Wine To The Brim

Sunday, January 17, 2009

Epiphany 2C

Jerusalem Baptist Church, Warsaw, VA

John 2:1-11

¹“On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ²Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” ⁴And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” ⁵His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” ⁶Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. ⁹When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰and said to him, “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.” ¹¹Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”

Growing up, I remember attending maybe 2 or 3 weddings as a younger child.  Because of the nature of the folks who made up our congregations, which was mainly those of lower income, the weddings were fairly simple affairs.  They were big in terms of the folks coming – everyone in the church was always invited, and friends and family, of course, but they were simple in terms of refreshments.   There would normally be a wedding cake or something like that, and maybe light snack.  That I can recall, I never went to a wedding in Chile where there was a meal served at the reception.      

The first time I went to a ‘big’ wedding was in Spain.  And it came about fairly quickly, kind of on short notice.  A couple that were part of the church in Denia were getting married, and the folks they had lined up to do the music for the ceremony had to back out of their commitment at the last minute, so they called Jorge Pastor, our Pastor (oddly enough, that IS his name) and asked if, in addition to officiating, if he could work out something for the music.  So he got several members of the choir together and we sang an appropriate wedding song, I think we ended up singing two pieces.  But as part of the wedding party, we were invited to attend the reception. 

And I had never been involved in a seven-course meal before.  It was … it kept coming… it was amazing!   Memorable, definitely.  Delicious, yes.  Some of the things were new to me.  I remember wondering “what am I chewing on?  What am I eating?” … But it was all good!  And it went on for several hours beyond when we left. 

I think that is an element of Mediterranean culture.  It certainly was the case in first-century Palestine.  Weddings were the big events of the year.  If the town was small, normally the whole town was invited.  The planning would have gone on for weeks, if not months, not unlike today’s planning, sometimes.  And it was more than simply a social event.  It was much more than that.  It made a statement about the family.  The groom was making a statement about how he was going to provide for his wife. 

So when, in this wedding, it got to the point that Mary realized they were running out of wine, the text doesn’t really tell us why she told Jesus what she did.  She could just as well have been prompting him to do something about it, or it might have been that she was saying that “this is going to embarrass them, if too many people are here and they run out of wine, why don’t we go ahead and leave?”  That’s a possibility, but the text doesn’t explain that, it doesn’t open that up. 

What does strike us is Jesus’ response to her.  We usually, when WE read the passage, his directing himself to her as, “woman, what does that have to do with you and with me?”  It sounds abrupt, doesn’t it?  It sounds disrespectful, yes. 

But you know what is interesting about his use of the word ‘woman’ here, is that it is the same word that in chapter 19, verse 26, when he is on the cross, he uses to address Mary.  It is not … the context is lost to us, in terms of how that word resonates with us … we don’t know HOW it resonated with her.  It could have been just as endearing and kind as the one he would say to her three years down the road. 

His making that statement separated him from his family.  It distinguished him, it differentiated him.  There is a term in developmental psychology, called ‘undifferentiated ego mass’, which is what children are for the most part, as they grow up.  There is no sense of separation from the parents. “What Mommy says is what I say, what Daddy says is what I say”. 

As we grow, as our own individuality becomes apparent, we begin to distinguish ourselves from our families.  And this actually serves that purpose in the narrative of Jesus’ ministry.  It distinguishes him, and it sort of, not necessarily puts a wedge between them, but it is a demarcation point, where Jesus is saying … what Jesus does after that is separating it from the fact that Mary MAY have been asking him to do it, he’s not doing it ONLY because she may have been saying “can you do something?”  He was doing it because … it was time.  It was time to begin. 

The whole miracle at Cana is incredibly low-key if you think about it.  Each party involved in the scene doesn’t really know what is going on except with the servants who dipped the water.  The steward doesn’t know that just a few seconds earlier that wine that he tasted and commented on was water, and certainly the guests don’t know, and it ‘s not made a big deal of.  So the image of a miracle happening in such a subtle way, I think it’s a good analogy as to how God moves in our lives. 

There are moments when we are strangely moved to do something, or to say something, and we do it because it seems the right thing to do at that point.  And it’s only in retrospect, maybe a week or two, or a month or two down the way, where we realize that, looking back, that wasn’t a coincidence, that wasn’t an accident; that was the Spirit of God moving us, prompting us. 

Let’s talk about wine.  BRIEFLY.  J

In the Old Testament, wine is associated with Joy.  In Genesis it is called “the good gift of God to gladden the heart” (27:28, Ps 104:15, Eccl. 9:7) It is a blessing.  Temperance understood, and acknowledged, and accepted, there is something to be said for moments that deserve celebration, such as a wedding.

Connected to that joy, relating to it is the theme of abundance as well.  The prophet Joel gives us the image of the ‘sending of wine’ as a divine gift … he speaks of the mountains themselves “dripping sweet wine” (Joel 3:18, Amos 9:13-14) …

Something that is interesting about the wedding is that there were 6 jars for water.  The perfect number in our Judeo-Christian tradition is the number seven.  So the six jars were just shy of that perfection.  What I have heard preached before (and I have myself) is that when Jesus asked the servant to draw some water, I always assumed that it was drawn from one of those six jars, when in fact the word that is translated ‘draw’ is the same that is used when Jesus told the servants to draw water from the well and fill the jars. 

In other words, the servant drew the water that he took to the steward from a seventh source – from that well.  And that sets off images of ‘the well that never shall run dry’.  Jesus was even then making the statement that his life, filled with Joy, and abundance, was from a never-ending source. 

Lastly, wine is also associated with suffering.  And it’s an odd juxtaposition.  It’s an odd counterpoint to the joy and the abundance that we see earlier in the Old Testament. 

In Jeremiah … in order to make wine, what happens to the grape?  The grape is crushed.  The juice is spilled.  Jeremiah draws on an image and says ‘drinking the bitter dregs of the winepress is an image of God’s wrath – wrath, justice, the words are interchangeable. 

What is it that a parent does to a wayward child?  I’m always drawing a blank on that word, correction is one word for it, reproach … reprimand!  Yes, thank you! 

So the element of suffering also ties together with the substance of wine.  It is all three that come together at this table.  We are still at the beginning of this year.  We are still in a position, in a place, where it still feels like we’ve got the whole year ahead of us.  Whether we may want to admit it or not, somewhere within us there is probably some hopes, some dreams, or expectations for what this year holds, what God holds in store for us. 

And just as Christ announced the beginning of his ministry at the wedding at Cana, we take this time to announce for the first time THIS year, our commitment and recommitment to being about the work of God on earth. 

This morning I taught the youth class, which ended up just being Hannah and Brandon for a while.  Brandon, by the way, is leading worship at Farnham Baptist, he is accompanying them on the piano.  One neat way, I think, that Jerusalem can share with our riches in that sense. 

As we celebrate communion this morning, if there is such a thing as somber joy – if we can put those two things together, Joyful in the sense of acknowledging that that is – that this is as much reflective of the abundant life that Christ gives us – as it is a commitment to … to suffering.  To accepting Christ’s suffering as our own.  Then we are all welcomed at this table. 

(Communion)

On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took the bread and broke it and said “take and eat, this is my body, broken for you” And after supper, he took the cup and poured it, and said ‘take and drink, this is the blood of the new covenant, shed for sins.  As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, do this in remembrance of me.’ 

As we come forward and share this single loaf, and this single cup, we are making several statements. 

We are stating what we believe: that Christ died for us and gave himself for us – suffered for us. 

We are also stating that we will do this until he returns. 

And we are also stating that we are, in sharing this among ourselves, we are also, on a spiritual level, sharing this with the church around the world – all those who claim Christ as Lord, who make Jesus Lord of their lives, and share in this meal at some point in their worship – whether daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly.  They are our brothers and sisters.  And as we acknowledge Christ’s suffering in sharing this, we are also joining with our brothers and sisters who at this moment are suffering wherever they are, whether it be Haiti, Afghanistan, or Iraq, Indonesia, or any number of countries that we can name… we stand with them and pray for them, and join our hearts with them.

As you are lead by the Spirit, I would invite you to come and share. 

Let’s pray.

You have made us one, O God, and sometimes that ‘one’ doesn’t look that unified.  So as we join help our oneness be apparent.  Help THIS call us out to greater service, greater love, to greater sacrifice through Christ our Lord, Amen. 

Part of the lesson this morning with Hannah and Brandon was dealing with the different interpretations about what happens when we share communion.  There are traditions where more happens than eating a piece of bread and sipping some grape juice.  There are interpretations of what happens – of what becomes of the bread and the juice … and in review of that, coming to the Baptist understanding - the theology associated with communion, and that it is a spiritual remembrance only – that nothing happens to the bread and the juice – the bread stays bread, the juice stays juice, or wine as it may be – would seem to lessen the significance of what is being done. 

Let me assure you it does not. 

The Hebrew tradition that is involved in sharing, for example, a Passover meal, is such that you actually relive in those moments the original experience.  It is as though you were getting ready to flee from Egypt yourself, and you were trusting God to lead you on the way. 

I love that understanding, I love that weight that is given to reflective and … services like these, because we truly are reliving that moment when Christ shared with his disciples before his crucifixion.  The depth of the impact that that along with what happened over the next three days … the difference that made in their lives is the difference that it is making, I pray, in all of our lives.  Our zeal, our passion, our commitment, would be indistinguishable from theirs.

May we be so faithful.