I'll Have What She's Having

2 Epiphany c          January 20, 2013   

Isaiah 62:1-5         Psalm 36:5-10       

1 Cor. 12:1-11      John 2:1-11       

Lectionary Link 

  One of funniest lines in motion picture history was delivered by a character who was insignificant in the overall plot of the movie.  The movie was “When Harry Met Sally.”  Sally played by Meg Ryan is in a restaurant with Harry played by Billy Crystal.  Sally acts out in the restaurant a state of female ecstasy and when she finishes, a waiter in the restaurant is taking the order of a woman customer and she says in reference to the display of ecstasy by Sally, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

  The experience of drinking water and knowing it to be the best wine is what characterizes the first Sign of  Jesus Christ in the Gospel of John.  The Gospel of John is all about living a parallel existence:  Living in the world but not being of the world.  Having both a natural birth and a spiritual birth.  And what does this mean?  It means the Signs of the Awesome being made known within the ordinary.  While in the natural order everyone thinks that it is just plain water, those who live in this other order of life experience the drinking of the ordinary water as being the finest wine.  And when people see the result of people who have this access to this other way of perceiving the awesome within the ordinary, what do they say or think?  “I’ll have what she’s having.”  And this dynamic expresses the most powerful evangelism of all; when people observe and are drawn and confess, “I’ll have what she or he is having.”

  When people were introduced to Jesus, they were drawn and attracted.  Here in the very ordinary and depressed conditions of Palestinian life in the first century, people saw Jesus and said, “I’ll have what he’s having.”  And what was Jesus saying, “You can have all that I have; you just need to accept that you are a son or daughter of God.  You just need to realize your spiritual birth and heritage in the midst of this very natural and all too human world.”

  How is it that people come to say, “I’ll have what she’s having or I’ll have what he’s having?”  We come to say that when we see people manifest their special gifts.  Some of those gifts get shown on the great media stages of life; we see that in the public performers in politics, sports, theatre, music and cinema.  But we often live best when we can live in communities of mutual admiration.  St. Paul said that there were many gifts but one Spirit.  He wrote that there were different gifts.  One of the main tasks of human life is to find, to discover and develop our gifts.  We are happiest when we can discover the areas of creativity that energize us and that also turn out to be useful to other.  I think that each of us is called in life to access our life force, the Spirit of life and have it come to be manifest as the charisma or charm of our life.  Everyone has a different charm and each has to find one’s own charm.  How many times have we heard someone say something or we have read something and we’ve thought, “I wish I had said that or I wish that I had written that.”  A community is blessed when each can look at one another and say or think, “I’ll have what he or she is having.”  In the midst of our being all too human, we can still access the energy of the sublime that can exude the kinds of expression of attraction that become the glue of how a community maintains itself.  A community survives when each person works to discover the basic force of one’s life as Spirit or as charisma.  We owe it to ourselves to be released into our gifts for the common good.  This is to learn how to taste the ordinary water of life as the finest wine.

  God does extraordinary things through ordinary people who are willing to seek their gifts and not be “hired guns” with their gifts but those who give freely and authentically.  It is one thing to be gifted; it is another thing to discover our gifts, develop them and then share them to enrich the community.

  Following a solo recital in New York City, the great pianist Van Cliburn, was signing autographs and making small talk with his radiant admirers. Near the end of the line, a lady clutching his hands said to him, "I'd give my life to be able to play like that!"  Van Cliburn looked back at her with steady eyes and simply said, "Madam, I have."

  Each of us has to find the gift or gifts we have where we can give our lives.  We owe it to our own joy to do so and we owe it for the benefit of our community to feel the energy of our gifts go forth from our lives.  I have lived with you long enough to know that at various moments I could say about each of you, “I’ll have what he or she is having.”  We at St. John’s live and survive and go into our future because God takes us as ordinary people and allows the charisma or the gifts of the Spirit to arise in us to create enough mutual ministry and mutual admiration to propel us into the future.

  Let us today find the new gifts that God has for each of us as we seek to serve God here and as we work not to be successful or famous, but just be faithful to the highest values of life, namely the example of love and justice that Jesus Christ gave to us.  Jesus did his first Sign at the Wedding in Cana of Galilee; the Risen Christ still does Signs in our midst today which we can know when the gifts of God happen within ordinary people and we say with admiration, “I’ll have what she’s having; I’ll have what he’s having.”  Amen.