Epiphany 3- John 2.1-11- Revelation 19.6-10
Now I don’t about you, but going to a family wedding is a joy and a trial at the same time. Why do I say that? It’s a joy because someone is beginning a new life as a couple and they want everyone to share in that excitement. It’s a trial, because everyone who comes to share in that excitement has their own version of what excitement looks like! There are lots of people from different corners of the wider family as well as friends and their tag-alongs too.
They all belong together, but they rarely all get to be together. And when that happens, differences might appear across the family.
We’re going to mimic something of this right now. In Cana, the wedding has happened, and we’re all sat down at the feast. There’s noise, there’s celebration, no one quite knows when the speeches will start, but there’s food, and across the tables there is chatter...
- Goodness, have you seen Sally’s new partner?
- Oh yeah, not half!
- But, he’s a skinhead!! Her taste honestly
- Oh they would take all the Voluvants. Look at them piled up on their plate! Don’t they know there’s others here at all?
- Oh, honestly! That uncle Norbert, look at him making a scene of himself dancing like that.
- Yeah, but they’re all a little bit like that from that side of the family.
- Have you tried these volavants, they’re absolutely the best!
- Are they? Right, I’ll just go grab a small plate of food myself.
- When are they going to cut the cake?
- I dunno, but looking how many there are here, I bet its going to be a small slice.
- Here you are, fill us up another glass of wine, love.
- I don’t think they’ve got any left, will water do instead?
In the story Mary tells Jesus the wine ran out. It probably did. Jewish wedding celebrations lasted for several days and you needed a good stock of the red stuff to last the course, even if you did have an uncle Bill whose glass was bigger than everyone else’s!
But when the bible says: the wine ran out, it might have meant something more metaphorical too. The flow of something rich, colourful and joyous, meant for the occasion ran dry, and all that was left was something tasteless, weak, lacking in joy, and meant for the washing up.
Similarly the conversation around the wider family was meant to be all about the couple- full of their excitement, about their future, their beauty. That would have been as rich as the wine, as joy filled as a toast, and as satisfying. But in our imagination, we have seen how conversation can be become anything but about the joy of the couple. Joy is watered down into banter, or worse still demeaning looks as the lines that divide the wider family might start to make their appearance. And we are left with a watery, tasteless thing that’s lost all its joy.
Now that’s just an imagination. That doesn’t really happen at a wedding, does it? Well, not so badly as our example maybe. But let’s take the analogy one step further. Let’s change the family at the wedding into another set of people. Oh, the Christian family, the one around the world, because in the bible at the very end of things, there’s meant to be a gathering of the faithful that has all the hallmarks of a wedding celebration. We just heard about it. And the people gathered there were totally focussed on the joy and celebration of the their Lord, as if the rich wine were flowing.
This week we are in the Week of prayer for Christian Unity. It started on Thursday and runs until next Thursday, with prayers and reflections available every day. It’s a global effort for Christians around the world to pray for the sense of being a world wide family of faith.
But we have to be very much honest that, in recent years especially, Christians haven’t been living out that image very well at all. We’re not quite there for the wedding Banquet of God, full of the celebration of the one who made us and taught us how to love.
Instead churches have been a little more like the divided family units we found in our imagined guests, where one group might look suspiciously across the tables at another. Because of their worship, because of their handwaving, because of their theology, because of their tradition, all sorts of things that take away from the celebration of the one whose banquet it is.
When the wine ran out. The flavour changed and the people there had to take notice of what it was they were drinking. Sometimes we too, as Christians need to take notice of when we are left tasting water instead of that divine wine. Things divide us, but that’s not what the celebration banquet of God was meant to be about. It was meant to be about the Son, not us and our funny ways.
Jesus brought wine that was better than all the rest. At this Epiphany time, he reveals his true self with signs and wonders, signs and wonders that are meant to lift our eyes up from ourselves (and each other) and rest our sight upon him and he alone. If he, the Lord, is our absolute focus in all things, no matter what we think is important, he will help us to make his celebration about what is important- him.
It is his party, and he will show us the true meaning of what is beautiful, what is generous, what is celebratory. He will show us what is truly important. May we be united as a family by our focus on him alone.