The sermon preached this morning at my parish:
“Invitation to Grace”
2nd Epiphany
January 17, 2010
Isaiah 62:1-5, Psalm 96:1-9, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, John 2:1-11
What’s your idea of heaven? Are you all prepared to sit around on a cloud, playing a harp? Do you know how to play a harp? Will everyone be dressed in white robes, like the ones we’re wearing, and speak quietly like they are in church all the time?
Did you know that the Bible actually tells us something very different about what heaven and being in the presence of God will be like?
Heaven is going to be a party, and not just any party, but a great big wedding party. In this morning’s Gospel, we are given a tiny glimpse of that party.
We’ve probably all been to weddings or wedding receptions, especially all the adults here. Some of the weddings were probably small, quiet events and some of them were no doubt large, elaborate and very expensive affairs. But I’ll bet none of us has ever been to a wedding as elaborate as the one Jesus attended in Cana.
In ancient Israel a wedding feast wasn’t just a ceremony in the church, or the synagogue and then a reception that lasted a few hours. A wedding feast lasted at least a week, with guests coming and going, people going home to get some work done, take care of their livestock, and then coming back again to the party. The whole village would be invited and probably people from surrounding towns as well. The wealthier the groom’s family was, the bigger the party would be. We don’t know whose wedding this was in Cana, but we can tell the host was a wealthy man. He had stone water jars, stone jars being something that a wealthier household would have. Poorer people would have clay jars. And these were huge water jars, six of them, each holding 20 to 30 gallons of water. If you don’t feel like doing math this early in the morning, I’ve already done it for you. That came out to 120 to 180 gallons of water. The guest list must have been pretty large, to need jars that size to accommodate everyone’s need for ritual hand washings.
Now, the wedding feast would begin with the groom and his friends starting to party a day or so before the actual wedding, kind of an extended bachelor party, then in the middle of the night, they would parade through the village with torches to the bride’s home, where she would be having a more subdued party. The bridesmaids’ job would be to wait at the door with lamps to greet the groom’s party whenever they decided to arrive. Then, with groomsmen’s torches and the bridesmaids’ lamps, the whole party would dance back through the village to the groom’s house, where the wedding ceremony and the week long party would begin. Jesus even told a parable about this, when he told the story of the five wise virgins who had oil for their lamps and the five foolish virgins who feel asleep and let their lamps go out.
Jesus told a lot of parables about weddings. The image of a wedding feast to describe heaven and the relationship between God and his people is probably the most common image used in both the Old and New Testaments.
Weddings are a joyous time. Weddings, like the birth of a child, are always new beginnings, the start of a new life and full of hope. And weddings in ancient times, and usually now, always included wine to celebrate. The Bible calls wine “the oil of gladness”. It symbolized a joyous celebration.
In Cana of Galilee, someone was getting married and Jesus and his disciples and his mother Mary had been invited. The party was well under way but nowhere close to being over when the wine ran out. This was a social disaster. Hospitality was very, very important. It wasn’t just that the host of the party would face embarrassment, probably for years to come. He would always be remembered as that guy who ran out of wine, who invited everyone from town and then couldn’t entertain them. It would be brought up every time there was another wedding in the town for years to come. But worse than embarrassment, the host could have actually faced a lawsuit. He could be sued by the party goers who would have felt cheated out of the good time they had been promised. Can you imagine that? If you threw a party and your guests where able to sue you because they didn’t think you had spent enough money on them? It would make me pretty leery of throwing any parties at all! But then, I would be offending against hospitality and still be liable to be sued!
So, here is this big party and there’s no more wine. Jesus’ mother comes to him and says, “They have no wine.” We don’t know why she was concerned. Maybe this was a relative’s wedding. And we don’t know why she thought Jesus could do anything about it. The text tells us Jesus hadn’t preformed any miracles or signs yet. And he sure couldn’t do what anyone would do now; make a run down to the local liquor store! But Mary is confident that Jesus will do something to fix the problem. Even when Jesus challenges her, the way he challenges so many people in the Gospels, and he says “what concern is that to you and me?” Mary is still so confident that her son will fix the problem, she just turns to the servants and says “Do whatever he tells you.” I love that. This is one of my favorite Bible stories, because that statement right there sums up the Christian life – Just do whatever Jesus tells you!
And the servants do exactly what they are told. Jesus has them fill the water jars not just kinda full, but all the way up to the brim so they will overflow when the ladle is dipped in. And then he does it, the first of the signs he ever performed. He turned the ordinary water used for washing into the finest of wines. Not ordinary wine, not cheap wine, but the finest wine.
Jesus, God with us, chooses to reveal his glory in a lavish, overflowing manner in the context of a wedding. Jesus turns 180 gallons of water in 180 gallons of fine wine. Think of it. Out of the vessels used for ritual cleansing, once filled with water to wash away impurities, flowed wine to make the heart glad. Jesus could have just filled one of the jars, just enough to save the host from embarrassment. But he chose offer this spectacular sign of his glory and his love and grace.
Jesus is never stingy with his grace. He always offers more than enough, abundant and overflowing. He offers us that grace every day, if we will just accept it. That’s really the only requirement. We don’t have to come before him perfect and washed and tidied up already. He has replaced the ritual cleansings and our attempts to make ourselves fit to stand before God under our own power. He offers us the wine of gladness and invites us to the party. He is offering it right now, in the sacrament of His body and the wine of his blood, come to the table and receive the grace of his love and mercy. However you may feel right now, the grace of God invites you to come to him. He invites you not to be drunk with the old, inferior wine of the world, but to be filled and overflowing with the new wine of the Spirit of God. He offers to replace the 180 gallons of guilt and recriminations we hold against ourselves with his grace.
St. John doesn’t call this event a miracle, he calls it a sign. What is a sign? A sign points to something beyond itself, a message. A stop sign isn’t just an octagonal piece of metal, painted red and white. When you see that stop sign in the street, you don’t try to figure out what type of paint was used on it, you stop your car. It means more than its physical shape. Its message is stop what you are doing, look, listen, and don’t go on until its safe.
When you hear of the sign of Cana, don’t try to determine what vintage the wine was or how many guests were there or why there were six stone jars instead of five or seven. Look beyond the sign to what it points to, to what it means. Stop, look, listen and turn to Jesus for his abundant grace and love.
When you follow the sign of Cana, you will find yourself part of the joyous celebration of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. As the prophet Isaiah says, you shall be called by a new name, you shall no longer be termed Forsaken or Desolate, but the Lord will delight in you, you will be like a royal diadem in the hand of your God. The Lord rejoices over you as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride. Come to the altar of Christ and receive the sign of his love and grace.
Amen.
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