San Williams, Presenter
John 2:1-11
"More Than Enough"
Most, if not everything, we do in church is a sign of something else. For example, when we baptized Walker Jeffers this morning we used water and words, but these audible and visible things were only signs pointing to God's everlasting covenant with us and affirming our conviction that Walker is a beloved child of God. Think too, about how when we celebrate communion we use some tangible, ordinary things--a table, bread and wine. Yet these earthly things signify an intangible, spiritual presence. Likewise, during worship we pass the peace of Christ as a sign that Christ's presence among us reconciles us to one another and joins us to Christ's ministry of peace and justice in the world. We could go on to enumerate the many ways that we attempt to communicate holy, inexpressible things with signs. Well, our scripture this morning tells the story of the wedding at Cana where Jesus turned the water into wine. And we are told that this miracle was the first of his signs. A sign of what? We might ask.
Out the outset, we have to acknowledge that a simple answer to that question is difficult to give. This story, like so many in John's Gospel, this story of Jesus and his disciples attending a wedding in Cana is replete with symbols, allusions, theological themes and Old Testament references. The very first phrase, "on the third day" suggests the resurrection of Jesus who rose "on the third day." Jesus' enigmatic statement that "my hour has not yet come" prompts us to fast-forward to the Garden of Gethsemane where, prior to his death, Jesus prays, "Father, the hour has come…" And Mary's desperation over a lack of wine echoes the story of Elijah providing food and oil for a desperate widow in I Kings. The very fact that Jesus' first act of ministry is set in a wedding is highly significant, because the wedding feast is a prominent symbol in the Bible for God's Kingdom. And one of the consistent Old Testament images for joy is an abundance of wine. So in this short story, John piles symbol on top of symbol and crowds numerous scriptural allusions into this one incident.
Still, I believe that we can acknowledge the complexity of this passage and still make a single, clear statement about what it signifies. Put it this way: Jesus' act of turning the water into wine is a sign of God's abundance. This first act of ministry is a sign that what Jesus has come into the world to reveal God's inexhaustible grace. Scholars calculate that the wine Jesus provides the wedding guests would amount to 180 gallons, way more than enough for even the most lavish party. This first of Jesus' signs is consistent with the other signs reported in John's gospel—healing the blind, feeding the multitudes, raising the dead. Wherever Jesus goes, God's grace breaks out and overflows. All Jesus' deeds, miracles and parables are signs that the world is filled with God's overflowing love.
Now admittedly you and I are apt to have some difficulty with today's story of Jesus miraculously turning water into wine. We have trouble because we're modern North American people, who tend to accept only what the rational mind can conceive and science can verify. But one commentator has suggested that we are apt to have trouble with this story of Jesus turning water into wine, not simply because we are so modern and sophisticated and scientific, but because we are so careful, cautious, and restrained. Thus, Jesus' depiction of an expanded, grace-filled world is hard for us to accept and trust. We operate out of what one person called "the myth of scarcity." This is the tendency to order our lives around the fear that there will never be enough. Fast Company Magazine reported a survey given to high level CEO's and business executives. They were asked the question of how much liquid assets they felt they needed. Those making two million dollars a year answered on average that they would need twenty million dollars to feel secure. Interestingly, those who were making twenty million a year answered on average that they would need two-hundred million.
But in truth it's not just the very rich who operate on the myth of scarcity. If you're like me, you feel the tension between wanting to give more, trust more and risk more and the temptation to protect, withhold and even to horde. No wonder we tend not to make big moves in life, ask big things of God, allow ourselves to dreams big, hopeful dreams.
This morning we're honoring legacy of Martin Luther King in our worship. King dared to dream big, to ask big things of God and of himself. In his famous I Have a Dream speech, he dreamed of nothing less that a world that rang with the harmony of brotherhood, equality and freedom for all children of every color and creed. He helped a nation re-imagine our relationships without the restrictions of racism, grinding poverty and hatred. King's speeches, his marches and sit-ins didn't bring about the world of which he dreamed, but they remain one of our nation's most important signs that a more magnanimous, just world is possible. "I refuse to accept," he declared, "the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word." Dr. King's hope for peace and justice and his ability to struggle on ultimately rested on his conviction God has infused an abundance of goodness into our lives and world, and that this goodness will prevail.
Perhaps our calling in this New Year is to become ourselves signs of God's abundance in the world. As a church, we've taken some steps recently that are challenging us to greater trust in God's generosity. The decision to house the Micah 6 food panty in our facility is one way we hope to offer our church as a sign that God's hospitality isn't restricted to folks like ourselves. There's enough grace and food and shelter for everyone in our city, and our church can be a sign of God's unrestricted hospitality and abundant love.
Yet another way we are attempting to become a clearer sign of God's abundance is seen in the Multi-cultural resolution our Session passed. In this resolution, we declared "UPC to be a Multicultural church open to all who respond in trust and obedience God Gods grace …" Granted it took some chutzpah to make such a declaration because at present we're not all that multi-cultural. But since God's grace is not restricted to race or class or culture, we feel called to become a clearer sign of God's inclusive love for peoples of every race, class and culture.
On this day to honor the legacy of Dr. King, it's not sufficient just to celebrate his accomplishments and recall his words. Surely he would invite us individually and collectively to take up the challenge to be a sign of the society pictured in Dr. King's dream. In his own words: "We each have a responsibility to set out to discover what we are called to do. And after we discover that, we should set out to do it with all of the strength and all of the power that we can muster…"
Friends, at Cana of Galilee Jesus performed the first of his signs. He turns water into wine in order to show his disciples that the creation is infused with the Creator's generosity. May God give us such trust in Jesus that we too will allow that generosity to work in our lives and congregation?