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January
18, 2004 (Jimmie Johnson) Old Testament Lesson Isaiah 62:1-5 For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch. The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Gospel Lesson John 2:1-11 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 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." His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. ------------------------------------------------------------------ One of the most dangerous things we can do is to seek innocence. The playwright Arthur Miller wrote: “The perfection of innocence, indeed, is madness.” The great struggle in relationships is to resist playing the blame game. Seeking innocence and blaming others are deadly not only in personal relationships but also on the broader cultural level as well–blaming minority cultures for the downfall of America while ignoring the greed of the Andy and Lisa Fastows, for example, simply because they mirror the images of success. And unfortunately since 9-11, we as a nation have at times been too simplistic in thinking there are good nations and bad nations when all along there are no innocent nations as there are no innocent people. We as citizens of this land need to examine our own national soul in the post 9-11 world. What can save us from selling our souls and killing the love others have for us all in the name of being innocent? I believe God’s abundant grace in Jesus can do so. I believe the story of Jesus turning the water into wine can point us toward a proper thirst for the delightful wine of God’s grace rather than our own insatiable thirst for innocence. The thirst for grace leads to joy; the thirst for innocence will destroy our souls and the lives of those around us. But there are some theological issues we must first resolve with this text from John. There is the issue of miracles and the role they play in your faith and in your interpretation of scripture. For me, miracles are expressions of faith rather than the basis of faith. Jesus’ being a miracle worker is not the reason I have faith in him. A miracle doesn’t prove any religious claim to me; rather it’s function in scripture is to express a religious truth. Faith cannot be established by a miracle, not if it remains faith. But faith can see in the mysterious happenings of our lives that everything in a sense is miraculous. The miracle stories in the New Testament like in the Older Testament are stories conveying the real and only miracle: the miraculous presence of a loving God brimming over with kindness toward us and improvisationally active in the events large and small of our daily lives. In my life literal water doesn’t become literal wine. Neither do people climb out of graves, but as a pastor I see the dead come to life each day. And, more, the thirst you and I have for God we find quenched in the good news of Jesus Christ. The story of Jesus, a wedding, abundant water, and the taste of delicious wine teases out where this good news is transforming my life, yours, and our lives together as a congregation. So, no, I am not interested in whether Jesus turned water into wine on the literal level although I will be the first to say I like the earthiness of it. I like the image of Jesus being joyful and exuberant. I like the idea of Jesus being the type of friend you could enjoy sharing a drink with. I like the picture of Jesus in this text: a man who was not an ascetic but a world-affirming person with a zest for life. I’ll go even further. I like the naughty image of Jesus and his friends possibly being the prime reasons his mother exclaimed: “They have no more wine!” No, for me the purpose of the story isn’t a low-budget miracle about turning water into wine. For one thing, thinking Christians will realize this is a story from John’s gospel and therefore is not intended to be a daily diary of the goings on in Jesus’ life but a highly symbolic presentation of how God is disclosing Godself through Jesus. A member of the Wednesday noon Bible Study hit the nail on the head when he said, “It doesn’t make sense that John would begin the story of Jesus’ ministry with such a trivial act as turning water into wine.” Bingo. What is the real miracle of this story? I think it has something to do with tasting grace and no more fearing that you can exhaust the supply nor surpass its delicious bouquet. One other big issue is that John’s gospel clearly will present the superiority of Christianity over Judaism. But--and this is huge--you must remember John was primarily written to Jews who had become followers of Jesus and therefore reflects the hostility between Jews loyal to the synagogue and Jews who had become disciples of Jesus by the time the first century ended. Today, we Christians have to back away from claims of superiority to Judaism. We have to avoid any appearance of being anti-Semitic. It was one thing to talk about superiority of your religious beliefs in the social context where you don’t hold any political power, like first century Christians, but it is entirely different to do so if you are the majority culture. The 20th century revealed through the Holocaust the evil of a Christianity that teaches it has replaced Judaism. So let’s handle these texts of John and others in the New Testament carefully. We don’t want to diminish our Jewish friends of God. Let the gospel of John and the other gospels convert us in the churches--us who are in the pulpits and the pews. Let’s let the New Testament work on us and not set up our non-Christian neighbors. We in the Church, no matter if it is Roman Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal or Presbyterian, we are the ones who need to become drunk as a skunk with Jesus’ grace. Ask yourself where you prefer innocence over grace. There is where the power of this text can convert. We say, “It is not my fault. I didn’t do anything. Don’t blame me.” Do you see the danger of cultivating innocence? It makes you drunk with denial. You can’t see the truth of your actions and your words. You can’t see the reality of your relationships, how they are being wounded even destroyed, how the pursuance of innocence is blurring your relationships and making them as imaginary as the drunk’s pink elephants. Seeking the purity of innocence prohibits us from taking responsibility for our lives. It’s painful to admit we have hurt someone. It frightens us to see ourselves clearly, to confess our culpability. If we stop blaming others and seeing them as the source of our unhappiness, then we suddenly are left with seeing the truth of our own lives. Seeing this truth is too frightening because deep inside all of us are feelings of inadequacy and emptiness. Remember the first Christians reading and pondering John’s gospel were mostly Jewish in religious background. They knew that according to the religious rules only a cup of water was needed for the rite of purification. This religious ritual of washing with water was how to restore innocence in one’s life, how to stay off the unclean list. The rules stated that a cup of water was sufficient to purify one hundred people. But in the story of the six stone jars, we realize there are over a hundred gallons of water, enough water to purify the entire world. John is adroitly symbolizing the incredibly good news that there is always more mercy in God than sin in any of us. Jesus is the purifying living water that can cleanse the whole world. It is an inexhaustible supply. What’s more self-cleansing is not called for; instead cleansing grace is being offered. Not only is the life of Jesus the inexhaustible source of cleansing, but the writer of John is saying that the life of Jesus transforms as well as purifies. Not only is there more mercy in God than sin in any of us, but this love of God being offered in Jesus has the miraculous power to transform our lives into the festive, bubbly, joyful lives intoxicated with God’s loving grace. For me, the truth of the story of turning water into wine isn’t about how I make myself look clean by following religious rules and playing psychological and social games to make me look innocent in comparison to others, but it is about the daily and weekly celebration of God’s inexhaustible and transforming love in Jesus. Instead of waking up believing we can never do enough to have the right to be alive and therefore spending the gift of the day caught up in seeking innocence as a way to look pure, we must remember that there is more than enough of God’s delicious wine being offered to us so that on any given day, we can with God’s help mend our ways, make repairs to our relationships, and deeply enjoy the taste of life, even eternal life! |
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