Morning Service for Epiphany 4 2023
HYMN – Morning has broken like the first morning NEH 237 – Bunessan
1. Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing
Praise for the morning
Praise for them springing
fresh from the Word.
2.Sweet the rain’s new fall,
sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass.
3. Mine is the sunlight
Mine is the morning
Born of the one light Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise ev’ry morning
God’s recreation of the new day.
PRAYER OF PREPARATION
Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open,
all desires known,
and from whom no secrets are hidden:
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love you,
and worthily magnify your holy name;
through Christ our Lord. Amen
PRAYERS OF PENITENCE
Christ the light of the world has come to dispel the darkness of our hearts. In his light let us examine ourselves and confess our sins.
Lord of grace and truth, we confess our unworthiness
to stand in your presence as your children.
We have sinned:
Forgive and heal us.
The Virgin Mary accepted your call to be the mother of Jesus.
Forgive our disobedience to your will.
We have sinned:
Forgive and heal us.
The wise men followed the star to find Jesus the King.
Forgive our reluctance to seek you.
We have sinned:
Forgive and heal us.
Your Son our Saviour in humility accepted the baptism of John.
Forgive our pride and rejection of your ways.
We have sinned:
Forgive and heal us.
At a wedding in Cana Jesus changed water into wine.
Forgive our failure to let your transforming presence change us.
We have sinned:
Forgive and heal us.
May the God of love and power
forgive you and free you from your sins,
heal and strengthen you by his Spirit
and raise you to new life in Christ our Lord. Amen
THE COLLECT
God our creator,
who in the beginning
commanded the light to shine out of darkness:
we pray that the light of the glorious gospel of Christ
may dispel the darkness of ignorance and unbelief,
shine into the hearts of all your people,
and reveal the knowledge of your glory
in the face of Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen
FIRST READING – 1 Kings 17.8-16
Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying, “Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.” So he set out and went to Zarephath. When he came to the gate of the town, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink.” As she was going to bring it, he called to her and said, “Bring me a morsel of bread in your hand.” But she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” Elijah said to her, “Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the LORD the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the LORD sends rain on the earth.” She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD that he spoke by Elijah.
HYMN – Lord of all hopefulness NEH 239 – Slane
1. Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy,
Whose trust, ever childlike,
no cares could destroy,
Be there at our waking, and give us, we pray,
Your bliss in our hearts, Lord,
At the break of the day.
2. Lord of all eagerness, Lord of all faith,
Whose strong hands were skilled at
the plane and the lathe,
Be there at our labours and give us, we pray,
Your strength in our hearts, Lord,
At the noon of the day.
3. Lord of all kindliness, Lord of all grace,
Your hands swift to welcome,
Your arms to embrace.
Be there at our homing, and give us, we pray,
Your love in our hearts, Lord,
At the eve of the day.
4. Lord of all gentleness, Lord of all calm,
Whose voice is contentment,
whose presence is balm,
Be there at our sleeping, and give us, we pray,
Your peace in our hearts, Lord,
At the end of the day..
GOSPEL -John 2.1-11
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. When 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 and 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.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
SERMON
Metaphors, what would our language be without them? Every day we use metaphor to explain what we mean – to talk about one thing we talk about another. For example, we say that something is as quick as lightning – and that it’s raining cats and dogs. Most metaphors are fairly easy to understand, some however need a lot of unravelling, not only do they explain the sense of what we mean but they might also take it further and develop the point.
The story of Jesus at the wedding in Cana of Galilee is full of metaphor, full of shades of meaning. John himself calls it ‘a sign’ – something that points beyond itself, the sign of things to come. The signs of Jesus that John relates are works of the present that manifest the kingdom that now is, but also anticipate the greater things of the kingdom that will come in his death and resurrection.
The first thing to notice about the wedding in Cana is that it was a feast, a banquet – with all the symbolism that the banquet meant to first century Jews. It was a favourite picture for God’s new kingdom, a transformed world of joy and fellowship, a community come together to celebrate its gracious host. But this banquet is flawed, the wine has run out, hospitality has failed, without aid the feast is at an end. So Jesus takes their jars of ritual, the incomplete and insufficient ritual of religion – there are 6, the number which is a metaphor for incompleteness, and the water jars are a metaphor for the whole ritual system of Judaism – he takes the water in the jars and transforms it into the new wine of the kingdom, the new wine of the Messianic Banquet.
Jesus used the stuff of religious observance, water for washing the outside, and made it become something to nourish and delight the inside. The stuff of law and religion was turned into the stuff of feasting and joy. Sterile religious duty transformed into something life giving and joy giving.
But there is perhaps an even deeper metaphor here – the idea that true religion is found in the very transforming moment itself – the conversion of sorrow into joy, despair into hope, hatred and indifference into love.
There’s a line in the musical “Fiddler on the roof” which goes “it takes a wedding to make us say, let us live another day.” In the hunger and the poverty of their lives the Russian Jews in the story find new hope and new strength in the joy of celebration, in the joy of fellowship and renewed community .
But the metaphor isn’t exhausted yet, for it appears that Jesus is provoked by his mother into performing this first sign of his kingdom. Mary – at least the mother of Jesus, nowhere does John call her Mary, he only calls her ‘the mother of Jesus’ – Mary makes a simple statement to her son – ‘They have no wine’. Jesus’ reply is shocking, ‘Woman, so what.’ At least that’s how it sounds to us, John’s use of the Greek word for woman didn’t carry the impolite overtones it has for us, what his phrase I’ve translated as ‘so what’ quite meant is difficult to say, almost certainly it was an Aramaic idiomatic phrase turned into Greek, literally it translates as ‘What to me and to you.’ And the reason Jesus gives is ‘My hour is not yet come’; and with these words we are projected forward to when his hour does come, when he will again speak to his mother as ‘woman’, but this time to say of the beloved disciple ‘behold your son’. So the writer of the Gospel according to St John finds Mary at the beginning of the road to the cross, and at the end – these are the only two places he finds for her – but they are hers by right.
At Cana Mary tells her son that the people at the party had no wine – and he meets their need with fine wine. After Jesus’ last words to his mother he said ‘I thirst’. So the metaphor becomes pathos and he who in grace provided, now asks… and his last act of mortality is to drink from another jar, this time by a cross, full of cheap wine.
In telling us of Jesus at the wedding at Cana in Galilee John is inviting us to make connections, to see the end in the beginning and the beginning in the end, to see in the cross the banquet and the wine that will not end, to see in jars – 6, the 7th being beside the Cross – a way of religion that must be transformed, that is transformed by the presence of Christ.
But most of all in telling us of Jesus at the wedding at Cana in Galilee John is calling us to believe, and in belief be ourselves transformed by the water become wine, become the blood of Christ shed for us – and shared by us.
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH
Let us declare our faith in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ:
Christ died for our sins
in accordance with the scriptures;
he was buried;
he was raised to life on the third day
in accordance with the scriptures;
afterwards he appeared to his followers,
and to all the apostles:
this we have received,
and this we believe. Amen.
1 Corinthians 15.3-7
HYMN Jesus shall reign where’er the sun NEH 388 – Truro
1 Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
Does his successive journeys run;
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.
2 People and realms of every tongue
Dwell on his love with sweetest song,
And infant voices shall proclaim
Their early blessings on his name.
3 Blessings abound where’er he reigns;
The prisoner leaps to lose his chains;
The weary find eternal rest,
And all the sons of want are blest.
4 Let every creature rise and bring
Peculiar honours to our King;
Angels descend with songs again,
And earth repeat the long Amen.
INTERCESSIONS – Sheila Forbes
God of hope and trust, in this month of January, taking its name from the mythological figure Janus of the two faces: one looking back and one forward, we pray that as we draw near to the end of the Christmas calendar the glorious, joyous light of the birth of God’s son may continue to illuminate moving towards the beginning of Lent. And with the light of the child Jesus in our minds, we give thanks this morning that by baptism you have raised Amelia to new life in the light of the spirit. We ask that with the love, wisdom and faith of her family Rachel and Anthony, god parents Rebecca, Jessica, Elinor, Catherine and David she may stay on the path lit by your truth.
Lord in your mercy hear our prayer.
God of peace, appalled by the pictures of Ukraine beamed into our homes, we pray most earnestly for all caught up in the destruction and slaughter: soldiers and civilians. Mindful that we have been guided to love our enemies, we pray for the young Russians conscripts directed away from their own humanity to acts of violence while thinking also of the bitter and angry confrontations in Israel. Thus, we pray for all called to take up arms in the dark zones of national identity, knowing that you our creator sees, not our place of birth, but our common humanity.
Lord in your mercy hear our prayer.
With our nation riven with the anger of people feeling over-looked, we pray for those in government that they may find a pathway to a resolution which reflects your kingdom in which all those with hands and minds ready to serve, feel valued.
Lord in your mercy hear our prayer.
God of succour, we ask you in your compassion to come close to those enduring pain; close to those who watch and wait; close to any lost in the maze of depression, remembering in this benefice: Roger Lowman and Daisy Warne.
We give thanks for the lives of those whom we can no longer see and bring before you the recently departed Harry Keeling, Stephen Henley and Julie Moule. Help their families and all here grieving to trust into your care those loved and much missed.
Lord in your mercy hear our prayer.
Everlasting God, as we go from this church today to start the week ahead, we ask that your glory may be revealed in all we say and do, that we may walk more closely with you at our side, safe in the knowledge that your love and care knows no limits.
Merciful Father,
accept these prayers, for the sake of your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
As our Saviour taught us, so we pray:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done,
on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours
now and for ever. Amen.
BLESSING
May he who who by his incarnation
gathered into one things earthly and heavenly,
grant us the fullness of peace and goodwill
and the blessing of God Almighty,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
be upon us and remain with us always. Amen
HYMN At the name of Jesus – Camberwell – NEH 338 – Camberwell
1 At the name of Jesus
Every knee shall bow,
Every tongue confess him
King of glory now;
’Tis the Father’s pleasure
We should call him Lord,
Who from the beginning
Was the mighty Word.
2 At his voice creation
Sprang at once to sight,
All the angel faces,
All the hosts of light,
Thrones and bright dominations,
Stars upon their way,
All the heavenly orders,
In their great array.
3 Humbled for a season,
To receive a name
From the lips of sinners
Unto whom he came,
Faithfully he bore it
Spotless to the last,
Brought it back victorious
When from death he passed:
4 Bore it up triumphant
With its human light,
Through all ranks of creatures,
To the central height,
To the throne of Godhead,
To the Father’s breast;
Filled it with the glory
Of that perfect rest.
5 In your hearts enthrone him;
There let him subdue
All that is not holy,
All that is not true:
He is God the Saviour,
He is Christ the Lord,
Ever to be worshipped,
Trusted, and adored.
.
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord
In the name of Christ. Amen