Epiphany 2

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Epiphany 2
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: January 18,1998

TEXT: John 2:1-11 - Wedding Feast at Cana of Galilee - "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

ISSUE: The Wedding Feast is a sign of how Christ Jesus transforms life. He is the initiator of a new age, i.e. the third day, just as a wedding is the beginning of a new family. The waters of life are transformed into something new and special. Out of the old purification rites symbolized by the water jugs (tubs) comes the addition of God's bountiful grace symbolized by water changed to wine. Mary seems to once again be giving birth to the new age and the glory of God in Christ. The passage may evoke in Christians today the need to allow themselves to be instrumental through faith in revealing the transforming joy of Christ in their lives.
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The miracle of Jesus changing water into wine is one of the great stories in the Gospel account of John, which is said to be the first sign of the revelation of the glory of Jesus Christ. Like much of the Gospel of John the account is rich in meaning. Again, if we approach the story as some magical thing that Jesus was able to do, and try to explain it accordingly we miss what the story more deeply means. John is calling people to a deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ as Lord who gives new and exciting meaning to their lives. At the conclusion of the story, the disciples are said to have believed, that is, increased in their trust in the way of Jesus Christ. They discovered a power in Jesus that transformed lives.
First of all keep in mind that weddings in Jesus' day were very special events. They often involved a whole village, and the festivities were carried on for several days with people coming and going to enjoy the festivity and to wish the new couple well. They didn't take honeymoons in these days, but the couple remained at home dressed as a king and queen. Thus, food and drink was served continually.
In this story as we have it, it appears that the persons being married were part of Jesus' own family. Mary, as does Jesus, takes significant responsibility for seeing that the supply of wine is sufficient. When it runs out, Mary is concerned. She would not have wanted her family to be dishonored or disgraced for not having enough wine for the duration of the feast. She calls upon Jesus to act, and he does with what seems at first to be a kind of resistance: "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." Jesus may be simply distancing himself from his mother, which was not uncommon as men grew into adulthood in this culture. He may simply have been using an idiomatic expression of the time which meant, 'Woman, don't worry, I'll handle it." Jesus turns six large purificiation water jugs of water into wine, and sav es the day, and his disciples come to believe and trust in him and his glory is revealed.
The story or event, however, cannot be fully appreciated unless we are aware of the background and appreciate the symbolism. One of the first clues is that John says that this miracle takes place on "the third day." The third day is key word in both the Old and New Testaments. "Third Day" is a phrase indicating a new age. Hosea (6:2) speaks of revival and renewal of God's people on the third day. They will be raised up. Jesus' own resurrection on the third day is sign of the beginning of a new age. From the beginning of the miracle story you are given a hint that something new is about to come into being.
For the people first hearing this story they were likely to be reminded of the messianic expectations of their Hebrew Scriptures. Isaiah (25:6-8) speaks of the Messianic Banquet, when the Messiah will provide for his people a festivity of the finest most mature wines: He will suddenly remove the cloud of sorrow that has been hanging over the nations . . . He will wipe away the tears from everyopne's eyes and take away the disgrace his people have suffered throughout the world. In the Isaiah (62:1-5) there is wedding imagery of a rejoicing God who comes to the aid of his people. God's people will see themselves as married to the Lord wearing the wedding crowns.
The event is also like a creation story. It is almost as if Mary is giving birth to Jesus. She calls him forth, and just as child birth has its agony and resistance, the child, the Christ comes forth. Out of the water of creation comes the one who who is the new Adam, the new creation who is the joy of God symbolized by the festival wine. The six water jugs are like the six days of creation in Genesis, and now the Lord's Day has come in the revelation of Jesus Christ.
For the Greeks hearing this story, they would hav e been remeinded perhaps of the pagan god, Dionysos. There was a story that at a festival harvest feast each year the god would fill three jugs of wine for the people. The early Christian community was saying to the pagan world, you think that was special, well let us tell you what the Son of the living God can do.
The six jars of water that were changed in the story to wine where the jugs used for Jewish purification rites. People washed their feet and hands in them on special occasions. Some people interpreted the story to mean that Jesus is the fulfillment of the old rites. There old had become empty and now Jesus is fulfilling the old with new excitement and exhilaration. There is an element of anti-semitism to this view. I prefer to think that the story reveals that God is still with his people, and renews them in new understanding and revelation that provides a renewed dimension of God's abundant grace. Mind you, the six water jugs were actually tubs. It is nearly impossible to lift a jug with 20-30 gallons of water or wine for that matter. Six thirty gallon tubs of wine would have been enough wine to supply the entire village of Cana for months. The story is about abundance, that God in Christ has come to his people with an abundance of love, and abundance of grace, that free unearned gift of God's love. He comes with the abundance of forgiveness for all the multitudes of the earth. Remember the Parable of the Wedding Feast. The King sends out his servants to highways to bring in all people to enjoy the feast. It is about the abundance of God's love for his Creation.
The story is also about transformation. The early church saw Jesus as transforming things and people. The common was made holy. Fishermen, tax collectors, prostitutes were called into his service. People who were ostracized from the society, the poor, the lame, the blind, the disenfranchised were restored to new insights and to a new sense of belonging. There was a call to renewed sense of justice by Jesus Christ. The last were first. The last, the lost, the lonely, the least, the little, and those accounted dead were given new honor and prestige in God's kingdom. Loving enemies and seeing neighbors as all God's people was a real transformation in the thinking of the time. So abundant is God's love that there is nothing that can separate us from it. For nearly two thousand years now, the message of God's redeeming and forgiving love has nourished and transformed people's lives.
Let's look at one of the most dramatic transformations of our time. Tomorrow we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King (1/15/29). All of what King did began when Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. Out of this event, King, a baptist minister, began a prophetic movement that transformed our society and the thinking of a significantly large number of people not only in this country but around the world. The old ways of segregation and 'equal but separate' were dramatically challenged and changed. God is alive and at work in his world endeavoring to transform and proclaim His love and justice for all peoples and races.
Another one of the things going on in time - this week as a matter of fact - is the effort to transform the church from being a group of isolated competitive sects and denominations into a unity of Christian communities who strive to work together for the promulgation of the Gospel of Christ. Hopefully, we can be a community of people transformed in our thinking moving out of our prejudices and beyond our differences into a concerted effort to be instrumental in proclaiming the love and the justice of God.
Most of us gathered here today are people who do our best to be faithful. We embrace the ways and the teachings of God. We do what we can to respect the Commandments. We say our prayers and commit ourselves to the Christian faith. But can we honestly say that we are not beyond the need from time to time to be transformed, changed, re-invigorated in the faith. Paul writes in his I Epistle to the Corinthians that people have been given spiritual gifts and talents. They are our gifts from God. Coupled with the gifts is the abundant love of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. We need to be prayerful and seek God's transforming Spirit so that with Christ we may reflect the Glory with energy and vitality. Many of us are busy doing a lot of things in our work, our leisure, our hobbies. But the issue is whether or not there is a quality to our lives that manifests the living presence of Christ.
For the early church, Jesus Christ was a revelation of the bountiful love and grace of God. His presence in the world was transforming of the mundane into something unique and lively. In him there was a living vitality and energy that touched and changed people's lives. May God help us to do the same. May God's Spirit so envelop us that we become more than just comfortable and satisified, but energized to have a lively faith and make a contribution to God's world that contributes to the transformation of the world. Can we believe, and trust, that God in Christ revealing himself in great love can use us and change us? Can we offer ourselves to be the jugs to be transformed?