May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen.
Back in 2019, when I was on sabbatical (Lordy, it seems a lifetime ago), anyway – I had the opportunity to study at Oxford University in England. One of the classes I took was on Mary Magdalene, one of the disciples of Jesus. We studied canonical (meaning in our approved bible), as well as non-canonical, texts about this powerful woman. One of those texts, The Gospel of Mary, speaks of her as the disciple closest to Jesus, romantically close too. In it, Peter said to Mary following the death and resurrection of Jesus, “Sister we know that the Savior loved you more than the rest of woman. Tell us the words of the Savior which you remember which you know, but we do not, nor have we heard them.” Later a fight breaks out between these two over who will be the leader of this new Jesus movement.
It sure makes one wonder if our former Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Jack Spong (who sadly passed this year), if he was right when he pondered many years ago about whether the wedding in Cana, the gospel we just heard this morning, was not only a family wedding, but that Jesus and Mary were the couple (sure would explain why his mother didn’t want the wine to run out).
Now, the question is – does it really matter?
Well, perhaps, and I sure hope that Jesus had a romantic companion along the way. Still, can you imagine what it might be like being married to Jesus? Seriously – picture this…
Into the house walks Jesus at the end of a long day at work. He unties his dirty sandals, and as he starts to sink into the recliner, he shouts “Hi Honey! I’m home!” Mary pipes back “Just got in myself – crazy day at the office. How was your day?” “Well, the usual, I suppose – healed a few people, broke up petty fights among my disciples, fed 5,000 people. You?” Mary, rolling her eyes, poured herself a big glass of that wine from water they had in the house.
Not easy being married to the savior of the world.
Now, let’s get back to the story of the wedding at Cana. It is only found in the Gospel of John, and only read every three years, appropriately enough, during the season of Epiphany. Epiphany means manifestation – the revealing of something in light that has remained hidden in darkness – and this story reveals much about Jesus… and about us.
To really understand this passage, we need to remember that in the Ancient Near East, hospitality was everything (I think we would agree that it should be today). In this story, the family of the bridegroom was about to be found lacking with the wine running out – a major faux pas. Jesus, his family, and his disciples are there, and his mother asks him to use his gifts to provide for more wine, so as to not cause embarrassment. We don’t really know who was getting married, it must have been a family member, or a friend of the family, or – maybe – ya know…Jesus? Yet, after saying that his hour had not yet come, Jesus’ mother would not take no for an answer. Jesus listened to his mother.
She summoned the servants to do as Jesus tells them. So, he commands them to fill the water jars that were there for the Jewish rites of purification. Now these were very large jars, about 20-30 gallons each, so we are talking a whole lot of soon to be wine. But Jesus not only tells them to fill the jars, they are filled to the brim! If Jesus was going to make some wine, it was going to be enough for everyone to enjoy it! In the verses just before this story, Phillip, after hearing about Jesus wonders “can anything good come out of Nazareth?” – and as we find out in these verses, apparently very good wine!
So, as we hear in the story, that water was turned into the best wine, and in that transformation – the glory of Christ was revealed. This was the third revealing of Epiphany – the first being the Magi and their gifts, the second was at his baptism, and now this sign – this miracle being performed.
And we, the followers of Jesus, are a part of this story too. We are the empty vessels today, the children of God ready to be filled with the Spirit in the waters of baptism, and to serve everyone – to such a degree that they are transformed by love and grace. Water – the symbol of life in our baptism, gives way to wine – the symbol of our salvation in Christ’s blood. This in itself is a powerful message for us.
Yet there is something often missed in this story of the wedding at Cana, of Jesus’ first sign in his ministry, and it is the role his mother played. Mary, who is never named in this fourth gospel, will not accept her son’s initial reluctance. Mary, the mother of our Lord, the one who stepped beyond fear to say “Yes!” when God called upon her to be the bearer of the most high – she knew who her child was, and had been pondering it in her heart for many years since his birth.
So, when Jesus said he wasn’t ready, she essentially told him to “get out of her basement and move on to his life in the world.” This could not have been easy for her to do, for she knew how this would likely all play out, and that by pushing him out the door toward his calling, she was also setting in motion the events that would inevitably lead to his death.
Thank God for Mary.
Thank God for all those in our lives who push us forward to do the work we are called to do.
Tomorrow we celebrate the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was one of those like Mary, who showed us the way forward, who pushed us out of our comfort zones, that we might be the people we are called to be.
When the government would not listen to him, he marched in the streets and implored us to join him.
When the people with power fought against him, he protested at lunch counters and on buses and called us to see what was happening to our sisters and brothers.
And when church leaders remained silent, he reminded them of the Christ they profess as Lord and Savior from his jail cell.
He pushed us all out of our proverbial basements, our church pews, and into our lives in Christ by word and by deed, but mostly by the most courageous form of love – and he did it all because he was a follower of Jesus.
You know, it always astounds me when I see some folks talk about so called “organized religion” (which, as I have said before is a term I don’t get – I mean really, organized…have you ever seen the acolyte room just before any worship service?). They say that Christians don’t do anything but cause pain. Now, we deserve some of that criticism, to be sure. Lord knows our past does have some horrific history. However, in the same breath these same people would lift up people like Dr. King as examples of people they admire.
Folks, if there is one thing Dr. King would tell you is that he is the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He would tell you that it was his faith in Jesus that was the foundation of his life work, that the church was his spiritual home. He would say that it was his faith that gave him the courage to implore us all to not be confined by the limitations of the chains which can bind us in fear, but to break them – to proclaim the good news that everyone is a beloved child of God, and to not rest until all are free. And he likely, from the perspective of heaven, would say that just as the church sometimes gets it wrong, so too the civil rights movement he was a part of, as it pushed women and LGBTQ+ peoples to the rear.
Today, we are all blessed that his voice continues to ring out all over the world, telling everyone that will hear him to get on with it – to be the people we are called to be that we might live the faith we profess, as he did in his life. And to be sure, living our faith will not look the same for every person.
As we heard today in the reading from the letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom…to another gifts of healing, …to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy…,” and so on.
Some will be prophets – like Dr. King.
Some will be the wise who push us when we need it – like Mary, the mother of Jesus.
Yet all will be an important part of the work we must do until every one of us may live free to be the beloved child of God we are. Like a marriage, such as was celebrated in Cana long ago, the journey will not always be easy, but if we live into it in love, and with an open heart, Christ will fill us too, and the Holy Spirit will guide us, and we will not fail. The only way to fail is never to live out our calling at all.
Now, I have shared many of my favorite quotes of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. before, but this particular one bears repeating today, because he is speaking to just that message of the gospel – of our need to be the people God calls us to be. Here is what he said:
“Deep down in our non-violent creed is the conviction there are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they’re worth dying for. And if a man happens to be 36-years-old, as I happen to be, some great truth stands before the door of his life–some great opportunity to stand up for that which is right…A man might be afraid his home will get bombed, or he’s afraid that he will lose his job, or he’s afraid that he will get shot, or beat down by state troopers, and he may go on and live until he’s 80. He’s just as dead at 36 as he would be at 80. The cessation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit… A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.”
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. lived and preached the gospel of Jesus Christ, and like the savior he followed, he was killed for it. Yet he would likely say that he truly lived because of it, as he would have killed his soul long before any physical death were he to do nothing at all. This is true for each of us.
For our faith dies whenever we stand silent.
Our baptism is rendered meaningless whenever we do not act.
Our world becomes darker whenever we refuse to be the light of Christ.
So, let us be the vessels of God’s abundant grace that we might nourish others with Christ’s unconditional love – because we know, as Dr. King knew all his life, that love rooted in Christ defeats all hate, that Christ’s light overcomes any darkness, and that Christ alive in us is more powerful than any death that may await.
Amen.
For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):
Sermon Podcast
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
January 16, 2022
Epiphany 2 – Year C
1st Reading – Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 36:5-10
2nd Reading – 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Gospel – John 2:1-11
