"Flushing out dregs and sediment" - Sermon for 2nd after Epiphany, 1-18-26

When has the wine given out for you? When has your life been nothing but dregs and sediment? The faintest whiff of what was, left behind on a dried-up cork?

Was it when the wine of your faith gave out? Or the wine of your career? Or the wine of your health? Or of a relationship? Or of your identity? How about the wine of your hopes, or happiness, or desires? When has the wine given out for you?

Many would say that the wine of good government in our nation has given out. Dregs and sediment, soured, are about all that I taste in my glass. I pray for new, good wine in Washington and in other world capitals. But today, let’s stay closer to home.

You may recall that I try to follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. My recent reading has been on the qualities of the abbot, the superior of the monastery. Most of the time, Benedict’s rule, and commentaries on it, apply to rectors and parish priests, too. Thursday’s selection was about the superior’s responsibility for the care of souls, but also the essential need of those same souls to follow his lead, as a flock follows a shepherd. This demands much of superiors: we are to be responsible for others’ souls, and to be responsible for our own souls as we respond to the whims and vagaries of those in our care.

Here is what Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun and one-time superior of her community, has to say:

“Any leader knows the litany of emotional responses: anger with those who resist, frustration with things that can’t be changed, disappointment with things that showed promise but never came to fruit, hurt because of the rejection by the people you tried to love, grief over the failure of projects that you counted on to succeed … [all this, she continues] robs the leader of confidence and energy and trust. Despite it all, though, Benedict counsels leaders against the sin of resignation, despair, depression, and false hope … we are never to stop trying … never to lose hope in God’s mercy” (47).

The very same day I read Esther de Waal, another contemporary student of Saint Benedict, who wrote about Benedictine obedience. Obedience that is superficial but grudging is not pleasing to God. It is not good enough, she writes, to be smiling on the outside while fuming on the inside (BDP 1726).

Saint Benedict and Sister Joan and Esther de Wall could just as well be commenting on the story of the wedding in Cana. Wine gives out for all of us at one time or another. In my priestly occupation as parish abbot, I have had cause to suffer Sister Joan’s litany of responses and Esther De Waal’s injunction against false obedience. I expect you have, in your own ways, too.

When the wine gave out at the wedding in Cana, the mother of Jesus said to him they have no more wine. Jesus said my hour has not yet come. Mary told the servants do whatever he tells you. You know the rest of the story.

In Cana of Galilee, Jesus gave us a sign of what was to come later at Golgotha of Jerusalem. His hour would not come until his sacrificial death on the altar of the cross. After giving us his crucified body, the centurion’s spear brought forth from Jesus’s side water and blood. Jesus’s time had come, his sacrifice for us completed. The Eucharist instituted, with Baptism to follow on resurrection’s third day.

In Cana, the water-turned-to-wine, a sign of glory for his disciples, was a foretaste of something even greater. The wine of the old covenant had given out. It was to be replenished by the blood of the new. One glory giving way to a greater glory.

When your wine gives out, never lose hope of God’s mercy. Never stop trying. Let the grace of your baptism into Jesus’s death and resurrection flush away the dregs and sediment settled at the bottom of your heart. Let the grace of his Body and Blood, given out from this altar, bring solace and strength against that which has given out in your life’s desolations and disappointments. Let Jesus reveal his glory in you: reveal it to others and to yourself. See it and believe.

Father Daniel S.J. Scheid, SCP

2^nd after Epiphany, January 18, 2026

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Francisco

“Flushing out dregs and sediment”