No Wine Before It’s Time
“This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”
Near the beginning of his gospel, John gives the account of the hit Jesus made at a wedding celebration in a little village named Cana. Jesus, along with his mother Mary, was among the guests at the party. Evidently, people were having a good time, such a good time that the wine – or maybe we should say punch here in church – ran out. Mary notices what has happened, fears the embarrassment of the host, and edges over to Jesus. "Son, do something," she says. "Mother, not now!" he answers. But he does respond. He sends some of the servants over to six big clay jars of water, water there for some religious ceremony. As instructed by Jesus, the servant takes a dipper full over to the head waiter. Lo, and behold, it is no longer water but wine. And it is not the cheap stuff the guys drink out of paper bags down by the post office but the good kind of wine. What's more, there is over 120 gallons of it. All the guests are amazed that the good wine has been saved for the last of the party.
What are we to make of this story? If you think about it a minute, it is a bit offensive. This story which sounds like a wino's daydream come true can bristle those brought up almost equating being religious with being anti-alcohol. Or the rub is probably more pronounced with the whole issue of miracles. Most of us modern-minded folks who also seek to be Christian would really rather sort of forget about those miracle stories like water into wine. We are not sure what to do about them. And we fear if we push them too far, then maybe the whole Christian faith thing may crumble. So, I propose that today we do a bit of biblical faith detective work.
The young minister Theodore Nicolet is the central character in Frederick Buechner's novel The Final Beast. His wife has recently died in a traffic accident and left him a widower with two small children. Another character is one of his parishioners, Rooney Vail, an attractive woman who has everything but the one thing she wants the most, a child. Nicolet's housekeeper is a woman named Irma who is a survivor of the concentration camps. Each in their own way because of their own particular life hurt is struggling with two inextricably intertwined issues: is God for real and can my life really make sense? Nicolet and Rooney get in a conversation one day about why she comes to church. She puts it on the line: "There's just one reason, you know, why I come dragging in here every Sunday. I want to find out if the whole thing's true. Just TRUE....That's all."
My reading of John's gospel in general and study of this Cana water into wine story in particular have convinced me that the issue of God's reality and just what difference it makes for us who try to make sense out of our lives is what John is getting at. This is quite timely for the Christian season we are presently in – Epiphany.
Epiphany. Epiphany means "appearance" and during this season we focus on the ways God appears, shows up, in the world in general and in our lives in particular. And that's what John is about: how it is that God's presence and power show up in our lives and the difference that presence and power can and does make. Truly, most of us, like Nicolet, Rooney, and Irma, for our own reasons want to know if the whole God thing is true or not.
1. First of all, we must confront the issue of miracles. Do we have to believe in miracles like water into wine to believe in God? Does the Bible even require us to believe in them? Is the matter not so much belief in miracles as it is understanding what they are getting at as they are reported by John and others? Hard questions.
There are two ways that people miss the power the miracle stories have for our quest to make sense of God and our lives. On one hand, the religious fundamentalist misses the point because he/she just accepts the account on a superficial-surface literal-level. "The Bible says Jesus turned water into wine, multiplied loaves and fishes, and did other assorted wonders. Fine, he did it. Next issue....” And they never really get at the deep thrust of the accounts.
On the other hand, we have the scientific fundamentalist. She or he lives in a hard headed, rational world of cause and effect, stimulus and response, one pool ball bumping into another. one domino falling against another world. From his or her superficial literal world, the wine miracle story does not compute. So either they write off religion as a whole or simply try to hold onto a little faith by ignoring the miracle business. And thus, the scientific fundamentalist like the religious fundamentalist misses the point, too. The religious fundamentalist is afraid to use his head, the scientific fundamentalist is afraid to use her heart, and both miss out because it takes all the head and heart we can muster to deal with Jesus.
Before I can say what the point of the Cana story like most of the other miracle accounts is, we need a mini-crash course on miracles in Biblical times. John and Jesus' time was a time of many rival religions in the known Greco-Roman world. Cults, sects, and mysterious religious groups abounded. They came from Egypt, Greece, Asia Minor, as well as Judea and other places. Like today, these religious groups were in combative, competition. To compete at all your particular hero, guru, or god or goddess had to do miracles. Miracles, or at least reports of them, were not rare, they were the order of the day. So, it is not surprising for a number of reasons that we have reports of Jesus doing miracles. But if we realize this background, we can be helped to get the point. The point, which I still have not gotten to yet...so hand on a little longer.
In the Greek language of the day, the language used in the New Testament, there was a perfectly good word, commonly used, for "miracle". "Thowmate". Do you know that that word is not used one time in the Gospel of John, the other gospels, or even the New Testament? The word used commonly in the Gospels and by John in the Cana story today is "seimion" which means "sign" or "signal". That may not seem like much, but to the first readers of the Gospel who lived in that world, it really got their attention. It was like a red flag saying, "Don't get hung up on the stunt but pay attention to that which the strange event is a sign of, a signal for." Thus, although we live in a different world than the ancient Christians and we may have a totally different approach to miracles. The miracles can function now for us as they did then for the early Christians. The miracles got their – and can get our attention – to the real point: Jesus. "This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”
Theologian Hans Kung has written: "Miracles in the New Testament demand not yes or no to them but faith in God who acts in Jesus doing these things...of whose activities the miraculous deeds are SIGNS." Thus, we have brushed closer to the point of the miracle accounts. They are not there to demand whether we believe Jesus could do magic. They are there to get our attention to Jesus. And in a real way, this issue of Jesus and miracles has gotten our attention today again to Jesus.
2. Alright, we have gotten the issue of miracles to Jesus to whom they point. But is it enough to say the matter of miracles is the confrontation of people with Jesus?
There is a story of a group of children in their Sunday School class with their teacher. It is a warm spring morning and the window is open. Suddenly, a squirrel jumps into the window sill and looks at the children who look at him. "Girls and boys," the teacher says, “what is that?" One child said, "If I was anywhere else I would say a squirrel, but since I am in church, the answer must be Jesus, because at church the answer to every question is Jesus.”
What I am getting at is to say the point of the miracle stories must be pushed beyond saying they are meant to get us in touch with Jesus. What does that mean? What does the answer Jesus have to do with my life questions? What does Jesus have to do with our wondering if God is for real and our struggle to make sense out of our lives... or at least our struggle to keep going even when life does not make sense? Again, I say, these are the questions John deals with in his Gospel.
Let me go ahead and state my second point and then substantiate it with some more attention to John's gospel. First, we have said that the issue of miracles is not to demand belief in Jesus' changing water into wine and the like, the point is to get us to pay attention to Jesus. The second point is this: the miracle of Jesus is not that he could change water into wine but the miracle was and is that he can change lives!
John knows the human dilemma. We are like children afraid of the dark. We are not sure what to make of life. Does happiness come from getting all you can, doing what you want to do as long as you don't get caught, getting the other guy before he gets you? John says Jesus is like God's light shined into the dark world to show us how to live with meaning, joy, and happiness. Jesus says: "I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly." Jesus shows that happiness is not based on how much stuff you can get but how much love you can give. Jesus is God's word in the flesh with us. Words make sense of things. And Jesus is the one who can make sense of our lives.
John knows the human dilemma. He knows how our guilt and grief can cripple and sap us. Guilt comes in many ways: bad things we have done, good things we have not done, simply not measuring up to expectations of ourselves or others. Grief comes as circumstances take away situations and persons we love, grief comes because we never have that child, achieve that goal, or reach special persons. John tells us of God's forgiveness which gives us life when we have about given up. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son." "I do not condemn you; go and sin no more."
John knows the human dilemma. He knows we are afraid of dying. John's Jesus says those words that have comforted millions: "In my father's house are many rooms. I go there to prepare a place for you. Let not your hearts be troubled. Neither let them be afraid."
John has interspersed those miracle stories in his Gospel to get our attention to the Jesus who can miraculously change our lives because he helps us make sense out of what really brings happiness, he helps us be freed from our cancerous guilt and grief, he gives us the faith to trust God with our living and dying, he sets us free to work for peace, and food and health in this scary world. Oh, don't miss the real miracle story; that person you see in the mirror can give and receive more love and joy than ever thought possible through this life changing miracle worker Jesus!
3. Before we end, I need to talk about the sermon title: "No wine before its time". Most of you have seen the heavy duty actor Orson Welles on television advertising the wine that he claims the producers will not sell until it is really ready. I didn't choose the title to be cute. It really occurred to me that the Cana wedding story of Jesus has something to say about God's timing. The people really would not have been impressed with good wine at the first of the party. They expected it. But when it came at another point, it meant something.
What I am getting at is this. Perhaps, all this business about Jesus being able to take away our guilt by making us aware of God's forgiveness may seem sort of ho-hum usual preacher stuff. But there comes a time in our lives when we have really tripped up, and like wine served at its right time, the possibility of forgiveness and relief from our shame is miraculous; it just means the difference between giving up or going on. Death for us at first is something very general and down the road. Talk about God's care after death is interesting but no big deal. Then something happens. We lose a loved one. We get sick. And then death is not general and distant but very close and personal and can paralyze us with fear. And at that time, just the vague possibility that Jesus is right about a God who has a place for us is like wine at the right time: just the difference between giving up or going on. We hear all the talk about status and stuff not being able to produce real happiness, but we go on after them giving them our all. Then either the status and stuff come or do not, and whether they do or not, we discover happiness is not therein. Then it is time for the Christ wine: feed my sheep, love as I have loved you. I come that you might have life abundantly.
Some questions to take home with you: What time is it in your life? Is it time yet? Is it time yet for the miracle of Jesus to happen to you, the amazing changes which just might mean the difference between giving up or going on? Do you really know what time it is? Amen.