SERMON
SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY – YEAR C
“WELCOME TO THE PARTY!”
JOHN 2:1-11 / JANUARY 17, 2016
Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our
hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our strength and our redeemer.
Amen.
Weddings are accidents waiting to happen. I could tell you lots of stories
of weddings at which I’ve officiated that validate my opinion. I’ll share just
one from my days in rural Manitoba. It was an outdoor wedding, in a big,
open farm yard. As the wedding ceremony proceeded along, I noticed an
odour as if something was burning. It grew steadily stronger and then I
heard a sound, like a muffled bang, and saw rising over the row of trees
that lined the adjacent roadway, a huge plume of smoke it seems that one
of the guests traveling from Saskatchewan, and being late, decided to
ignore the fact that his temperature gage warning light was on. As fate
would have it, no sooner had he arrived, than the heat under the hood, set
the engine on fire. The wedding concluded with the scream of fire engine
sirens and the choking coughs of those breathing in the now thick smoke.
At the wedding in Cana of Galilee, something went wrong. In those days,
the persons to be married celebrated the marriage not with a honeymoon,
but with a seven day wedding feast.
This wedding was in trouble,
because the wine was giving out before the party was over. The situation
constituted a crisis for the family who shouldered the responsibility of
hospitality, proper hospitality being so important in that place and time. It is
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the mother of Jesus who notices and has Jesus intervene to ensure the
party could continue.
I think, the church sometimes forgets that Jesus, at least once, attended a
wedding feast and said yes to gladness and joy.
forgets to live the joy of its faith.
Sometimes the church
James McBride Dabbs, author and
Presbyterian elder, remembers religion as the opposite of life. He says,
“religion was a day and a place; religion was Sunday and the church:
almost everything else was life. Religion was a curious, quiet, and
inconsequential moment in the vital existence of a country boy. It came
around once a week, but it didn’t have much to do with the rest of life...”
The sign at Cana tells us that Jesus served a God who is part of everyday
life, who puts joy into life, who makes the ordinary, extraordinary, who
desires to keep the party going.
Throughout his life and ministry, Jesus celebrated life; he celebrated
people – as we have done today in receiving with delight our newest
members.
He celebrated people getting married, people being healed, people
enjoying meals together. He carried a spirit of celebration with him
wherever he went as he proclaimed a God of mercy and peace and joy.
This spirit got him into trouble at times and those opposed to him accused
him of being a glutton, a drunk, and a friend of sinners.
The joyous feast
at Cana is a sign to the church that we are to rejoice in the people of God
and to toast the world with the amazing good news of God’s grace.
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David Steele, a Christian pastor and author, refers to this spirit of
celebration as “Cana-grace,” the knack for throwing parties that combine
food, decorations, music, laughter to create an atmosphere of welcome,
well-being, and love. Just like Jesus, Steele learned from his mother and
thanked God for this gift of celebration many times in his ministry. He even
coined a beatitude: “blessed is the pastor whose church has a real tenor or
a real plumber. But doubly blessed is the pastor whose congregation
knows Cana-grace.”
Our joy flows from knowing our God.
Theologian Robert Hotchkins remarks that Christians ought to be
celebrating constantly.
We ought to be preoccupied with parties, banquets, feasts, and merriment.
We ought,” he concludes, “to give ourselves to veritable orgies of joy
because we have been liberated from the fear of life and the fear of death.
We ought to attract people to the church quite literally by the fun there is in
being a Christian.”
The story of the wedding in Cana comes early in John’s gospel.
In fact,
going to this wedding party is the first public thing that Jesus does, the
inauguration of his ministry. By contrast, in Luke’s gospel, the first thing
Jesus does, publicly, is preach a sermon in which he quotes Isaiah as his
mission statement: “the holy spirit is upon me because God has anointed
me to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the prisoners,
recovery of sight to the blind, and let the oppressed go free – to proclaim
that this is the year of God’s jubilee!” Luke’s Jesus is fighting for justice
and changing what’s wrong with the world. But in John’s gospel, Jesus’ first
act of ministry is not preaching a sermon. It’s going to a wedding feast and
making the party even better!
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So which is it, which story is actually Jesus’ first public act? Which gospel
is right?
The gospel writers remind me of watching a detective show like
law & order. At the beginning the announcer always says, “this story is
inspired by actual events.”
In the show, the detectives talk with each other about their interviews with
different witnesses and say,
“I’m suspicious, because those three witnesses told exactly the same
words, and memory isn’t that perfect.”
Sure enough, by the end of the show, once the lawyers have crossexamined them on the stand, it turns out that those three witnesses were in
cahoots and lying the whole time. It was the fourth witness, the one whose
story was not the same as the others, who turns out to be telling the truth. I
think we have a little of that going on in the diversity of our four gospels.
And maybe there’s not much difference between social justice and a
wedding party to which all are invited. Maybe those are two different ways
of talking about the same thing.
The gospels depict Jesus “eating with
sinners”, at those parties the moralistic Pharisees criticize so harshly. But
what those stuffy religious leaders interpret as Jesus being a glutton and a
drunk, we interpret as Jesus’ love for life and his mandate that the church
should be a joyous wedding party celebrating the marriage of God and
humanity and our covenant of love with one another.
The social justice part is that everybody is invited to the feast. Everyone
is welcome at the party.
We are not to be moralistic, judgemental,
exclusive -But we are to love unconditionally; we are to be filled with love and joy
which we are too share with all who want to come to the party.
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This is the point of Jesus using water jars used in rites of purification.
Anthropologists say such rituals go all the way back to the grooming rituals
of primates.
Certainly they go back to prehistoric times and, often, have
to do with religious definitions of who is clean or unclean, who is in and who
is out. Cultic cleanliness,
As signified by the water jars used in the rites of purification, did define who
was in and who was out. Ritual purification was a big part of daily life.
Clean and unclean are religious categories that define sin and sinner, cast
and outcast every day in every way.
Jesus was saying something different.
In turning the water into wine in
the jars of purification, he was saying that such rites should not be divisive,
not define who is in or out, but should be a means of celebration and of joy
in being recipients of God’s grace. And so today we celebrate with joy
those who have made a commitment to be full members of Augustine.
That doesn’t mean they are any more important or special than anyone
else gathered here today.
It isn’t that they are in and others are out.
Rather, it is a celebration of the sign of God’s love for all of us and God’s
invitation to all of us to join the party, to be part of the community and the
ministries of the church.
As full members it is hoped that they will help to
ensure the party continues. The words of Mary, Jesus’ mother, to the
servants at the wedding party are instructive. She says to them, “do
whatever he tells you.” That is the key to each Christian’s journey – to
discern what the spirit of God asks of us in the places and the times within
which we live. We are to discern what is asked of us – and then we are to
do it!
That’s how we keep the party going.
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We join with Christ in turning
water into wine – making the ordinary, extraordinary, being the means by
which the flavour of life is enhanced; the way in which the good things of
life are celebrated and the difficulties of life are shared with compassion,
where putting faith into action has transformative power that gives
goodness to the world.
You see, the party that God prepares for us is us – it’s each other. The
feast is the church – for us -- Augustine united church, this church
composed of anyone and everyone who accepts Christ’s invitation to leave
behind purification – a moralism that includes some and excludes others;
and instead form a joyful community based on forgiveness, justice and
love. May it be so for all of us.
Amen.
Major sources:
“pastoral perspective” by robert m. Brearley in feasting on the word, year c, volume 1, pp.260-264.
Editors: david l. Bartlett and barbara brown taylor. Westminster john knox press.
Louisville, kentucky. 2009.
“was jesus a party animal?” By the rev. Dr. Dan geslin in preaching – word & witness, vol.10:1
(year c), pp. 33-34. Editor: paul scott wilson. Liturgical publications inc. New berlin, wi. 2010.
“my lord, what a party!” By walter farquharson and jeff cook in an audacious invitation, pp. 52-54.
Editor: mike shwartzentruber. Published by pine valley supported self-publishing an imprint of
Wood lake publishing inc. Kelowna, bc. 2013.
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