Revelation 19.6-10, John 2.1-11
The Third Sunday of Epiphany, 21 January 2024
in The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
Austwick, Clapham
Set up beforehand: wine bottles with lit candles on the communion table, chalice and communion wine bottle.
Begin by reading 'The Cana of Galilee Case' from Wild Goose Worship Group. [2]
It's only natural that we try to make sense of Jesus' miracles. Most of his miracles show Jesus to be a wonderful healer, a raiser-from-the-dead, a restorer of sight to the blind, a saviour of the poor.
But this miracle is different. It defies that sort of explanation.
The net result of the miracle at the wedding at Cana in Galilee is that, from nowhere, Jesus conjured one hundred and eighty gallons of the very best wine. If you do the maths - that's a lot of bottles. Enough to ensure that a party already in full swing would keep on swinging until everyone was comatose.
Here Jesus the healer is the causer of hangovers.
Here Jesus the restorer of sight to the blind is party to potential blind drunkenness.
Here Jesus the saviour of the poor is the man who ensured that the grandest party in town would become even more extravagant, at no extra cost to the family hosting it.
Why would Jesus do that, do you think?
In the sketch, Moshe Ben McGuinness says that the miracle happened:
Just to remind us
of how a very ordinary person
took some very ordinary drink
among very ordinary people
and enabled them all to be happy.
This is a joyful event, and a very funny story.
It puts a generous Jesus at the centre of everyone's dream wedding party.
It has all the elements of classic comedy in it.
It shows us Jesus the miracle-maker, the one we insist on calling King of Kings, Lord of Lords, being bossed about by his little old mother.
And it subverts the social order as all good comedy does. The master caterer hasn't got a clue where the new wine has come from; the bridegroom who hired him has even less idea.
And as they squabble about it we can picture the servants, who've been involved in the whole episode from start to finish, at first worried about being punished for allowing the wine to run out, ending up standing in the wings giggling with relief about their employers' embarrassment.
It's funny, it's lovely, it's a story which reminds us what Jesus said sometime later about his purposes for us; he said that he came to give us life in all its fullness. [3]
How so? Well, the gospel writer John says that Jesus used the miracle with the water and wine to reveal his glory.
And learned old Irenaeus in the second century explained what ‘his glory’ meant when he wrote, 'The glory of God is the human person fully alive.'
So Jesus changed the water into wine as a sign that he wants us to be fully alive, to be happy and fulfilled, in the ordinary things of life. That’s what he means by life in all its fullness.
We easily accept that Jesus wants us to be serious, spiritual, sober beings. But less easily, perhaps, that he wants to fill up our glasses with the best quality wine; in other words, that he wants our lives with him to be joyful and liberated and freed.
Now we may flinch at that, because we’re not in the habit of seeing God as a party animal. We may not like the idea that Jesus not only spent his time with revellers, but positively encouraged their enjoyment.
If we hesitate to embrace this, I wonder if that's maybe because we feel unworthy to be invited to Jesus's party?
He doesn’t see us as unworthy. No, we are most definitely on his invitation list. As the messenger angel said to the sage John on the island of Patmos, ‘Blesséd are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb’. That means, blesséd are you - and bléssed am I.
This story asks us to put away inhibitions, and accept Jesus's outrageous and unconditional love for us; it invites us to hold out our arms to let God swing us out on the dance floor of abundant life.
'The glory of God is the human person fully alive.'
I'll drink to that. Would you join me?
Set the chalice and communion wine bottle on the communion table ready for use.
Notes
[1] First preached as The human person fully alive, Wavertree, 2003.
[2] 'The Cana of Galilee Case' from Wild Goose Worship Group, Present on Earth: Worship Resources on the Life of Jesus, p.45-50.
[3] John 10.10.
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