The Third Sunday of Epiphany, 20 January 2019
Austwick, Clapham, Eldroth
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 bowls club, or WI, 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 place that we're in.
Now, as we know, some like things done the way they’ve always been done - why change the speaker at the Harvest Supper, with our usual speaker we know all his jokes? Whilst others like to shake things up a bit, which creates a buzz of anticipation around a village: what new extreme sport will Clive attempt as his annual fundraising endeavour? What insightfully-crafted prayers has Julia prepared for church this week?
We like our plans to work out well, we want things to go smoothly. But we accept that even when things don’t go to plan, something good can still come out of it - something memorable which changes the event, and may forever change the story the community tells of itself.
There was 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 and the atmosphere was so special, that the Christmas Eve service has been candlelit every year since. And that time 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.
In John’s gospel we find Jesus miraculously feeding 5,000, walking on water, healing various people, and the miracle we heard re-told today, significantly the first one in John’s gospel: turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. In this famous passage, John tells us that the purpose of Jesus’ miracle was to reveal his glory to the world. In consequence, his disciples put their faith in him.
So 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. Demonstrating his power and glory and revealing 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. Just as God enjoys sharing in the parties we hold, in our homes and village halls.
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. At first he was reluctant 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 everyone. 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.
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 what salvation looks like and means to us.
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 where we are in our own place. We bring our own situations to bear on what we read, prayerfully expecting scripture to speak back to us, helping us to better understand ourselves and our local situation from God’s perspective.
So this wedding miracle story makes it clear that Jesus loves it when his people put on a party - for it brings people together, affirms community, befriends the lonely, all those good things. The story also encourages us to understand that our purpose as his followers is not to run a social club called ‘church’, but to reveal the glory of God to the people in our place. Just as he did this by transforming the water into wine so he calls to join him in transforming the place we are in, helping change it for the better for all its people.
For Jesus invites us to do two things where we are - to celebrate, and to innovate. Because we care about the place and its people we should take a fresh look, a sideways glance, at what it means to express Christianity in our village life; to consider what Christianity is here, now, and what it could look like in the months and years ahead, if for the sake of mission we’re open to innovation and change.
As you know, wine is very significant in scripture. Jesus once told 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.’ [2]
As things change in the world around us we adapt. That’s accepted in every walk of life: family, farming, business, schooling… I’d call on the churches to accept that too, together exploring and joyfully embracing the future God has for us. Which may look somewhat different from the past.
Whatever may change here, over time, one wonderful thing remains certain: that Jesus is One for our Community, and he continues here with us, his disciples, as we seek to share his way of generous love in these 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
[1] Adapted from Jesus: One for the Community previously preached in Somerset, 2018. 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.
[2] Matthew 9.17 and Mark 2.22.
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