Image: The Marriage at Cana (1562-1563) by Paolo Veronese
January 19, 2025: Epiphany 2C
John 2:1-11
A couple months into my first call, I planned to hold a housewarming reception after my installation. The kitchen committee helped a great deal in providing refreshments. Coming from a seminary where the wine flowed freely, I asked if people might appreciate beer or wine. The answer? “Absolutely not!” And thus I was introduced to Lutheran teetotalers.
Now, I had never heard of such a thing. But the longer I served there, the better I understood. Many of these folks had a family history of alcoholism. They had seen a family member’s life destroyed by addiction. (Many of them, ironically enough, also had a family recipe for dandelion or apple wine that had been passed down from generation to generation.) That didn’t mean that they didn’t know how to have a good time. They knew that the most important element of any social gathering was love, expressed best with a thick slice of sugar cream pie!
And that love is present at the wedding in Cana in magnificent abundance.
On the surface this miracle seems, as the kids say, a little sus. Jesus is told by his mother that the hosts of the wedding have run out of wine. Now, that might be a mild disappointment today—after all, no one is going to suffer lasting social shame for running out of cabernet sauvignon, not with so many other options to choose from. But in Jesus’s day, running out of wine at a celebration would be a gigantic social embarrassment. Few things would be more unbearable than a failure to provide for one’s guests.
And Jesus seems to brush off his mother’s words! It’s true that the address, “Woman”, was not necessarily rude. It was a rough equivalent to “ma’am”. It is a little unusual, though, for Jesus to address his mother as such. (I know if I’d ever called my mom “ma’am”, she’d look at me like I’d sprouted horns.) And it is also odd that his response is so curt. “It’s not my time,” he says. It’s not time for him to reveal himself to the world. It’s not time to set God’s plan for redemption into motion, a plan that will eventually find him on a cross.
But Mary knows her son. She knows who he is and what he can do. So, she does the most motherly thing of all and triangles others into the conversation! She tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” I imagine her saying this with a bit of a smile. This is a gentle, motherly push.
And Jesus takes the hint. He has the servants fill up the jars used for purification rites. And these jars are massive, holding 20-30 gallons each. He then tells them to draw some out and take it to the chief steward. We might call this person the chief sommelier or the maître d. And as soon as he takes a sip, he realizes something is off. By the way, I love the expression on his face in a 1562 painting by Paolo Veronese. He is absolutely stunned by the quality of the wine.
And it shows in his reaction to the groom. “Everyone serves the good wine first! Then when the guests are trashed, you serve whatever rotgut you have on hand. Why did you keep the good wine until now?” So, it’s an odd miracle on the surface. Jesus is pushed into making wine for drunk wedding guests who probably won’t appreciate it, to save an ignorant groom’s reputation.
But when we look deeper, we see the depth of the blessing here. The wine is the least important part of this story. What is important is the blessing of human community—specifically, the beloved community of God.
The truth is that God is radically, wildly, even wastefully abundant in His gifts. We have so much. We are so blessed, especially as this community of faith at Shalom Lutheran Church. Sometimes we think with a scarcity mindset. We can get sidetracked on what we lack. We can start playing the “if only” game. “If only” we had more members, or a better-looking budget, or a better-looking pastor! “If only” we had what those folks at XYZ church have. We can also get sidetracked by fear about the future, or grievance about the past. When we get sidetracked in these ways, we miss how God has blessed us—not just us individually, not just our families, but our community of faith as well.
We have so much here. Paul writes about how God equips the saints for the common good. We have the best amateur praise band in Douglas County here! We have great staff who work hard and get along. We have a talented, capable Council. We have committees with dedicated people who strive to serve the Lord in their area. We have people who are computer and tech-savvy; those who visit sick and homebound members; others who work with children and youth; still others who mentor them. We have people who are generous. We have people who pray constantly. We have people who serve meals and make coffee. We even have someone who gives great hugs! And it is here every Sunday that Jesus blesses us in Word and Sacrament. Jesus gives us the new wine here—the new wine of his love for us personally, as well as for the whole creation.
Jesus truly gives us grace upon grace. He sends us his Spirit, which each one of you—each one of us—makes known to everyone else for the common good, as Paul writes. If you take away nothing else from today, take away this: God’s Spirit works uniquely in every single one of you. Every one of us is living scripture. In us, God’s generosity is writ large for all to see.
And his love, shown in such gifts, shown in such manifestations of the Spirit, keep his beloved community together. Jesus has promised that the church will endure. The gates of hell will not prevail against it. God has equipped us to be His church in the world. God help us, whatever may come, to live into our call as equipped people, confident in his love that brings us together. And God keep us grateful. Because when we are grateful, we will see the wealth of God’s blessings in every circumstance. Amen.
© 2025, David M. Fleener. Permission granted to copy and adapt original material herein for non-commercial purposes with appropriate credit given.
