things. Fate and circumstance can sweep them away. Deep down we know this. Those who do not have these things are left to trust in God and there they find a bottomless font of abundance.

This is the common assurance of all three of today’s scripture readings. In Isaiah: Jerusalem, you tortured city, you who have been the playfield of empires, you who have been reduced to ashes and rubble – ‘You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.’ To the Corinthian Christians: you little, fledgling church in southern Greece, you little congregation surrounded by non-believers, confused by conflicting messages, and broken by disputes about the charisms of the Spirit, you are absolutely filled with gifts and they all flow from the Holy Spirit.

And in John we find a family about to lose great face because they have not provided enough wine for a wedding feast, we find that the single biggest social event of the year is about to come to a premature and bitter end because of a dearth of drink. But face is saved and the celebration intensified by the first miracle of the messiah. Imagine the fear of the parents of the bride and groom. It is your responsibility to provide free-flowing wine throughout the festivity. If you fail, your social standing falls. If you fail, you are disgraced. If you fail, the marriage is off to a blighted beginning. Then suddenly there is more wine than the merry makers could drink in a week and it is the best wine anyone has ever tasted. There is an instant shift from scarcity to abundance, from fear to rejoicing.

Friends, this is the shift the Gospel calls us to make. Having come to trust finite things for our wealth and security, and knowing that we consume these things at an unsustainable rate, we have become acutely aware of scarcity. Fear is creeping in, making us withdrawn into bastions of nation, class, church, family or even self. That withdrawal, that retraction is anti-gospel movement. Christ compels us to reverse the motion, to break out of our refuge into the power of unpredictable interaction and relationship, to cast off our armour and to dance into a world created as a wellspring of abundance.

In the story of the wedding at Cana, Jesus, who has just finished calling the first of his disciples, makes this reversal of motion at the urging of his mother. She comes to him and points out that the wine is running dry. His response: ‘Woman, what has this to do with you and me?’ A retraction. She ignores this distasteful reaction by her son, who would be a messiah, and says to the servants, ‘do as he tells you.’ Jesus, finally seeing the need and potential in this moment, acts. What is the last line of the story? ‘Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.’ Mary had to push the Messiah off the perch into his ministry. How is his glory revealed? What causes his potential followers to become disciples? An act that turns scarcity into abundance and in so doing rescues a whole web of relationships: between the bride and groom, between their families, and between these families and the community.

That is stewardship. Stewardship is not giving till it hurts. Stewardship is not exhausting oneself in thankless service. Stewardship is taking the plunge into the place of abundance and that place is always the nexus of relationship. In contradiction of the second law of thermodynamics, in contradiction of classical economic theory, the Gospel asserts that this is a world of abundance, this is a cosmos of abundance.

We can be a people of abundance. We can be a church of abundance. All it will take is a psychological shift away from scarcity and into the knowledge that God has created a world jam-packed with energy. God has created a world jam-packed with wealth. God has created a world jam-packed with opportunity. How do we release that potential? Let’s take a clue from the physical fabric of God’s creation. Let’s take a clue from the building blocks of this universe, which aren’t blocks at all. This is the theologian Diarmuid O’Murchu: ‘At a subatomic level, the interrelations and interactions between the parts of the whole are more fundamental than the parts themselves. There is motion, but there are ultimately no moving objects; there is activity, but there are no actors. There are no dancers; there is only the dance itself!’

What is stewardship? Stewardship is giving oneself to this dance. Stewardship is breaking the grip of fear and giving your passion to the web of relationships that we call community. Stewardship is refuting the philosophy of scarcity and giving your strength to the array of interactions that we call society. Stewardship is emerging out of your refuge and giving your commitment to your fellows.

If you believe that St. Andrew’s is becoming a nexus of love, then I ask you to give your passion to this church. If you believe that St. Andrew’s is becoming a matrix of mission, then I ask you to give your strength to this church. If you believe that St. Andrew’s is becoming a crossroads of care, then I ask you to give your commitment to this church. We do want a little more of your money, but more profoundly we want you, and first we want you with a liberated and rejoicing heart. Rejoice first, then respond.