Preached at Good Shepherd, Berkeley, CA

Second Sunday after Epiphany, January 16, 2022

Year C: Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 36:5-10; I Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11

The reading we heard this morning from Isaiah has a kind of irresistible beauty and delight. The salvation of Zion, of the human society of this world, comes in the form of a marriage with God, a reunion of God with humanity. After eons of estrangement, uncertainty, suspicion, disappointment, and longing, we at last find our peace with God and with ourselves. 

“You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,

and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. . . . 

and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,

so shall your God rejoice over you.”

It’s such a hope-filled passage. No wonder people long used the new names given here to Zion as personal names—even if they seem old-fashioned now: Hephzibah, “my delight is in her,” and Beulah, “Married.” 

“Your love, O God,” as the psalmist truly says, “reaches to the heavens and your faithfulness to the clouds.” And, for that matter, to the ground under our feet and even into our own well-defended hearts. This good news sometimes seems absurdly far from our current reality. But it’s always there, waiting behind the scenes till we’re ready to notice it and give ourselves to it in whatever way we can. 

It’s no accident that our gospel story this morning takes place at a wedding. John the Evangelist certainly means much more by this story of the wedding at Cana than just a casual narrative. He warns us in advance, when he begins, “On the third day”—nudge! nudge! wink! wink!—just like another important event later on in the story, the resurrection. “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee. . . . ” The wedding . . . the resurrection . . . they’re both part of God’s great reunion with humanity.

Now, John’s Gospel can be difficult to follow. That’s partly because everything in the book seems to point to something beyond itself. John says as much when he tells us that this miracle at Cana “was the first of [Jesus’] signs.” It’s a sign; it’s pointing at something greater than itself.

Let’s see how the story goes then. “The mother of Jesus was there.” She will have had family connections or, at the least, a long-term friendship with this family. And Jesus is invited, too—and not just Jesus, but also his disciples, even though they were essentially strangers to the the family in Cana. The new couple are happy to have the world share in their joy.

But then—the wine gives out! How terribly embarrassing for these people! This wasn’t a world where you could send a groomsman out to pick up another case or two of wine. What they had was what they had. And Mary doesn’t want to see these people she loves shamed. So she says to her son, “They have no wine.” Just a comment, right? Well, Jesus seems to think it was more than just a comment. His response is to say, “Not our problem.” Or, as our translation this morning put it: “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?” “Woman,” in English, sounds like a rude way of addressing one’s mother, but it doesn’t feel that way in Greek. It’s really more like “Ma’am” in English(good enough even for the Queen of England, right?) “Ma’am, what business is that of ours?”

And then he goes further, “My hour has not yet come.” That’s odd. Why would he not want to perform a miracle for them? I think he didn’t want to get a reputation for that sort of thing. I mean, would anybody still want to sit patiently and listen to his teaching then? Or would they all just throng up to get their miracles? The other gospels tell us that Jesus did get overwhelmed at times and to escape to the wilderness. And yet, he was wrong to say that his hour hadn’t yet come. John’s told us that this is happening on the third day, Easter, the day of fulfillment! And every day is a third day to some other day! Every day is capable of being part of the eternal reunion of God and humanity. The hour for Jesus to begin reconciling God and humanity is always now!

Is your head spinning yet? Reading John can be like that. But here’s where we are after just four verses of this story: Jesus wasn’t planning to do miracles this early in his ministry. And yet, there was a serious problem here—how to save the honor of these kind people and the joy of the wedding. And what is Jesus in the world for, anyway? To bring about a marriage—the great marriage between humanity and God. Mary knows what’s going through his mind. And she gives him a little extra push when she says to the servants—in his hearing—”Do anything at all that he tells you.” And they must have great respect for her, because they do, even though they must have thought that hauling this vast quantity of water was truly stupid.

And then I think about that poor servant who had to take a sample of the water to the chief steward. Was he dreading a tongue-lashing for playing a stupid joke at a very awkward moment. Or could he detect from the bouquet what he was actually brining. In any case, the steward, clearly a wine expert, as his task demanded, is blown away. “Oh, wow! this is the really good stuff? Why have you been keeping it back all this time?” And the bridegroom doesn’t know what’s going on. The chief steward doesn’t know what’s going on. The guests don’t know what’s going on. All they know is that wine is one of the blessings of God’s creation, and this wine is really good wine. And they rejoice and give thanks.

So Jesus succeeds in performing a miracle and ensuring that the joy of the wedding is not interrupted without anybody knowing about it. Well, the servants know, but they’re servants. Who’s going to believe that wild tale? Easier just to shrug it off as the rediscovery of some misplaced jugs. The disciples probably figured it out, because they’d been shadowing Jesus the whole time. But Jesus can still roam about the countryside without the pressure of immense crowds. 

And all these people had important roles to play, even the ones who had no idea what was going on. Mary’s intervention helped it all happen. When you find your self doubting the importance on intercession, this is the story to come back to. True, God doesn’t need to be told what we need. But God loves to see people joining together in love and caring for one another. It’s exactly what God longs to bring about. It prepares the way for the gift.

The servants were indispensable, too. They were just doing their ordinary work but, without that, it wouldn’t have happened. And they knew what had happened, but not how or why. They just knew God had something to do with it. Who but God created wine in the first place? Who but God could do it again, in an instant, with ordinary water? 

The steward of the feast was the herald who proclaimed the miracle, even though he didn’t know it was a miracle. He praised the quality of the wine and he noticed that it had appeared not at the expected time, but at a totally unexpected one. That, of course, means any time at all. You never know.

And even the guests played an essential part. They must have enjoyed that feast and the wine greatly and been moved by the goodness and generosity of God and of the people who made it possible. They rejoiced and gave thanks—exactly what needed dong.

Thus, in a perfectly ordinary year in Galilee—neither the best of times nor the worst of times—Jesus, at a wedding feast, created a foretaste of the life of the age to come. The salvation of Zion, the salvation of humanity, our salvation comes in the form of a marriage with God, a reunion of God with humanity. After however many eons of estrangement, uncertainty, suspicion, disappointment, and longing, we at last find our peace with God and with ourselves. And it isn’t just one great event at the resurrection in the last days. The third day can be any day. And when it does come to us, our job is to accept the gift of new wine, to share it, to rejoice in it.

“Your love, O God,” as the psalmist says, “reaches to the heavens and your faithfulness to the clouds.” And to us and to all the people God has made and loves so deeply.