John 2:1-11
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.
Scholars talk about the gospel of John being like a fine
tapestry. It is beautiful to look at. It is intricately detailed when you look
closely. And if you pull one thread you’ll find that it weaves throughout the
whole piece.
The first paragraphs of John’s gospel tell us a lot about
what threads to follow throughout the rest of the book. Themes of light verses
darkness, testimony and belief, the human and divine as one, and grace and
truth. These themes weave together the story of the Word made flesh written
almost 70 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. In the gospel of John the
word grace only appears 4 times. It’s in the last few verses of those famous
first paragraphs, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have
seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and
truth…From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed
was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has
ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who
has made him known.”[i]
But even though the word grace does not appear again, we
know that because of its prominence in the beginning of the book grace will
play a leading role in the story; grace is an important thread throughout the
tapestry. The gospel of John sets out from the beginning to show us what grace
tastes and smells and looks and sounds and feels like.[ii]
And so in the very next chapter, right after Jesus calls his
first disciples by name, asking them to “Come and see,” we get the first experience
of grace at the wedding at Cana. The story itself is somewhat amusing. Here is
this thirty-year-old man at a wedding with his mom because apparently neither
of them had a date. And he decided to bring his new friends along. Now in
Jesus’ day, wedding celebrations usually went on for a week or so – I can only
imagine the amount of food and wine needed for a week of entertaining all your
friends and family. No wonder families hoped for boys so they wouldn’t have to
put on giant, week-long weddings. But I digress. So they are celebrating,
having a good time, when what horrible thing should occur but they run out of
wine. As you know a party without wine is like a pool without water – there’s
nothing to keep anyone afloat. Is Mary worried for the embarrassment of the
host? Maybe she’s concerned for the steward who would surely be punished for
lack of planning. Maybe she just wants another glass to go with her delicious
roast lamb. Who knows. So she says to her loving son, “ahem…they’re out of
wine.” And Jesus says, “Woman! That is not my problem!” (To be clear,
addressing his mother as “woman” did not have the disparaging connotation it
does today.) But I imagine the un-recorded look Mary gave her son. You know,
the “mom look.” And as an obedient son, he went off to do something about the
wine problem.
So he asks the servants to fill some buckets with water and
he turns that water into wine. But this is not just a little bit of water and a
little bit of wine. This is 6 giant jars each containing about 20 or 30 gallons
of water. So I did the math on that and it turns out that one of those jars is
just over the equivalent of 150 bottles of wine which equals to a total of 900
bottles of wine. 900 bottles of wine! So then I called my dad who was in charge
of ordering wine for my wedding. We had 4 cases of red, 4 cases of white, 2
cases of champagne and about 12 bottles of non-alcoholic sparkling grape juice.
That equals about 132 bottles total, and some of it is still sitting in our
basement. 900 bottles of wine…this is more than I can wrap my head around. This
is more than was necessary for the party even if it was the first night, which
it certainly wasn’t given that they had just run out.
But the really extraordinary thing about this wine, beyond
that it started as water, beyond that there was so much of it, is that it was
the best wine any of them had ever tasted. Usually the host brought out the
bottles of ’08 Relentless Syrah from the Shafer Vineyards[iii]
at the beginning of the party and kept back the boxes of Franzia for after the
haze of inebriation settled over the crowd. Yet here it was, the best wine
anyone had ever tasted, not too sweet, not too dry – perfect.
There are 7 “signs” or miracles in John’s gospel, this being
the first. Each of these signs is meant to show us something about Jesus. You
notice how at the end of this episode John is careful to mention that the
disciples believed in him? Well, each of the signs in the gospel are about not
just telling us that Jesus is the Son of God, but showing us, helping us to
experience the Word made flesh. After all, flesh is experiential, we are made
of flesh and we are made for activity not passivity. And so, even though it was
not yet his “time” and even against his apparent desire not to work on
vacation, Jesus does this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee.
You see, the thing that this story is trying to convey to
us, trying to help us not just hear, but see and taste and smell and feel, is
that God’s grace is like the best, most expensive wine when you expect the
cheap stuff[iv].
Or if you prefer, it’s like free tickets to the best seats in the house to see
your favorite team when you expected to watch the game on a 12-inch screen at
home sitting on your old easy chair with springs sticking up through the seat.
Or it’s like getting Chicago-style deep dish pizza loaded with all the toppings
you like when you just picked up a box of off-brand frozen pizza rolls. God’s
grace is the best of the best when you expected or even deserved the bottom of
the barrel and there is more of it than you can fathom, more than you can
imagine, more, certainly, than is necessary.
And so this story about the best party the New Testament
ever saw means to show us something
about the truth of God in Christ Jesus, not just tell us. This story is meant
to touch us, to make us think a little, to inspire us, to astound us so that
we, like the disciples might believe. Have you seen the billboard on the
freeway that says, “got faith” and has a faucet with water pouring out and
becoming wine in a wine glass? This story means to create faith within our
hearts. And just like Jesus didn’t turn water into wine just for the fun of it,
but for the good of the gathered people, Jesus doesn’t create faith in our
hearts just for the fun of it, but for the good of the world.
Every year around this time I go back and reread some of
Martin Luther King Jr.’s classics like the “I have a Dream” speech and, my
favorite, his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” This year the one that hit me was
his sermon from February 4, 1968 titled “The Drum Major Instinct.” It’s his sermon on Mark chapter 10 where
James and John so presumptuously ask Jesus if they can sit at his right and
left in heaven. King preached about the instinct of humans to be noticed and
praised by others and considered great, out in front like a drum major,[v]
he said. For personal gain, he said, that is a problem. But we should want to
be great for the kingdom. And the way to do that, he said is by being a
servant. And then he said this: “And this morning, the thing that I like about
it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be
great, (Everybody) because everybody can
serve. (Amen) You don't have to have a
college degree to serve. (All right) You
don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to
know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's
theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of
thermodynamics in physics to serve. (Amen) You only
need a heart full of grace, (Yes, sir, Amen) a
soul generated by love. (Yes) And you can
be that servant.”[vi]
A heart full of grace. A heart full of grace and you can be
that servant. A heart full of grace is our gift from God, according to this
story of the wedding at Cana. A heart full of grace, full to overflowing,
abundantly full of the best grace ever to be experienced! Grace that fills the
heart so full of love that we cannot help but live lives of gratitude, serving
one another and this world God gave us.
I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.
I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. (Amen)
I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. (Yes)
And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. (Yes)
I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. (Lord)
I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. (Yes)
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. (Amen) Say that I was a drum major for peace. (Yes) I was a drum major for righteousness.”[vii]
May our hearts be so filled with grace that we live our
lives serving others. Amen.
[i]
John 1:1, 14-18 NRSV http://bible.oremus.org/
[iii]
The Number One Wine of 2012 according to Wine Spectator http://www.winespectator.com/display/show?id=47374
[iv]
Lewis, Karoline
[v]
King Jr., Martin Luther http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_the_drum_major_instinct/
[vi]
Ibid.
[vii]
Ibid.
