Epiphany 2 2007
Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 36:5-10
1 Cor 12:1-11
John 2:1-11
Six stone jars, each holding 20-30 gallons stood empty. Jesus and his mother Mary are guests at the wedding in Cana when Mary discovered that the wine had run out. We must understand that a wedding in the ancient world lasted about 8 days. Women often served the guests and if Mary were involved in serving, then it is logical that she would know when the wine was used up. Furthermore, guests, especially men, often brought wine to honor the groom. Jesus is obligated in social custom to contribute to the supply of wine. Mary approached Jesus and asked him to do a specific thing – and then let the action to him.
Jesus instructed the waiters to fill the jugs with water and then Jesus turned the 120-180 gallons of water into wine. The old water for purification was not turned into wine; the new water put into the jugs and that new water was turned into wine. The Hebrew Testament regarded an abundance of good wine as an eschatological symbol, a sign of the joyous arrive of God’s new age. “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines (Is 25:6a) and The mountains shall drip sweet wine and all the hills shall flow with it” (Amos 9:13b). God’s grace is abundant! Have you not been empty, needing to be filled with grace and encountered someone, some circumstance or experience in which the abundance of grace poured over you until you were filled to overflowing? All of us ought to be able to remember such a time.
I remember when we heard that Nancy and Brian were headed home from Cincinnati after Brian was finally released from the cardiac care unit. Equipped with a new heart, Brian, and Nancy were in touch with members of the parish from the time they left until they were at the outskirts of Woodbine. The procession and welcome and rejoicing could not have been more exuberant. We were filled with joy to have them home again. We were so aware of the grace that had preceded and followed us in that journey.
Last Sunday we heard that the children in Honduras at the Orphanage received our small gifts in time for Christmas. We never expected that the children would be so filled with grace and so joyous in their treasures that they would go out and share what they had with 50 more. Never did we expect that miracle, but grace has a way of overflowing once the containers are filled with the new wine.
Our lives are jugs. Sometimes we are empty, and yet, when we give ourselves to God, grace pours into us and we are able to see things we never saw before, be who we were designed to be in the hands of the great Creator.
The response of the steward to the miracle of Jesus is based on reason, logic, and physical explanation. They supposed the groom had saved the best wine for last. The disciples in contrast see in the miracle a boundary breaking possibility that marks the inbreaking of God. The steward tried to reshape the miracle to fit his former categories, but the disciples allow their understanding of this extraordinary transformation of water into wine to be an epiphany of who Jesus is and they “believed in him” (John 2:11).
How often do we try to make God fit into our frame of reference? We could reasonably explain the medical cure of Brain as just another successful organ transplant. The truth is that only a few who need vital organs get them in time because so few people are donors. Having a donor and a match and a facility to make the transplant work all in the right time frame feels more like an epiphany of grace to me than to another chapter in medical technology. You shape it however you will, but as for me, I am giving the credit to God.
The way in which the orphans in Honduras shared the toys with children who had less is a story of abundance. The children felt they had received in abundance and they live in the presence of a woman of faith. These children know God and by sharing what they have they make God known.
The story of the water turned into wine at Cana is a sign – the first of the signs that reveal who Jesus is. That is the reason the story is part of the Epiphany lection and why it is the first sign of the Gospel of John. We readers believe and these signs are helpful because they teach us to look for God doing a new thing in our day. John uses the word sign to refer to Jesus’ miracles. The significance of the miracle for John is not the act itself but that the sign points beyond itself to the author of life. The deed reveals the doer and points to the significance of the deed as an act of eschatological salvation and God’s abundance.
The text today reminds us how generous God is. God often turns things around for us. Each of us has a story of a time when God intervened. We prayed, just as Mary did, we told God what was needed and God acted. Some times the action God took was perhaps not the one we anticipated but if we look back we often realize that what God did was very good. Mary did not tell Jesus what to do but she did explain the problem to Jesus. What Jesus did was perhaps more than Mary expected. The wine ran out. Jesus was made aware of the problem. He told the stewards to fill the jugs with water. Then Jesus turned the water into wine.
The problem with too many churches today is the attitude of scarcity. We expect too little, we want to grow but we also want to be small. We want new members but prefer those new folks be like us. We want to be involved in ministry but only the things we enjoy. We like to be affirmed, encouraged, complemented, and we don’t mind work but on our own terms.
There are many challenges to small churches – having enough hands to do the work, having enough money to pay the bills, keeping a rector, an organist, Sunday school teachers, meeting the pastoral needs of the members, etc. The metaphor of the body as a multifaceted group with diverse gifts for mission and ministry works if and only if all parts are working. In the Gospel, Jesus goes to a wedding and takes ordinary water and transforms it into very good wine. Abundance follows the sense of scarcity because it is given over to God. If God can take a group of exiles and restore them to the holy people of promise, and a rag tag group of 12 disciples and a few women and start the movement we know as Christianity, do not think small – do not think we are too few to do great things – we are not suffering from scarcity – we have plenty if we will give what we have to God and allow God to transform us according to God’s plan, God’s purpose, for the grace of our God is abundant. Lay aside your fears and be freed from the mindset of scarcity. Put on the garment of light and move out into mission. God goes with you, before you, behind you, beside you. Pray before you go – then go forth in the abundant grace of God.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori is right to see evangelism in the MDG goal to eradicate extreme poverty by 2015. None of us ought to sleep well while 800 million people go to bed hungry after working hard all day and earned less than $1. Our baptism calls us to respect the dignity of every human being – and that call to respect does not stop at the borders of these United States. Martin Luther King Jr was right to observe that until we are all free no person is truly free. From jail in Birmingham Alabama King wrote his famous letter in which he told fellow clergy how disappointed he was in the church for their lack of solidarity with people who suffered poverty, poor education, lack of opportunity, and the indignity of segregation. In ways large and small the MDG reaches out to do for the world what MLK Jr led the civil rights movement to do forty years ago in this country. We have enough but it is not equally distributed. Some of us are going to do something about that this week as two of our number go to help rebuild the homes destroyed by hurricane Katrina. Others will put aside an extra dollar and some mother somewhere will be able to feed her children.
Our children are reading with your sponsorship so that children half way around this fragile earth our island home can simply live. We are the body of Christ today but the body is not whole, the body knows malnutrition, hunger, disease that is preventable and treatable, but God wants to make that body whole again. God wants to pour grace abundantly on all his children, all over this world, and God is calling us to be instruments of that healing grace.
Don’t think small, think God! Grace is as abundant today as it was in Cana once Jesus was invited into the action. God will act in the through us to spread the Good News of the Gospel: that God’s grave and love is abundant and free to all. So wherever you go, know this, God takes what we have and makes it good.