Jesus said:  “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?  My hour has not yet come.”

Jesus was talking about the fact that the wine had run out at the wedding that he was attending with his mother and his disciples.  We don’t know what happened--maybe the guests had been drinking more than usual, or maybe the celebration had gone on a long time, or maybe the host hadn’t had enough money to buy as much wine as he needed.  At any rate, the wine was out, the party was threatened, and Mary thought that Jesus needed to know about it.  

Even after his curt reply, Mary didn’t let the matter rest.  She told the servants:  “Do whatever he tells you.” (Sometimes we mothers have to be persistent to get our sons to do what we want them to do.)  So anyway, he tells the servants to fill six very large jars (20-30 gallons each) with water, which must have been a lot of work for them.  Then when the jars are filled, he tells them to take some out and bring it to the steward, who pronounces it better wine than they had been serving before.  And this is known as Jesus’ first public miracle, when he “revealed his glory.”  

But what was going on with his reluctance to do this?  Why did he need to be prodded into action?  Did he think that helping more people drink more wine wasn’t really a good first miracle?  Was he worried about what might happen if he did reveal himself?  (if so, he had good reason, because we know where it all led at the end of his life).  Was he just feeling unsure of himself at that point--after all, he probably hadn’t been practicing turning water into wine, maybe he didn’t know if it would work, or what would happen, or maybe he was just losing confidence.

Contrast Jesus’ reluctance with the urgency that we hear in our first reading this morning.  “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest . . .” says the prophet.  His zeal to proclaim Jerusalem’s vindication is driving him to want to tell the world that Jerusalem is vindicated, that God delights in her as “the bridegroom rejoices over the bride.”  

What would it be like for us to feel that sense of urgency, that feeling that we could not keep silent, that we could not rest because what we had to proclaim was so important?  It sounds kind of scary right off the bat.  We live in a world where Christians who make a lot of noise are generally televangelists, or megachurch leaders, or people standing on street corners waving signs and haranguing the passers-by, or even those silent, unknown ones, the ones who leave tracts promising salvation on your windshield or your front door.  We certainly don’t want to be identified with those people.  

But WE are also Christians, even if we don’t fit into the popular public idea of what a Christian is (which I, personally, wouldn’t want to fit into anyway).  We have been told over and over, and we may have come to believe, that God loves us. God delights in us--just like in Jerusalem, just like a bridegroom rejoicing over the bride.  If we had a way to know that love, to trust in it, maybe we would also be able to feel some of the prophet’s sense of urgency and leave our worries behind.

But then what would it mean, what would we do with the urgency that the prophet expresses?  What would “not keeping silent” like the prophet be for us?  What would it be to “reveal” ourselves, as Jesus revealed himself--after all, we aren’t Jesus, we aren’t part of the Trinity, we can’t turn water into wine and we don’t want to gather a bunch of disciples and wind up crucified.  Fortunately, God doesn’t expect us to be either the prophet who couldn’t keep silent or Jesus who turned water into wine.

God expects us to be ourselves.  And the wonderful thing about being ourselves is that we each have unique spiritual gifts. Paul talks about them in his letter to the Corinthians.  He says:  “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”  “To each”--that is, everyone has spiritual gifts.  “For the common good”--that is, they are to be used for the good of everyone, not just for the private enjoyment of the individual.  Paul even gives a list of gifts, and there are others besides the ones in this letter, some in other lists in the Bible, others that we may recognize as spiritual gifts even if they aren’t mentioned by name.

If we use our spiritual gifts as God intends for us to use them, that is one way of not keeping silent, of revealing ourselves--in fact, of revealing Christ through whatever it is that we are doing.  In using our spiritual gifts this way we become beacons for the world--we do the work that God has chosen for us to do, which shows the light of Christ that shines in the darkness.

Sometimes, though, we may need to be prodded.  Jesus did.  After all, he was sitting on this spiritual gift that would allow him both to solve the immediate problem facing the wedding--that is, running out of wine--and to reveal himself as who he was.  For some reason, he didn’t take the initiative when the wine ran out, and even when his mother deliberately brought it to his attention, he essentially told her to leave him alone.  But she prodded him, or put him on the spot, or whatever it is that you might say that she did, and then he went ahead and supplied the party with the wine that it needed--more wine, in fact, than it needed.  Lots and lots of wine.  Lots and lots of really good wine.

So consider:  what is it that God would want us to reveal?  What would God want us to proclaim, and how?  What spiritual gift do we have that we might be sitting on, that we might need someone to come along and push us into using?  And who would do the pushing?  How?

To further complicate matters, remember that the work that God calls us to do, and for which we are equipped with spiritual gifts, is both individual and corporate.  We as individuals each need to be doing the work that God has laid out for us, but also we as All Saints have work that God is calling us to do.  We, All Saints Episcopal Church, have spiritual gifts to exercise.  What do you think they are?  How would we exercise them?

Two areas in which All Saints is gifted are community and worship.  These are two facets of All Saints that the vestry has recognized as core parts of our identity, and I think that the vestry was right on.  We have other gifts, too, just as each of us individually has more than one spiritual gift.  But if we focus on community and worship, how do you think God is calling us to continue using these gifts, possibly in new ways?  Is there something that we need to be pushed to do, like Jesus had to be pushed by his mother?  Who will push us--how will that pushing happen?  

All this is part of a huge, ongoing process--actually, part of the ongoing process of the redemption of the whole world. Learning what our spiritual gifts are, learning how to use them and/or being pushed to use them for the common good--it’s just the next step.  After all, look at the wedding at Cana.  Jesus did this really impressive miracle, when he “revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him,” and it was still just another step along the path.  He still did a lot more work after that--more miracles, using more gifts, sometimes having to be pushed into it again.  

So the point is to be actively engaged in this process, actively involved in as a partner with God in the redemption of the world.  So, how can YOU use your spiritual gifts in the world and reveal Christ’s glory at the same time?  How about all of us together as All Saints--how can we use our collective gifts and reveal Christ’s glory?  What part do YOU play in God’s work of redeeming the world?