Our Gospel today is the first part of the second chapter of the Gospel of John. And I’d like to begin by recalling some of the things that are said in the FIRST chapter of the Gospel of John, about Jesus, his cosmic significance, and his mission in the world.
Will someone read quote 1? …
1. “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
2. “The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”
3. “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!… I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”
4. “We have found the Messiah!” “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
So, we have all that. And then: this happens. Immediately. As Jesus’ FIRST act of power, almost his first public appearance, in John’s Gospel, he steps in to save a faltering party.
Contrast this with Luke’s Gospel. After Jesus is baptized, he takes some alone time in the wilderness.
Then he goes to the synagogue in Nazareth, reads from the prophet Isaiah – “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives,… to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour” – and then, with everyone staring at him, announces, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
In many ways that would be a much more suitable follow up to the first chapter of John than what actually happens here! Instead, Jesus’ first semi-public miracle in John’s Gospel is almost trivial.
He’s at a wedding, and they’re running short on wine, and HEAVEN FORFEND that everyone should just stop drinking, or go home! So…
There’s definitely a juxtaposition between the big, prophecy-fulfilling, cosmos-redeeming expectations of Jesus in chapter 1, and this story. What does John want us to notice or think about the Messiah he introduces here?
Our Sunday readings follow a calendar called the Revised Common Lectionary. It’s a three year cycle, and each year our Gospel readings mostly come from one of the Gospels, the books of the Bible that focus on the life of Jesus. But there are FOUR Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew, Mark, and Luke each get a year; John is sort of scattered randomly around. And that’s not great – you may have heard me complain about it before! – because John is the most different of the four Gospels, and in some ways the most difficult. And getting his Gospel in little random chunks makes it hard for us to get familiar with his distinctive voice and witness.
We might gather that John’s Gospel is cosmic – In the beginning was the Word – and profound, and sometimes hard to understand.
But we might miss, for example, that John’s Gospel is often funny. It’s hard to peel away our preconceptions and hear the humor!
But there are many parts of John’s Gospel that I’m quite certain are intentionally funny. And this is one of them. Let’s talk through the story…
Soon after Jesus starts to gather disciples, followers, there’s a wedding in a nearby town, in Cana. Jesus’ mother was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. So, presumably the couple has already been married, and this is essentially the reception – everyone’s eating and drinking and celebrating together. Then the wine gives out. Did the hosts miscalculate – or try to scrimp? Anyone who’s planned a wedding knows that the alcohol budget can be a big issue!
Wine was a common drink in the ancient Near East. Water wasn’t really safe to drink, and people probably just didn’t really drink water. (I’ve had friends from Africa who think it’s kind of an amusing quirk that Americans drink water all the time!) In the biblical context, wine had various symbolic and ritual uses and meanings, but it was also just kind of what people drank, with a meal or at a celebration. The Bible also talks about drunkenness and bad choices made under the influence of alcohol; people understood the pitfalls, to some extent, though it’s hard to find our modern understandings of addiction and recovery, here.
Anyway: there’s a wedding reception, and the wine gives out. It’s like if the chocolate fountain ran dry, or the shrimp canapé tray was empty! It threatens to cut the celebration short – no party food, no party. And it reflects badly on the hosts. It might make them seem either poor or stingy, and nobody wants that reputation.
Jesus’ mother – John doesn’t use her name, but we know her as Mary – gets wind of the situation, and she goes to find Jesus. She tells him, “They have no wine.”
There’s a lot we could unpack from those four words. Why does she come to him with this problem? He’s just a guest at the party, like her. One amusing possibility is that she blames him and his friends for the situation. The text says Jesus and his disciples were invited, but maybe the hosts didn’t really expect Jesus to show up with this scraggly pack of hangers-on. And maybe Jesus and his crew are drinking more than their share. There are hints in several of the Gospels that Jesus took some criticism for enjoying a good meal and a fine wine – not being ascetic as befit a wandering radical rabbi. You’re supposed to, like, subsist on locusts and wild honey and acai berries, or something.
So Maybe Mary thinks Jesus owes it to the host to help out, here. But regardless of whether that’s the case: she knows he could help if he wanted to. There’s a clear implication here that she has seen him do various lesser miracles over the years as his mother. Wouldn’t you love to know more? We have one story from an early Christian document called the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, probably written in the mid-second century: Jesus as a little boy is sculpting birds out of mud from a puddle. But it’s the Sabbath and this art project violates the practices of Sabbath-keeping. His father scolds him, and Jesus claps his hands; the birds come to life and fly away. This story is later than John’s Gospel, and not part of the Bible. But Mary’s confidence that Jesus could help, if he wanted to, invites us to imagine scenes like that.
Jesus doesn’t really want to. He says, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” Let’s talk briefly about how Jesus addresses his mother!
Translator David Hart says the word used here is a perfectly respectful way to address a married woman and mother. Jesus uses the same word when he speaks to his mother from the cross, and when he addresses Mary Magdalene in the garden after his resurrection, times when we might assume he’s speaking with tenderness and care. So that “Woman!” doesn’t carry the implications it would if you were to call your mom “Woman!”
That said: Jesus sounds grumpy, here. He doesn’t want to be drawn into this. He suggests that Mary is being a busybody by making this their problem: “What concern is that to you or to me?” And he also says, “My hour has not yet come.” In John’s Gospel, Jesus talks a lot about his hour. It seems to mean his crucifixion and death, as a kind of completion of his earthly work. He’s saying that it’s just not time for him to do this kind of thing yet – to start doing public acts of power that will draw attention and, soon, opposition.
But Mary completely ignores his objections – which is very funny, although possibly also a little triggering for anyone with a manipulative parent. Imagine it on a screen! – “Jesus, they’re out of wine.” “Mother! That’s not your problem, and it’s certainly not my problem. And it’s not my time yet.” [Mom grabs a passing servant:] “Do whatever he tells you.”
She knows he’ll do it. And he does.
There are six stone jars nearby, each holding twenty or thirty gallons of water. These were used for Jewish ritual washing – handwashing before meals and so on, an important part of Jewish daily practice. Later, type “stone workshop Cana archaeology” into your search engine and read about the discovery, in 2017, of an ancient stone jar factory near Cana. It’s from around the time of Jesus, during the Roman occupation of Judea and Galilee.
In Jewish law, pottery vessels could become ritually unclean and then had to be broken, but stone vessels were always ritually clean. So even though they were more expensive, they had some practical advantages. Archaeology shows that around the time of Jesus, a lot of Jewish households were using stone jars carved from a local soft white sandstone called chalkstone. So we can get a pretty good idea what those stone jars would have looked like, and even how they were made!
Jesus tells the servants, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they do. He says, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward” – presumably the servant who’s overseeing the party and the refreshments. So a servant takes some of the water-now-wine to the chief steward, and he tastes it. Then he goes to the groom, and says 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.”
This is the second intentionally funny bit of this story! I wonder how the steward says this line? Is he delighted? – hey, I thought wine was running low, but it turns out there’s still some good stuff in the back? Or is he indignant? He has responsibility for this party, and it’s a waste if the best wine has been held back until people are not really at their most discerning! Either way, I think John is playing this for laughs.
The story concludes: Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. This wasn’t really a public miracle; even the steward and the groom, let alone the other guests, don’t know what happened. The witnesses were Mary, Jesus’ disciples, and a few servants. But it made a big impression on the disciples who were there, reinforcing their belief that Jesus was somebody special, and their intention to follow him and learn from him.
What does John want us to notice or think about the Messiah he introduces here? What is he telling us about Jesus? This sermon took shape in conversation with Father Tom McAlpine, who noted the contrast between this story and the preceding chapter. And with Father John Rasmus, who suggested that this story shows that Jesus’ ministry and message is about abundance, not scarcity. Instead of drying up and shutting down, there is holy plenty, and the party goes on and on. And it’s true: Abundance is a theme, in John’s Gospel. Jesus talks about living water that bubbles up inside you like a fresh spring, so that you’ll never go thirsty; about bread from heaven, so nourishing that you’ll never be hungry. About a God who SO LOVES the world as to give Their only-begotten son, inviting us all into abundant life.
That wine, good or bad, isn’t really the point, is it? The wine is just the thing that makes it feel like people are celebrating together, in that setting. It could be that chocolate fountain, or those shrimp canapés. I have a birthday soon and I’m thinking about a party with good cheese and bread, and olives, and maybe those fancy Swedish gummy candies that are all over social media. What makes it feel like a party, a banquet, a special occasion? When Jesus is invited, he’ll make sure there’s enough of that.
Which leads me to another thought about what John’s Gospel wants us to notice about Jesus, here: Jesus cares about joy. I think we see that, too, in the funny moments throughout John’s Gospel. Laughter matters. Celebration matters. Joy matters. And I think that’s something for us to take to heart, right now.
There are a lot of reasons to be fearful, and angry, and weary. This is a heavy season of the world. And I’m not talking about denial or toxic positivity or forced gratitude. You can’t force joy.
But when a moment of joy finds you, beloveds – when something makes you laugh out loud – or you stumble into a simple moment of comfort and contentment – don’t push it away. I talk a lot about how Jesus wants us to be companions in the holy work of justice, peace, and mercy, and there will be plenty to say about that in the days ahead. But Jesus also wants our joy. So when joy shows up: welcome it. Savor it. Let it feed you. Cultivate joy, share joy, if you can. The kingdom of God is a party… and we’re all invited. Amen.