John 2:1-11
Although our annual Diversity Sunday had to be postponed due to scheduling conflicts for our speaker, this is, of course, the weekend that our country honors the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. That’s why we began our worship today with some paraphrased lines of his famous “I have a dream” speech,” which is arguably one of the greatest speeches in American History. It so clearly and beautifully articulated not only his dream, but the people’s dreams, dreams we still share–dreams of justice and equality and mutual respect, dreams of how the world can be, rather than how it sometimes is, dreams of letting freedom ring all across our land.
Reading the text does not do the speech justice. You need to hear his voice–sometimes slow and drawling, sometimes quick and fast-hitting. You need to hear the way he used the phrase “I have a dream” not just to begin each sentence, but by moving quickly from one sentence into the next sentence and then pausing, the phrase served as both the end and the beginning of each idea. If you haven’t listened to the whole speech recently, I encourage you to go online and listen to it in its entirety.
My preaching professor was a nationally recognized preacher and homiletics professor, and he taught me that a good sermon should have one function: to encourage the congregation to ___(blank)___; or to challenge the hearers to ____(such-and-such)___.Well, Dr. King did not follow my preaching professor’s rules! The “I Have A Dream” speech had way more than one function. It warned the people against violence and hatred and bitterness. It assured the opposition that they would not give up. It encouraged the people to keep going, to keep working for justice. And it told them to do it now. One of my favorite lines is “We have come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. I think we still need to be reminded.
But for now let’s look at the story of Jesus turning the water into wine. The writer of the Gospel of John begins by setting the scene. There is a wedding in Cana, and Jesus and his disciples are all invited guests, as is the mother of Jesus. From our own experiences we can imagine the scene—the happy couple, the proud parents, the joyful friends and neighbors—who get happier and happier as the wine flows. Then Mary finds out that the wine has run out. She knows that at every wedding in the next ten years, someone will say, “Oh, remember Jeremiah and Esther’s wedding, when they ran out of wine?” Small villages have long memories, and this is a big social faux pas.
But it is more than embarrassing. As one writer puts it, “Wine is … a sign of the harvest, of God’s abundance, of joy and gladness and hospitality. And so when they run short on wine, they run short on blessing.”[1] Most preachers and writers assume that it is the host’s fault for running out of wine. They didn’t plan ahead, or maybe they couldn’t afford more. But it is also possible that members of the community were supposed to chip in, do their share,[2] and so the lack of wine would not just be embarrassing to the couple, but perhaps even hurtful—that their community didn’t celebrate their union.
We don’t know for sure, but either way, Mary doesn’t like it. She doesn’t want their wedding to be ruined, so she goes to Jesus and simply says, “Jesus, they have no wine.” She is hoping he’ll get the hint and go do something about it. But instead he says, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?” It is not a rude answer, even though it sounds like it in English. It was respectful, if dismissive. It isn’t my problem, and now is not the time. In response to being dismissed, she tells the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do. It may be a passive-aggressive mama trick, to guilt him into doing something. We don’t know what motivated her or her exact reasoning, but obviously she thinks the situation is more urgent than Jesus does. Apparently she has faith that he will do something. Apparently she has reason to believe he can do something, as though this isn’t the first time she has seen him do the miraculous.
And apparently it works. Jesus instructs the servants to fill the six stone water jars with water. That alone is no small feat. They couldn’t just uncoil the garden hose and turn on the tap. Plus, these huge jars were reserved for something special—for the Jewish purification rituals. How can Jesus recommend they use sacred objects for any other purpose? But the servants do as they are told, and somehow, Jesus turns the water into wine. Not cheap wine, and not even mediocre wine, but good wine, and lots of it. 120-180 gallons of it.
The story tells us that because of this one act, the disciples believed. It may not have been just because they liked the wine. It is likely that they knew their scriptures, especially the book of Amos, the first prophetic book to be written. The book of Amos was written before the fall of Jerusalem, warning people of destruction that was to come if they did not change their unjust ways. But it also promised God’s deliverance after the destruction. The disciples would have heard of the prophecy from the book of Amos. “The time is surely coming when the mountains shall drip with sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.” This was the sign the disciples needed.
Now it’s important to remember that in John’s gospel, events like this one are not called “miracles” but “signs.” John wasn’t concerned about showing us all the miraculous things Jesus could do. We aren’t supposed to see the miracles for the sake of miracles; what was important is that they pointed to God, were revelations of God. So the outpouring of wine was not a miracle, but a sign—a sign of God’s abundant gift, God’s promised redemption. The disciples recognized the revelation of God in this amazing flow of wine, and they recognized Jesus as the one who brought God to them.
All around us, God is turning water into wine, and we don’t recognize it. When a relationship is renewed, God has turned water into wine. When broken hearts are healed, God has turned water into wine. When we find joy in the midst of despair, God has turned water into glorious wine. When an impossible dream comes true … When the loss of a job leads to a better opportunity … When love catches us by surprise … God has turned water into wine. They aren’t miracles. They’re signs. They point us to God’s transformative power.
But sometimes we reject the wine. Of course, I’m talking about metaphorical wine here. There may be good reasons for you to reject real wine. But sometimes we also reject the metaphorical wine God wants to offer.
Some of us hold onto our jars with all our might. We have our lives all neatly planned out. These jars are for work, and these jars are for family, and this jar is just for me, and that jar over there is for God. Then God goes and says, “Give me all your jars?” No way. We need our jars. We need our separation. We need to divide our work from our religion, or how will we succeed? We need to divide our ethics from our church’s teachings, or how will we get ahead? We need to divide our politics from our faith, or we might vote for something not in our own best interest! We need our jars. We need them to be kept separate, set apart. We don’t realize—or maybe we forget—that all of our life can be sacred.
Some of us are willing to share our jars, but God’s first instruction is to fill them with water. In the tradition of the prophets, water is most often justice. “Let justice flow down like streams,” as Amos wrote, as Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted. But these jars are large, and it will take a long time and a lot of work to fill these jars with justice. You can’t just uncoil the hose and pour out some justice. You have to work for it. You have to lug it up the hill. You have to carry it until your shoulders ache and your hands burn. You have to carry it until your blisters break and your blood is poured out. God says, “Fill up your jars with justice,” and we say, “All of them? How about just one jar? Won’t that be enough? And can’t it wait? People have waited a long time for justice. What’s a few more days—years—decades?” We forget about the urgency of Now.
Some of us are willing to share our jars, and some of us are willing to fill them with water, but some of us are unwilling to let our water be changed to wine. It took us a long time to fill up our jars, and besides, we’re used to them holding water. Wine will change them—at least temporarily, and possibly forever. We don’t want to risk what those changes might mean. Besides, water is a good thing, right? Water is justice. Why do we need wine? We need wine because the water of justice becomes the wine of peace.
There is one other temptation we face when we encounter God’s water into wine. As you know, I grew up in a conservative Christian tradition. We had “biblical preaching,” and Bible-based Sunday school, and Wednesday night Bible studies, But one of the stories I didn’t hear very many Sunday school lessons about was this story—where Jesus turned water into wine. Frankly, teetotalers don’t know what to do with this passage. Some of them try to say it wasn’t really wine like we know wine; it was more like strong grape juice. Or they try to explain that the water wasn’t safe to drink, so Jesus had no other choice. (But we do, so the standards for us are higher than they were for Jesus!) But all in all, I always thought they’d be more comfortable if this miracle were in reverse … if Jesus turned wine into water.
We do that, too—when we deny the sign. When we declare that the extraordinary is ordinary,
we’re turning wine into water. When we deny that God’s work in our lives has significance, we’re turning wine into water. When we take this abundant outpouring of grace and we say, “I don’t deserve it,” we’re turning wine into water. When we refuse to work for equality because we already have it, we’re turning God’s glorious wine into water.
It is time to remember “the fierce urgency of now.” Drink up.
[1] Lose, David. “Learning to Tell Time.” www.workingpreacher.org.
[2] Harper Collins Study Bible.