when love comes to town: Living as new wine...

NOTE: once again I'm posting this week's sermon notes for Sunday, January 17, 2010. The following day is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the USA. And curiously the gospel text for this week involves the story of changing water into wine. I have found that Thomas Moore's reflection on this story in his new book, Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels, to be wise and true and I am grateful.

Today I would like to talk with you about something controversial – sacred and holy but simultaneously earthy and human – a minority report about following Jesus to be sure, but one that is also pregnant with possibilitie

s for each of us personally as well as our wounded world.

• You might call it God’s extraordinary wisdom distilled amidst the ordinary events of our lives to paraphrase Joan Chittister.

• Or an awareness that the glory of God, as St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote in the second century, is man fully alive: Gloria Dei vivens homo.

• Or maybe even what happens when we become “too holy to be happy” as the biblical scholar, Robert Brealy, wondered?

In Eugene Peterson’s reworking of St. Paul’s words to the church in Corinth, he puts it like this: What I want to talk about with you now is the various ways God's Spirit gets worked into our lives. This is complex and often misunderstood, but I want you to be informed and knowledgeable. Remember how you were when you didn't know God, led from one phony thing to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it? It's different in this life. God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can… so that we might come to comprehend that every person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it and everyone benefits. (For we have all been given blessings by God for the common good.)

Did you hear that? We have all been given blessings and gifts by God not only to show us who God is but also to build u

p the common good – and that is what today’s gospel story offers us in spades. For you see when St. John describes the wedding feast at Cana of Galilee he is talking about:

• a way of discovering our holy blessings within the everyday experiences of our humanity

• a means of celebrating and honoring the presence of God in our sorrow as well as our joy

And a way of loving God – a spirituality – that rejects the often “depressive, weighted down… demands for purity” of our tradition for what Thomas Moore calls the intoxication of the Jesus life. “It is not the essence of Jesus to be inhibited, controlled, righteous and fearful,” Moore writes in his latest book, Writing in the Sand.

On the contrary Jesus gives himself to the fullness of life. Wine is his blood, the flowing substance that gives him his vitality. Imagine if wine were flowing through your veins, not just making you plain drunk but sending you into paroxysms of joy and abandon. This is a (bold) call to live – and that is what is significant for Jesus. To be his student, you see, is to risk the explosive joy as well as the annihilating suffering of being a human being who gives himself to life. (Moore, p. 41)

And there are four clues that the gospel shares with us in this wedding story that warrant our deeper consideration for they all cry: the glory of God is humanity full alive. So let’s think about:

• The relationship between Jesus and his mother Mary
• The significance of the wedding feast
• The water in those massive ritual purification vats
• And, of course, the wine

First it is wise to spend some time with what the story tells us about Jesus and his mother. Kate Huey of the United Church of Christ puts it like this reminding us that:

Jesus has not yet begun teaching and working wonders among the people, yet his mother has confidence that he can help when a crisis arises at the wedding of a friend. (Here) is a glimpse of Jesus and his mother as human beings who had friends, who "partied," who fretted when something went wrong and balked at leaving the party to solve another's problem. The exchange between Mary and Jesus feels particularly familiar to any parent who has mentioned a need to her child, from a bicycle left in the driveway to a young relative who needs company at a family function. Not now, Mom, not me. And yet Jesus does indeed respond to the need at hand, with a simple kind of ordinary, earthy compassion for the hosts who are in a terrible predicament, but with anything but an ordinary response. (UCC Sermon Seeds, January 17, 2010)

We’re back to the “Mary factor” that I spent so much time exploring during Advent, yes? How Jesus learns about compassion and hospitality from his momma and how Mary’s sensitive commitment to sharing the needs of others takes shape and form in Christ’s ministry? I can’t emphasize enough the importance of this little story about Jesus and Mary for it grounds us in their humanity. Their commitment not to be too holy to never be happy is essential for those of us who want to embrace Christ’s “spirit of Cana” in our lives. It also suggests how vital it is for the world to raise up children in the way of God’s compassion and justice.

• Earlier this week some of us gathered to begin a study of Greg Mortenson’s book: Three Cups of Tea. And we kicked off the evening with a 12 minute DVD about the children involved in his “Pennies for Peace” program wherein American school children donate their pocket change to build schools for children in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

• We watched as eight year old boys and girls of every race, tribe and religion described what giving up their pennies meant to themselves and the world. We listened as children told us about how something as tiny as sharing a penny can bring hope and healing to those who need it the most.

And when the clip was over and some of us wiped away our tears, I asked our adults what was God saying to us through these children? And overwhelmingly they said: hope. If our tiny ones can become ambassadors for peace and justice at such a young age – and make such a huge difference in ways that governments still fail to grasp – maybe, just maybe there is hope for this old world after all. It brought me back to Jesus learning from Mary that sometimes the heart of the Lord is found in simply sharing a glass of cool water with someone who thirsts.

First there is the Jesus and Mary connection; second is the wedding feast with its emphasis upon abundance rather than scarcity. You might recall that

John’s gospel does not begin with Christ’s fasting in the desert nor are there any stories about the Lord’s early life. Rather, first we are told the Jesus is God’s word made flesh; then we hear how John the Baptist recognizes him as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world; and before you know it Jesus is calling together disciples who wind up at a party in search of new wine. Interesting, yes?

• What does that suggest to you?

• Why is it important that Jesus get his ministry rolling at a feast?

Scholars have noted that often Jewish wedding feasts lasted for seven days: this was a time of celebrating, coming together as family and community and taking a long, loving break from the harsh realities of first century Palestine and the Roman occupation of the Holy Lands that made a hard life worse. At its core, I think the wedding banquet tells us that the Jesus life – Christian spirituality – is born more of the feast than fasting. It is grounded more in gratitude and joy than wooden obligation – certainly more of God’s grace and abundance than scarcity and fear – right?

Think about how that symbol of the wedding feast is used throughout the Christian tradition for while it gives great honor to marriage, it also goes beyond it, too:

• In Matthew 22 Jesus says:

The kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son… and in Luke 12 he tells us: to be a disciple you must live like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet…

• The book of Revelation speaks of our unity with God as the marriage supper of the Lamb of God where we are dressed in the finest garments of faith. And St. Paul describes those wedding garments of faith as being clothed in Christ Jesus – disciples who are dressed in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. (Romans 13: 14/Colossians 3: 12)

Again Thomas Moore is uniquely helpful: The story of Cana… tells us that it is no accident that Jesus began his life work at a wedding… Ordinarily, in spiritual matters, the focus is often on the individual and his or her striving for understanding and moral perfections. But Jesus demonstrates that in the kingdom of God marriage is one of the prime settings in which the transformation from plain living to new vision can take place. It is where the water becomes wine… it is where our raw and untested lives take on new complexity and richness through sharing and struggle… it is where, like grape juice turning to wine, our separateness is broken down as we discover the mystery of a shared life.

Am I making sense for you? The marriage and its feast is the way Jesus describes Christian spirituality: individuals come together as one flesh. Selfishness is broken down by sharing and struggle and a whole new life is construct

ed in creativity and community. And not in some lofty, heavenly locale, but in the flesh, in the family and in real life: that’s what the connection between Jesus and Mary tells us, that is what is reinforced by the symbol of the wedding banquet and that is what is going on with both the water and the wine.

Now it is wise to recall that anything we say about the symbols of water and the wine first rise to the surface because of a problem – the wedding host has run out of wine – so please remember that this problem is not abstraction. Mary feels in her soul what this problem really means: not only will the loss of wine interrupt the blessings of the party and abbreviate its joy, but it will also bring shame and disrespect to the host. Biblical sociologists Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh write:

The fact that the family hosting the wedding has run out of wine threatens a serious loss of honor. Friends, especially those from the inner group of wedding celebrants, usually sent gifts such as wine ahead of time to be available for the wedding celebration. Lack of wine thus implies lack of friends. If Jesus was among the "members of a wedding association" of this bridegroom, he was among those obligated to provide such gifts. By providing wine for the wedding celebration, Jesus rescues the honor of the bridegroom. Traditional Western theological comment that Jesus here usurps the role of host (thus turning this into a sacramental story) misses a key point in the story. By providing wine for this threatened family, Jesus honors the bridegroom and saves his own prestige. [p. 65/69]

Again, we can’t escape the connections between real life and the way of the Lord as the story tells us about ordinary acts of honor, shame, joy and sorrow. So please notice what happens next: Jesus turns to the 30 gallon water vats that normally hold water for the ritual cleansing of the dirty feet of travelers and guests, asks the wine steward to fill them full – that is to say to fulfill them – and guarantees that the celebration might proceed with new and better wine.

Jesus and Mary respond to suffering with compassion, Christ acts to deepen the celebration and joy and then offers two final insights about how we might live into the spirituality of Cana, too. First, the water/wine connection suggests that our lives, our religious habits and our insights can fall into a rut – or worse. Sometimes they run out of juice and become empty and good for nothing and sometimes they become destructive and wounded.

When that happens, the way of Cana and Christ’s spirituality of

the wedding feast invite us to get out of our own way for a bit and go beyond ourselves. Maybe a little joy and pleasure, a little feasting and wine, a little caring for another and sharing laughter and tears would work better than more prayer and fasting and keeping the letter of the law?

• How did Jesus put it in Matthew 11: are you tired, worn out, burned out on life – or religion? Than come away with me and I will teach you the unforced rhythms of grace.

• That is, come away with me to the feast where I will care for others with simple acts of love and generosity – and if you join me you will get over yourself. I guarantee it!

Which is the other truth about the water and the wine: the Jesus life is MUCH more about the wine than the water. He tells us, “I am the vine and you are the branches.” Think about that:

• Wine is about the feast not the empty vats of moralism, guilt or obligation.

• “Wine is intoxicating” writes Thomas Moore, “the beverage of mystery and pleasure, celebration and renewal.”

Wine is the very fruit of a transformed life, you see – a life committed to being torn apart by love, w

ounded by compassion, filled with sharing rather than selfishness and saturated with flavor beyond the bland and the safe – it is our commitment to searching out the extraordinary within the very ordinary experiences of real life.

Too often religion has lost any sense of the party, the wine or the feast. It is dour and shame-based – it points fingers or sounds holier than thou – so unlike the Lord at Cana. It reminds me of that old, old story of the mother who used to serve stewed prunes to her children from time to time. Her youngest boy hated them and would pitch such a fight that momma often said, “You know God doesn’t like little boys who don’t finish their prunes. It makes God angry.”

Well, as it happened one day she served up those blasted stewed prunes again and her youngest had a fit. He had simply could not tolerate the thought of even one more of those nasty little things again. So after much fussing and fighting, he was sent up to bed with the words: “God doesn’t like little boys who won’t eat their prunes.”

Now not long after being sent to his bedroom, a terrible thunderstorm broke loose – lightning flashed, thunder clapped and wind and rain pounded on his bedroom wi

ndow – it was terrifying. Thinking her child might be frightened, momma made her way upstairs quietly. And when she got to her son’s door she saw that he was standing with his face to the window looking out and saying, “My, my, Lord, such a fuss to make over two lousy prunes.”

Beloved, we can do better:

• We have been called to the feast not a famine

• We have been invited to the marriage banquet of heaven and earth

• We have been given gifts to build one another up in compassion and love – filled with the new wine of God’s grace – forgiven and blessed

So let’s be about the wine – not just the water or the prunes – ok? For I think that is the good news for those who have ears to hear.

(Here's a tune from Carlos Santana and Everlast - the blending of cultures and genres - in a sensual spirituality that just gets it so right...)