God wants us all to keep the party going - Bishop of Liverpool
Right Reverend Doctor John Perumbalath, Bishop of Liverpool, leading the Open Table communion service at St Bride’s Church.
PHOTOS: Scarlett Valentine.
“Thank you for everyone who still sticks with the church, is still part of this church, even though we find it sometimes a painful experience to be part of a church which doesn’t welcome everyone.”
ON SUNDAY 21st January 2024 Right Reverend Doctor John Perumbalath, Bishop of Liverpool led a celebration of communion at the first Open Table community in the city.
He reflected on the story of the wedding at Cana, the first reported miracle of Jesus in John’s gospel [John 2:1-11]
So this evening's Gospel reading is about a normal situation in a village context. You have a wedding party. As a host of the wedding party, probably head of the family, you are going to be in a time of distress and shame because you have invited all these guests and there isn't enough to feed them.
We can all sympathize with those situations of shame. Maybe there is so much in that story or in that incident that we can reflect on tonight. There is a deeper symbolism about what is happening there, a sign performed by Jesus.
All those references to various Old Testament customs and practices will also help us to understand the significance of the first sign according to John's gospel. But I'm not going anywhere there tonight. My reflection is not very highly theological tonight, even though I could do that.
It is a very simple truth - that God wants the party going on. There is a party there and for some reason now they are stuck. The party cannot continue.
People might now start blaming each other, or blaming the host, or all those circumstances you can imagine. The party is cut short, but God doesn't want the party to be cut short. He will even perform a miracle to see this party is going on and that is the simple message I have for all of us tonight.
We often forget that our Lord Jesus was at a wedding and he even performed a miracle to keep that wedding party going. We find a God who encourages people finding delight in each other's presence, who wants the party going on forever, who doesn't want to exclude anyone because someone came a bit late and now they found that there is no more wine.
I visited St. John the Baptist Church in Thaxted, one of my favorite churches in England, which is in my previous diocese in Chelmsford. That church is known for various reasons, but very specifically because of a radical parish priest they used to have in the middle of the last century, Conrad Noel. Conrad Noel dedicated his whole life for working class people and the people who don't have enough to delight in and keep the party going on. He was an advocate for people's happiness, people being able to find places to rejoice together after the whole day's work. He even reordered his parish church, St. John the Baptist in Thaxted, making enough room for Morris dancing! Dance became part of the order of service there. I led actually a farmer's service, a Plough Sunday service there when I was there, I think it was two years ago, and we had Morris dancers back in.
His point was that God wants people to have those opportunities to rejoice together. And he defended workers' right for pleasure and delight. And he used to go to workers' ballet. And some of the Puritans in his congregation once asked him, ‘Do you think that St. Paul would ever have gone to a ballet?’ Conrad paused for a moment and said, ‘I'm not sure whether St. Paul would have gone to a ballet, but I'm absolutely sure that my Lord Jesus would have gone to a ballet, and he would have taken even his blessed mother!’
What Conrad Nobel was saying there is what you have in the episode from the Gospel tonight. A God who wants his people to rejoice, to be who they are, to relate to each other, enjoy each other's company, and find life in abundance.
And this is a party that God has offered. But unfortunately, when we meet together here tonight, we know that the party that God has offered is not always left open for others. This is God's party, not an exclusive kind of event.
The whole humanity is invited to be part of this party. But painfully, we realize that many of us are not always able to enjoy that party in the way others do, even within the Church of God. And as we rejoice in God's party, I hope and pray that the Church will continue to ask this question:
How do we offer an invitation to this party to everybody else on equal terms?
And when God worked there, he didn't work in a kind of vacuum, in a kind of empty space. There were definitely servants there, and there was even his mother who advised the servants what they should do if they were asked to do something. And there were some water jars standing there.
So God needed agency, human agency. People who know me, my politics, and my sense or calling for social justice, most of them are atheists, many of my good friends, they keep asking me, why are you still in this homophobic church? And why are you a bishop in this church? My answer is that God still needs some people there. We can't give up.
This is God's party, and there is a gracious invitation for everyone to join in that party. But unfortunately, everyone doesn't find that place. Change doesn't happen in a vacuum.
God needs agency. So thank you for everyone who still sticks with the church, is still part of this church, even though we find it sometimes a painful experience to be part of a church which doesn't welcome everyone. God needs our agency.
May we continue to be agents of that change, being willing to fill the water when actually God asks us to fill water jars, being able to move those water jars wherever they need to be, and even serving that water, thinking that it is wine. We need to be willing to be part of this imperfect organization, realizing that this is not the party that God might be wanting, and working towards that party where everybody could come together, rejoice, and be together.
May we continue to work for a church where everyone is included on equal terms. May we continue to offer ourselves as instruments of God, bringing that change that God is bringing.
LEFT-RIGHT: Warren Hartley, cofaciliator of Open Table Liverpool with Bishop John and Kieran Bohan, Director of the Open Table Network
