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Monday, Sept 06
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Sunday, January 17, 2010
John 2:1-11
Epiphany II
Craig Shirley
Of What Concern?
The women’s group was studying this passage from John one morning. When they came to the encounter between Jesus and his mother they heard again Mary’s statement to her son “They have no wine” and Jesus’ response "O woman, what have you to do with me?" The leader asked the group what they thought that meant.
There was an uncomfortable silence within the group and finally one of the women, herself a mother, ventured an opinion. “I don’t think Jesus should have spoken to his mother that way” she said. “It’s quite rude.”
She probably verbalized what many other people have thought but have been afraid to express out loud. But the question does occur; what did Jesus mean by this rash and very direct statement to his mother? She had gone to him with a very embarrassing social situation for the young couple who were just married, but it does seems to be a strange interchange.
The new Revised Standard Version translates the response as “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?” which seems an equally strange thing for Jesus to say, considering what we know about his compassion and concern for others.
Perhaps he expected the first sign of his ministry to be something more impressive than helping a young couple cover a social embarrassment. Whatever he meant by his response, his mother wasn’t buying it for a minute. “Do whatever he tells you” she says in an aside to the servant. One can almost hear Jesus sigh and say to himself “Oh well, what’s the big deal if it will make my mother happy” and so he instructs the servants as to what to do next.
But it is a valid question. How often you and I are confronted with that same question “what concern is that to you and to me!” Perhaps I have an over-active conscience – not a bad thing to have as a pastor – but when I hear that kids are fearful at school because of the threat of gang fights and violence, or that there are people living in their cars because they have lost house and job and can afford nothing else, or when I see someone half frozen walking through the downtown skyway system to warm up before returning to the streets, I ask “what concern is that to you and to me?”
Think of the variety of exemplary examples we have to such a question from people who took their faith in Jesus Christ very seriously. Martin Luther King Jr. for instance. A young man of exceptional intelligence and charisma, he entered prestigious Morehouse College in Atlanta at the age of 15. He could have left his simple roots behind with a career in law or medicine. He could have become rich and powerful and lived a life filled with ease and comfort. But instead, he must have asked the question “what concern is that to you and to me” and thus he became the laser intensive focus of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. He used his intellect and education to serve and help those who had neither the brilliance nor the education to help themselves when it came to freedom and equality. His message of nonviolent resistance, change through peaceful and humble but stubborn coexistence in the face of haughty racial bigotry, caused a whole society to finally face up to its racism in this country. Underlying his motivation to help his people was the faith in the Christ whom he served.
He once said “We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization…This love may well be the salvation of our civilization.
Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.
Every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God. Everywhere and at all times, the love ethic of Jesus is a radiant light revealing the ugliness of our stale conformity. (This) law of love as an imperative is the norm for all of our actions.”
Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa is another one who could have lived a more comfortable life, a quieter life perhaps in another country, or even in his own land as a clergyman. He could have been an important and fulfilled figure by just getting along as a clergyman and not making waves. But he answered the questions of “what concern is this to you and to me?’ in his own way. He said “to be impartial and not to take sides in an issue is indeed to have taken sides already. It is to have sided with the status quo.” He says “the church is constantly tempted to be conformed to the world, to want influence that comes from power, prestige and privilege, and it forgets all the while that its Lord and Master was born in a stable, that the message of the angels about his birth was announced first not to the high and mighty but to the simple rustic shepherds. The church at times forgets that his solidarity was with the poor, the downtrodden, the sinners, the despised ones, the outcasts, the prostitutes, the very scum of society. These were his friends whom he said would go to heaven before the self-righteous ones.”
These examples and so many like them say to us that our faith will eventually demand something from us, just as their faith demanded everything from them. What concern is it to you and to me? What concern is the earthquake in Haiti to you and to me? Do you know people in Haiti? Do you have connections? Probably not. But we are all drawn into that terrible tragedy by the brotherhood we share in Christ Jesus.
What concern is it to you and to me that GAMC – General Assistance Medical Care, may be soon disappear? General assistance medical Care is a state funded program that works to meet the needs of the “ Poorest of the Poor” in our state, adults ages 21-64 who have no dependent children and who do not qualify for federally funded health care programs. It is a critical issue and a critical program, not only for those who receive GAMC or members of state government, but for the entire population of the state of Minnesota.
What concern is it to you and to me that three Somali’s were gunned down in their Seward neighborhood store – perhaps by two Somali teenagers? But the neighborhood has rallied around the families – not just Somalis in the neighborhood, but all sorts of people. The family has reopened the store and intent on moving forward. Those deaths affect us all; the lost lives of the victims and the lost lives of the teenagers who may have done this atrocious thing.
Our faith in Jesus leads us down a path which will not allow us to say “that is your problems, what does it have to do with me?” As Christians we instead recall that this is my sister or brother in Christ. I must do something. The world becomes the shared responsibility of all who live in it with Jesus Christ as Lord.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians in the second reading that we have different gifts but the same Spirit, different ministries but the same Lord, different words but the same God who accomplishes all of them in everyone. It invites us to look at differences not as something to be feared, but rather as gifts that we share in and with one another. Society tells us we are all meant to look alike, dress alike, think the same things, value the same objects, embrace the same lifestyles. Yet we are not that way at all. Each of us has a unique flavor that God names new and good; we need to celebrate the diversity among us, not simply tolerate or ignore it.
What concern is it to you and to me? It is of utmost concern, because the Spirit of God dwells in our hearts. The life of that spirit will become visible in our deeds and no deeds are more marvelous than the care and concern for those from whom we have been alienated by history or abuse, or fear, hatred or ignorance.
Thanks be to Mary, who knew her son and told the servants to give him whatever he needs. Her sure confidence opens to us the same assurance that we too can approach our God and God in Christ will give us whatever we need to satisfy our concern.
Prayer (William Willimon)
Lord Jesus, you slipped in to all the places of our lives that we have attempted to guard for ourselves. You erased the boundaries between the “sacred” and the “secular.” By your presence, you made all place “holy”.
We have demonstrated, time and again, that we lack the power to come to you. We are guilty of avoiding you, of turning away from you, of erecting all sorts of defenses against the intrusions of your loving presence.
We thank you for the gracious way that you show up when we least expect you. We celebrate all the ways that you seek us, even before we know ho to seek you. For your presence among us, your epiphanies to us, we give you thanks and praise. Amen
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