January 17, 2016

Susan Adams

Epiphany 2     Isaiah 62;1-7     John 2 1-12

Video available on YouTube, Facebook

It is deeply ironic that today, the Gospel reading challenges us with an embarrassing situation at the very outset of Jesus' ministry – at a wedding. We, of the Anglican Church, are challenged in our own time in history with our own embarrassing situation – also in relation to weddings! It seems that once more there was a choice to be made between enabling the embarrassment to grow through inaction or doing something albeit reluctantly. This time the decision appears to have erred on the side of the status quo and tradition – perhaps the Primates lacked the urging of a justice focussed woman like Mary to empower them as she did Jesus in the face of his reluctance to act at the wedding in Cana. In the story John tells, of when Jesus was challenged by his Mother to do something about the embarrassing situation his family faced by having insufficient wine to appropriately celebrate the joy of a wedding, he used the resources to hand. Those resources were, according to John, 6 large jars of water set aside for the traditional Jewish purification ritual. Jesus, we are told in the story, turns them into the best wine, much more than sufficient for joyous celebration: Jesus chose action over inaction, love over ritual, joy over embarrassment.

It would seem the Primates, the leaders of our Anglican church, have chosen tradition over joy, and a spurious veneer of unity over justice-making love: They have opted at this time to uphold ' the tradition of marriage as only between a man and a woman, in faithful life-long union' and not to accept the loving commitments of people of the same sex. (If there are any of you who would like to talk about this outcome of the Primates meeting in Lambeth this past week I will be available at morning tea time.)

I want to reflect a little more on embarrassing situations and their implications for us and for our ministries and for our witness as a church...

Most of us have been to a wedding and to a wedding 'breakfast' – great time of celebration and an opportunity to catch up with family and friends.

But have you ever thought of complaining to the host because they have failed to provide you with enough wine or food?

Probably not! you might just have whispered to your neighbour! You would probably not have wanted to embarrass your host.

The wedding in Cana, the location of today's Gospel story, is much like most weddings we are familiar with – perhaps the exception being that the marriage was probably arranged by the families – but apart from that, there would be an abundance of relatives present, some friends, and the best wine and food that the host could afford. And then, as today, everyone would be on their best behaviour and trying hard not to offend truculent cousins or provoke uncles who had imbibed a little too much. In other words trying to avoid embarrassing situations, and trying to avoid drawing attention to ourselves on account of embarrassing behaviour.

But how dreadfully embarrassing for the host if what they had provided, most likely the best they could, was insufficient for the guests - not enough to go round.

We can empathise with that feeling of embarrassment. I do, in respect of the current situation the Primates decision has brought us to ... What we can now provide is insufficient to celebrate the joy of love for a significant number of people. It is embarrassing for us here at St Matthews, as it was for the family in Cana, – for them it was shameful, disrespectful to their guests, a significant 'loss of face'. It would have been something to be talked about for years: "Remember that dreadful wedding when 'Dāvid' didn't provide enough wine... it was truly awful, everyone was whispering, the bride and groom were mortified ..." For us ... I wonder what people will be saying as we proclaim the love of God – but only for some and not others, and as we appear to prioritise our political games over the wellbeing of the earth.

It is perhaps, surprising that it is a wedding with an embarrassing situation that John uses to launch Jesus into his public ministry.

For John there are no shepherds on hillsides or angels or virgin birth, or journeys, no 'stories' from the childhood of Jesus. Instead, in the Prologue to his Gospel ('In the beginning was the logos, the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God'), John displays his capacity for holding together both a Greek and a Jewish perspective in a way that might not have been readily understood by his hearers any more than it is readily understood by us today. But, like us, all who heard the verses of the prologue, Greeks or Jew, would be in no doubt it meant something important. A biblical scholar noted many years ago that "[John] has his feet firmly planted in two worlds: that of the Old Testament and of Hellenistic philosophy... At every important point he has not only two thoughts instead of one, but two sets of allusions in mind." [i]

Having established his belief in the prologue that the Christ, identified in Jesus, is now 'knowable' in this world, John moves straight to the adult Jesus and then this, the wedding situation.

We could readily jump in to examining the allusions as many have done before us and focus on the bridegroom or the householder, the significance of six jars, or the turning of the water set aside for the purification rites into an over abundance of the best vintage wine thus drawing out the wonder of God's provision. And this is very tempting in the light of the recent turn of events! But I want to focus on the embarrassing nature of the situation. I want do this because in every instance of the 'seven signs' that this Gospel writer presents us with, Jesus is located in a context we can recognise and with a dilemma we can readily identify! The dilemma at the wedding is the first, and Jesus seems to be a bit grumpy judging by the way he spoke to his mother! According the story it would seem that, the by now, middle aged Mary is trying to save her kinsfolk from the embarrassment of not providing enough wine to celebrate the fullness of joy that this situation requires (all Jews would get this OT link), she want Jesus to do something about it.

Jesus on the other hand, tries to distance himself and asks "Woman, what's it to do with me?" (He doesn't seem to want to interfere and is a bit curt with his Mother). Mary doesn't try to argue or convince him, she simply tells the steward to do as he says! And, according to the story teller they end up with an overabundance of good wine, between 470 and 700 litres!

So what are we to make of it all? What is this sign, the first of John's signs, all about. John seems to want his hearers to come to awareness that signs of God are present in everyday situations – even a somewhat raucous wedding party, he seems to want us to be aware that Jesus ministry activity points to that – God in the midst of life – and that to be about God's work of love and justice we have to do something.

So, we have the embarrassment of insufficient being provided, a Jewish mother giving her adult son a bit of a push to do something about it, and a reluctant man saying 'it's got nothing to do with me' and trying to avoid doing anything!

By now I think you will be able to guess where I am going with this!

It seems to me we are in the middle of an embarrassing situation: prioritising moralistic judgements over love, over starving children, over climate change and the health of our fragile planet earth, over lack of safety and dry housing. It seems traditions that judge and limit love have priority in our institutions over facing up to fear and violence, religious bigotry, unsafe hospitals, exploitation of workers .... and the list goes on. It is truly reprehensible that the people of our world have to cope with all this – we should be greatly embarrassed about it. But ask yourself, how many times you have echoed the words of Jesus in this story and asked "What has this to do with me?" We can all wonder that, and, most likely, we all ask ourselves what we can do that will make any difference – the situation seems beyond us. And we are probably wondering what we can do about the decision of the Primates. Perhaps we need a mother like Mary who says "Go on, do something, you can avoid shame falling on this generation."

It seems to me that, like Jesus, we have spent time getting ready, resourcing ourselves, and we know full well we should be embarrassed by what is going on. But, we need the push that says

'You, yes you can do something to bring a change to all this!'

• Perhaps it is the vision of a world of abundance that we need to proclaim;

• perhaps it is learning to allow confidence not fear to influence our decision making;

• perhaps it is to insist that sharing not hoarding shapes our social values;

• perhaps it is simply learning to respect those who are different from ourselves, not stereotyping our neighbours, or limiting love.

While we might not be able to change water into wine so to speak, we can change fear into love, anger into actions for positive change, power-over into peace, and hoarding into sharing.

We can do these things immediately in our personal attitudes, we can testify to them in our conversations, we can demand them in our engagement in public forums and political decisions.

Indeed, we need to be about God's work of ensuring the abundance of the earth is shared, we need to be about the work of Christ in loving and respecting others, we need to be about the work of the spirit of life bringing hope in a better and less embarrassing future;

we need to be witnessing to the God of life in our living.

[i] R. P. Casey, Journal of Theological Studies 9 (1958): 270.