January 19, 2025
2nd Sunday after Epiphany
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 beautiful crown 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
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 me and to you? 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 person in charge of the banquet.” So they took it. When the person in charge tasted the water that had become wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), that person 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.
Recall, for a moment, any experiences you’ve had planning weddings, especially in the last 25 years or so. Or perhaps you stood at a safe distance and watched someone else experience planning a wedding. Would you describe those experiences as restful? Easy? Not overly laden with anxiety and emotion at all? Probably not. Weddings are incredibly meaningful, joyous occasions AND they can create quite a bit of stress in those who are doing the planning.
Now weddings in Jesus’s day certainly weren’t what weddings are today, but I think in both settings it would really be problematic to run out of food and beverages for your guests. Not because your guests really needed more, but because it says something about you — your lack of preparation, your miscalculation, your unwillingness, perhaps, to do what is needed to be done (to spend what is needed to be spent) in order to ensure that there is not just enough but more than enough.
It’s also problematic to run out, because it says something about what your guests mean (or don’t mean) to you. If you truly cherished them and were exceedingly grateful for their presence at your wedding, you would have made sure that there was more than enough of everything they could possibly need in order to come, and stay, and celebrate with you.
We don’t really know anything about the bride and groom in this wedding at Cana, nor do we know who was in charge of making sure there was more than enough wine to satisfy all their guests. But we do know Jesus was there, along with his mother. And we know that Mary not only noticed that the wine had run out but was troubled enough by this situation that she turned to Jesus to do something about it.
And Jesus, even though he didn’t really think it was time yet to show the world who he was, acted in response to his mother’s unspoken request. And not just the bare minimum either. Jesus went all out. Six stone water jars. Twenty or thirty gallons each. Let’s just say 25 for ease of math. That’s 150 gallons of wine — excellent wine – that Jesus offered in response to that perceived scarcity. Let’s say 5 bottles of wine equate to a gallon. That’s 750 bottles of wine — the best wine served during that entire wedding celebration. It’s an absurd amount, intended, I believe, to shock us into awareness of the ridiculous abundance that is part of who Jesus is. There’s nothing small in what he offers the world. Nothing that just scrapes by. Nothing that would suggest we don’t mean everything to God.
Our reading from Isaiah puts it this way, “The Lord delights in you.” Yes, that was a word spoken long ago to the people of Israel, people who were trying to rebuild their lives after a devastating experience of terror, captivity, and exile. But it’s also a word spoken to us today, we who are confronted every day with situations that might have us questioning God’s goodness, God’s faithfulness, God’s love for this world.
Like Mary, we notice and are troubled enough to tell Jesus what we’re seeing and experiencing – wildfires destroying homes and lives, groceries and prescription drugs that are far too expensive, people without resources to escape the bitter cold, more and more severe weather events, leaders whose concern is the bottom line and not the common good, senseless fighting, school shootings, an ever growing gap between the wealthiest and everybody else, a mental health crisis in our country coupled with a shortage of mental health providers, congregations dwindling and faced with an uncertain future; the list goes on and on.
We turn to Jesus in prayer. We ask for hope and healing. We lift up to God our dearest loved ones and the global neighbors we will never meet. We recognize that we cannot, by our own strength or power, fix any of this, but we also can’t close the eyes of our hearts and pretend everything is okay. So, what then?
Pastor Timothy Adkins-Jones, writing for workingpreacher.org, offers a compelling reflection on Inauguration Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day happening on the same day, tomorrow, for only the second time in our nation’s history. He writes, “In this moment we are…called to preach the blessed inadequacy of our political institutions to bring about God’s will. Regardless of how we feel about the candidate being inaugurated, the overlay of these two events calls us to clarify exactly where we put our hope and what Kingdom we are proclaiming. While our country’s political parties and systems provide means for enacting policies and laws that we believe will make life more just for our communities, the Gospel of the Kingdom of God proclaims something that could never be fulfilled at an earthly inauguration.”
https://www.workingpreacher.org/culture/preaching-the-day-before-inauguration-and-mlk-day
What Kingdom are we proclaiming?
And where exactly do we put our hope?
In the kingdom of God, as Jesus said, blessed are those who are poor, those who are hungry now, those who weep now, those who are hated, excluded, reviled and defamed on account of the Son of Man (Luke 6:20-22).
In the kingdom of God, as Mary sang, God scatters the proud and brings down the powerful from their thrones. God lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich away empty. God comes to the aid of God’s children (Luke 1:51-54).
In the kingdom of God – the kingdom we proclaim – we are not left alone to fend for ourselves. We have an option other than trying to bear the weight of the world on our shoulders or giving up entirely and pretending nothing’s wrong. God delights in us and has come to our aid. Jesus is with us. And Jesus is for us.
It is by God’s strength that we live as followers of Jesus, proclaiming the kingdom of God with our words and our lives. It is by God’s power, at work within us, that change happens, that justice prevails, that all the world is loved and fed.
We put our hope not in ourselves, not in the billionaires, not in our bishops, not in our political parties. We put our hope in God. We turn to Jesus, as Mary did, and give the burdens of our hearts and minds to him to carry and to address.
We trust that Jesus will not keep silent in the face of every scarcity that plagues our lives, but will instead show us abundant, delightful, overflowing mercy. Already, Jesus has demonstrated the depth of his love for the world, sacrificing his life for ours. And God, who refused to let death defeat his beloved ones, raised Jesus (and all of us) from the despair of the grave to the joy of eternal life. Already, God has acted, and so we trust that God will not rest until all the world is shining as brightly as dawn itself.
Thanks be to God.