Wedding at Cana 2002

*Preached at Grace North Church January 12th, 2002.*

I'd like to talk about my uniform for a minute, if I could. Now by this I mean the clergy shirt, with the clerical collar, or "dog collars" as Richard refers to them . Basically, I find them annoying and largely unnecessary, and wear mine only when I may get in trouble for NOT wearing it. The rest of the time you will find me much more comfortably vested in a t-shirt and blue jeans.

Now, this guy--I have rarely seen Richard without a clerical collar. I have secret suspicions, in fact, that he bathes with one on, and may even have a special pair of pajamas fitted with a collar for sleeping.

When I find I do have to wear a collar, I prefer colors to the standard black. Oh, sure, I own a few black clergy shirts, but most Sunday mornings I reach for red or blue, or the great tan shirt I had until it got hopelessly stained. This Christmas, I decided I wanted something even more expressive, so I bought a white clergy shirt and gave it to my friend Anne, who is an artist. "Make me the most fabulous clergy shirt you can imagine," I entreated her, and to my great delight, she took up the challenge with enthusiasm. About a week later, she handed me this..(remove alb to reveal shirt).

Just look at this! It encompasses all of creation! Everything from the sun, the moon, and the four elements, to the partridge family bus is on this shirt. Now, granted, it isn't easy to look at, but wow! What a feast for the eyes!

It is, in a word, extravagant, and stands in stark contrast to the basic black we normally associate with a priests uniform. And it seems to me that extravagance is an essential component of the Gospel that often gets overlooked and even actively preached against. In protest, then, with your permission, I'd like to preach the rest of the sermon in my new shirt as just such an expression of extravagance.

"Now, wait a minute," you might object, "Jesus was anything BUT extravagant." But I beg to differ. Jesus embodied extravagance, and it is his spirit of extravagance that it is so important for us to proclaim, not just from this pulpit today, but from the pulpit of our lives, day in and day out.

Normally, we think of Christianity as being a very ascetic religion. True holiness, our tradition tells us, comes from fasting from the world. We are told that our bodies are highly suspect and cannot be trusted. Our holiest people were for many centuries required to be celibate so that they would not "soil themselves with women," and most religious orders took vows of poverty.

But the truth is that asceticism is a Greek movement, and may ultimately derive from Gnostic dualism which contends that spirit is more important than matter, that the flesh and the world are evil, that men are normative and women inferior.

These are NOT Jewish ideas, and would not have been preached by Jesus. Instead, as a Jewish rabbi, Jesus most likely taught that when God made the world, he said, "It is good," and believed that it was. Married life was the norm in Jewish society, and both women and children were seen as blessed. Feasting and dancing were important parts of community life, and were enjoyed by all, saint and sinner alike. And not only was sexuality not shunned, but in fact, the Jewish tradition raises it to the level of a mitzvah, a holy duty. Jewish couples are almost required by their tradition to make love on the evening of the Sabbath, the holiest night of the week.

And yet, in the tradition that declares Jesus as our starting point, the church demonizes women, shuns sexuality, and has at various times in our history, outlawed laughter or any form of merriment in church. Which is incredibly ironic, because Christianity can be so terribly silly at times. I am very glad that in our parish we have the good sense to laugh at ourselves.

This contrast between the ascetic and extravagant poles of religion can be seen clearly by comparing Jesus himself with his cousin, John. John the Baptist was the very picture of an ascetic prophet. He lived in a cave, ate wild honey and grasshoppers, wore a hair shirt 24/7 and did a lot of yelling at the hills. He would not have looked at all out of place on the street in San Francisco. But when the religious leaders of the day heard him, the gospels record that they declared, "He is possessed by a demon."

Jesus by contrast, loved parties, danced at weddings, invited the most unlikely people for dinner, and as our scripture reading today reports, he made sure that there was no shortage of wine in Cana. And of course, those same people who pronounced that John had a demon, said of Jesus, "He is a glutton." Which only goes to show that there is simply no pleasing some people.

But Jesus' extravagance goes well beyond a penchant for good parties and laughter. For his extravagance extended beyond the social sphere into religion and ethics. To the Pharisees, who were busy browbeating their countrymen, saying that they must fulfill 600+ laws in order to be accepted by God, Jesus declared God's extravagant love by saying, "God accepts you as you are." To the zealots who were preaching God's hatred against the Romans, Jesus displayed mercy to the centurion's daughter and healed her, showing that God's love extended to everyone. To those who said that tax collectors, Roman collaborators and prostitutes were not fit for the Kingdom of God, Jesus proclaimed God's extravagance by declaring that, on the contrary, it was these folks who would be seated at the head of the table at the great Feast at the end of the age.

The big distinction between the ascetic and extravagant mindsets is the issue of scarcity. Ascetics take the position that there is only so much holiness, it is hard to attain, and in short supply, so it must be hoarded by those who want to possess it most. The same goes for grace, or God's mercy. There is a limited supply which must be closely guarded and meted out only to the worthy.

In stark contrast to this, Jesus' extravagance declares that there is enough grace for everyone, that holiness is rampant in the land, and that there is no shortage on mercy in God's storehouse. Jesus doesn't want us to shut down and hoard our holiness, but calls us to live "the abundant life," where love is given away for free, and forgiveness is given even when it is not asked for.
Where did we go wrong? When did we start emulating John the Baptist more than Jesus? It started soon after Jesus' death, because, in truth, most of his followers simply didn't "get it." God's extravagance was simply too much to sustain, let alone proclaim. The Jewish Christians immediately began setting up rules and laws again. And the Christians who followed Paul began emulating the ascetics of the Greek and Gnostic traditions very early on as well, spawning a movement of monks and nuns living in caves out in the desert. And who does that sound more like, Jesus or John?

I would like to submit to you this morning that we are not called "Johnians," nor are we called "Paulicians." Our religion is not founded on John the Baptist, nor is Paul our central figure of faith. We do not follow John. We do not follow Paul. We are Christians because we follow Jesus.

And to follow Jesus means that we do not cut ourselves off from the flesh, or the world; we do not demonize peoples because we do not approve of them; we do not raise up one gender at the expense of the other; we do not insist that people must be like us to gain God's approval. To follow Jesus means that we proclaim that God's Community is open to everyone, regardless of their social stigma. To follow Jesus means that this table is big enough for everybody. To follow Jesus means to see this world as a good gift from an extravagant God, that its fruits are meant to be enjoyed and shared.

Now, this is not the same as the "Gospel of Prosperity" preached by the charlatans on TV. God's extravagance promises no one riches, or positions of power or privilege. God's extravagance is not economic in nature; it is, more than anything else, moral. God has made the world and declared it, and all that is in it, good. Woe to those who call good things evil. God has opened his gates of his community to the prostitute and the outcast. Woe to those who then bar them from God's table. God has called us to an "abundant life," and those who eschew it are only cutting off their own noses to spite their faces.

So is this shirt a bit much? Oh, god, yes. And that is exactly the point. There is no shortage in god's community on life and joy and goodness and grace and color and beauty. Let us pray

God of a thousand hills, the earth is yours and all that is in it; the vast reaches of interstellar space are likewise yours, and all that we have comes from your hand. With all the riches at our disposal, why do we tell ourselves that there is not enough? Why do we tell each other that there is not enough power for everyone to be powerful? Why do we tell those who are poor that there is not enough money to go around? Why do we tell those who hunger and thirst that there is no room for them at the table. You have made all things to be a feast before us; help us to enjoy this abundant life, and help us to likewise invite others to the feast; for you turn water into wine, weeping into dancing, night into day. Be with us and teach us, celebrate and sing with us, feast with us as we dine with you. Amen.