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Sermon - Water to Wine: Making sense of it - 14th January 2007
Saint Alban’s Epping 7:00am, 8:00am and 10:00am
Readings: Isaiah 62:1-5, Psalm 36:5-10, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, John 2:1-11
Jesus didn't have a problem with material goods. After all, he knew how to throw a party; he entertained thousands (although on rather the simple fare of loaves and fishes) and still had leftovers. In today's gospel reading he turns water into wine, and not just into cheap plonk or cleanskins as we read we are talking of a vintage wine that impressed the connoisseurs, in this case the steward. And he didn't seem to mind at all when a woman of some means (regardless of her reputation) bathed his feet with costly perfume in a scene so suggestive that it unnerved even the upper echelons of the first century Jewish community.
Yet Jesus saw a clear priority between goods and people. Goods are here in order to serve the needs and celebrate the joys of people. People are not here in order to accumulate goods; nor simply to labour so that others might accumulate goods; and least of all to become pawns in a system in which wealth takes on a life of its own and bends human lives at all levels to its own inhuman and inexorable yearning to see more and more of itself.
The central act in the story of the wedding at Cana is the miraculous transformation of water into wine and vast quantities of it. One gallon is the equivalent of four and a half litres. That means that one jar held something between 90 to 140 litres and six jars would mean something between 500 and 650 litres. More than sufficient to have a mammoth celebration and if caution was not exercised, a very large headache! That super abundance, is hardly something that a Puritan understanding would comprehend as having God's permission to enjoy and celebrate life.
For us, living in a rational, scientifically oriented age, we may find this miracle puzzling. As we try to comprehend the miracle, we are often tempted to talk around the miracle by focusing on other aspects of the text or to explain away the miracle by focusing on the differences between the biblical worldview and the modem worldview. None-the-less, we should not get caught up in an explanation or apology in much the same way that we should never succumb to the temptation to say that we fully understand the resurrection. The essence of any miracle is that it shatters conventional explanations and expectations, and this miracle is no exception. We must not in any manner diminish the extraordinariness of this story in any way. The picture of Jesus that John revels in this story must not be reduced to a discussion about the facts of the miracle. As modern day hearers of this story we must be allowed to struggle with what this miracle says about Jesus.
We must understand that John in writing the gospel draws no lines between history and interpretation, story and theology. To understand what John says about Jesus and God, we must carefully listen to how the stories are told. The literary style of this gospel works in partnership with its theology inviting us into a new world shaped by the manner in which God is revealed to us through the life of Jesus.
While this miracle does not appear in any other gospel John uses this as the first of his “seven signs” through which God acts through Jesus to show us Jesus' true identity. The contrast between the responses of the steward and the disciples can help us to interpret and appropriate this text. Modern Christians distort and oversimplify when they assume that first-century people would have more immediately embraced miracles. The steward is perplexed by the sudden appearance of wine of such quality. He summons the bridegroom, the host of the party, because he assumes that the wine can be explained by conventional reasoning. He attributes the wine to the unprecedented hospitality of this man, but this miracle cannot be explained by an irregularity in party etiquette. Rational explanations miss the mark. Jesus' disciples, by contrast, see in the miraculous abundance of good wine a sign of God's presence among them. They recognize the revelation of God in the vast supply of wine and they recognize Jesus as the one who brought God to them. The miracle of the wine shatters the boundaries of their conventional world and the disciples are willing to entertain the possibility that this boundary breaking marks the in-breaking of God. The steward tried to reshape the miracle to fit his former ideas and experiences, while the disciples allowed their former ideas and experiences to be reshaped by this extraordinary transformation of water into wine, and so we are told that they “believed in him” as the one who revealed God to them and the world.
The miracle of turning water into wine poses hard questions for us, because the miracle challenges conventional assumptions about order and control, about what is possible, about where God is found and how God is known. Indeed, the impact of the miracle is lost if we do not entertain these and similar questions, because the force of the miracle derives precisely from its extraordinariness, from the conflict it creates. If we do not experience a sense of conflict and bewilderment when faced with this miracle, then the wonder of the miracle cannot be experienced either. To define our response to this miracle in terms of whether one believes in miracles or in terms of the rules of modern science begs the question. Such interpretive moves are attempts to domesticate the miracle by making it adhere to conventional rules and definitions, whether those rules are the rules of science or of piety.
In the miracle at the Cana Wedding, Jesus works an unprecedented act, the transformation of many gallons of water into good, beautiful wine. It is a miracle of abundance, of extravagance, of transformation and new possibilities. For us the special grace and special value the miracle offers and the glimpse of Jesus' glory it provides, run outside usual expectations. It places at odds with how we think the world should be ordered. How does it “make sense”? We see how the steward attempts to do so by using everyday logic, but how do we use this in our faith journey so that we may receive the extraordinary gifts this miracle offers.
In the story are many themes; however in all of them the one important focus stands out in the centre of them, Jesus, his gift and his glory. In the ancient lectionaries of the church, this reading was read on Epiphany, a practice carried over into the Eastern Church today. However, the Western Church , of which we are a part we read at the beginning of the Epiphany season. These liturgical placements of the text accurately reflect the importance of Jesus as God's Son being the focus of the story. The transformation of water into wine is significant because, in showing forth the unprecedented grace of Jesus, it reveals the glory of Jesus and anticipates his ultimate moment of glorification, his death, resurrection and ascension.
The extravagance of Jesus' act, the superabundance of the wine, suggests the unlimited gifts that Jesus makes available. Jesus' ministry begins with an extraordinary act of grace, a first glimpse of the “greater things” to come. This story invites us to share in the wonder of this miracle, to enter into the joyous celebration made possible by Jesus' gift. We are invited to see what the disciples saw, that in the abundance and graciousness of Jesus' gift, we can catch a glimpse of the identity and character of God. The disciples were changed from agnostics to believers, “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” It is no wonder that the early Christian community confessed; “ … to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God … (and) from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace”.
From this story of extravagance and celebration, may we perceive Jesus' true glory and so in our lifetime receive “grace upon grace” to live our lives to the full.