[Propertalk] 2 Epiphany c - 2

[Robert P Morrison]

Part 2
 How often has this happened to us? We get so involved in what’s
going on that we forget to nourish ourselves and others. Possibly
through no fault of our own we don’t notice that the wine supply is
running low , or our ability to replenish it is jeopardised.  We
forget that the essential wine for the celebration of our lives cannot
be dispensed with. We go through the motions. We put one foot in front
of the other. We seem to turn more and more within ourselves, and we
isolate ourselves from others or they isolate themselves from us. We
lose interest in what’s happening next door. We begin to become
suspicious of others.  We don’t listen. We lose the ability to
empathise, to see that we’re all engaged at the Banquet of Life As
long as we have our own bottle of wine or bunch of grapes, we don’t
care whether anyone else has one. And if our bottle is beginning to
look a little small or is getting down towards empty, we become
incredibly defensive and the festivities become blighted. And we may
well end up by saying, “We have no wine.” The life been drained
from us.  “They have no wine” – remember, though, these are
Mary’s words to her Son. Someone, thank God, someone has her pulse
on the party and is able to cut through everything, to see exactly
what is needed and how to resolve it. And, thank God, however
grudgingly, however surprisedly, Jesus responds. He takes the
commonest elements and transforms all of life with them so that life,
so that the relationships, may be strengthened, so that people will no
longer have to worry about from where help and hope are going to come.
 Still today, people’s hearing and vision can be so out of tune that
they don’t hear or see that the wine supply – their own supply and
that of others – is in need of replenishing. There are times when we
all fail to see our impoverishment as humans in the party of God’s
creation.

	 “They have no wine” – that was the cry going up from Madaya in
Syria. “Madaya is surrounded by government forces and their allies.
The last time it received aid was October 18.

	 “Its fate is linked to a similar siege of the towns of Foua and
Kefraya, which are surrounded by rebels.

	 “But Madaya's plight has worsened since attacks on the nearby town
of Zabadani have led to 10,000 more people flooding into Madaya.

	 “Aid agencies have tried to help, but only after a sustained
social media campaign did the U.N. manage to broker an agreement with
the Syrian government to access the city.

	 “Aid agencies have complained that their requests to access many
areas in the devastated country are not honored by the warring
sides.” 1

	 By Thursday, at any rate, two convoys had been able to reach the
people. “Children stood around trucks in freezing weather, ‘so
polite and civilized, asking if we had a biscuit,’ a United Nations
aid worker said.

	 "‘The children we met are fed once a day with hot water and
spices. Malnutrition is everywhere,’ the aid worker said.”

	 “They have no wine.”

	 This didn’t happen overnight. For more than six months, the supply
of everything has been shut down. Hot water and spices – siege soup,
as the people there call it – is what they have, if they’re lucky,
once a day. Supplies were getting lower and lower, but no one paid any
heed.

	 “What has this to do with us?” we might say, many people have
said. It’s not our party. It’s not our group. “My time,” your
time, “is not yet,” we may have said, some have said. But the
party is everyone’s Banquet. The marriage – the relationship of
human to human and human to God – the relationship is everybody’s
marriage.

	 Or Flint, Michigan. “They have no water.” What’s THAT to us?
Except, without contaminant-free water, people will die, or be damaged
physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, that there will seem to
be no marriage, nothing to celebrate.

	 And all this at the start of ministry. The change is enormous. Jesus
could have said, “Forget it. It’s just too much. I can’t take
care of everybody and everything.”

	 We may say the same. How on earth can we supply Syria, and Michigan,
and the flood-ravaged areas of the U.S., AND take care of the folk in
Albany as well as ourselves?

	 Perhaps if you and I can, together, help each other to see that
these and every other situation are but separate groups, in different
rooms, at the same party, then we may find the imagination and the
will-power to go to the person, to the group, to the nation, and to
say, “They have no wine!”

	 And even if we stop there; even if we keep ensuring that people know
about the danger; that people become aware that some – millions,
actually – cannot experience the fullness of life; even if simply
verbally and plainly making sure that people know that some have no
wine, then we’ll have done what we can. But there are others, among
ourselves as well as out throughout the world, others who CAN
transform the situation. All it took in Syria – and I know this is
an incredibly huge all! – all that it took in Syria was getting
clearance and a safe pass for those convoys. Perhaps we may not think
that we have the power, the skill, the vocation to do anything about
it. But we can try. We may surprise ourselves. As Steve Charleston
pointed out, we may do “more good than we may ever know.” We may
help others and never realise it. We may be “an answer to more
prayers that (we) will ever hear.” 2

 “THEY HAVE NO WINE.”

	NOTES:

[1] _“__STARVING SYRIAN TOWN: HOW DID MADAYA GET SO DESPERATE?”
_BY NICK PATON WALSH [1], CNN UPDATED 2:53 PM ET, TUE JANUARY 12, 2016
HTTP://WWW.CNN.COM/2016/01/12/MIDDLEEAST/SYRIA-MADAYA-QA/INDEX.HTML
[2]

	2 Steven Charleston 11th January, 2016 Facebook blog

Links:
------
[1]
http://mail2.charter.net/HTTP://WWW.CNN.COM/PROFILES/NICK-PATON-WALSH
[2]
http://mail2.charter.net/HTTP://WWW.CNN.COM/2016/01/12/MIDDLEEAST/SYRIA-MADAYA-QA/INDEX.HTML

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