Rev. Jimmy Moore, preaching
John 2:1-11
Miracles, Yes
“Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood.” So writes Mary Oliver at the beginning of her delightful poem, “Mysteries, Yes.” At St. Mark’s, we are using the Season of Lent to ask some important questions. So one of mine is “Where in my life and in our world have I seen marvelous mysteries that defy explanation and understanding?” What about you?
In our Lenten emphasis which we are calling “Holy Curiosity”, we are doing a couple of things. In our Ash Wednesday services, we invited folks to do a prayer called the “Examen” every day. In the prayer, we ask two questions, “Where have I seen God this day?” “Where have I seen brokenness today?”
But the other thing we have done is invite folks to send us questions that they would like to see us craft into sermons. So this week, one of our members has asked that we preach on the challenges of the interface of science with some of the really hard to believe miraculous stories of the Scriptures. If one reduces it to an either/or categories, one must either ascribe to the miraculous detail of every story, or one must adopt philosopher David Hume’s sense that a miracle is impossible because it would be an violation of a natural law. But what if there is a third way to welcome these stories…one that acknowledges the mystery of life and faith? We’ll try that this Sunday with the story of Jesus at a wedding where the water became wine. The sermon is titled “Miracles, Yes”, and rises from John 2:1-11. We will celebrate Holy Communion, and the Chancel Choir will sing. We hope to see you this Sunday.