John 2: 1-11
A Sermon Preached by the Reverend Dr. Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 17, 2010
Kenmore Presbyterian Church
Kenmore, New York
It happened in Cana of Galilee, a less than remarkable place in a less than respectable region. You could search the Law and the Prophets, even the Writings, and find no mention of Cana of Galilee anywhere. Galilee, well, it was known as Galilee of the Gentiles, and many Jews jeered at the mere mention of its name.
I imagine Cana of Galilee was a lot like any other small village, anywhere. Nothing much ever happened there, except for the ordinary routine of people living and dying. Everybody knew everyone else and strangers seldom visited. People got up before dawn, did chores, and worried and wondered. Once a week, they’d gather in the synagogue to hear the Scriptures read and discussed, and to pray to the one whose name was too holy to say, who seemed far away from Cana of Galilee.
Every day was probably pretty much the same in Cana of Galilee, except when a couple married. Then, for a week, the ordinary routine stopped and the people rejoiced. Everyone brought gifts of food, the best they had to offer, and wine flowed freely, for as the rabbis said, “Where there is wine, there is joy!”
Or did they say, “Where there is no wine, there is no joy”? When the wine ran out, so did the joy and everything returned to normal. Despite their careful planning, something happened on this couple’s day of days. John does not tell us what caused the wine to give out, he only tells us it did. We can only imagine what happened when the happy couple found out. We can only assume they were disappointed, even distraught, because I don’t need to tell you how high emotions run at weddings! As the rest of the village continued to consume what only a handful knew to be the dregs, off in the corner, Jesus and his mother had a discussion, which began with the ominous words, “They have no wine.”
“They have no wine.” I wonder whether we understand the anxiety behind those words or not. We have no idea who invited the mother of Jesus or Jesus and his disciples, but we can imagine there was some relationship to the family. The mother of Jesus knew the problem and felt for the young couple. She knew the shame it would bring upon them to run out of wine. She knew how village folk were; they would never forgive, let alone forget this oversight. “They had no wine,” they would say again and again.
I think we may grasp the fear behind those words better than we know. As we complete the first decade of the third millennium, many of us feel as if we’ve run out of wine. It’s hard to feel joyful, because some of us feel as if we’ve run out of faith, nowadays. We wonder where God has gone when the earth shakes and people die. We worry God no longer cares what happens to those who suffer.
It’s hard to feel joyful, because some of us feel as if we’ve run out of hope, nowadays. A year ago, when we inaugurated Barack Obama, we had hope; we felt confident things would change. Yet, this year has been frustrating, because people don’t have the patience to address problems with the economy, terrorism, and health care, which took a decade, even longer to develop. As my father used to say about people who wanted their cars repaired, they want it done yesterday.
It’s hard to feel loving, nowadays, because compassion carries too high a price tag. We hear appeals for help, after 9-11, after Katrina, now, after Haiti, to name only three of several disasters to hit in the last ten years. We hear appeals from the church to give of our time, talents, and treasure, but when we look at our calendars and checkbooks, every day is full and every dollar is spoken for. Besides, we wonder who loves us, who cares about the pain and emptiness we have within us.
We hear Jesus answer his mother and it sounds about like what we’d expect to hear, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” We have no clue what he means. What’s he waiting for? Christmas! Actually, he’s waiting for Good Friday, for Easter, but even more, I think we need to hear Jesus’ words as good news, not more of the same.
You see, we assume Jesus to be at our beckon call. If we pray for something and he doesn’t answer, we assume he doesn’t care.Yet, his words remind us of the wisdom of the Rolling Stones, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try some time, you just might find, you get what you need.” We want immediate relief for all of the troubles in the world. We want to feel joyful again; we want to have faith once more; we want to hope yet again; and we want to love as we once did. Yet, if we try, we just might find, we get what we need, if we let Jesus take time with us, if we wait to follow his lead.
When we give it some thought, Jesus’ mother did just that. She did not give up trying to resolve the want of wine at the wedding, but she waited on her son’s solution to the problem. She turned to the servants and said what I think all of us need to hear, “Do whatever he tells you.” The servants follow Jesus’ instructions to the letter. They fill six stone water jars, used for the Jewish rites of purification. They draw off some and give it to the steward, who calls over the groom.Without a clue about where it came from, he congratulates the groom on keeping the good wine until now.
“Do whatever he tells you.” It seems so simple and it can become simplistic. Some preachers tell people if they only follow what they teach, God will bless them with abundance, even a superabundance of riches. I don’t think that’s the “takeaway” from the transformation of water into wine at the wedding of Cana of Galilee. Instead, we begin to understand what it means, when we consider who really knew what happened. Here’s a way to think about it: If you look at wedding pictures, better a wedding video, who do you see? Well, the bride, the bridegroom, the wedding party, the families, they will be in nearly every picture, but the guests may appear in a few, and those who work the hall will not be seen at all. Now, you’ll understand what I mean, when I tell you this miracle occurred off camera. Only the servants, the disciples, Jesus’ mother, and Jesus really knew where the good wine came from. Only Jesus’ disciples really got what happened, “when Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee.” Only they saw his glory and believed in him.
I believe miracles happen all the time, but we cannot command them or create them from whole cloth. We can only hear Jesus’ voice and do whatever he tells us. Like those servants, I suspect the miracle the Master wants to do among us may mean filling the stone jars, the cold, sterile, imperfect vessels we call religion with the living waters of a real relationship with him, in which we trust him to provide us with the good wine of the new creation. Like his disciples, I suspect we may need to stand alongside of him, close enough to see his glory revealed when our resources run out and we must try to get what we need.
I borrowed the title for this sermon from a song by Bruce Springsteen. Written in the aftermath of 9-11, “Countin’ on a Miracle” reminds us how we cannot depend on “storybook stories” or “never ending songs” to heal us and fill us, nowadays. Yet, in his book, The Gospel according to Bruce Springsteen, Jeffrey B. Symynkywicz suggests, “With grace, or even sometimes simply with patience, our emptiness can be filled. Miracles of healing are not preordained, but they do occur.” The song ends with these poignant words, which remind us of what real miracles require:
I’m running through the forest with the wolf at my heels.
My king is lost at midnight when the tower bells peal.
We’ve got no fairytale ending; in God’s hands our feet is complete.
You’re heaven’s here in my heart; our Love’s this dust beneath my feet.
If I’m gonna live, I lift my life, darlin’, to you.
I’m countin’ on a miracle, baby, I’m countin’ on a miracle.
Darlin’, I’m countin’ on a miracle to come through.
Only with such surrender, will we get the miracles we really need.
©2010 Howard W. Boswell, Jr.
