In this sermon we hear so much about blessings and woes and yet it is in the in between, on this level place along with Jesus and along with each where we find ourselves in this story.

Because Jesus has blessed us with an abundance of gifts, no one person is called to do it all but together, together we have the capacity to lift our full nets and feed those hungering for a kinder world, a more just world.

Our story does not end with a fading away but a return to life; our story is one of miracles and overcoming; our story is one of a victory of life over death.

Anyway and in whatever scenario got them there, the Jesus of Nazareth family and his disciples were gathered for a wedding and ready to celebrate, to wish the newly married couple good wishes, to feast at the banquet, and to drink wine and sing songs and dance to the music of the centuries, the music of love, the music of permanence, the music that is the soundtrack to every such celebration in every form it takes throughout the centuries, in this age and before.

And I wonder especially if these times, these times of pandemic, of declining church attendance, of growing disbelief in God and lessening faith in institutions, I wonder if we are now in a similar era of promise, of hope being the substance of things unseen.