January 19, 2025 2nd Sunday After Epiphany
Readings: Isaiah 62:1-5; 1st Corinthians 12:1-12; John 2:1-11
What Concern is that to Me?
We have this well-known story of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding feast. If you recall Jesus’ mother tells Him that the party has run out of wine, and she wants Him to fix the problem. We are told that this is the first of His seven miracles, or as John calls them, “Signs”. So, how did she know that Jesus had a way of fixing this issue? What possessed her to even ask? Or dare I say, tell the Son of God. We also hear Jesus say that it is not yet His time. As we read John only refers to Mary as the mother of Jesus. All through John’s Gospel she is referred as the same. In Jesus’ response to Mary, He says, Dear Woman, not by name or mother. For a few years this passage has had me wondering, with Jesus being fully human and fully divine, was this a moment when we hear His human side stating, what concern is that to me they have run out of wine? Yet when Mom said to the servants, do whatever He says. Was that His Mom’s way of saying she had spoken. On a side note, by referring as Mother of Jesus, this could be an elevation of Mary by stating she IS the mother of Jesus. Jesus had God given gifts as human to do things, so this was the beginning of Him using His Spiritual Gifts. Think on that for a minute, everything Jesus did, could possibly be using His Spiritual Gifts.
If we were to look at last week again with Jesus being baptized in today’s context, what concern was it of His to be baptized in a human way? This is the question I am going to continue to ask today, What Concern is that to Me? Too many times, we use that excuse to get out of doing something, even things that could be a calling from God. When there is someone in need and we have enough to spare or act with the Spiritual Gifts given to us, instead we respond with “it is not my problem”. Yet, just as many times we do not resist the temptation to speak out when we should just leave it alone. We speak out of turn or just can’t keep our overbearing thoughts to ourselves. Our worldly culture tells us to not get involved. When someone is oppressed, it’s not my problem. If we witness a crime, I’m not a snitch. But when someone has a differing opinion, style of living or beliefs like ours, we are all too ready to express our thoughts with expectations of changing their mind and bringing them in line with us. We have a habit of picking and choosing wrongly where we get involved, mostly for our personal benefit.
Scripture says that once Jesus’ Disciples saw the sign with the water, they had faith and believed in Him. Are we just like those Disciples? Do we need some type of sign from God before we can believe? When the Holy Spirit calls us to act on a mission, we will not move until we receive a definitive and undeniable sign from God. Is that Christ-like? You could say that Jesus paused before He helped with the wine, but in the end, He did as He was called to do.
Paul brings to us today the Gifts from the Holy Spirit. These gifts or I think for our better understanding talents, abilities or skills. Too many times, we think that our skills are something we developed. To a point, that is true. The Holy Spirit endows us with skills, as Paul says, for the common good of the community. When you find that you have a talent to do something and you like that skill, you work to perfect it. We have the free will to use our skills for the betterment of our community. In times when we see someone in need, we look at them and rationalize, what concern is it of mine using my skills for them? We quantify our decision with thoughts of, I do not need to waste my time, they will take advantage of me, or they are just lazy so why should I help. We just don’t want to get involved. Who’s lazy now?
Paul mentions several gifts of the Holy Spirit by name in his letter to the Church of Corinth. I’m only going to address three, Tongues, Wisdom and Knowledge. When we, as Christians, talk about Tongues, we immediately go to the speaking in a Holy language. While that is a real thing, what about the ability to speak a foreign language? It is a gift to understand the speech of someone from another country. Not all of us can speak foreign languages. I can speak and understand a little German and even less Spanish. There is wisdom in recognizing that you have that skill and wish to further your knowledge in that skill. I learned in High School that I do not possess the gift of speaking in foreign tongues. But I do have the wisdom to seek out someone when I need that skill. Our daughter was working in a restaurant as a waitress, some of the cooks and busboys were talking about her in their native tongue. She continued working, ignoring them, appearing she did not understand them. When she walked past them, she spoke in their language, with language, a rebuttal to their comments.
Also, on wisdom and knowledge I am going to pull from our Meal-Site program. When it first started there was already the Moravian Meal-site that we would help on. Someone saw that only one night, people were still hungry the rest of the week. That person came to me with this idea of starting our own meal-site on a different day of the week. They were willing to front this program and help get it started. Fast forward four years later, yes, we are entering our fourth year, we’re feeding five times what we started with. We have people who take raw ingredients of flour, eggs, milk, and butter to come up with some of the most fantastic meals that those we serve rave about. They also have the skills to take those ingredients and figure out how much of those ingredients are needed to feed 170 people. Granted all they need to do is look at the label and see how many servings are in a container. How many of you knew that. I didn’t until they showed me. I’ve said it before and I am going to say it again, most of the members of the team do not have Hope Methodist Church as their home church. Some attend other churches, one person travels from Evansville just to help here. What does it concern them to participate in this Meal-Site. Because the Holy Spirit called them to help, and they responded! There were times that the people funded the meals out of their own pockets with no expectations of being reimbursed. We now have supporters who heard the call of the Holy Spirit to fund this project. Some who are far away donate to it on our website. Because they heard the Holy Spirit. Others donate items for the meals that we use. Those people could say, “What does that concern me, I don’t even live there”. But they do respond with the Spiritual Gifts that they have been endowed with from the Holy Spirit. Team members feel guilty when they are unable to be here. Is the Holy Spirit calling you to help at the Meal-Site?
That is just one example of how we can act on the calling of the Holy Spirit. What Spiritual Gifts do you possess. How are you being called to serve the betterment of this community? We don’t possess the ability to change water into wine. Yet, Jesus said, we will be able to do things greater than He. Maybe we can change water into wine? There is one thing that is definite, you can change lives when you use your gifts given by the spirit as the spirit calls. What does happen in the community does concern you, especially when you stand before God Almighty, our judge. Jesus will say this one is my concern. I’ve changed their filthy rags into white as snow.
