Vigil with the Word: Year C, Second Sunday after Epiphany

The texts for the Second Sunday after Epiphany are:

John 2:1-11
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 36:5-10

My commentary on these texts focuses on the Psalm and on the Epistle.

John 2:1-11

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. When 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 and 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.’ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

This is the first miracle attributed to Jesus in John’s Gospel. I think a lot about miracles. Patients ask me to pray for miracles.  Sometimes I bear witness to miracles. But a lot of the time, I bear witness to unfulfilled prayers for miracles. And sometimes, I wish I could order up a miracle.

I care for pediatric patients in one of the hospitals where I work.  I got to know a patient who will likely not make it into the double digits. It seems so miraculously unfair. This vibrant soul, who is precocious and hilarious and gentle, needs a miracle. But this little patient will most likely not see a miracle.

And this hurts. I wish I could order up a miracle like Jesus ordered up wine for this wedding. There’s very little comfort in saying, “God is with you.” I wrestle with faith and what God is up to in so much pain. But in all my frantic grasping, one of the few things I can hold onto is, “God does stuff.”  God makes something out of nothing. I don’t know how it works, but God does stuff. In the form of water into wine and in the form of joy in ICUs, despite all evidence to the contrary.  God does stuff.

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says ‘Let Jesus be cursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.

 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

I spend a lot of time working with patients experiencing cognitive decline.  Who flicker in and out of awareness.  Whose spirits are still whole, but whose minds are fragmented into memories of now, then, and never.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

Every once in awhile, I see a flicker of vibrant spirit and of the beautiful soul that exists behind the wall of the dementia. The gifts bestowed by the Holy Spirit that are still there. I visited a patient recently who was a pianist. Who was in the grip of dementia, frantically pacing the halls searching for the world, and would sit down at the piano and play a perfectly executed minuet or sonata in between laps. The river of music trickling down the hall of the memory care unit, bringing beauty into such a dark place.

All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

Our elders with dementia, tucked away in euphemistically named “gardens” and “villas” and “neighborhoods” for their own protection and the protection of our sensibilities, have abundant gifts of the Spirit.  The mystery of what the Holy Spirit is up to never ceases to amaze me. And sometimes inspires me to sit down at the piano and play a minuet myself.

Psalm 36:5-10

Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. 
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
 your judgments are like the great deep;
   you save humans and animals alike, O Lord.


How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings. 
They feast on the abundance of your house,
and you give them drink from the river of your delights. 
For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light we see light.


O continue your steadfast love to those who know you,
and your salvation to the upright of heart!

I get the honor of seeing steadfast love in action all the time.  Of adult children who care for their aging parents in living rooms. Of nurses and aides who wipe foreheads and offer water tenderly. Of elderly parents who sit at the bedsides of their middle aged children. Of people who show up day after day in love.

Human love is imperfect, but it is beautiful. And I think it is God’s steadfast love that helps us love one another. This psalm is one of praise, but I think it is also one of pleading with God to continue to show up. Of begging in the dark of night, “Continue your steadfast love!” Because caretaking is love all jumbled up with pain.

A son asks me, “Does it mean I love him less if I resent him sometimes?”

A daughter weeps, “I wish sometimes she would just die in her sleep, and then I don’t have to worry about her anymore.”

In your light we see light. All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

I pray a lot for deep peace and rest. For families and patients to know the deep comfort that can only be found in the divine, because comfort on this side of heaven can be so fleeting. 

Lord, shelter your beloved under your wings. Help them take refuge from the burden of loving.  Love them steadfastly.

God sits with us in our excruciating expectation…a sermon on Psalm 70

A.Hanson, 2009. The Netherlands.

A sermon preached at House for All Sinners and Saints on Sunday, November 9, 2014. 

Grace, peace and mercy are yours from the Triune God.  Amen.

I love the psalms. I love that I can borrow their words when I am too tired or too broken to come up with words on my own. Like Psalm 70,

Be pleased, O God, to deliver me.
 O Lord, make haste to help me! 
Let those be put to shame and confusion
who seek my life.
Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who desire to hurt me. 
Let those who say, ‘Aha, Aha!’ turn back because of their shame. Let all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you.
Let those who love your salvation
say evermore, ‘God is great!’ 
But I am poor and needy;
hasten to me, O God!
You are my help and my deliverer;
 O Lord, do not delay!

Academically speaking, the form of this psalm is called something ridiculous like “a prayer of an individual for divine assistance” but I prefer to call it the kind of prayer that I usually end up praying.  Short bursts of pleading, begging, and asking God to show up because I feel alone, frightened, mad, or otherwise confused and in need of guidance. This is the gift of the psalms to us. They are not the flowery sayings of Jesus in the parables and they are not the rhetorical works of Paul in his many letters to various Christian communities. They are real prayers from real people who know what it is like to be stuck in the trenches of a terrible day.

Today’s psalm is from someone who is waiting impatiently for God to bring justice after feeling abused, persecuted, and alone. It could be the words of the queer kid who has been disowned by their parents.  It could be the words of the addict who is trying to stay sober.  It could be the words of the middle-aged child who is trying to navigate a bureaucracy of healthcare and benefits for their aging and ailing parents. It is a very real expression of lament and grief while waiting for God to show up and make this injustice right.

Somewhere Christianity started perpetuating the idea that we are supposed to be gentle and pious and patient in our prayers. The sort of Precious Moments or Hallmark brand of faith where we sit quietly and offer our prayers in a hushed and appropriately reverent tone of voice.  Then according to this model of faith, we wait for God to answer and we accept that answer and settle peacefully into whatever happens because it is God’s Plan with a capital “P” and it is wrong to argue with God.  Or something. Because if we don’t act the way we are supposed to, and wait patiently and act appropriately, we risk angering God or driving God away from us.

But I need a stronger God than that.  I need a God that doesn’t risk getting offended or wounded.  I need a God that can take my biggest questions and loudest laments.  And I suspect that you do too.  In my work as an ICU chaplain, I have lots of “What the hell are you thinking?!” kinds of questions for God.  Like “Why does someone dying of cancer anyway get hit by a car and die in the ICU instead of at home?” or “Why does someone’s family leave her alone to die?”  Where is the justice? We need a God that can take our laments and our pleading and our impatient waiting. And in the psalms we hear people just like us asking God these same tough questions and demanding that God make Godself known in a broken world. This is Gospel to our aching hearts.

The psalmist obliterates that Hallmark brand of religion by crying out in the midst of this excruciating waiting. “Hasten to me O, God!”  “O, Lord do not delay!”  We need to have a God who sits with us while we are waiting for the promise of everything being made new. This psalm is an earnest plea for help, and is rooted in in the psalmist’s trust in God’s listening and redemptive power. I think we get self-conscious sometimes about not wanting our prayers to seem too desperate, because that makes us vulnerable.  If we pray for something broad like “happiness” or “greater understanding” or “peace” we can find some way to make whatever happens fit into our experience. I do this too in the prayers that I pray with my patients. And I have been thinking about it a lot lately and wondering if I am protecting God and my idea of God what God does. What would happen if we all prayed with the same urgent cries of the person in today’s psalm?  Our prayers don’t need to be logical, beautiful or presentable, but simply the honest, messy and ugly cries of our deepest selves.

Woven into our experience as people of faith is that damn platitude, “Good things come to those who wait,” which is entirely non-biblical by the way, and implies that if we wait patiently enough, we will get what we want. But sometimes our prayers are not answered in the way we want or think they should be. Sometimes no matter how earnestly we pray for healing or happiness or wholeness for ourselves or others, our waiting doesn’t necessarily bring about what we want or think we deserve.

But I wonder if that is actually the reason we pray.  What if prayer is less about persuading God to answer our prayers, and instead changes us, makes us new? This is a huge paradigm shift, and it seems to say more about God than it does about us. A lot of the time I am not able to make sense of what God is doing on a “micro” level in the world around me.  I see a lot of the absolute worst that the world can offer, and I need to cling to something bigger. I need to cling to the hope that God is making all things new and that life WILL win out and death DOES NOT have the final word. I am slowly learning to trust that prayer is not about making my world make sense, but making me a part of God’s unfolding world.

The other time that this particular psalm appears in the appointed readings for the liturgical year is during Holy Week.  A time where even Jesus cries out in lament, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  God WANTS to hear our prayers. God PROMISES to sit with us in our anguish. How liberating it is to know that God can take our anger, our laments, the deepest cries of our broken hearts.  God participates in all of this. And just as the psalmist declares “God is great!” and “You are my help and my deliverer!” even while waiting for justice, we too know that God sits with us in our most excruciating times of expectation.

Highlighting the Bible Part VI: The Psalms (Year A, B, C)

A.Hanson, Belle Plaine, MN, 2013

The Book of the Psalms is a collection of 150 songs that are attributed to various authors.

]The longest psalm is 119 (176 verses)
The shortest psalm is 117 (2 verses)

The following are psalms that do not appear whole or in part in any of the three lectionary years:

Psalm 3
Psalm 5-7
Psalm 9-14
Psalm 18
Psalm 20
Psalm 21
Psalm 28
Psalm 35
Psalm 38-42
Psalm 44
Psalm 45
Psalm 48
Psalm 52
Psalm 53
Psalm 55-62
Psalm 64
Psalm 73-77
Psalm 79
Psalm 81
Psalm 88
Psalm 94
Psalm 101
Psalm 102
Psalm 105
Psalm 106
Psalm 108-110
Psalm 113-115
Psalm 117 (the shortest Psalm at two verses!)
Psalm 120
Psalm 124
Psalm 125
Psalm 127-129
Psalm 131
Psalm 132
Psalm 134-137
Psalm 140-144

A.Hanson, 2013

There are a number of psalms that appear in two or more of the lectionary years:

Psalm 1 (Years A-B)
Psalm 8 (all years)
Psalm 15 (all years)
Psalm 16 (all years)
Psalm 19 (Years B and C)
Psalm 22 (all years)
Psalm 23 (all years)
Psalm 24 (a portion in years A-B)
Psalm 25 (all years)
Psalm 27 (A-C)
Psalm 29 (all years)
Psalm 30 (B-C)
Psalm 31 (all years)
Psalm 32 (A-C)
Psalm 34 (A-B)
Psalm 36 (all years)
Psalm 46 and 47 (all years)
Psalm 51 (all years, used on Ash Wednesday)
Psalm 65 (A-B)
Psalm 66 (A-C)
Psalm 67 (A-C)
Psalm 70 (all years)
Psalm 71 (all years)
Psalm 72 (all years)
Psalm 80 (all years)
Psalm 84 (A-C)
Psalm 89 (A-B)
Psalm 91(B-C)
Psalm 93 (B-C)
Psalm 96-98 (all years, used during Christmas)
Psalm 99 (A-C)
Psalm 103 (A-C)
Psalm 104 (B-C)
Psalm 111 (B-C)
Psalm 116 (all years)
Psalm 118 (all years)
Psalm 119 (portions used in A-B)
Psalm 121 (A-C)
Psalm 126 (B-C)
Psalm 130 (A-B)
Psalm 138 (A-B)
Psalm 145 (A-B)
Psalm 146 (all years)
Psalm 148 (all years)

Praying the Psalms: A Sermon for Benedictine Living Community

A prayer of lament for the MN flooding
A.Hanson, St Peter 2014

 (A sermon preached at the Benedictine Living Community on June 19, 2014) 

For our homily today, I am going to try something a little different.  One of my favorite books of the Bible is the book of the Psalms.  There are many types of psalms.  There are psalms of praise, psalms of lament, psalms that are hymns or prayers.  The psalms give us words when sometimes we struggle to find those words on our own.  I am going to read a few psalms today and after each psalm I will offer a brief reflection and then give you an opportunity to reflect silently. 

I. Psalm 23 (a psalm of praise)

This is a very familiar psalm to most of us.  I will read it very slowly and have you think about the first time that you remember hearing it, or if there is a specific place that you associate with this psalm.  (read psalm 23)  I grew up in Bozeman, MT and attended Hope Lutheran church.  This was a very old building with stained glass windows that lined the south side of the sanctuary.  My family always sat in the back of the congregation, next to a window that depicted Jesus with a shepherd's crook with a flock of sheep surrounding him.  Whenever I heard this psalm, I am taken back to my childhood congregation.  I remember the comfort that I felt in that community of faith.  I remember how I felt cared for.  I remember that the people of Hope Lutheran church reflected God's love just as a shepherd cared for his sheep.  Who has cared for you?  Who has shown gentle love to you like the Lord cares for the smallest lamb? 

II.              Psalm 51:1-12 (a psalm of confession)

Portions of this psalm will be recognizable as part of the prayer of confession that we often pray together at the beginning of worship services.  I will read this psalm aloud, as a sort of communal confession of sins.  We will have a few moments of silence in which you can talk to God.  To confess the the ways that you need forgiveness.  (after a few moments of silence) 

As a baptized member of the Body of Christ, I declare to you that all your sins are forgiven, those sins that are known and unknown, in the name of the Father +, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

III.            Psalm 13 (A psalm of lament)

I find sometimes that it is very difficult to make a lament to God, or to cry out for help in the midst of trouble.  The psalms give us words when it seems like we do not know how to pray.  They also show us that God wants to hear our pleas for help.  I am going to read Psalm 13.  In the moments that follow, feel free to pray all the laments that you want to share with God. Are you in pain?  Are you grieving?  Do you feel lost?  Then I will close us in prayer. 

Gracious God, we know that you are present with us even in our darkest hours.  We know that you want to hear our laments just as you want to hear our praise.  We can cry out honestly with our pain and our needs and we know that you hear us.  I ask that your Spirit continue to be present with your beloved sons and daughters here at the Benedictine Community.  Let them know that they are loved and cared for and remembered as being created in your image.  We ask that you receive all our prayers and grant us your sustaining love.  Amen.