The Rev Mark Pendleton

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January 16, 2022 2 Epiphany, Year C The Rev. Mark Pendleton Christ Church, Exeter Desmond Tutu and Signs of Hope 2On 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. John 2:1-11 This is a difficult time of year. It is for me, and I sense, for some of you as well. The holidays are in the rear view mirror, the lights have come off the tree - which in my house was sadly tossed out onto our frozen deck - and the New Year's resolutions.. let's not even go there. It is really cold and the days are not getting longer fast enough. Tomorrow our nation commemorates the life of Martin Luther King Jr. It is a welcome day of rest and recreation for many - and that is a good thing - and it can be a day to reflect and act upon the things that King cared most about in his remarkable life. Racial justice. Equality. Worker's rights. Non-violent civil disobedience. Peace over war. Over the holidays we also lost a giant of our church, and the world lost a genuine peacemaker right out of the Sermon on the Mount, in Desmond Tutu, who died the day after Christmas at the age of 90. Like King, Desmond was also a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. I had the opportunity to see Tutu in person a number of times at church services and speeches and regrettably I missed out on a private meeting with him six years ago in Cape Town, South Africa when our British Airways flight was diverted and then delayed because of mechanical problems. That was a rough one to recover from, as my four colleagues spent all morning with the him just talking about life and faith. Desmond Tutu had a smile a wide as the horizon and laughed a lot. Even his name could make people laugh. I remember the story the first President Bush told at the funeral of Ronald Reagan: asked how his meeting with Archbishop Tutu had gone, Reason simply said: "So-so." Tutu's 2015 conversations with the Dalia Lama came together to produce "The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World." What a title for our times, right? These two great leaders explored the nature of true joy and named the obstacles of joy: fear, stress, anger, grief, illness and death. They offered the world Eight Pillars of Joy: perspective, humility, humor, acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, compassion and generosity. For the last pillar, generosity, Tutu points to the example of the Dead Sea, "how it receives fresh water but has no outlet. It receives beautiful water from rivers and the water goes bad. It receives and does not give. In the end generosity is the best way of becoming more, more, and more joyful." (pg. 264). The archbishop spoke about forgiveness a great deal because he lived it. In the ruble of Apartheid, he led his people through the hard work of truth telling and reconciliation - a model today the world over. Hear his words: "We are not responsible for what breaks us, but we can be responsible for what puts us back together again. Naming the hurt is how we begin to repair our broken parts." "In our own ways, we are all broken. Out of that brokenness, we hurt others. Forgiveness is the journey we take toward healing the broken parts. It is how we become whole again." "Forgiveness is nothing less than the way we heal the world. We heal the world by healing each and every one of our hearts. The process is simple, but it is not easy." On justice: "There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in." The is the reason some of us have gotten involved in the Granite State Organizing Project - a way to gather with others to go upstream and try to make real change in local community. This year the focus is on affordable housing in our state, a huge problem for far too many. It should be a common cause that many can agree to work together to solve recurring and systemic obstacles. There were also moments when the smile and the jovial Desmond turned. At a conference of well healed and resourced Episcopal churches in New York City in 2005, Tutu took the occasion to speak honestly to the assembled gathering in the main ballroom of the plush Waldolf-Astoria hotel. We thought he was there to ask us for money for his many causes. Instead, he scolded us for the silence and failure to speak out against the conditions of those detained on the American military base in Guantanamo. The room went quiet. People shifted and squirmed in their chairs. Those who listened knew that the events of 9/11 were only four years old and Ground Zero was only city blocks away. And still, like Jesus run out of Nazareth for speaking prophetic words, Tutu railed: "Where is your outrage!" to a stunned audience, who were just moving onto our dessert course. Tutu shared with a reporter why he needed to speak out: "I was particularly [shocked] because I had such an awful sense of déjà vu. For someone coming from South Africa, you say, 'But, I mean, that's exactly what they were doing for exactly the same reasons that they gave.' I mean, you said, "Why do you detain people without trial?" In an interview I heard of Tutu while I was driving into the church last Sunday, he spoke about his faith in God with such clear language. Even after the many injustices he had witnessed throughout his life, he was able to say: God is in charge. Granted, he laughed, "I've sometimes said to God, It would be nice for you to make it slightly more obvious that you're in charge." Would you - could you -- say that God is in charge? For me, it's not my first go-to language about how God moves in my life. I return again and again to language that supports how God is at the center of all - and all things move around a core. The inside of an atom. Our solar system around a sun. The calm at the center of chaos. And our individual lives around a force that is beyond names and time but one we call God and know through the life a man named Jesus. If not in control and not at the center, then maybe all we can find a way to know that -- with God's what is broken can turn towards something better. Martin Luther King, Jr., reminded us in his famous quote that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." On hope, the good bishop said: "if you are devoid of hope, then roll over and disappear quietly. Hope says, things can, things will be better, because God has intended for it to be so. At no point will evil and injustice and oppression and all of the negative things have the last word. At the center of this existence is a heart beating with love; that you, and I, and all of us are incredible. I mean, we really are remarkable things - that we are, as a matter of fact, made for goodness." So even when things look the darkest, there is always light. There is always an opening, a door and a path forward. When we think that all is lost and our patience is frazzled and there is not enough good will to go around, we believe in a God that shows us that there is enough right in front of us. Isn't that what we see in the gospel story of Jesus turning water into wine - turning a potentially disastrous wedding reception into a party that would be remembered by all those who attended for the quality of what was so abundantly shared. Stories like these in the Bible I find I focus less on the how and more on the why. That is where I always go with miracles and mystery. Creation itself: the universe, galaxies, our fragile planet. The Virgen Birth. The Incarnation. The Resurrection. How: no idea. Why? It begins and ends with an epic and eternal story of love at the source of all that was and is and will be - a story beyond culture and place, in the history of a people called Israel and a man named Jesus who walked upon the ground in a place we call the Holy Land. In our world of data, and algorithms, let us be open to God being about to make something out of nothing. Of adding more than enough when it looks as if all is running out. I believe signs of God are all around us. The miracles we can experience may not be as spectacular as what Jesus pulled off at the wedding in Cana. In our lives, we may never see God's power through earthquakes, mountains shaking, and clouds descending. Yet we can see how the storms in our lives can find calm. This season of Epiphany - between Christmas and Lent - is a time set aside to see the wonder of how God works. Wise men from the East honor a child of a different faith. Jesus himself gets baptized to lead the way, and jars of water get turned into the finest of wines. Something new is happening. May we have eyes to see and hearts to receive. 2
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