One day, a
priest was driving down the street, and, in the rear view mirror, he saw the
blue lights of a police car. The priest
pulled over to the side of the road.
A police
officer came up to the car window and told the priest that he had been speeding.
Then the police officer saw an empty
wine bottle in car and could not help but smell alcohol on the breath of the
priest.
"Father,
have you been drinking?" asked the officer.
"Only
water, my son." replied the priest.
"Why then
do I smell wine?" questioned the officer.
The
priest, looking at the wine bottle, replied, "Oh, my Lord, He's gone and
done it again!"
The
story of turning water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana is one of the
better-known tales we remember about Jesus.
Interestingly enough though, the story of this wedding is only included
in one Gospel narrative. You cannot find it in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. However, it is the way that the Gospel writer
of John chooses to begin his narrative of Jesus’ ministry.
The
Gospel writer goes not with a publically acclaimed and dramatic healing, nor with
a heart-stopping exorcism, nor even with a brilliantly articulate and probing
sermon in the synagogue, but rather starts off with a Jewish wedding.
Whereas
the other three Gospel writers send Jesus out into the wilderness for forty
days of asceticism (no food, no drink), personal reflection, and solitude immediately
following his baptism in the Jordan River, the writer of John sends Jesus out
to party at a seven-day, no holes barred celebration.
Biblical
scholars and ancient historians will tell us that a typical Jewish wedding in
Jesus’ time would have put a number of Saturday night fraternity keg parties to
shame. It did not even begin on a Saturday
but earlier in the week with a procession through town.
The
groom and his attendants would show up at the bride’s house. She would come out on the front stoop and
lower her face veil for the very first time, so that the groom could actually
see what she looked like below the eyes and above the neck. Unless men have changed remarkably over the
millennia, I would suspect that there was a certain amount of smirking and
catcalls and raucous reminders of what awaited the groom later on.
Following
this very important ritual, the procession would continue to meander through
the village streets, only to end up at the groom’s home where family, friends,
and neighbors had already gathered with their appetizers and casseroles, ready
to drink the first of many toasts over the next seven days. Let the party begin!
However,
at this particular wedding, the timing was all off. We are told that on the third day, just
halfway through the celebration, the wine ran out. And that was a major problem. It was a matter of enormous shame for the
groom’s family hosting the celebration – far worse than if the baked stuffed
mushrooms were all gone – far worse even than if the chip basket was empty and
the dip bowl scraped clean at Lori and Dan’s before the end of the Super Bowl. We are talking a crisis here.
And
Jesus’ mother apparently was sensitive to this disturbing faux pas, this
terrible blunder, this mortifying and dire situation. And being a good Jewish mother, her first
instinct was to fix the problem.
With
no Sunset Variety or Good Life Market to turn to replenish the wine cellar, she
turned to her son instead. Now, some
might be shocked to find Jesus at a wedding in the first place instead of out
there healing lepers, raising the dead,
or challenging the temple authorities. However, in our story today, he is apparently
thoroughly enjoying himself at this week-long party, drinking his share of the
wine – and not grape juice. So
Mary sidled up to Jesus and casually whispered to him, “They have no wine. The wine ran out.”
I
am not sure that Jesus was particularly thrilled to have his mother butt into
his good times that way – to presume that he could, should, or would do
something about the wine issue. In fact,
he said so in so many words. “What
concern is that to you and me?” In other
words - “Bugger off, Mom!”
Maybe
Jesus just wanted to mind his own business, just have a good time. Or maybe deep down inside, if he even knew
that he was not like other people, he realized that just as the timing was all wrong
at this wedding, so the timing was all wrong for him as well – maybe he did not
want to go public right now. Maybe that
explains his retort: “My hour has not
yet come.”
Now
a brief and pointed remark like that one would have been a conversation stopper
for most people, but Mary was a strong willed woman and apparently would not
take no for an answer – particularly from her son. And though she had no direct rejoinder to
him, she did take a deep breath and did an abrupt about face as she left that
corner of the atrium where Jesus too turned back to laugh and joke with his
friends once more – but not before she loudly directed the servants, who were
standing around with their half-filled plates of cucumber sandwiches and
pigs-in-blankets, to “do as he tells you.”
I
guess Mary won that round with her covertly rebellious son because Jesus sighed
deeply and told the servants to fill six of the 30-gallon purification jugs
with water and then let the wine steward try it.
Well,
as we know, the stubby little bearded head honcho wine guy could not believe
his taste buds. Marvelous! Extraordinaire! Dark and rich with a whisper of oak, tasting
of plums and blackberries with a hint of belting leather – it was the essence
of fine wine. And so much of it – 180
gallons, no less! Astounding – the best
wine saved for last when most of the guests would have been content with Ripple
or Boone’s Farms by now. Problem
solved. The party goes on, and it goes
on in style.
Why
did the Gospel writer of John ever decide to start off the story of Jesus’
ministry this way? After all, only a few
people – the servants and wine steward – and his mother - knew what he had
done. The rest of the party goers just
kept refilling their wine glasses. Many
of them probably never even knew there was a problem – and most of them could
not tell the good wine from the better wine at that point anyway.
And
yet, this story is the first of seven “signs” in the Gospel of John to explain
the role of Jesus in God’s scheme of things.
The other Gospel writers call such events miracles, but I rather like
the term, “sign.” A sign points to
something – a truth – beyond itself. A
sign is a symbol of something greater.
So the question for us is this:
What truth does this water into wine event point to? What does this occurrence tell us about
Jesus, God, and ourselves?
A
number of years ago, when Johnny Carson was the host of “The Tonight Show,” he
interviewed an eight year old boy.
Apparently, the young child had rescued two friends in a coalmine
outside his hometown in West Virginia.
As
Johnny Carson questioned the boy, it became apparent that the young man was a
church goer. So Johnny asked him if he
attended Sunday school.
When
the boy said he did, Johnny inquired, "What are you learning in Sunday
school?"
"Last
week," the boy replied, "our lesson was about when Jesus went to a
wedding and turned water into wine."
"And
what did you learn from that story?" the late night interviewer queried.
The
boy squirmed in his chair. It was apparent that he really had not thought about
the possible relevance of the Biblical narrative.
However,
after a moment or two, the boy looked directly at the TV cameras and said with
all the authority one could expect an eight year old to muster up, "What I
learned is if you're going to have a wedding, make sure you invite Jesus!"
Though
an interesting perspective, surely there is more to this story than that! I am quite certain that the point is not that
Jesus could take plain old drinking water and turn it into wine, so that the
family of the groom would not lose face in the community.
The point is not the so-called miracle
itself, and the point is also not that Jesus was capable of having a good time
every now and then.
No
– we are selling the Gospel writer short if we think that is all he or she had
in mind. You see, I think there are three
more substantive ideas that we might take with us from this story to reflect on
this week.
The
first is that God never does anything half way.
Our God is a God of abundance.
There was not just enough wine to get by. There was an extravagant profusion of plenty
– 180 gallons of the very best. As
Lutheran pastor Edward Markquart reminds us – “180 gallons of grace.”
180
gallons of extravagant love for us – all of us – even the very least and most
undeserving among us. Grace upon grace
and blessing upon blessing – filling us to the very brim, just like those water
jugs at the wedding. Remember that next
time you are feeling alone and unloved and as if nothing in your life is as it
should be. Grace upon grace and blessing
upon blessing.
The second is
that God takes small things and makes them into big things. Only a few people saw what Jesus had done at
the wedding.
What impact could this single back room event possibly have
on the rest of Jesus’ ministry?
According to
the Gospel writer of John – a lot! After
all, it was the first of seven signs and, as one Methodist blogger wrote, it is
called “The Butterfly Effect. You may have heard this as: if a butterfly flaps
its wings in Africa, the wind generated by those wings ends up creating a
hurricane in the Atlantic…(In other words), it is the small things that end up
causing big changes in the world…The God we worship is a God that takes little
things and makes them into big things. A baby in a basket floating down a river
turns into a leader who would take his people out of slavery…. Fisherman doing
their jobs would hear the calling of a traveler and help transform a world.
The
awesomeness of the God we worship is that nothing is too small. No act is too
insignificant. (And) if God can use a wedding running out of wine (to make a
point), it makes me wonder what little events in my life God (might use) to
transform the world and the people I meet.”
And
finally the third is that what happened at the wedding is not an anomaly. It is not the exception to the rule. Whether we like it or not, whether we feel
that it is fair or unfair, the wine always runs out – no matter who we
are. A marriage fails. We lose a job. Our children falter. A spouse passes away. We are alone.
We are in pain. We are
broken. The wine has run out.
And
so the question is not if the wine will run out, but rather when it
does, what do we do about it? And the
answer is nestled here in this little story that only the Gospel writer of John
records.
And
the answer is not found in the pivotal moment of water becoming
wine. In fact, Jesus does not articulate
the answer at all, but rather his mother his.
The answer lies in the words she speaks to the servants. “Do as he tells you.”
When
the wine runs out – as it inevitably will do in the lives of each one of us –
when the wine runs out: Do as he tells
us. Do as Jesus tells us. Pray, love, and serve. Reconnect with God, love yourself and your
neighbor, and care – be compassionate rather than self-involved, and reach out
to help those around you.
And
if you do as Jesus tells us over and over again to do - not just in the Gospel
of John but in Matthew, Mark, and Luke as well, if you pray, love, and serve, you
will find that, in new and surprising ways, the wine will start to flow again –
and not just a trickle either – and not Ripple or Boones Farms, but 180 gallons
of the very best, 180 gallons of grace and blessing.
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