Second Sunday of Epiphany

Text: John 2: 1-11

It has smashed all box office records, it is the highest-earning musical film of all time, despite the critics condemning it from the word go! It is a romantic comedy,  based on the songs of a highly successful pop group. Set on a Greek island, the young bride-to-be, Sophie, invites three of her mother’s former lovers to her wedding, in the hope that she will discover which one, is her father. The three men, along with other guests arrive on the island and eventually a wedding takes place, although it’s not Sophie’s! Love it or hate it, it is of course the film, Mamma Mia. A story set in the context of a wedding.

And, as I was thinking about this sermon, I was struck by just how many films there have been in the last few years about weddings: There’s “Four Weddings and a Funeral”, “The Wedding Date”, “The Wedding Singer”, “The Wedding Crashers”, “Muriel’s Wedding”, “My Big Fat Wedding”, “The Run Away Bride”, “The Wedding Planner” and “My Best friends Wedding”, to name just a few! Despite statistics to the contrary, with a general decline in church weddings: we still seem to be quite eager to watch weddings on DVD; well I know I am!  (So maybe, I am in the right job after all!) So, here we are at a wedding in John chapter 2:1-11! And I invite you to take up the Gospel passage, and come and explore the eleven verses we listened to together this morning.

To set the scene: at the beginning of John’s gospel: in chapter one, we’ve already been told, that the true light is coming into the world. We’ve met John the Baptist, who has identified Jesus as; the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and now we’re here in chapter two – at a wedding in Cana, central Galilee, just north of Nazareth. Presumably, it’s a wedding of a family member or very close friend of Jesus’, as he’s there with his mother and the disciples. The bridegrooms friends would have brought the bride to the grooms house and the wedding supper would have begun, and would last, - seven days!

Jesus mother is mentioned here at the beginning of the passage, (though not by name – and it’s just one of two occasions when Mary is mentioned explicitly by John – the other being at the foot of the cross) and I think here, John’s signaling, the important role Mary will play as the story at the wedding unfolds.

Then, a social disaster occurs; a complete disgrace for the groom, as the provider of the wedding banquet – the wine runs out! And it’s Mary, Jesus’ mother, who brings this catastrophe to the attention of Jesus, saying, “They have no wine” perhaps she’s hoping for her son to intervene, to resolve the embarrassment for the groom. And then we have this rather odd, response from Jesus; “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”

Now, the title “woman” may sound a bit harsh to us, but in fact, it was a common title in Jesus’ day for women. However, Jesus’ response does set a certain distance between Jesus and his mother; hinting that human ties and obligations will not influence his ministry, no, Jesus must listen to another voice – that of his heavenly father. He appears here to reject his mother’s role, but never Mary as a person; suggesting that Jesus must focus entirely on his sole purpose, that of being “the Word that became flesh and lived among us.”  And everything else is subordinate to this task. Mary – like us, must come to Jesus, not as his mother, but come to him as the Lamb of God, as John has identified him, in chapter one.

And we are not to miss too, “my hour has not yet come” John’s explicit reference to the cross, which is to come later in chapter nineteen of the gospel.  

Something else is interesting here; Mary as a women is representative of  the Gentiles, all those people previously, who were excluded from the Old Testament Jewish faith – Mary, Gentiles , all people are now to be included in the new and different faith in Jesus the messiah that has come into the world. 

Then, Mary speaks again, talking to the servants at the wedding banquet she says, “Do whatever he tells you”.

In the second stained glass window of the Lady Chapel, the story of the wedding of Cana is depicted in the bottom middle glass.  You might like to take a look at it after the service:  In the window, six stone jars stand on the floor, and are being filled by a servant to the brim with water; as instructed by Jesus, who sits at the a table, with Mary at the top of the glass picture looking down towards her son, as if she is pointing to Jesus.  The stone jars in the foreground are now full, providing something in the region of an additional 150 gallons of wine fro the wedding party!

Instructed by Jesus, the servant takes some of this new wine from the stone jars to the Chief Steward, as servant who was like a head waiter or master of ceremonies. Can you imagine eavesdropping on the conversation between the Chief Steward and the groom; “Everyone serves the good wine first”, says the groom, “and then the inferior wine, after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now”

And so, the Chief Steward announces the main point of the whole passage: the best wine has arrived, a transformation has occurred. Jesus the best wine has now come: divine action runs contrary to human expectation and experience.

For the writer of John, it is hoped we will understand that the old order of the Old Testament, of the old Jewish faith has been surpassed by the new wine, a new faith, in Jesus. A transformation has taken place, and we are to understand the turning of water into wine as the first – or more accurately from the Greek, the beginning sign that Jesus is the new way, and we encouraged to see Jesus glory. The transforming power of God, which has burst into the world in Jesus, the true light which enlightens everyone, has come into the world, says John.

And then finally we read, “His disciples believed in him”, says John. They have glimpsed something of Jesus glory in the sign at the wedding and have drawn close to Jesus.

Today in the church’s year, we celebrate the second Sunday of epiphany. This passage, the wedding at Cana,  is often referred to as “the miracle of the epiphany”; it’s all about Jesus; who transformed water into wine, who has transformed the old Jewish faith into a new faith – to a belief that Jesus was, and is the messiah, the Christ, the longed for saviour.

The gospel writer points to his audience of Jewish Christian believers in the late first century. John’s aim was to help theEarly church to see that Jesus came into the world to transform the old faith into the new faith. As these early Jewish Christians experienced a painful separation from their synagogues; (they where they were no longer welcome as believers in Jesus as the Messiah) they would have heard, John’s message at the wedding of Cana loud and clear: God was doing something new in Jesus and it was beginning now. Transforming the old; into the new.

As Mary told the servants, “do whatever he tells you” and as they responded to his words, filing up the jars to the brim, so are we encouraged to follow Jesus’ words, doing what asks us to do.

I’ve been wondering this week what that might be. What might Jesus be asking me, be asking us to do this week? What transforming work does Jesus want to do though me, though you and us; in his world, in our town, here at St Mary’s, or at a very personal level,in our lives this morning?  I invite you to take a moment to ponder that question with me.

We have been , I am sure shocked to see and hear the terrible suffering in Haiti this last week, what transforming work is God wanting to do there, in and through the women, men and children who have survived and though those who  seek to bring aid to those suffering?

And how about our country, on the brink of an election?  Where is God at work, transforming social attitudes and priorities for justice and equality in our country? And what about Stafford? When we read the Express and Star or meet up with friends over coffee, where do we see Gods’ transforming presence? And are we ready to continue to be open to hear Jesus calling us as Christian people here in the centre of town to be a part of what God has and is doing in Jesus, transforming people lives, transforming our town and taking part in what God is already doing, often despite us!