“Saving the Good Wine Until Now” - Sermon from Jan 17, 2016 - Wedding at Cana

“Saving the Good Wine Until Now”

Sermon, Epiphany 2, Year C, January 17, 2016

Plymouth United Church of Christ, Eau Claire, WI 

©2016 Rev. David J. Huber

Focus Scripture:  John 2:1-11

This is Jesus’ first miracle, his first sign. At least in John’s Gospel, this is Jesus’ first public act of announcing who he is. Jesus transforms into wine. A very domestic and ordinary event, a wedding, is taking place. A wedding, like happens all the time, and probably Jesus has been to many of them. It is curious that it is here in this very domestic and human event that Jesus chooses to declare who he is .Though he is not transforming the water into wine to be showy, or to say “hey, look at me! I’m here!” He does it simply because his friends have run out of wine. The celebration needs to have more wine, so Jesus helps his friends out. 

Turn water into wine. And not just any wine. Good wine. Really good wine! The best wine, better than the wine that had been served already. 

That’s what Jesus is there for and who he is. He helps his friends. In this case, friends in need at a wedding, as he changes water into wine.

But in this story, I don’t think the water into the wine is the only transformation that occurs. It’s pretty impressive, and certainly outside anyone’s experience. But he also transforms a party and celebration that was in danger of failing. He turns a party disaster into a party saving. He has saved the party from disintegrating, which is a kind of transformation, to change the mood of the event and make people happy. 

Another transformation is of his heart. As I read the text, I think that he transforms his heart. First he rebukes his mom. “I don’t care.” But he goes ahead and does it anyway. This is his first public act, and he doesn’t want to do it. He says, “My time has not come.” He is rude to his mom about it. But he does it. It reminds me of another time when Jesus asks the question about Who is more faithful: the one who say “yes” but doesn’t, or the one who says “no” and does?

Jesus says, “I don’t want to do it.” But then he does. His heart is transformed there for whatever reason. I think it was his love for his friends, or perhaps even his love for his mother, driven by compassion or honor. His heart is transformed and he helps his friends, exceeding even what his friend needs and the design specifications his mom requested. He makes not just wine, but really good wine.

I think it is fitting that his first public act, his first sign, is a transformation. I think that’s what Jesus is about: transformation. He transforms people; transforms lives. Transforming from a sense of self-doubt, unworth, being on the outside, feeling unloved, to say “You are loved. You are people of God.” Changing, transforming hearts and lives.

Last Sunday we read of the wise men following the star to Jesus. The wise men who came from way in the east. These foreign men who would not have been of the Jewish faith or the Jewish heritage. Far removed. They saw the sign, the star, whatever that was, and the followed it to Jesus. In the sermon last week I asked the questions, “What star do YOU follow? What star do WE follow?” Do we follow the star of Jesus, or the star of something else?

I hope that your star is Jesus. That you are always moving toward Jesus, following in his ways. that star, to follow his ways, Following that star of Jesus that we may be transformed into more whole people and communities of justice. 

We follow Jesus because Jesus is the man who transforms. He transformed water into wine. And Jesus, the one who can transform ordinary people into his disciples back then, and also now in 2016. Jesus is still transforming ordinary people - that’s us! - into disciples, into followers. Jesus, the one who can transform the grieving into the comforted; the poor in spirit into sharers in God’s realm; the meek into earth-inheritors; the oppressed into the free. 

If he can change his own heart, then I think he can change ours. He is all about compassion. His friends at the wedding have a need and Jesus has compassion, love, whatever, and helps. Jesus has that radical grace that compels him to turn water into wine because his friends are in need. And like I said, not just into any wine, but into really good wine. Superior wine. And he can make us into really good disciples as well. We ordinary human beings transformed into people of mercy, compassion, love, hope. That’s what we do when we gather as a church on Sundays when we come together to worship, or when we gather for other reasons. Part of what we are doing is training each other to be disciples. We are showing each other what the life of discipleship looks like. We teach one another how to be more faithful and better followers of Jesus. 

Jesus also can transform our hopelessness, our grieving, our self-doubts, our sense of guilt or shame or whatever it is that spiritually plagues us. Jesus can transform that into forgiveness, wholeness, hope, by reminding us that we’re loved. By showing us that we are loved. And by urging us to love others. Wherever we are on our journey, whatever we have done or not done, whatever others have done to us, we are all God’s people. We are all God’s beloved people, never left alone, never abandoned, God always present with us. That is also what we do when we gather as the church: to remind one another that we are loved. To share a hug of comfort to the grieving or in joy at a reunion. To pray for one another. To visit the sick. To make a phone call when someone is hurting. To encourage someone to be more faithful, or to share a talent that we see in them, or to take a leadership that we see them capable of doing. To support one another. To remind us that we are God’s people. 

The business of the church is transformation which is done through worship, hearing the word in scripture and sermons and the prayers of the liturgy, through study, but also transformation by practicing being a disciple. By doing acts of mercy, acts of love, by showing compassion, by being what Jesus would have us be. 

Jesus transformed the water into wine at the wedding feast was a way of saying, “With me your cup will always be full.” Think of Psalm 23, “My cup overflows.” Jesus turning water into wine here, this early in the Gospel of John, is also the author setting up what will happen at the end of the Gospel. Another meal that involved wine, which was the last supper that Jesus had with his friends. Jesus took the bread and transformed it, not literally but symbolically, into his body, into himself, saying “As you are nourished by this bread, it is also you being nourished by me, my presence, my word.” Even the ordinary bread of life is transformed into the capital letter Bread of Life, which is a term used for Jesus. Jesus also transforms the wine into the sign of the new covenant of forgiveness, the covenant of new life and assurance of God’s unstoppable love. He transforms water into wine at this wedding at Cana, and then years later at a meal with his disciples he transforms wine into the remembrance that we are loved, that we have a covenant with God for new life that is not a life of judgment and condemnation, but a rebirth into new life as an expansion into God’s realm. 

That is the transformative power of Jesus’ way. We follow in his way by being who Jesus asks us to be. But I think it is also by accepting what Jesus has done and does for us, by accepting the forgiveness, love, and mercy, and Jesus’ gift of new life. I think we can too often hesitate to accept it for ourselves even as we accept in and for others. Accept what Jesus has done for you. Accept that power of transformation to take whatever spiritually plagues you and let it go. It’s okay. You don’t have to be some special person to let go of the guilt, shame, self-doubt, whatever it is. You don’t have to hold on to it. You don’t need to make others hold on to theirs, either. 

We here in the church point to the star that is Jesus. As the wise men followed their star to Jesus, hopefully are following the star of Jesus. Hopefully you are following Jesus. We symbolize that on Sundays when we light the Christ candle. It is a sign, a reminder, that Jesus is here and is present in this gathering of his people. Then at the end of worship the acolyte carries the flame out, to say “Worship is done, now follow the light of Jesus out the door of the church and into the community, into the Chippewa Valley, to be God’s people outside these walls as much as you are inside them. Go be Jesus’ disciples into a broken world to transform people’s lives.”

We all have that power to transform through the power of the Holy Spirit. We can be people who transform other people’s lives as well as our own.

I give you a task this week. Find some time this week, by spending your week being mindful and aware, looking for an opportunity, looking for a moment (especially if it’s a moment where you would rather not, because there is some benefit sometimes to that extra level of sacrifice, like Jesus saying, “No, I don’t want to do it mom… okay, I will.”), where you can let the Holy Spirit help you get out of yourself and transform someone’s water into wine. To transform someone’s watery day into the wine of a better day, because that’s what we’re called to do. What Jesus does for us, we can do for others. And we can accept it for us as well. We can do that because we follow the one who has saved the good wine until now. 

Amen.