It’s not that hard for me to imagine that Jesus may not have wanted to go that wedding in Cana at all.

Not that he didn’t like a good party.  Clearly, he loved life and enjoyed eating and drinking with all kinds of people. Under normal circumstances, he was probably the life of the party. According to the gospels people were drawn to him.

But there had been some recent events in his life that had caused him to be somewhat distracted.

First, there was that thing with his cousin, John. Jesus had come to embrace some of the teachings of his strange cousin --  for instance; he knew that the Jewish people had abandoned their roots and were in need of reform. Things were bad for God’s chosen people – living as a defeated people in an occupied land. It was time for returning to the heart of the Jewish faith. To care again for one another. To be concerned for the poor and the widow and the orphan. Even occupied, they could be light to the nations, if they would once again trust in God.

So he had gone out to be baptized by John, ready to say goodbye to life as an occupied people and open to the transforming work of the Spirit of God.

He wasn’t prepared or ready for John’s proclamation of him as the ‘Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’ He still needed to think about what John had meant.

But then, after the baptism, perhaps when he and John were sharing lunch, John told him what he had seen and heard during the baptism: all that business with the Spirit coming down like a dove. (I have learned that when someone uses language about seeing and describing what they see as ‘like this or like that ... or something like ... ‘that we are dealing with a visionary. John was a mystic, as was Jesus.)

Jesus had dismissed John with all this talk of being the chosen one. Who needs that to live up to? These were desperate times for the Jewish people and everyone was looking for someone to make things better. Even John, Jesus may have thought, when I thought he was calling us all to be transformed.

But the next day, when John and Jesus were with a couple of John’s disciples, he called Jesus the Lamb of God again. Now those disciples, Andrew and Simon Peter were following him, convinced Jesus was the Messiah.

He himself had asked Philip to come with them to Galilee, and Philip had asked Nathaniel and before he knew it he had an entourage like a pop singer.

It was only two days ago that all that had happened, and he may have needed time to think, to ponder. In other gospel accounts, he goes out into the wilderness, where he wrestled with God might want of him. What he needed to do, who was meant to be. It’s only human to be confused sometimes, even overwhelmed.

But in this gospel, instead of a desert for forty days, he’s in Cana. Instead of a retreat and some time alone; he has to go to a wedding.

He was, after all, a good Jewish boy and his mother may have really wanted to go to the wedding, and what good Jewish boy is going to dare risk a mother’s guilt trip?

Still, he had to have been distracted. All this Messiah stuff . . . it was new to him. Who in their right mind would choose to respond in the affirmative to such a call? But what did it all mean? He just needed some time to think, to pray, to sort through things.

He wasn’t alone. The small group of disciples that had now attached themselves to him was always watching him. He knew they, too, were wondering what John’s words meant. He knew each of them was following him because of their own hopes and dreams and perhaps, even schemes. They were looking for meaning and hope in the midst of trying times.

How do you help a people who keep looking to God for answers, but are really only interested in answers that suite them?  Who keep wanting things to change, but by that they mean everything and everyone else – not them.

How do you help those who have lost their way find once again the paths God has pointed out? How do you help people remember that their lives have purpose and meaning—but not in the ways they may have in mind? How do you help them remember who they are and whose they are?

He was probably deep in thought when Mary came to him to tell him that there was no wine left.

Who knows what she had in mind. Did she want him to go out and buy some wine? Did she think it would be better if he and those friends of his would leave?  Did she think they had caused the shortage? Or had this been something he had done for her before, perhaps at home when she wanted a glass of wine but he was too tired to go to the kitchen to get more . . . .had he just turned the water into wine?

One thing is obvious; there wasn’t enough wine for the wedding.

Jesus may have had other things on his mind when he said, “Woman, that’s no concern of mine.” (Actually, in the original language what he actually says is: ‘What to me and to you, woman?’ It’s impossible to tell if he is rejecting her right to make any kind of demand on him, or rejecting the notion that the wedding feast concerns the two of them, or even if he is rejecting any relationship with her.)

Mary seems a little pushy here, doesn’t she? It sounds like she was ordering Jesus to do something about the lack of wine.

Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt, and assume that she was concerned about the community and the families involved – not just miffed because there wasn’t enough wine and she wanted another drink or two.

When Jesus said, “My hour has not yet come” was he refusing whatever request his mother was cryptically suggesting? Or was he still struggling with his own call?

Is this somewhat a parallel to the temptation in the wilderness?

This doesn’t sound like the gentle Mary, meek and mild, depicted in the Sunday school curriculum of our childhoods, that’s for sure.

Mary doesn’t really fit the molds and the definitions that so many have given her.

A clergywoman friend of mine pointed out the reflections of a Presbyterian minister by the name of James Hastings who lived from 1852 until 1922:

He said:

“Mary was of a retiring nature, unobtrusive, reticent, perhaps even shrinking from observation, so that the impress of her personality was confined to the sweet sanctities of the home circle . . . We see in the little that is told of her what a true woman ought to be. “

Given what seems the obvious problem with the model for a true woman being both virgin and mother, impossible for any living woman to achieve – his description doesn’t fit with what we are told about Mary in scripture.

 Contrast Hastings image with this description by Dorothy Pape, written in 1976:

“Mary may well have been retiring and home-loving, but with the possible exception of the angel's announcement of the coming conception, the scriptural record never shows us Mary at home. She is hurrying off to Elizabeth, then going to Bethlehem for the census, then to Jerusalem for purification rites, down to Egypt, back to Nazareth, then to Jerusalem again for the Passover, to Cana for the wedding, to Capernaum, to a city near the Sea of Galilee with her other sons to persuade Jesus to come home, and finally to Jerusalem again. It therefore requires an exercise of imagination to learn from her lessons 'mostly related to home'.”

Mary was no shrinking violet. But this story is not about Mary.

Nor is it about a wedding or wine. Or even miracles. If it were about miracles, then it would be in plain sight, like the rest of Jesus’ miracles.

But that’s not what happens. The narrator never even tells us that Jesus turned water into wine.

No, the whole thing unfolds in a much more convoluted way.

This story is about exactly what John says it is about.

Unlike the very beginning of John’s gospel, where John is wordy and cryptic:

“In the beginning was the Word. The Word was in God’s presence and what God was the Word was . . .. “

By the second chapter, it’s a little easier to understand. He actually doesn’t mince any words about why he is telling this story:

“Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.”

And why does John want the disciples to believe in Jesus? (And do note the difference between believe all these things about Jesus and believe in Jesus.)

Because for John, believing in Jesus is life transforming . . . it is committing one’s life to the ways of Jesus’ – it is not about doctrines, it is not about thinking one way . . . it is about being in this world in a different way . . . transformed as water into wine. In this Jesus the best is saved for last. In this Jesus life can be a wedding banquet in which the wine never runs out.

What John hopes for his readers is that they will be able to trust not only in God’s providence, but also in God’s abundance. That’s a heck of a lot of wine.

It won’t surprise you to know that few scholars think this happened. It is, as I keep saying, metaphor.

John’s hearers would know that Jesus challenges the mindset of scarcity. It makes our lives small. It is a form of fear that has no grounding in reality.

The one responsible for the wine at the wedding was acting out of the scarcity mentality. Cutting corners – probably out of fear of not thinking there was enough money for all that was needed.

Any one that’s ever been to the Middle East can tell you about the hospitality and generosity toward guests. Especially at an event as important as a wedding.  Most of John’s hearers would have been shocked by wine running out at a wedding. It didn’t bode well for the families and the couple.

There is a contrasting story, from yet another culture about wine at the wedding:

In Nigeria, when there is a wedding, the culture calls for everyone to participate, bringing food and wine and sharing what they have with one another.  A tribal chief’s son was to be married, so he sent messengers out to invite all the people in the community. He asked that the messengers request that each male guest bring a jug of palm wine.

One man was excited about going to the wedding – he, too, loved a party. But he didn’t want to take a jug of palm wine. His wife told him that surely a jug of palm wine, while expensive, was worth the expense for such an important celebration. And, after all, they had been blessed and could easily afford a large jug of wine. He didn’t want to spend the money it would cost, however, as there were other things he wanted to purchase for himself.

So, he decided that he would take a jug of water. After all, it would all be poured into the same large serving vat and one just of water wouldn’t water down the wine enough to be noticed.

At the celebration, everyone poured their wine into the vat, and when the time for the first toast came, they all lifted their glasses and drank. Looks of shock and surprise were on every face  . . .  because – you guessed it: everyone had decided to bring water instead of wine.

I love that there exists this story of wine into water.

Because they are connected in more ways than we might imagine at first blush.

In our gospel, John wants us to see this ‘sign’ as a means of revealing that where Christ is, God is.

John wanted his community to live the way Jesus lived: completely focused on God. Committed at a deep level. Trusting completely in God’s grace and God’s providence.

John was looking for the people, too, to be transformed. Attitude is transforming.

I was visiting with some other preachers recently and we were all talking about this text, since we would all be preaching on it.

One of my friends said, “My congregation loves this text. Except they have added an ‘h’ to the equation. They are constantly turning the water of their baptisms into the whine of why the church is not to their liking.”

He went on to say that his congregation all brings water to the wedding and then complain that it isn’t the best wine. They also spend a lot of time criticizing what others are or aren’t doing.”

Another friend pointed out that John might have chosen to write this story about a wedding because of so many allusions in scripture to God’s marriage with the people. She told us that at a presbytery once, the speaker challenged everyone to examine his or her congregation’s relationship with God. Like a marriage therapist might ask, how is the relationship going?

Naturally, the person who has very little good to report about his congregation quipped:  in his church the relationship is strained, but they are staying together for the sake of the children.

I came away from the conversation reminded once again of how contagious our attitudes can be, and how sad it is when those who are followers of the Living Word  -- those called to be a people of light-- instead become those whose words become like blight. Where is the good news? How can God’s people be so far from God’s grace and joy and love? Why are they filled with whine instead of wine?

The psalmist had a different attitude.

The psalmist wants us to know that God’s love is abundant, beyond price, and ever constant. Even when we fail to live in gratitude.

The poet declares to God that all may “take refuge in the shadow of your wings,” and “feast on the abundance of your house,” and “drink from the river of your thoughts. For with [God] is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.”

God’s love is like those jars of wine; it has no bounds. How different is our lives when we embrace that!

And through God’s love, come gifts, our epistle reminds us. The Spirit has gifts to bestow. Wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, prophecy. (Whining, and criticism are never listed as gifts of the Spirit, by the way.)

No gift is more important than the other. Many gifts, one Spirit.

Here is the important part; “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Just as the wine was given for all in abundance, so each of God’s people is given gifts to be used for the common good. Not to lord over someone else. But for the building up of the body of Christ, for the sake of the whole community.

So often we are anxious about what we are to be doing as a church. But the message in these texts is that we need to begin with how we are, rather that what we do. Who we are together. Commitment to community. Transformation is the focus: from water to wine, from old life to new, from not enough to more than enough. For my self, alone, to one-for-all. Each of us has our gift to offer. Each of us is obligated by faith to offer our gifts for the up-building of the church.

There can be no slackers. No dead wood. No hangers-on.

We are all important. All our gifts are needed for the body of Christ to function well. All are needed for the body of Christ to be complete.

So, the questions posed by the text this morning for us to struggle with are

How are our lives being transformed? Are we becoming wine or whiners? Are we celebrating or complaining? Are we committed on a deep level to being the body of Christ, the community of the Beloved? Here, now, for the sake of the world?

Are we open to the good news and letting that good news flow through us to the world?

Are we open to the abundance of God in our lives and in the world?

Are we on the way with Jesus?