Vintage Extravagance
John 2:1-11
January 19, 2025
Rev. Cynthia Cochran-Carney, First Presbyterian Church, San Rafael, CA
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."
Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
Wine in CA
The story of Jesus turning water into wine, good wine, fine wine, may resonate with us here being so close to Napa and Sonoma. Turning ordinary water into fine wine, a winner of The Decanter World Wine Awards, when wine tasting will be judged by country, region, color, grape, style, vintage and price. We in this part of California might be in awe of this miracle even more than someone in Kansas or be completely sure this never happened given how hard it is to make fine wine.
What happened at the wedding
What happened at the wedding at Cana? Poor planning, or bad luck? Jesus’ mother says, “They have no wine,” but what she really means is, “They have no wine. Fix it, Jesus.” Despite his reluctance, Jesus tells the servants to fill six large stone jars with water, and to draw some of that water, now turned to wine, and take it to the chief steward. The chief steward doesn’t know what Jesus has done, but he does know wine, and he’s amazed at the quality. Most hosts would serve the best wine up front, wanting to make a good impression. They’d save the cheap wine for later when the guests are less likely to recognize the drop in quality. But this host, the steward assumes, has ignored the traditional timing, and saved the best wine for last.
Last week, Jesus’ baptism included signs – heaven torn open, the Spirit descending like a dove, a voice calling Jesus Beloved. And now this week John tells us this is a sign, a sign that revealed Jesus’ glory. Because of this sign, his disciples “believed in him.” The point of this miracle, this sign, is not, “Wow! How did that happen?” It’s “Wow! Who did that?”
All the signs and miracles in John’s gospel point to who Jesus is. That’s the purpose of John’s gospel. As one commentator puts it, biblical miracles are signs that say, “God at Work!” The wedding at Cana not only shows us that God is at work, but something of what God is like, what God is about, and therefore, what Jesus is like, and what Jesus is about.
As Rev. Joanne Whitt describes this event, the stone jars held water used for the rite of purification. They represent the purity code and its distinctions between who and what is “clean,” and who and what is “unclean.” Jesus turns that water into wine, and these concerns about clean and unclean give way to joy and celebration. Jesus provides this celebration with the very best wine, in abundant quantity. The jars are filled to the brim. The God that Jesus reveals isn’t obsessed with what’s clean or unclean but is characterized by lavish generosity and extravagance.
We might think that not having wine isn’t that big of a deal. Is it really what we’d want Jesus’ first miracle to be? Run to BevMo and get more, right?
But hospitality is key in that culture and his mother recognized it —the revealing of who Jesus is with a miracle that shows the world to trust in the abundance of God.
Six stone water jars would have held 150 gallons of wine. This is a cup-runneth-over kind of miracle that was going to create logistical problems. Part of Jesus’ teaching and actions had to do with how we see ourselves and the world. Is there enough? Enough for me, for us?
The scarcity of ‘not enough’ makes us forget our connectedness, as we start excluding people from the proverbial wine tasting. And it makes us forget the goodness of God, who has provided for us in the past, has brought us to this moment, and who surely is dreaming right this very minute for our flourishing and provision.
Whether we have enough to share with others is actually never about how much we have. It’s about how we value what we have. It’s about how we remember where it came from in the first place. It’s about how we value the lives, experiences, and hopes of other people. Unless there is a larger deeper picture of life and the world and the Holy One at work we may believe there will never be enough. So who might miracles stories change that?
God at Work - If biblical miracles are like a sign that says, “God at Work,” how can we see God at work now?
One way to look at it is that many of Jesus’ miracles are small examples of the big acts that God performs all the time. Daffodils push through the soil year after year, sometimes even in January I have discovered, a miracle of growth and resurrection. When we lived in New Jersey forsythia was the first flower to bloom and we knew the earth was waking up in the garden state. There are many miracles in the natural world that when we take time to notice can be a path seeing God at work.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom we honor tomorrow with a national holiday, wrote: “At the center of the Christian faith is the conviction that in the universe there is a God of power who is able to do exceedingly abundant things in nature and history.” The miracle, the sign at the wedding at Cana connects Jesus to this God – our God who is able, as King puts it. God is able to create and sustain the world. God is able to work through human history.
King described how one event followed another to bring a gradual end to the system of segregation. He concludes, “These changes are not mere political and sociological shifts. … When in future generations men look back … they will see God working through history for the salvation of man. They will know that God was working through those men [and women] who had the vision to perceive that no nation could survive half slave and half free. … The forces of evil may temporarily conquer truth, but truth ultimately will conquer its conqueror. Our God is able.” God is able; and Jesus’ miracles show that he is able.
Turning water into wine at a wedding might seem like a trivial way to announce that Jesus is “God at Work,” given all the weighty concerns of the world: racial inequality, economic injustice, climate change and the L.A. wildfires, terrorism, war, and on and on. It was only a private party, after all. Only Jesus’ mother, the servants, and the disciples ever did know where all that great wine came from. And we, the readers of John’s gospel, know, as well.
At the wedding at Cana, Jesus supplies what is needed so that the celebration can continue. He does it quietly. It isn’t a flashy show of divine power. Most miracles aren’t. There are miracles of love and justice and hope taking place all around us: extreme acts of generosity, gracious acts of forgiveness; people overcoming their fears and standing up for what is right; people healing what seem to be unbridgeable divides. All these miracles point to the sign that says, “God at Work,” the sign that says God’s promise to the least and the last, to the lost and the lonely, is there in fullness, in abundance, in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. So that the celebration can continue.
The very last tagline of the story declares, “His disciples believed in him.” But it never says that they actually saw the miracle, either. What they saw was Jesus. What they believed in – was Jesus. For them, it was perfectly conceivable that he might have done, even if they didn’t see it. They had no need to try to explain what happened. They simply stayed open to the fact that he could have made it happen. Their faith wasn’t perfect – we know that from plenty of other stories in the Gospels – but there seemed to be a basic trust that if anybody could do anything, Jesus was the One who could do it.
Seeing and believing. Having faith and attending to our spiritual lives. What does it mean to have faith? One of the working definitions that emerges from this story is a basic openness to holy power and presence. Faith means there is more going on than any one of us can take in. There is the deep possibility in the power of Christ that something beautiful and grace-filled can happen.
And too often we miss out on miracles in our daily lives - we are not paying attention. We are consumed with our own business that we miss out on whatever it is that God is doing. How might we learn to pay attention and how might we more fully participate in God at work in the world?
I came across a poem by Bill Leety, Presbyterian pastor and poet, that is based on the last few words of the Gospel story, which say, “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory…”
Jerusalem we know, Lord;
the Big Apple of that day for Jewish preachers like you.
Cana? Where’s Cana?
Whoever heard of Cana except John the gospeller?
Lord, are you telling us your glory can be found in…
Cana? In backwaters? In nations we can’t find on a map?
In towns and hamlets and crossroads—crossroads?
You play the small venues for small people like us to see your glory.
So Lord, help me resist following just spotlights
and headlines in my search for you.
Open my eyes to glories close to home
at a village wedding, a birthday party…,
a middle school concert, or dinner at the kitchen table;
so that I, like other disciples, believe.
God at work in small miracles, in people, in creation, transforming us to recognize abundance and being vessels of hope and compassion. We join God in this work.
King said, “The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of love ... that can transform opposers into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of people.” Amen. Martin Luther King Jr, 1956, “Facing the Challenge of a New Age,”
Rev. Joanne Whitt, “God at Work,” 1/13/25 solve by walking blog
https://solve-by-walking.com/2025/01/13/god-at-work/
Rev. Bill Carter, “Miracles And Why We Miss Them,” 1/19/2010 Sermons by Bill Carter
https://billcartersermons.blogspot.com/2010/01/miracles-and-why-we-miss-them.html