Scripture/Sermon of the Day. January 16, 2022

John 2:1-11

From Water to Wine
1-3 Three days later there was a wedding in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there. Jesus and his disciples were guests also. When they started running low on wine at the wedding banquet, Jesus’ mother told him, “They’re just about out of wine.”
4 Jesus said, “Is that any of our business, Mother—yours or mine? This isn’t my time. Don’t push me.”
5 She went ahead anyway, telling the servants, “Whatever he tells you, do it.”
6-7 Six stoneware water pots were there, used by the Jews for ritual washings. Each held twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus ordered the servants, “Fill the pots with water.” And they filled them to the brim.
8 “Now fill your pitchers and take them to the host,” Jesus said, and they did.
9-10 When the host tasted the water that had become wine (he didn’t know what had just happened but the servants, of course, knew), he called out to the bridegroom,“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.” 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

Reflection/Sermon
:
I. This story of Jesus at the wedding in the village of Cana in Galilee is only in the Gospel of John. In the other three gospels, Jesus started out his ministry healing people and casting out demons. Not here. Although — it seems like actually — Jesus was not ready to begin his ministry. His mother wanted him to but when she asked him to help these people out — these wedding hosts — he snapped at her: “OH MOM!!! NOT NOW!!!! WOULD YOU GIVE ME A BREAK FOR GOD SAKE!!!!”

II. How embarrassing! Mary was such the stereotypical Jewish mother — acting as if her son were God or something. The wedding host was running out of wine and the party had barely started. What was Jesus going to do? Make a quick run to the wine store and save the day? Well — whatever it was, Jesus wasn’t happy.
After Jesus told her “It’s not my time — leave me alone!” she ignored him and told the servants, “Don’t mind mister grumpy over there. He’ll help you — just go to him and do whatever he says.”

III. Actually — that’s really all the advice any of us need. Mary said it: “Go to him and whatever he tells you — do it.” We don’t need anything more than that.
The problem is — sometimes it seems like we do need more than that. Because even though Jesus says: “Love one another.” Sometimes the love isn’t happening. Sometimes try to do the right and loving thing — BUT THE WINE’S NOT THERE — THE WINE HAS RUN OUT! And all that’s there is the anger or frustration or disappointment. The wine runs out.

IV. Almost 60 years ago — August 28, 1963 — Martin Luther King, Jr. was giving the most important speech of his life, in front of 250,000 people in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. He was giving a speech and he was running out of wine, and he knew it, and the people around him knew it. It was still a good speech — even on a bad day, King could do better than most speakers. But on this important day, he knew the WINE WAS RUNNING OUT.
He’d prepared exactly what he wanted to say but the words were not taking off, not soaring like they often did. He was using the metaphor of a bank promissory note and the note for justice and equality becoming due. He ended his prepared speech, telling people: “Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our modern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.” That was supposed to be the end.
King could feel that the people wanted more — that he wanted to give them more — but that’s all he had — the wine had run out.

V. And then someone yelled out from the audience. Not just someone, but one of the greatest Gospel singers of all time, Mahalia Jackson. Like she knew the problem, she could feel it — she knew THE WINE HAD RUN OUT — and she hollered from the audience: “TELL THEM ABOUT THE DREAM MARTIN — TELL THEM ABOUT THE DREAM!!!”
It was like a bolt of lightning flashed in the sky. Suddenly everything changed. You couldn’t see it but in that moment Martin Luther King the public speaker walked off the stage — and now here comes Martin Luther King the Baptist preacher. THE DREAM — it was a message he’d given before, but in a church. Well why not? Now King would bring this huge crowd of 250,000 people to church. He put away his prepared text and he said:
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you, my friends, we have the difficulties of today and tomorrow. I STILL HAVE A DREAM…. Deeply rooted in the American Dream — I have a dream….and the words flew out of his mouth, they soared — they went like an arrow to people’s hearts.
Right there, before everyone’s eyes, people saw it and felt it — the water of a nice speech was turned into the wine of God’s message of love and hope.

VI. When we walk with Jesus, every day is a wedding feast. And there are moments when it feels like the wine is running out, as frustration grows, as the country divides, as virus spreads, as the prices rise, as the days seem to drag on — there are times when it feels like the wine is running out.
And in these times we need to remember the tenacity and the wisdom and the grace of Mary, the mother of Jesus, because she speaks to us in these moments. She says: “Go to my son, go to Jesus — and whatever he says — do it.”
And Jesus will turn the water of our desperation and weariness into the wine of hope and new possibilities and love.