Kendall's Notebook page 19
Sermon: “There’s Something Else Going On”
By: Kendall Brown
Text: John 2: 1-11
Date: January 18, 2004
One evening, a couple came to the parsonage to talk with me about their wedding plans. I visited with them in my study, which was adjacent to the living room and separated from the living room by a closed door. For nearly an hour while talking with the couple, I was constantly nagged by the strong sense that I didn’t have their entire attention. It even seemed at times that they were snickering, although the humor was totally lost on me. “There has to be something else going on here!” I suspected. I did not know that my two year old daughter was on the other side of the living room door to which the back of my chair was turned. The couple were constantly looking beyond me to see a set of evening glove fingers sliding in and out under the door as my daughter amused herself and my visitors with this distraction. There was something else going on!
John begins his story about Jesus’ ministry with a wedding tale. One should get the hint right off quick that something else is going on here by the simple fact that Jesus is around food. Jesus is always eating. He must have been a pre-charter member of Christ Church. Whenever Jesus is around food, something else is going on. On a mountainside, he fed thousands. In friends home, he brought the good news of God’s love for all. In an upper room, he had a last supper that has been reenacted every week by Christians ever since. In Emmaus, he was recognized by his discouraged followers at a meal. Along the shore, he ate a breakfast of fish with his disciples and assured them that he was alive forever. There was always something else going on with Jesus around food. Today’s lesson is no exception.
The first thing going on in today’s lesson from John is that Mary knows that her son can take care of the impending crisis before it even happens. Here, she knows something about which others are unaware. The four Gospels tell us nothing about Jesus’ adolescence and early adulthood. In the Gospels about eighteen years of his life are left unaccounted. No note is made of any event from his presentation in the temple when he was twelve until his appearance at the River Jordan to be baptized when he was thirty.
In early Christian folklore and legend, which didn’t make its way into the Gospels, there are some stories that still linger about Jesus’ early adult years. According to them, Jesus was a handy person to have around the home and shop. His father was a carpenter and probably knew the old rule of thumb for carpentry – “Measure twice, cut once.” According to one ancient legend, if Joseph cut a little short or a little long, all the young Jesus had to do was touch the board and it was just the perfect fit. If this legend was true, it was natural for Mary to know that Jesus could take care of the wine problem at the wedding. He had been fixing things around the house for years.
There was something else going on at the wedding. We usually think of this story as a one-miracle deal. But closer examination tells us that there might have been two miracles here. First there is that little business of turning water into wine. This reminds me of an old story. There is another miracle in this story besides the wine. In the yard were six stone water jars that Jesus ordered to be filled. Here, we need to go back in time and remember what life was like in those old Palestinian villages. There were no outdoor faucets to be had around the yard, neither was there any indoor plumbing. If you wanted water, you had to go to the well, usually located outside the village walls. We are talking about six stone water jars each capable of holding up to 150 gallons of water apiece. Each jar alone would have taken four or five muscular men to carry, and filled with water would have been immovable. If water had been carried to the jars in smaller containers, it still would have taken the local synagogue youth group a day or two to do the job. All of a sudden, the jars were filled to overflowing.
There is something else going on here. The jars were specifically used in Jewish purification rites – rites of cleansing, reconciliation, healing and preparation for admission to the community. The purification jars were empty, unable to slack anyone’s spiritual thirst or fill anyone’s spiritual emptiness. We are being reminded that the old religion no longer holds. There is already at work among the people a new source of spiritual food in the Christ himself who is one of the guests. The jars stand for rituals, rites, traditions, customs, habits and empty formalities. The new wine is found not in those acts of religion but in a relationship, a relationship with the living lord who calls one to a living faith and who through the relationship will provide one with all the food and wine, even more than enough, for what one needs.
There is something else going on. This story is not about miracles. Even though miracles are in the story, they are not the subject, nor the meaning, of the story. John’s intent is to tell about the signs that Jesus gave at the wedding to his disciples that pointed to his passion. The new wine that would replace the worn out ritual would be his blood. The wedding feast was but an earthly foretaste of the heavenly banquet feast in the time to come. The time that had not yet come to which Jesus pointed would be the cross and the resurrection. The wedding was on the third. On another third day there would be another celebration, a new covenant between heaven and earth.
There was something else going on at the wedding. Something even bigger than miracles. All that happened was a sign pointing to who Jesus was and what he would be doing.
The only persons in the story who saw the signs were the disciples. The steward saw the miracle, but he, like all the rest of the wedding party and guests, did not see the signs. The signs were seen through the eyes of faith by those whose lives were being shaped and transformed by the presence of Christ among them.
The reality of Christ’s life is always present, but not always seen by all. He is present in times of joy and in times of pain. He is present in relationships that hurt and in relationships that inspire. He is present in the dark moments of sickness and death and he is present in the bright moments of health. Those who live in relationship with him see the signs. To them that which is invisible to the rest of the world is as plain as day.
There was something else going on at the wedding. Weddings are joyous occasions. The air is filled with merriment and celebration. Weddings are party times with bands and music, cake and sparklers, gifts and dressing up. Yet in the middle of the joyous wedding scene stands a metaphor in today’s lesson. The central metaphor is that of emptiness. Empty jars and diminishing supplies threaten to ruin the day.
The metaphor of emptiness is so aptly expressed by the statement, “the wine has run out.” The wine can run out in so many ways. We go to the doctor and hear the worst. The wine of health has run out. We struggle in a relationship but are at the point where there is nothing left in us to pour out. The marriage started out bright and full of hope, but years later and after much battering, the wine has run out. Is it possible that something else might be going on. When the wine has run out, is it possible someplace very close by, there might be vessels filled to the brim with new wine and even more, the best wine.
Even in the bleakest times there is something more than just the emptiness. Alex was a parishioner who became a good friend of mine. The wine ran out several times over for him. First, there was his battle with addiction, which he finally licked but only after the toll had been taken on self and family. When I first moved to his church, he was a very peripheral member, one I only occasionally glimpsed in the margins of the community. Perhaps, he felt he belonged in the sidelines. His job was in the cemetery opening graves and mowing the lawns, a job that might be seen as far removed from the good wines as far as jobs go.
Then the wine really ran out. He went to the doctor for a check up. It was one of those days when the sun stands still, and then goes backwards. The doctor told him that he had lymphoma and gave him a year or less to live.
One of his first battles with his disease was with the cancer that moved into his back. He had to have surgery that put him on a striker board for about two months. The striker board is a torture machine found in hospitals where the patient is strapped to a board that leaves the patient immobile. The board is attached to a couple wheels on each end and every six hours or so the nurses come in and turn the wheels so the patient is turned over from being on his back to being on his stomach, still attached firmly to the boards.
One day, I went in to see Alex. The next day, I was leaving for England for two months of my sabbatical. I remember well Alex talking to me as he looked at me in
a mirror on the floor below his down-turned head. The wine was running out. He told me to have a good time in England and to not worry about him. He said that when I got back, he would be waiting for me and not only that was going to work for me.
And that he did. He had to give up his job in the cemetery. But every day he was at the church finding something to do in the office or in the building. He became a Deacon and led the church into a deeper spirituality. He was present every Sunday, even some when he had to drag himself through the effects of chemo and radiation. He had stories and jokes to tell. Alex fooled the doctors. He lived another five years and during those years became the soul of his church, inspiring all with his courage, faith and determination.
When the wine ran out for Alex, he found the new wine in Christ. During his last five years, he lived a life that was filled to the brim. The hope in today’s lesson is that always, ever so close, the new wine, the new life of Christ is present. I also think there is one final lesson to be mentioned. When Jesus had the problem of diminishing wine supplies brought to him, he turned to his friends. People who find the new wine find it among Jesus’ friends in the community and fellowship of the church. That wine poured out in Cana years ago is still available for pouring out for you today in the fellowship and community of the church. Even when the win runs out, there is always something else going on!