Going to Cana
John 2:1-11
Epiphany 2C
All you have to do is read the first sentence– well, not even that, but the first few words in the first sentence– to know that we’re in a setting primed for disaster. “Wedding” should be as far as you need to read to know that something is about to happen, because as far as I can tell, weddings are just accidents/disasters waiting to happen.
To this day, I’m still not sure of all that went wrong at my wedding, thanks to some very tight lipped wedding planners and family friends. Mom and I have conjectured all sorts of things, but aside from the groom having no zipper on his rehearsal dinner pants, the groom and groomsmen being nearly scalped by a not so talented barber, the mother of the bride and the bride both losing their keys (and minds), and oh yeah, the church almost catching on fire during the ceremony, we’re not sure what went wrong. It was still a marvelous, amazingly fun night, but as things do at weddings, things went wrong.
At my parents’ wedding, none of the tuxes fit and the wedding cake fell in the floor.
Surely you too have heard some wedding “horror” tales, which are for the most part funny– at least to everyone but the bride and groom, who just have to put on their best smiles and know that at the end of the day, they’re married, and that’s what’s important.
And the wedding that we read about today is no different– there is the too-be-expected disaster.
Let me back up and tell you a little about weddings in those days. First of all, they aren’t like our modern weddings, where all the events last for maybe a few hours. Weddings in the first century world were week-long affairs (which was the custom instead of the newlyweds taking a honeymoon.) But besides that, the families were supposed to feed and care for all those folks for a whole week, with lavish feasts and parties. And if they failed to do so, the family could actually lose their entire social standing. If we run out of food at a wedding, people just shrug, or if they’re really ugly acting, will make snide comments. But for a first century wedding to run out of anything was a HUGE crisis of disastrous proportions.
And here is where we meet Jesus in this story–who thought he was to be just another wedding guest. But before we see Jesus doing anything, we see Jesus’ mother, who is in a panic for the family, who has failed to provide enough wine.
This is an interesting story for those of us who have a hard time remembering that Jesus was human. We see his very human mother, who sees a need, and has appointed herself to fix it. We don’t have any hint yet that Mary knows that Jesus is a miracle worker– this is his first miracle in John. Yet, she expects Jesus to do something, as we can almost imagine her tugging at Jesus’ sleeve saying “They have no wine.” Perhaps, she is worried that the family will be disgraced, but whatever the case, she thinks Jesus might be the person to handle it.
I bet she wasn’t counting on the snippy reply she gets from Jesus. He says, “Woman, of what concern is this to us?” Perhaps Jesus knows that he will have so many people who need things from him, and he just wanted to have a good time at the wedding. Commentaries make it sound like Jesus was just making sure that Mary knew her place– that her human demands of him weren’t what he was concerned about.
But perhaps Mary did know that Jesus did amazing things. Lots of books have humorously speculated about what Jesus early life was like. Maybe he divided ponds in half, or maybe he raised farm animals from the dead– just to give Mary a good scare. These books are just funny at best, but what if Mary did know? How tempting would it be to ask him to do more and more things– you know, just to help out around the house. Maybe if Mary knew, maybe she sort of came to view him, without meaning to, as her personal miracle dispenser.
But before we’re too hard on Mary, I wonder to what extent we do this same thing? We look around at the world, and we too want to tug on Jesus’ sleeve, and beg him to do something. We look at the world at we see such great abundance in some places– people who have so much money they don’t even know what to do with it. And then we hear news of folks in Haiti, who are already so poor, and then face tragedy after tragedy. Why doesn’t God just come charging in with a miracle and make all those people whole again?
There is another human element in this story. The people at the wedding are concerned that the host isn’t prepared for their needs. They worry and fret.
How different are we? We come to Christ, after looking around at the world, and secretly wonder if maybe our host really isn’t prepared to meet our needs. We worry and fret, and then we finally just take matters into our own hands. We worry that the right thing won’t show up, and then we’ll somehow be left with only the leftovers of what life has to offer. Gosh, we’re even worried guests and recipients of gifts. We worry if someone invites us to do something that we’ll be taking advantage of someone. If someone gives us something, we’re worried that it was too much and they shouldn’t have done it.
We worry, I think, because scarcity is what we know. Think about it, our whole society runs on scarcity. When it’s predicted to snow (whether or not any of us still believe these weather forecasters who have lied to us over and over), we all rush out to get bread and milk, so that if it snows, our family will be taken care of. Most of us could make it a day or two, but instead of leaving bread and milk for those who might not have a refrigerator full, we go in and by two or three of those things we think we need.
We do the same thing when we’re going somewhere– if we don’t have assigned seats, we make sure we’re early enough to get good seats, so they don’t get snatched up before we get there.
Our economy operates on a principle of scarcity. We all live in fear that there isn’t enough to go around, or that our needs won’t be met. The market plays up to our fears with a principle of supply and demand. As the demand for something goes up, so do it’s prices. And somehow, this creates a frenzy within each of us– whether or not we thought we needed whatever the item was, as soon as the price goes up and we realize that there might not be enough, we scurry to go out and get it.
I wonder how we must look to God. I wonder if God must laugh at us. We sing that God has the whole word in his hands, but then run around trying to care for our earthly needs like we’re in charge of the whole wide world.
I think in a lot of ways, this story is God’s response to us. While running out is no laughing matter, and Jesus curt words don’t exactly make us feel all warm and fuzzy, I think at it’s heart, this is an exuberantly joyous story about the ways that God shows up, even when we’re ill prepared to believe that He will provide.
Because just as human beings operate on a principle of scarcity, God also operates on a principle: the principle of abundance. Throughout the Bible, we hear of the amazing ways that God provides over and above that which the people can expect.
We like to talk about the miracle stories, because they leave us with warm and fuzzy feelings. But at their hearts, miracle stories are really about a human need being met in a most exceptional way. They’re really about a God who cares enough about what’s going on in our lives that he gets involved.
Look at this story for example. This would not have been the miracle I would have chosen for Jesus to do, especially as his first one. A big party running out of wine would not be my top concern when I look around the world. I get the healing stories, and the ones about Jesus taking the “outsiders” and making them “insiders”. But this one? It doesn’t even preach well! I mean, most of us would just as soon pretend that Jesus was dealing with grape juice and that he wasn’t really participating in a weeklong festival of too much drinking. Besides that, when looking around at a world that needs Jesus so badly, this is the place Jesus chooses to do something?
But what grabs my heart is that Jesus shows up and cares about even a situation that seems so trivial. Likely what has happened in this story is that the family is a poorer family who really can’t afford to do the wedding as everyone expects. Perhaps they had some great wine for the first day or two, and then some much poorer quality wine for the last days of the festival. They might have been stretching pennies as far as the could, and thought they had enough to get by. But they underestimated. Who hasn’t done that? I know I have!
Even though Jesus gets snippy at his mother for asking that he do something about the situation, he still responds. Perhaps he knew the humiliation the family would suffer, and he acts.
Not only does he act, but he acts with great abundance. I think someone has figured it out, and the amount of wine he produced was something like 180 GALLONS! That would already be extraordinary, but he doesn’t stop there. The wine is of the best quality, even though folks’ senses are already quite dull, and they probably wouldn’t know if it was good wine or not. I don’t even know enough about wines to compare it to a brand that we would know– but let’s just say this– there was no finer to be had.
It’s extravagant. But if you look at the whole of Jesus’ ministry, isn’t that a fitting way for it to start? Jesus ministry and love were based on extravagance and abundance– that’s, I think, why Jesus seemed to get so ill when people were hogging more than they needed.
What I really love about this story, especially in what’s been a tough week around the world, is that God shows up and participates in the merry making of a party. Sometimes, we sit and wallow around in our own sourness, and turn following Christ into this awful sort of thing. We tell ourselves that we have to be holy, and that being holy negates having a spirit of celebration.
Make no mistake, following Christ, really and truly– with our whole lives and beings, is hard work. It’s not something we can do lightly or even easily. But we are a people who has been set free from much, and a spirit of joy and celebration ought to be one of the first things people notice about us. As I was preparing for this, I read someone’s take who said something like “The church ought to always be growing, not because of better programs and bigger buildings, but just because of how much fun the people inside are having.”
Because of God’s extravagant abundance, I think, in addition to the other things to which we are called, we are also called to be people of great joy. Huge joy.
Some sundays I look at a passage, and think “There’s no place for this to go”, and feel lucky if I eek out a sermon that is fairly solid. But this passage is really rich, and has lots of places to go–lots of sermons that could have justifiably be preached from these few verses.
But God’s abundance when and how we least expect it is what grabbed me for today, because sometimes I think we forget. I imagine God looking down upon us, with a twinkle in his eye, saying “Really? You thought I’d forget about you? You thought maybe I couldn’t provide enough? I can throw one heckofa party.”
Come with me to Cana– a place where God shows up in the most surprising of ways. A place where the maidens can rejoice in the dance, and the men can be merry, because their needs have been provided for in most amazing ways. A place where our human worries are put at ease. Come with me to Cana, for Cana is a place that operates on a principle of abundance, not a principle of scarcity.
Come with me to Cana, because one heckofa party is going on– and we’re the guests of honor, invited by A God who loves us so much more than we can imagine.
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