Epiphany: Tonight will be fine, for a while.

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Genesis 14:17-20, Revelation 19:6-10, John 2:1-11

On Fridays, if it’s a good Friday, I get to listen to Desert Island Discs, sadly no longer presented by Kirsty Young. This week was a good Friday, and they had a fascinating woman called Samantha Power on, who despite being Irish seems to have ended up at the heart of American government.  She held key roles in Obama’s administration, had a minor blip describing Hilary Clinton as a ‘monster’, but is now back in the in-crowd with Mr Biden. One of the songs she chose struck me: ‘Tonight will be fine’: a Leonard Cohen song sung by Teddy Thompson. The song is a typical lament, of regret, inequality in love, passing desire, and the difficulty of sustaining human connection. The refrain goes: ‘but tonight will be fine, will be fine, will be fine, will be fine, for a while’. It’s a song about imperfection. And getting by. And that repeated ‘will be fine, will be fine, will be fine’ emphasises the forced, strained effort to get along; or the echo of its fading memory; and its limitations: its impossibility to sustain, in that final, ‘for a while.’ I myself am, from time to time, picked up on using the word ‘fine’. If your partner asks you how they’re looking, or how was dinner, it turns out ‘fine’ is not a correct response.  Of course, I mean something more like the American ‘fine’ or ‘mighty fine’, but this doesn’t translate, and some people just don’t appreciate British understatement.

Today’s Gospel is about imperfection. In this first sign of the Gospel, Jesus steps in to rescue a wedding celebration that is falling apart; theologically, he’s stepping in to repair the broken relationship between Israel and God, usually depicted by the prophets as a marriage, one where the bride – Israel, the church – has gone astray. I won’t use the more prophetic language. Now typically, the vicar would say isn’t this great? Jesus takes the 6 imperfect jars of water for purification and transforms them to wine; As Crashaw said, ‘the modest water saw its God and blushed’ 6 for water jars is chosen by John as an imperfect number; As is frequently said, it’s an abundance of wine – more than any party of 6 could consume in a year; and it’s fancy wine: “taste the difference”:  ‘you have kept the good wine until now.’

Epiphany is a season of celebration; liturgically, we’re still in white like Christmas. We’re still celebrating the light that shines in the darkness, that is revealed to the world. The book of Revelation (as usual, reticent and measured) cries out: ‘Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready…  Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ And yet, at a time when weddings can only happen in exceptional circumstances, no more than 6 guests – it’s death’s door stuff – hands we are told should be washed before and after the exchange of rings. Wedding receptions are not permitted. Where is the marriage supper of the Lamb? I hope it wasn’t that party in Stamford Hill.

This year, we are at the wedding feast, but it seems Christ has not yet arrived. Our wine has run short. For the church, the time is out of joint. Lent is already here, and like the seasons in the desert taken by the Hebrews, by Jesus, we do not know when it will end. We are somewhere between, the forty days, the forty years.

Lord knows we don’t need discouragement, but this moment is about resilience. We are constantly being pushed off balance by good news, then bad news; breakthroughs and set-backs; the oscillation of optimism and despair will have anyone’s mental health in pieces. I used to enjoy listening to Radio 4 in the morning; now I limit myself to not more than 15 minutes of the daily misery.

The Christian faith is a story of victory. It is God enduring the pain and suffering of this world, then ripping through the gates of hell to demonstrate that there is nowhere in all creation hidden from the love, the light and the victory of God. But we are still within that journey,  like so many of the parables we are waiting, with our lamps, for the bridegroom to appear. Dinner is not yet served.

The most useful piece I’ve read on resilience is known as the Stockdale paradox. He was a prisoner of war for seven and a half years in Hanoi. If you want to feel better about your last year his trials, his endurance is worth a read. But in interview, he was asked why prisoners didn’t make it out of Vietnam. He replied:  “Oh, that's easy, the optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, 'We're going to be out by Christmas.'  And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.'  And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again.  And they died of a broken heart.  This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose— with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

Now Putney ain’t Vietnam, but Hope and realism. That’s a message for today.

In that good and rousing film ‘the Darkest Hour’ –  something you can still enjoy in lockdown – Mrs Churchill says to the great man:  ‘You are strong because you are imperfect.  
You are wise because you have doubts.’ If St John is speaking here of Jesus coming to bring fullness and joy to the imperfection of the Jewish rites, of the wedding’s failure; he speaks also to us, in today’s poverty. We know we are imperfect. We must be honest about how we are doing. And we are right to have doubts. We must not lose hope, but we must retain our realism, but still have the strength to encourage one another.

That darkest hour, when Britain alone in Europe resisted Nazi Germany for nearly a year, would become its finest hour. Just as Jesus in today’s Gospel speaks of his hour, which will become both his darkest and finest hour. In our simpler times we are unlikely to receive medals, or to transform the relationship between creation and God; but we can still make a difference, even if it’s to one person. Samantha Power in the last sentence of her memoir writes: ‘People who care, act, and refuse to give up may not change the world, but they can change many individual worlds.’ It is Epiphany. St Margaret’s can still be a place of light in the darkness.

And if you’re going through hell, keep going. Because tonight will be fine, will be fine, will be fine, will be fine. For a while. But the wedding feast is coming. Our hour is yet to come. And we will rejoice and exult and give him glory when the lamb is come, and his bride has made herself ready. Amen.