I imagine those of you who have been hosts at a wedding reception, or anticipate doing that sometime in the future, were interested in the Gospel lesson for this morning, where Jesus attends a wedding and turns the water into wine, not only producing the finest of vintages, but also covering for the host’s bad planning. The host was able to tell his guests, "Well, I was just reserving the best for the last."
Someone suggested the title of this sermon ought to be, "No Wine before Its Time," which is clever, but it doesn't really capture the message of this passage. This scene, the wedding at Cana, is mentioned in all the wedding rituals of churches. In the introduction to the Methodist ritual of marriage, it says, "With his presence and power, Jesus graced a wedding in Cana of Galilee." Reference to Cana is in all the rituals of marriage in order to give Christ's blessing to the institution of marriage. It was a matter of considerable concern, especially to the early Christians, because Jesus didn't say anything about marriage. He said something about divorce, and by implication you could read something about marriage in that, but he did not talk about marriage.
Jesus, himself, was not married. So there was this dilemma. As Christians we are to follow Jesus. Does that mean we are to follow him into celibacy? Well, of course, some did, and some still do, as a matter of fact, as a Christian vocation. But the great majority of Christians would have nothing to do with that. So here is the dilemma. He wasn't married. He didn't say anything about marriage. Then somebody remembered, "Well he went to a wedding down there in Cana." That's good enough. We’ll say that he blessed the institution of marriage by his presence at the wedding at Cana.
But that's not why this story is here either. It is not about marriage. The meaning of the story, and its full revolutionary impact for us and for the world, can be seen by noticing where it is placed. It is the first thing Jesus does in his ministry. It comes right at the beginning of the second chapter.
The first chapter of the Gospel of John is really prologue. The beautiful first eighteen verses say, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." The second half of that chapter introduces John the Baptist. You always have to go to John the Baptist, because he was the most influential, powerful figure in that day. According to the Gospel of John, John the Baptist points to Jesus, and says, “This is the one. I am not the one. This is the one, the Savior of the World."That's the first chapter.
The second chapter begins with Jesus changing the water into wine at the wedding at Cana. That’s his debut. It's the first thing he does, according to John. You know that phrase, "making a statement"? That is what Jesus is doing in this scene. He is making a statement. He is saying, this is who I am, this is what I have come for.
It is especially significant when you compare this scene with the other three gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. They have a different opening scene. The three agree. They all say Jesus' first act, his debut, was a sermon. They say he first went to Nazareth, his hometown, and preached in the Synagogue on the text from Isaiah, the Year of Jubilee, when all debts will be forgiven, all the captives set free, and the blind will see. At the end of the sermon, Jesus said, "This prophesy is fulfilled in your hearing."
According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, the first thing that Jesus did was preach a sermon. According to John, the first thing Jesus did was to change water into wine. Which event would you like to attend? Shall we join the guests at the wedding?
Mary is there. Her conversation with her son is strange. She says to her son, "There is no wine." He says to her, "What concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." Then she tells the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." Which seems to read, mother tells son what to do. Son says, "I'd rather do it myself." Mother says, "He's will do what I say, anyway."
The dialogue is of more concern to those Christians who venerate Mary. We Protestants can just leave it as it is, an enigma, and go on to the miracle itself, changing water into wine. Only John doesn't call it a miracle. He calls it a "sign." A "sign," in John, is a revelation of who Jesus is. It is a revelation of his glory, his divine nature. John says, "This was the first sign that Jesus performed."
We who are guests at this wedding reception notice that there are six large jars there made of stone, large enough to hold twenty to thirty gallons of water, six of them. We are told they are there for the rites of purification. Which means that this is the home of a very religious person.
In those days the function of religion was to prepare you for something. In fact, I would say that is still the attitude many people today have about religion. It is to prepare us for something. So the rites of purification are a part of the rituals of every religion. The setting of this story is a Jewish context, but it could be in any home, in any culture of this world. When the world thinks of religion, generally it thinks of preparation. It thinks that the purpose of religion is to prepare us for something that is coming: for the second coming of Christ, or for the end of the world, judgment day, or for the next life.
The most common ritual of purification around the world is water. That is what we see here. This is obviously a very devout home. There are six jars for the waters of purification. Jesus tells the stewards, "Fill them up to the brim with water." They do this. "Now draw from the jars." As quickly as you can say "Mondavi," out comes the wine.
Being guests at a Jewish wedding in the first century, we undoubtedly seethe symbolic significance of this. It must have occurred to those guests that the most beloved prophecies of the Kingdom said that when the Messiah comes, there would be a great abundance of wine. There will be a banquet, as in Isaiah25, "On this mountain the Lord of Hosts will make for all peoples a feast off at things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees well refined."
There were also those beautiful prophecies saying that when the Messiah comes, it will be like a wedding banquet. Jesus himself told a parable of the bridesmaids and identified himself as the bridegroom.
So it must have occurred to the guests. Someone must have said, "Do you realize what this means? Remember the passage in Isaiah?" They could have cited Amos, or Hosea, or Jeremiah as well, where it proclaims that in the last days the wine will flow in abundance and there will be harmony in all creation, and the world will at last be the way God wants it to be. It must have struck them. But then they dropped it, went on, changed the subject, thinking, "It was a lovely moment, but of no significance."
Still, wouldn't it be nice if it were true, the Messiah has come. It would mean life can be the way God created it to be. Life can be for me the way I want it to be.
But Jesus said, "It's not my hour." Which means, it is not the time for his glorification. John believed that time would be when he is lifted up on a cross. Glorification means that you will see his divine nature. Jesus, himself, said later in the gospel, "When I am lifted up I will draw all people to myself." The point of view of the Gospel of John is, that before that time not everybody will see his glory. Which means, not everybody will see who he really is.
I'm not sure that even when he has been lifted up that everyone can see his divine nature. Obviously, they cannot. But here is the point. And it is the point of this story. The disciples saw it. That's the point. And that is the way the story ends. The last words are, "Jesus revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him."
Disciples can see what other people can't see. Mostly what disciples can see is who this man really is, and what it means for the world, what it means for you and me, that he has come into our world. What this means is this: the time of preparation is over, and the time of celebration has begun.
Something new has happened to the world with the coming of the Messiah. The other guests, can't see it. They just have some curiosity about why it is that all this wine is here. But the disciples believed in him. They knew that this was the beginning of something new, something revolutionary, a whole new way of looking at the world. The time of preparation is over. This is it. The celebration, the party, has begun. What does that look like?
On this Sunday when we hold our annual Charge Conference, I thought it appropriate for us to ask, "What does it look like in the Church?"
There are several kinds of parties, but the one that seems appropriate to what this text is talking about is the Election Night Party. I've never been to one, but I understand some of you have. I have seen them on television. I watch the returns on election night. The camera visits both sides, the winners and the losers. Both parties look remarkably similar. They are all dressed alike, wearing campaign buttons. They wave campaign signs in front of the camera. Bands playing, everybody jumping up and down, cheering.
But there is a difference. The losing side is just going through the motions. They are doing all of that for the camera, or for the candidate who has lost, to boost him or her up. They've lost. It's sad really. It's pathetic. They’re just pretending.
The other side is confident, filled with joy. They realize that they are part of something that is bigger than themselves. They are caught up now in a momentum that lifts them up. They have won a victory that justifies their beliefs. Things are going to be different now. Things are going to change.
That is exactly what the early church was celebrating. Things are going to be different now. They even thought of that in political terms. The losing side, they said, was Caesar, and all "the powers of this world." The winning side was Jesus Christ and his Kingdom.
The first affirmation of faith in the early church was the simple phrase, “Jesus is Lord." You heard that in the Epistle lesson read for us today, where Paul says to the Corinthians, "Anyone who says `Jesus is cursed!' does not have the Spirit." That was the phrase Christians were to recite when they renounced their faith. Those who said, "Jesus be cursed," and there were many of them who did it, did not have the Spirit. Those who have the Spirit are those who can say "Jesus is Lord."
The Christians took that title from Caesar. Caesar had pre-empted that title for himself. You were supposed to say, "Caesar is Lord." So when the Christians greeted one another and said, "Jesus is Lord," they were saying, we are on the winning side. What Jesus taught, and what he revealed to us about God and ourselves, and what he initiated in his deeds, is going to win.
So when you went into a church in the first century, it was like walking into a victory party. It was a celebration. There was a meal. The worship was around a meal, because the prophesy was, when the Kingdom comes there will be a banquet and the Messiah will be the host. In fact, one of the things that got the early church into trouble was that meal. All these people eating together around the same table, who had no business being together. In the Church everyone was treated equally. So in the Church there were all classes, all races, all nations, both genders, they were all there, everybody calling everybody else brother and sister.
The early Christians were accused of two crimes almost universally. One was atheism, because they refused to say, "Caesar is Lord." They refused to worship Caesar and the other gods of the empire. And they were accused of immorality, because everybody assumed, you put all those people together who are not supposed to be together, Romans and foreigners, Jews and Greeks, slaves and free people, and men and women who are not married to each other, you know what’s going to happen. They must be doing something immoral in there.
They were not doing anything immoral. They were doing something new, something that had never been done before, something that wasn't supposed to happen until the Kingdom of God came, until "on that mountain the Lord of Hosts will make a feast for all people." Then it will happen. Not now. We are still preparing now. We're not ready now.
The Church's proclamation then, and the Church's proclamation now, should be, the time of preparation is over, and the time of the Kingdom is here, for those who believe. So for those who believe, the Church is a microcosm of what the Kingdom looks like. It is a preview of the way the whole world is going to be. People of all races, of all nationalities, all opinions, all cultures, united together in Christ. Everybody is sitting around one table, the Lord’s Table, where the Lord is the host, celebrating his victory for us and for all people.
The Epistle lesson for this morning just by coincidence happens to be from the 12th chapter of I Corinthians. It reveals that the temptation of the Church from the very beginning was to slip back into worldly ways of organizing its life, that is, segregating people. It was, and it is today, an insidious temptation, because no sooner did the Church get rid of all the divisions of the world, they began to make divisions of their own. Paul says the Spirit is in the Church. The Corinthians assumed some people have more of the Spirit than others. Some gifts are better than others. Therefore, some people are better than others.
Paul corrects them. He says, the Church doesn’t live out of worldly models of division, but out of Kingdom models of unity. So he gives them an analogy appropriate for the Church. Instead of a hierarchy, he said, you are a body. You are the body of Christ. Everyone is given a gift in this body, and every gift is as important as the next. No matter if a gift is large or small. Just as in a body, the whole body has to be well to function, or the body will die. So in the Church every gift is important.
There is a wonderful example of this that I read just this past week of a church in South Bend, Indiana, set in the inner city, surrounded by lots of poverty. It is an old church. It has been there a long time and had gone through many transformations, as many inner city churches have done. The congregation has been reduced to just a few people, but they are trying to relate to their neighborhood. They hand out clothing and food, and try to find employment for people.
At first they used the model the world uses. They even referred to the people that came to them for help as clients. They had them fill out a questionnaire with the usual bureaucratic information: dates, marital status, size of family, all of that business. When the forms were filled out, they put them in files, and never looked at them again.
One Pentecost Sunday the pastor read the lesson for the day from the prophet Joel, "At that time God said, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young folks shall see visions and your old folks shall dream dreams." He said, we decided that if we're a church, we don’t have to use the same forms government bureaucracies use. We can do something new. We can name the gifts that people have. We can listen to the dreams and visions that people have, and articulate them for them. We can do something different in this neighborhood.
That was the turning point in that congregation's life, the realization that the Church is different. We are a different kind of institution, and we ought to operate and organize our life differently. We know something. We know the old has passed, and the new has come. Therefore, we don't organize our life according to the way the world is now. We organize our life according to the way it is going to be some day.
What this church did in the midst of all this poverty was just marvelous. They said, instead of recording the poverty and scarcity about us, let us instead look for the riches and gifts that are all about us. So they developed a new questionnaire. Of course, they asked for an inventory of skills. But it came down to three questions. The first question was, "What three things are you good enough at that you can teach somebody else to do them?" The second question was, "What three things would you like to learn that you don't know already?" The third question was, "Who besides God and me is going to help you get out of the mess that you are in?"1
The old is past. The time of preparation is passed. The time of waiting for life to begin is passed. The time of waiting for somebody to come and do it for you is passed. The time of waiting for all your problems to go away before you start to live is past. The time has come for those who have seen what has happened to the world to start living.
1. From Phil Amerson