To react to this call, Saint Paul told us that we must each discover and act out the vocations to which we are called - as teacher, as prophet, as minister - and so on.
The Holy Gospel last week showed us the young Jesus preparing to react to His call, to His vocation - learning from the elders in the temple, as He told His mother Mary He must be about His Father's business.
Today we will focus on the nitty-gritty, on the details we must tend to as we begin to answer more fully our vocations.
One important technical detail here - in order to sin or to be virtuous, we must have three pieces - knowledge, will, and action. That is, if we do not know that some act is sinful or virtuous, we are neither sinful nor virtuous if we do that act. Next, if we act without wishing or willing to do that act, it is neither sin nor virtue. And finally, if we know that an action is good or evil, and if we wish to take that action but do not act, it is neither sin nor virtue.
This is what distinguishes man for beast - only human beings can know, intend, and act on something as good or evil; only we can do sin or virtue.
Given this uniquely human dimension of sin and virtue, it should be clear to us that our love for God - or our alienation from God - is clearly shown when we sin or when we act virtuously.
Let us look at the scriptures appointed for this second Sunday in Epiphany.
In the fourth chapter of second Kings, a poor widow appears before the prophet Elisha, telling him that, because she cannot pay her creditors, they are going to take her sons and sell them into slavery. She tells Elisha that all she has in her house is a pot of oil.
Here is the setting - her creditors are at the door, she has not enough to pay them, and she has pled to God's prophet Elisha that she can do nothing.
Now comes God's action: He has heard the plea of the righteous widow, and He gives her a task. We see that the woman does not question Elisha, does not say that gathering all the pots from her neighbours is stupid. No, the widow knows what she is to do; being faithful, she intends to go God's will; and she acts. The widow gathers all the pots; she and her sons fill them from her one pot until they are all full; there is oil to spare.
The Widow's action is fruitful for her; all the extra oil pays off her debt; and Elisha tells her that she and her sons can live on the income from the surplus oil.
Note the ingredients of the widow's actions: Elisha gave her a task; in her faithfulness she knew the appointed task was the right action; and she acted. There: the virtuous woman has seen, has willed, and has acted as directed by God through the prophet Elisha.
Would that we in today's increasingly complex and technical world would have the widow's simple faith; would that we, hearing God's direction to us, could know that we must do God's will. Would that we all could mean, could know, and could act, to see that God's will be done.
Now on to Saint Paul's letter to the Romans. Here he characteristically cuts right to the chase, simply and starkly. After enumerating a diversity of vocations to which each of us might be called - prophecy, ministry, exhorting, giving, ruling, showing mercy - after this sample listing of vocations, Saint Paul says:
"Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good." There, simply, we have it; in fact, this sums up all of today's lections and is the kernel of our faith. Have we not all heard the apparently ironic statement, "Love God and do as you please!"? That is, as Saint Paul tell us we are to do, if we love without dissimulation - simply, fully, honestly, enthusiastically, if all of our actions, all of our thoughts, all of our intents are informed by the love of God, then what we do can be only reflections of God's love, can only be good, can only be virtues.
Saint Paul goes on to show some of the effects of this love without dissimulation:
And so Saint Paul continues - the charge to us members of the Body of Christ is at first blush impossible to fulfill. How can we possibly be so saintly?
The answer to how we are to strive towards perfect virtue - to which I alluded above - is perfectly presented in today's Gospel, when Jesus performs His first miracle at the wedding feast at Cana.
Remember, please, that i said that God acts and we react; and that our willful, informed actions alone can be sins or virtues.
In this feast at Cana, Mary came to Jesus and told Him, "They have no wine."
Once again I note our Lord's reaction to blessed Mary, "Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come."
Can you not hear Him, beloved in Christ? Can you not hear Jesus - knowing that His first miracle will in fact be his first step towards Calvary and the Cross - can't you hear Him saying, "No, not yet!"?
But, in fact, when we come back to knowledge, assent, and action, Jesus does take the action, after His initial response of resistance and hesitation, His first reluctance to beginning this journey - this journey which will end with the bloody Cross and our redemption - after resistance, He knows, He accepts, and He ACTS - He turns 180 gallons of water into the best wine.
Now for our model of how we are to act, how we are to respond to God's action, we look to this same miracle at Cana, to that other key player in it, to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary, who from the time Jesus was a teen-ager, was keeping all His sayings in her heart - Mary who had accepted her vocation to be the theotokos, the God-Bearer, she who had always in every way known, wished, and acted to fulfill God's will for her - Mary said to the stewards - and says to all of us now and through eternity - Mary said, "Whatever He saith unto you, DO IT!"
No doubt here, no misunderstanding here, no equivocation here - God the Son has acted, has called for the 180 gallons of water to be set out. As directed by our Lady, in response to our Lord's action, the servants reacted and did as He said to them - they set out the 180 gallons of water.
Now the event - now the divine invasion of history, now - just as Elisha had indicated and God there acted to fill many post with oil - now the water becomes the best wine.
Well, dear ones here at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Rangoon at the beginning of the 21st century - we have seen God act over the past 3,000 years - with Elisha in second Kings and at the wedding feast at Jesus' first miracle at Cana.
What, beloved, do these invasions by God thousands of years ago in cultures foreign to all of us - what do these actions of God have to say to us here and now?
In response, I would say that these past actions by God and reactions by people are precisely what makes sense of our vocations today, specifically what informs our moral actions today, dynamically showing us how we must react when God acts.
Now, I am not known to be terribly subtle; I do not mince words or equivocate. When our Lady instructed the stewards - and all of us - when she told us, "Whatever He saith unto you, DO IT!", this statement by our Lady precisely echoes Elisha's command to the widow, "thou shalt pour out into all these vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full."
You all know where I - and we - are headed, beloved in Christ - you all know that both Elisha and our Lady are preparing us for that final command of our Lord, making us ready for Him, on the night in which He was betrayed,a to take bread and bless and break it, commanding those at the Last Supper and all of us faithful until the end of time, commanding all of us - "Do this in remembrance of me." - do this in bringing my Body back to the present; do this in making my Body one.
When Father Chri He now takes the elements of bread and wine from us this morning and blesses them and - as our Lady directed - does what our Lord commands him, then our reaction becomes one with Jesus' action on the cross - we reactors - by knowing, wishing, and acting on our Lord's command, we are lifted up out of the accidents of history, out of the pitiful vagaries of fallible human life, and are made - because we know, we wish, and we act - to do as God commands - we are made one Body in Him and He in us.
Is it not glorious, dear members of the Body of Christ, that by seeing, pursuing, and acting on our vocations to become one with Christ, by our reactions we are given that inestimable Gift, that Medicine of immortality - the very Body and Blood of Christ, Whose body we are!
Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ!
In the name of the