John 2.1-11
Queen Camel, Weston Bampfylde, Second Sunday of Epiphany, 17 January 2016
There may not be many of us, but we do a lot together. One of the joys of a village congregation is that the people in the pews are not just churchgoers but often community organisers... by which I mean, people who make things happen; involved in all sorts of things - from a sense of calling or for pure enjoyment: whether in church, or tennis club, or village hall, or parish council, whatever, you’re the sort of people who are happy to play your part in shaping events which in turn help to shape the character of the community that we find ourselves in, by choice or accident of birth or life-event.
Now, we all know some community organisers who like to do things the way they’ve always done them - so that, for instance, everyone in Village A knows that they can every year look forward to Jim’s comical hosting of the Harvest Auction - they know all his jokes, they look forward to laughing and groaning at them again; whilst other organisers like to shake things up a bit, which creates a buzz of anticipation around a village: what new extreme sport will Dave attempt as his annual fundraising endeavour? What insightful and beautifully-crafted reflection has Liz prepared to introduce the prayers in church this week? Fictional examples, but you recognise the truth they carry.
Community organisers like our plans to work out well, we want things to go smoothly. But we also understand that even when things don’t go to plan, something unexpectedly good and special can still come out of it - something which changes the event, and changes the character of the community which experiences it.
I recall, for instance, the day the electricity failed in our isolated country church just five minutes before the Christmas Eve service - forcing us to hold it by candlelight. But the church looked so lovely then, the atmosphere was so special, that the Christmas Eve service has been candlelit every year since; or when the understudy in the school play stepped up and performed so well that people encouraged her to go on; which she did - eventually to drama school and professional theatre, to the pride of everyone in the village.
John’s gospel contains what are sometimes called the Seven Signs of Jesus’ miraculous power - feeding 5,000, walking on water, various healings, and the miracle we heard re-told today, the first one which John records, which is what I call One for the Community: the wedding in Cana of Galilee.
In this famous passage, John tells us that the purpose of Jesus’ first and thus very significant recorded miracle was to reveal his glory to the world. Turning the water into wine was One for the Community. In consequence, his disciples put their faith in him.
Note where and how Jesus first revealed his glory to the world: not by a wonderful healing, not with a stunning sermon, but by going round the back of the bar at a wedding and generously boosting the stocks of best wine. And in so doing he revealed the real good news in Christianity. The good news that Jesus is One for the Community. What do I mean?
Well, reading behind the text, we can assume why Jesus was at the party. You'd expect a single man of thirty years old to be invited to a wedding, to share the joy and the fun of the occasion with his family and friends, and perhaps as the object of the affections of a young bridesmaid, maybe as a careful listener in those rare intense conversations one sometimes gets into at parties. You'd also expect that God who delighted in creating the world and all its people, would delight to take part in a day of celebration; that God whose whole being is wrapped up in love, would want to share the wonder of a young couple's love by joining in their wedding party.
Now, back to the story. Put yourself in the position of the wedding’s hosts and the wedding’s organisers. Imagine their situation when they saw that the wine was running low. Jesus’ miracle showed how keenly he understood their problem and felt their needs. Verse 4 shows how at first he didn’t want to do something he hadn’t planned or prepared for. But out of his compassion for the community, he ended up innovating. It was good news for the community. Three lots of people particularly benefited from what Jesus did that day:
The partygoers benefited, obviously, from an uninterrupted supply of quality refreshment. Some of them might not even have known what had gone on behind the scenes, but whoever they were and whatever they were up to at that party, Jesus chose to bless them with new wine.
The hosts of the party benefited: it saved them so much embarrassment, there were no such things as all-night supermarkets to bail them out in those days; they had no neighbours with barns full of cider ready to serve.
I particularly like to think that Jesus performed this miracle for the sake of the bar staff, the caterers - the servants and the steward of this story. Whether or not it was their fault, they would have got the blame and took the shame when the wine ran out. Think of the effect on their livelihood, on their credibility in the community. Jesus stepped in to save them from being pilloried for their wrongdoing - and so this miracle prefigures Calvary, drops hints about the fundamental meaning of salvation.
I suggest that John put this miracle at the very top of his story about Jesus to show that Jesus is One for the Community. And that he needs us, to help express his extravagant glory in our communities. Notice how he didn't do the miracle on his own. He needed his mother to prompt him to do it in the first place. He needed servants to draw the water for him. He needed the chief steward’s validation of the wine to stress the astonishing significance of what had happened. And he needed those disciples to put their faith in him so that his glorious, generous work of love could carry on, spread and grow, through them.
Whenever we read scripture we read it from the context of our own community. We bring our own situations to bear on the text that we read, hoping and praying that scripture will speak back to us, into our situation, helping us to better understand ourselves and our community from God’s perspective.
So what is the context of this community? Well you know that I’m still a relative newcomer, still something of an outsider, still learning the subtleties of life in this place. But I do know that as far as the churches are concerned, we are in a situation where things haven’t gone to plan - because it’s the same story everywhere: thirty years or so ago six parishes would have had five or six full-time vicars; they wouldn’t have expected to have just one and a half in 2016.
So what might the scripture be telling us about this? That though things haven’t gone to plan, God can bring unexpectedly good and special things from the situation we are in now - maybe to do with: not just vicars, but everybody, realising their potential in their everyday service of God; maybe to do with: the beginning of the end of denominationalism and the start of a time in which the best of all traditions, and the new, combine in a strong, joyous life of celebration. Maybe to do with taking a different look, a sideways glance, at what church is and what it could be, and being prepared to support innovation and change - for mission’s sake.
As you know, wine is very significant in scripture. In Matthew (9.17) and Mark (2:22) Jesus tells his disciples, ‘No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.’
So as things change we have to adapt. Whatever adaptations we are to make, we can be sure of these things: that Jesus is One for our Community, and he is here with us, his disciples, as we seek to share his way of generous love in the places where we live, and move, and have our being.
At our wakes and wedding parties, around our meal tables, in our pubs and at our communion services, everywhere we meet in our community, I trust that we can raise a glass to that.
Notes
Based on a presentation originally given during a ministry interview at St Mary’s, Gosforth, 24 October 2013. They liked the talk, but offered someone else the job. See also my Wedding at Cana - God's Scandalous Generosity, preached at St Luke’s, Crosby in 2004.
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