St. Charles’ Episcopal Church – St. Charles, IL

The Third Sunday After Epiphany

Sunday, January, 14, 2007

Isaiah 62:1-5 :Psalm 96 or 96:1-10: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11: John 2:1-11

Guest Speaker: Cherryl Holt

Good morning. As Fr. Nesbit said my name is Cherryl Holt, and I am the Associate Director for Development and Chaplaincy at Bishop Anderson House. I’ll talk more about that later. I am a member of Grace Church, Oak Park. I want to thank Fr. Nesbit for the opportunity to be with you today.

This has always been my favorite Gospel reading. Hey, I’m a good Episcopalian and I enjoy a good party.

So was the wine red or white – merlot or chardonnay? And while the “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?” is disconcerting –let’s just say if I had used that one with my mother, I would have experienced time travel: “keep it up and I’ll slap you into the middle of next week!” But that’s another sermon.

This first of seven miracles or signs set the tone for Jesus’ earthly ministry. It was about transformations. But it wasn’t just changing something, it was about changing and enhancing. The wine steward said the wine produced by Jesus was very good. Far superior to that served at the beginning of the banquet.

But this is what happened to those who followed Jesus. Their lives were changed and enhanced: look at the other miracles: healing the Centurion’s daughter; healing the paralytic, the feeding of the 5,000, walking on water, raising Lazarus. Everything has been changed and made better. Transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary.

Those who chose to follow Jesus were never the same. If they believed him and accepted his call to follow him, nothing was ever the same. It was different. It was better. We affirm this every time we receive communion. The Eucharist is the transformation of us – the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus, our sign of the new covenant. We enter this covenant and we are changed. We are transformed.

For several years I was one of the bread makers at Grace. One day, it must have been a couple years into my bread making experience, that I actually looked at the recipe and noticed that at the top was “Alter Bread,” I chuckled to myself at this typo. But as I made the bread I realized it was not a typo. It was an accurate description of what was to happen. When we receive the Body of Christ, the Bread of Heaven at the altar, we are altered. We are changed. We are transformed.

And what greater transformation in the early Church than the conversion of Paul. Saul was an adamant persecutor of the followers of Christ until that fateful day on the road to Damascus. Then he was transformed and changed and began to plant church in the region. He sent direction and support to these fledgling church through a series of letters. Now here in his First Letter to the Church at Corinth, he is laying down the law and giving them guidelines on how to live their lives as followers of Jesus. Paul cautions the Church at Corinth on the use of these gifts from God. During this time, many cults honored prophecy, especially manic prophecy – convulsing and speaking in tongues. These were signs of the human person being divinely possessed. Paul is concerned that the Church understand the spiritual gifts from God as being for the common good, to bring the people into a right relationship with God, and therefore being able to say, “Jesus is Lord.”.

We still bless the spiritual gifts from God for the common good to the glory of God. Paul names some of these gifts: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, interpretation.

Have any of you ever been asked what special gifts you possess and you look down at your feet and mumble “nothing special”? You are so wrong. I checked your website and abundant in this parish is the gift of compassion, and knitting and crocheting (prayer shawl ministry); compassion and carpentry, painting, plumbing, landscaping (Habitat for Humanity) and compassion manifested in other outreach ministries. You are using your gifts for the common good to not only transform lives, but to enhance them. Following that tradition of Jesus. I had the wonderful experience of receiving some of this compassion today. Following the 9:00 service, I was asked to be a part of the blessing of some prayer shawls. I was absolutely floored when one was given to me. Bless you.

And this brings me to Bishop Anderson House. Who are we? What do we do? We are an agency of Episcopal Charities and Communities and Community Services. We are also the Episcopal Chaplaincy to the Illinois Medical District, the largest urban medical district in the world, consisting of four hospitals, three medical schools, two nursing schools, numerous outpatient clinics and through whose doors 30,000 pass daily. Our mission is : to provide pastoral care by comforting the sick and supporting the people who care for them. We do this through several programs: Operation Teddy Bear, Women in Trauma, Lay Chaplain Training Program, All Angels Guild for the Deaf and Meaning & Medicine.

We at Bishop Anderson House strive to provide the gift of presence for those suffering in body and spirit. Through our Lay Chaplain Training Program we have trained over 180 lay persons throughout the Diocese who provide pastoral care in their parishes and as volunteers in hospitals, nursing homes and hospices.

As a chaplain at Stroger Cook County Hospital I visit the kids on the Pediatric Unit. I give each one an age appropriate Teddy Bear, through our Operation Teddy Bear Program. One of the most touching and heartbreaking experiences I have had was seeing a little boy and his dad. I chatted with the boy and gave him a teddy bear. As I was leaving the father asked if he should give the bear back to the nurse when he was done playing with it. He did not realize it was his to keep. I explained that it was his to keep. It made me wonder if this was the first time anyone had reached out to them.

 I also visit women experiencing various traumas: loss of a child in childbirth or shortly afterwards and women with gynecological cancers . But I also see women who are going through what must be the most traumatic experience of all. Female inmates of the Cook County Criminal Justice system who are pregnant deliver their babies at Stroger Cook County Hospital. They have very little time to spend with their babies before they are taken away and placed into foster care.

I’ve taken two units of CPE – Clinical Pastoral Education that reinforces in chaplains the need to be present for the patients. One of the oft heard sayings is “Don’t just do something, be there.”

In closing, I want to thank you again for this opportunity to be with you today and hope that you will look into your heart to see if one of your gifts is pastoral care and if so, I and Bishop Anderson House would love to walk this part of your journey with you.

Amen.