Water Blushing into Wine
Readings for the Second Sunday after Epiphany
This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church Eureka on Sunday January 16, 2022.
Once every three years, our lectionary reminds us of the three manifestations of God associated with the Feast of the Epiphany, which we celebrated ten days ago here, on January 6th. The first epiphany is God’s manifestation to the Magi, who represent all Gentiles who respond with openness and awe to the liberating love of the Jewish Messiah. The second epiphany (which we read about last Sunday) is God’s manifestation to all who witnessed the Baptism of our Lord and who heard the divine voice of love saying, “You are my child, my beloved, with you I am well pleased,” words that were spoken to each of us at our baptism and words that are still whispered to us today in that still, small voice, if we have ears to hear. And the third manifestation of God associated with the feast of the Epiphany is the first miracle of Christ, at the wedding in Cana, as recorded in the Gospel of John. It’s only during Year C that we read these three manifestations, these three epiphanies, in a row. So, on this Sunday when we reflect on the third epiphany, I want to honor the venerable, age-old tradition of offering a three-point sermon, especially on this weekend of Martin Luther King Jr, who was also known for using three points in his sermons.[1]
The first point emerges from Jesus’s conversation with his mother, in which Jesus appears to be fairly rude: “When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’” (2:3-4). Now addressing one’s mother as “woman” sounds dismissive and even contemptuous to our modern ears. Some translators who are familiar with the first century context try to soften Jesus’s words a bit by pointing out that this was kind of like Jesus saying “Ma’am,” which may have been the case, but that still sounds kind of strange, doesn’t it? Either way, he sounds dismissive. And that tends to be the way Jesus interacts with his family members in the Gospel of John, especially when his family is trying to control him and his ministry (chronos vs. kairos). There are a couple times in John when Jesus’s family urges him to do something according to their schedule and Jesus says, “It’s not my time” (John 7:6). In both cases, he ends up doing what his family urges him to do, but he does it of his own volition, according to his own schedule. Christ will not be controlled or micro-managed. That’s the first point: the divine will not be tamed and will not be bound by our sense of time.
Tomorrow, I’m going to start teaching a class for Church Divinity School of the Pacific online on the Jewish tradition of “Arguing with God.” During the first week, we will look a bit at the Book of Job in which God responds to Job’s complaints by describing these two magnificent beasts: Behemoth and Leviathan. In God’s description, it seems clear that these wild beasts cannot be tamed. Although God oversees them and creates broad boundaries for them, God seems to delight in their wildness. This is God’s way of telling Job (and telling us) that we cannot tame God and place him in a cage. (We tried putting God in a tomb and he busted out). I’m reminded of the conversation in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when Susan asks if Aslan is safe. Mr. Beaver responds, “Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” Whenever we try to tame Christ and make him safe and turn him into a passive wedding planner’s assistant, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised if his response seems a little rude. His mother eventually gets the point and tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” He isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, so do whatever he tells you.
The second point has to do with the fact that all the action in the Gospel seems to be taking place behind the scenes. Jesus’s mother notices that the wine at the wedding has run out, but before the rest of the guests seem to notice, she tries to fix the situation before all the guests grow too disgruntled and leave and thus shame the bride and the bridegroom and their families. Jesus performs his first miracle at a party in front of a small group of people: the servants and his disciples. Most of the guests, who never knew there was a problem in the first place, don’t witness the miracle at all. The steward, who was essentially the sommelier, did not know where the wine came from and then praised the bridegroom for saving the best wine for last. He was not used to this since most parties would serve the cheap wine at the end (the two-buck chuck) when guests were too drunk to be able to tell the difference. The bridegroom got all the credit at the party for the miracle that Jesus performed behind the scenes, witnessed only by the servants and the disciples. This is part of how Christ revealed his glory, how he manifested God among us in the third epiphany: by working behind the scenes and then giving someone else all the credit.
Now there are certainly other times in the Gospels when Jesus brings plenty of attention to himself, but in this case, he seems to be perfectly fine with letting the bridegroom take all the credit, even though the bridegroom didn’t do a single thing. We don’t see Jesus raising his hand and saying, “Hey! Just so you all know: that amazing wine you’re all enjoying? I made it!”
This is an important point for a couple reasons. First, to bring it home in a practical way, it’s good for us to remember that there is a tremendous amount of work that goes into all that we do here at Christ Church, in our worship and outreach and music and online offerings and campus maintenance. And much of this happens behind the scenes. And there are many times when the clergy and leadership here face significant challenges and put out fires throughout the week and even sometimes in the middle of worship on Sunday. The fact that most of us don’t notice the hiccups speaks to how effectively leaders respond. At the wedding in Cana, Jesus was the unsung hero who saved the day. We here at Christ Church have many heroes who work behind the scenes to help maintain our campus and to provide the good wine of worship every Sunday. May we never take them for granted. And second, we’re invited to remember that Christ is at work behind the scenes in our lives, especially when we’re running low on energy or enthusiasm or hope. In those times when we feel overwhelmed by scarcity or shame or fear or anxiety, Christ is busy preparing the best wine for us.
So Christ cannot be controlled. Christ is at work behind the scenes. And the third point is that we are invited to see ourselves as the water being transformed into the choice wine by the divine voice of love, that same voice that spoke to Jesus and to you at baptism. Wine was often preferred to water in ancient times not only because of wine’s salutary effects, but because water was frequently contaminated with impurities. In ancient Rome, the water was heavily contaminated with lead. God wants to take whatever is contaminated in us by sin and transform it through his love into life-giving wine.
A couple centuries ago, a young student at Oxford was taking an exam in religious studies and the exam question for the day was to write about the religious and spiritual meaning of the miracle at Cana of Christ turning water into wine. For two hours, he sat in the crowded classroom while other students filled their pages with long essays and three-point sermons (like this). The exam time was almost over, and this student had not written a single word. The proctor came over to him and insisted that he commit something to paper before turning it in. The young Lord Byron picked up his pen and wrote the following line: “At Cana, water met its loving creator and blushed.” Let your encounter with Christ and his voice of love transform you today, like water into wine.
Christ cannot be controlled or tamed. Christ is at work behind the scenes. And Christ seeks to transform each of us, like the water that blushed into wine in response to divine love. These are the three points of the sermon on the third epiphany. But I know that three-point sermons in the Episcopal Church must always end with a poem. And since tomorrow is the unofficial feast day of Episcopal poet Mary Oliver, I offer this poem of hers that beautifully sums up everything I’ve said. The poem is called “Logos” which is the Greek word used in John’s Prologue to refer to Christ and is often translated as “Word.”
Logos
Why worry about the loaves and fishes?
If you say the right words, the wine expands.
If you say them with love
and the felt ferocity of that love
and the felt necessity of that love,
the fish explode into many.
Imagine him, speaking,
and don’t worry about what is reality
or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, it was all those things.
If you can imagine it, it is all those things.
Eat, drink, be happy.
Accept the miracle.
Accept, too, each spoken word
spoken with love.
Amen.
[1] For instance, he spoke of the three major evils: the evil of racism, poverty, and war.
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 