Sunday 20 January 2013, Third Sunday of Epiphany

"Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him."

But what did they believe? That their friend had miraculous power over the DNA of creation? Probably. In the turning of water into wine they had witnessed something otherwise inexplicable. That their friend was the Anointed One for whom their people had been waiting?   Possibly. The abundant provision of wine was one of the signs of the Messianic age that their prophets had foretold. Or that their friend was God Incarnate, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity? Certainly not. It took the church several decades to work that out.

It's not that any of the three beliefs are wrong, judged from the standpoint of later Christian doctrine; it's not that any of the three beliefs contradicts the others. But they differ, and their difference might prompt us to reflect upon what we believe. "His disciples believed in him", and belief in Jesus is as much a cornerstone of twenty-first century faith as it was of first-century faith. We believe in Jesus. What do we believe?

In my last weeks as Vicar of St Peter's I promise that I will try to refrain from graciously  bestowing upon you the fruits of the immense wisdom I have gained in the last six years; and if I break my promise then I'm sure you'll correct me. But perhaps I might share with you four distinct times of my life, and four distinct ways in which I have believed in Jesus.

The first is my childhood, when Jesus was as real to me as King Alfred the Great or Admiral Lord Nelson, two other favourite historical characters who dominated my imagination. I read countless books about all of them. I knew their stories. I knew their characters. I even knew what they looked like - of course! I had little idea of their chronology - I felt badly cheated when my father told me that he did not remember the Battle of Trafalgar. I had little idea of their significance - although I knew that Jesus's was to be found in church rather than at the fireside where Alfred burned the cakes. But I knew that they were real, unlike Batman or the Famous Five. I believed in Jesus. He was the one who turned water into wine. My belief lacked a reasoned foundation; my belief was limited in scope; but it was a belief.

The second is when I was an undergraduate. It was the mid-1980s. The miners' movement had been crushed but the student movement, as we liked to call it, was on the march: against apartheid, for gay rights, against the American missile bases, for the Sandinistas. I studied political thought, was impressed by Lenin's monograph The State and Revolution and became a passionate Marxist. That lasted a fortnight. In this fevered milieu Christianity was neither right-on nor cool. My belief in Jesus needed a different basis and it found one. Jesus had been an anti-capitalist agitator. (If only he had realized it!) 'Love one another' he had said: what he had really meant was, obviously, 'peace, bread and land'. He was a class warrior, a radical. I believed in Jesus. He gave wine to those whose vessels were empty. My belief lacked doctrinal content; my belief was selective in its scope; but it was a belief.

The third is when I was an ordinand at theological college. I arrived there from a career in the law, a career which had shown me justice and mercy in operation. I arrived there full of questions about the justice of the atonement effected by God in Christ. I did not understand how the wrath of a supposedly merciful Father could be satisfied by the death of his guiltless Son. I knew our judges could do rather better. I found the answer in the Anglican divines of the twentieth century, in Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy and Bill Vanstone. They taught me to look for Jesus in the dock rather than on the bench; in the trenches rather than in the battalion headquarters; on the shop floor rather than in the boardroom. They taught me that in Jesus we see God: not the rebellious, campaigning God of my undergraduate days, but rather a vulnerable God, a victim God, a God who identifies absolutely with the grief and misery of creation. I believed in Jesus. He turned water into vast quantities of wine and demonstrated thereby God's reckless love for the world. My belief lacked any notion of glory; my belief was earth-bound in its scope; my belief nailed Jesus to the world and thus overlooked the call of heaven; but it was a belief.

The fourth is in my six years as Vicar of St Peter's Eaton Square. It has been one of my chiefest privileges to baptize many here, to be the agent of God's gratuitous love for his people. It has been my enormous privilege to see many respond to their baptism, to see people responding to God's gratuitous love for them - not by becoming, or by  trying to become, something that they are not, but by becoming, or trying to become, what they already are. Jesus is the one whose mortal body shines with celestial light on the mountain of his Transfiguration. Jesus is the one whose life lives within us from the moment that we are. Jesus is the one whose light is kindled within us in the sacrament of baptism. By his incarnation Jesus has gathered into one things earthly and heavenly. He has become human that we might become divine. I believe in Jesus. He is the one whose life and death and resurrection have changed the water of mortality into the wine of eternity. My belief lacks...well, I'm not yet sure what it lacks. Tell me. Or invite me back in a few years time. I'll have worked it out, and I'll believe something new.

Perhaps I'll call Jesus as my best friend. Perhaps I'll call him my King and perhaps I won't grit my teeth as I do so. Perhaps I'll have fallen in love with him (although I rather doubt it). Whatever I believe about Jesus, inexorably he calls me, inexorably he draws me, and there is no refusing. I believe in Jesus. Amen.