Faith, Fermentation, Feasting [Epiphany 3]

Isaiah 62:1-5

John 2:1-11

John’s gospel places the story of Jesus turning water into wine at the very front of the gospel.  It is the first of several “signs” that form the framework of the way John’s gospel tells the story of Jesus.  So what can we learn from this first “sign” that invites us to witness the revelation of Jesus’ glory and to put our faith in him?

Beginnings matter.  Any school teacher knows that the first day of school sets the tone for the whole year.  You do not plan day one filled with recess, snacks, and a chaotic free-for all in the classroom where all the kids are running with scissors.  You want day one to help the kids imagine what they can expect.

 

Anyone who builds houses knows that the early stages are the most important.  If you build the whole house before figuring out where the house is to sit on the lot; or if you built out the custom kitchen before putting a roof on the house – you’re not a very good house builder. 

This signs of Jesus turning the water into wine is designed to bring us, as hearers, into a situation of trust and transformation.  By turning water into wine at Cana, Jesus “revealed his glory, and his disciples put their trust in him” (v. 11).  Now it’s important to remember that Jesus’ signs are not magic.  They won’t hypnotize you or manipulate you.  In other words these signs do not “work” on everyone automatically.  Some will witness the sign and walk away unchanged.  But for others, this sign is one way that God draws us into the joyful life that Jesus makes possible. 

As the first of Jesus’ public signs, you’d think that Jesus would have planned carefully and chosen a particular time and place to reveal his glory.  So it’s a little strange that Jesus is pictured here as reluctantly agreeing to get involved.  It’s almost as if his mother has to twist his arm to get him to fix a problem.  “When the wine was gone, Jesus mother said to him, ‘They have no more wine’” (v. 3).  It is Jesus’ mother who grabs the bull by the horns at this party.  He doesn’t want to be involved.  “My time has not yet come,” he says to his mother.  Did he not yet want the attention that this public act might bring?  Did he have some other plan for how he would begin his public ministry?  Maybe it was his day off.  Regardless, his mother, undeterred, tells the servants to do whatever he tells them. 

What he tells them is to fill six stone water pots to the brim.  This was no small feat.  Each pot held twenty to thirty gallons.  And so Jesus has asked for 120 to 180 gallons of water.  His initial wine making project is no small home-brewing affair.  He’s going in full tilt and making a batch that will more than supply the needs of this wedding party.  Already we begin to see that God is inviting us to a life of celebration and feasting where there’s plenty for everyone. 

Plentiful wine and abundant food are signs of God's blessing.  When God draws near to us, there will festive celebration, merriment, laughter, and delight.  Is that what faith feels like to you?  Is that who God is for you?  Is that what belonging to a church is like for you?  All of us need to ask ourselves today whether we have opened our lives to a new kind of festivity and joy or whether we've settled for something smaller and less satisfying.

Turning water into wine is impressive.  But still, one might argue that it appears to be a rather low-level miracle.  After all, we know by reading the other gospels that there are other powerful deeds of Jesus that were more dramatic – like when he commanded demons to come out of someone’s life.  Other deeds were more obviously compassionate – like when he healed women and children of terrible diseases.  And some were more transparently spiritual – like when he healed the paralytic man and at the same time pronounced that his sins were forgiven.

But instead of the dramatic, the compassionate, and the spiritual – John’s gospel introduces us to Jesus by a story about Jesus changing water into wine at a wedding party.  What gets your attention when this story is read?  Is it Mary’s meddling or Jesus’ initial unwillingness to help?  Is it the poor planning of the groom’s family and the shame they must have felt when the wine ran out?  Or is it that our eyes begin to adjust to the light of Jesus’ glory at a party where the wine flows freely?  Do we perhaps smile as it dawns on us that – today at least - we are not being called to follow to a lonely, suffering, sad Jesus who has drawn apart to pray?  Is there some flicker of relief that Jesus’ coming out party happened with crowds of people laughing, dancing, and singing?

I’ll tell you one thing that I noticed.  I noticed that Jesus makes good wine.  There’s cheap wine.  And there’s good wine.  And when Jesus turns water into wine, it’s the good stuff.  As a person who has tried to brew beer, I appreciate this attention to quality on Jesus’ part.  It would have been a very different party had the banquet master tasted the wine and immediately spit it out. 

If you’ve ever ordered a cocktail in an upscale bar, you know that it could cost you four or five Bud Lights.  If you’ve ever tried to secure a rare release of a beer like Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout – you know that you can easily pay $30.  If you’ve ever looked at a wine list at a nice restaurant, you know that you can pay as much as you can imagine for a bottle of wine.  We once had dinner in New York with friends who were from Columbia.  She was a chef and he was a finance guy and, apparently, an amateur sommelier.  He took charge of pairing just the right wines with each part of our meal.  And while we had fun, I think he had very little experience picking wines out of the $10 bin.

I think I’ve confessed this particular sin to you before, but I once paid $200 for a bottle of beer.  Now let me defend myself.  This was no ordinary beer.  It was a beer released only every other year by Sam Adams Brewing.  Their limited release, small batch beer is called “Utopia.”  It is aged in Bourbon Barrels.  There are only 13,000 bottles available for purchase every other year.  Most light beers are 3-4% alcohol.  The strongest beers are maybe 8%.  The Utopia is 28% alcohol by volume.  That is so unusual for beer that it is illegal in fifteen states.  That’s also why Sam Adams’ website bills the Utopia as "reminiscent of a rich vintage Port, old Cognac, or fine Sherry with notes of dark fruit, subtle sweetness, and a deep rich malty smoothness."  But lest you think me a spendthrift, there were four of us who went in together.  So it only cost each of us $50.  And as long as I don’t think too hard about other ways I could have invested $50, I’d say it was well worth it. 

Archaeologists tell us that there were about 100 varieties of grapes unique to the region of Palestine in Jesus’ day.  Probably only six or so of that 100 were suitable for winemaking.  Ancient Israel was a wine producing region, and exported much of its wine throughout the Roman Empire.  And most of the wine produced in Galilee was red wine.

Making good wine – even drinkable wine - wasn’t easy.  Wine presses were made of stone and placed near vineyards.  The grapes were harvested and dumped into the wine press.  Then someone took off their sandals and jumped in, stomping the grapes, keeping their balance while holding onto ropes above the press.  That’s right, the wine making process began with other people’s bare feet.  (That’s enough to make teetotalers of some of us).  The juice would run out of the press and into storage vats.  In cool storage, the wine would naturally ferment: the yeast found on the grape skins would eat the natural sugars, producing alcohol.  We don’t know the alcohol content of ancient wine, but we do know that it was almost always diluted with water. 

The goal for winemakers was to make enough wine to last until the following year’s harvest.  Generally, the alcohol killed any harmful bacteria, so that it was safer than water to drink.  But over time, wine could get a little funky.  And so it was common to add tree resins, peppers, and capers to cover any off flavors.  Cheaper wines were unfiltered, so you might have a few bits or chunks or grape skins in your wine.  If wines were filtered at all, they were filtered through cloth, or occasionally through pigeon droppings.  (I think I’d rather endure pulp in my wine rather than running it through pigeon droppings).

When the banquet master tastes the water turned into wine, he is surprised that the host has held such delicious, expensive wine for the final hours of the feast.  That sense of surprise can be ours as well, as we ponder the gracious abundance of God, the lavish and excessive generosity that marks God’s way of being with us.

Yes, plentiful wine and food are signs of God’s blessing.  And yet we all know of places around the world with no clean water and not enough food.  We wouldn’t have to walk far from where we’re sitting to find homes with no electricity and no running water.  So this story about God’s lavish provision raises worries about why there is still so much need.  What about those in Flint, MI who still can’t drink their water?  What about Puerto Rico, still struggling after a terrible hurricane?  What about refugee cities around the world, filled with people fleeing war and violence?  What about those seeking asylum at our own borders, desperate for safety for their own children?  Surely those who are poor and distressed would not want us to celebrate God’s abundance to quickly or too easily.  They would remind us that the feast becomes a feast only as we all share the food and wine.

One of the commentaries I read quoted Robert Hotchkins: “Christians ought to be celebrating constantly.  We ought to be preoccupied with parties, banquets, feasts, and merriment.  We ought to give ourselves over to veritable orgies of joy because we have been liberated from the fear of life and the fear of death.  We ought to attract people to the church quite literally by the fun there is in being a Christian” (Robert Hotchkins, quoted in The Ragamuffin Gospel).

If this story awakens us to the importance of feasting and joy in our lives with God, it also awakens us to the strange reversal of our expectations.  This is a new kind of feasting; a new kind of joy and festivity.  It is not tied to the economy, or wealth, or possessions.  It is not tied to success or status.  It is not only for those healthy, happy and strong.  This is a feast in which the best wine is brought out last.  What used to be at the front is now at the end.  Here we have an upending and reversal of what our wider culture assumes about joy and festivity.

Our church is at its best when our celebrations include those who are poor, sick, in need or in pain.  Our church is at its best when we’re learning together to share our meals and our money with those who have little reason to rejoice.  Our church is at its best when we reach out and welcome those who have experienced failure, frustration, and rejection into the party God is throwing for all who are seeking a new way to live.

Our day of worship today is a good expression of the tension in which we all live.  Following worship, we have a congregational meeting in which we need to talk together about some of the nuts and bolts of our community life.  That’s part of the work it takes to share our lives.  But then after that, we’ll move downstairs for a chili cook off, where we’ll share what we’ve made and raise a little money for our young people.  In all that we do, let’s make sure that we are living with joy in a way that welcomes all others into the life that God makes possible.