Whether you know it or not everyone here today is a runner, a boxer, an entrepreneur, a vineyard worker, this is what you are, it is what God made you to be and you will never be happy until you start running, boxing, buying and investing, pruning and harvesting. Now the good news is this- if you run you will win, if you box you will overcome, if you buy you will get rich, if you prune you will reap a great harvest- it is guaranteed- you can have total confidence in the outcome if you only engage- be courageous, take up your sword and go into battle and you will be victorious. Sit on the couch- give up- quit- despair- and you will be lost.

Jesus does not provide the answer that so many are demanding of God on their own terms, shaking their silly little fists in the face of the one who died for them. But he does give an answer, he gives the only answer that will enable man to endure and make it safely through this stormy trip. It is up to us whether we will hear what Jesus tells us with faith and love, and trust because we know Him, we know he is trustworthy, he is true and good and just and we know that he loves us, really know it, that is faith, knowing you are loved and so we receive His word and it is enough.

If you are a Christian you have declared your allegiance to this kingdom. You are no longer a member of the world kingdom, even though you physically still exist in this world you are not of it, you are from above, your citizenship is in the kingdom of God and you are a member of the Family of God. And our society has different rules and a different way of life. We live here in God’s house.

Life is in the temple because Jesus is in and is the Temple and that temple as far as we are concerned is the liturgically gathering Apostolic Eucharistic Church. This is where we fulfill the very meaning of our existence, to offer ourselves to God in sacrificial worship as a community. We do this for one reason only because it is right, this is the only reasonable response of the creature to His creator.

The mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” Jesus does not respond, there is only silence and yet there is so much for us to lean in that space of silence. Her confidence, her trust and faith ring out in the silence. In the empty pause when the Word did not speak - the Woman without much ado confidently gives a command that has echoed throughout the ages. With this command and her fiat spoken to the angel, the Woman has taught the world about the one thing most important- “Whatever He says to you, do it.”

The family becomes a true reflection of the divine society only in as much as they flourish in the Church, otherwise they can become a stumbling block to salvation. Jesus makes it clear in this story that his earthly mother has no rights over him which are at odds with His heavenly Father. The family is a sacramental union of divine life but only if it is subservient to the Church, to the Family of God in the Spirit.

Typically when a husband and wife have a baby they have the privilege to choose a name for their child. In the case of the naming of Mary’s baby things went a little different than usual. As far as I am aware this is the only known case in history where the baby… actually named himself.

What a glorious faith we have that mocks the fruitless foe that can do nothing to hurt God’s children; the more we are assailed the more we are blessed who trust in God if only we become like these innocent babes.

This is the irony of it. The immaterial God who cannot be seen has made himself known by becoming a man. In olden times he manifest himself in fire, smoke, or a burning bush, He hid in the rock and behind a thick curtain. But now he comes and is, Jesus of Nazareth, Mary’s boy. And yet- while He makes himself so very accessible and vulnerable he becomes more hidden. His manifestation in the flesh becomes a cloak. He takes form and in so doing becomes to many imperceptible.

“For while all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, Thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from Thy royal Throne, as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction.”