Jack McKinney

Pullen Memorial Baptist Church

January 14, 2007 – Second Sunday after Epiphany

Text: John 2:1-11

Filling in the Blanks

Last week a young couple showed up at church one night just as a meeting I was in was wrapping up. They were anxious to see the sanctuary, which seemed odd at that hour, but I agreed to give them a tour. I quickly learned that the couple had become engaged only days before, and the prospective groom’s parents had been married at Pullen thirty years ago. As we walked into the sanctuary they were almost giddy as they thought about that long-ago wedding, and as they anticipated their own. “It’s perfect,” the young woman said as she scanned the center aisle and the chancel. She turned to the man and said, “Your parents’ wedding must have been absolutely beautiful.” I smiled a blank smile at both of them, but I confess that in the back of my mind I was seeing images of weddings that I had performed that were anything but perfect.

If you get a bunch of ministers together and they start sharing stories, the conversation will eventually settle on weird things they have seen at weddings. It’s kind of shop talk for clergy. One of my personal favorites that I have shared with you before was the wedding where the bride wore an interesting dress that was not a wedding gown. The dress was long on the bottom and dragged the ground, but on top there were two small spaghetti straps barely holding up the lowest cut décolletage I had ever seen in church. As the wedding march began, and the bride and her father made their way down the aisle, the father stepped on the back of the dress. I feared I was about to witness one of them most embarrassing things ever in a wedding, but fortunately the dress stayed on. The woman gathered up some of the dress, yanked it our from under her father’s feet, and they set off for a second time. Only, a few feet further, he stepped on the dress again. And once more I cringed, fearing we were about to see an unveiling of sorts, but things worked out as the woman stopped and jerked the dress out from under Daddy’s shoes. And so it went all the way down the aisle. When the bride finally reached the groom fully clothed, I whispered one of the most sincere prayers of thanksgiving ever uttered in a church.

I bring up the subject of potential embarrassing moments in weddings because the Gospel reading for today does the same. John 2 records the only real story about a wedding you will find in the Bible, which seems kind of strange since there is all this talk today about the biblical norm for marriage. And the passage we have read this morning isn’t really about a wedding; it’s more of a wedding reception that is described. And to be honest, it’s a wedding reception that is about to hit the skids.

Jesus and his disciples, as well as Jesus’ mother, Mary, find themselves at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. This is the first public appearance for Jesus after getting his disciples together, and of course we know that this is the setting for Jesus’ first miracle in the Gospel of John. So, you would think this is a big deal. Except, if you look at the passage carefully, it appears to be anything but a big deal. Cana was apparently a backwater village because today scholars cannot even agree on where it was located. This is no Sermon on the Mount setting, which is how Jesus’ public ministry gets going in Matthew. This is no healing tour as his ministry begins in Mark. It’s not even the return home to Nazareth as the Gospel of Luke describes the beginning of his ministry. This is a wedding reception in a little village that Jesus happens to be at, and the bride and groom are about to suffer terrible embarrassment because they have run out of wine.

And what intrigues me about this story is not the miracle that is described, although one has to be impressed with the amount of water that is turned into wine. The text says 120-180 gallons were converted, which seems like overkill, but heck it’s a wedding and Jesus apparently wanted everyone to have a good time. What actually grabs my attention in this story, however, is the exchange between Jesus and his mother. And it’s an exchange that requires us to fill in some blanks.

Starting in verse three we hear: “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, there is clearly a piece missing in this conversation. Something happens between Jesus saying to his mother that his hour has not come and Mary turning to the servants and telling them to do what Jesus says. Maybe that missing gap is simply a sharp glance from Mary to Jesus that says, “You may be the Messiah, but I’m still your mother, and you better never call me ‘woman’ again.” Or maybe the piece we don’t get to see is a thirty minute conversation between Mary and Jesus. All we know is that Jesus begins the dialogue clearly opposed to doing something about the wine problem, and by the time Mary is finished with him he has produced a small vineyard’s worth of wine.

And what makes this whole story even more unexpected is that it appears in the Gospel of John. John is the last of the four Gospels written and the writer’s intent is to show a Jesus who not only knew who he was, but who was revealing his identity in a carefully scripted way. Whereas the Jesus in the other Gospels is shy about his messianic identity, in John’s Gospel Jesus is large and in charge. Except not in this story. Mary says there is a wine problem and the couple faces embarrassment, and Jesus retorts that it’s not his problem because his hour has not arrived to reveal his special identity. But then he does, because his mother insists, and I wonder what we can learn from her example.

Does the world change because the best ideas win out? I wonder sometimes. Some of the most de-humanizing ideas seem to go on unchecked. See war and slavery if you need a couple of examples. Does the world change because God has a master plan that guides everything into place? I wonder about that, too. There is just too much cruelty and suffering in history for me to accept it is all God’s master plan. Plus, in this story Jesus seems pretty clear that God wants him to wait to reveal his identity, but then he does it anyway at Mary’s insistence.

The world changes, it seems to me, when people remain persistent about changing it. That’s what Mary’s example says to me. Oh, I know that the embarrassment of this couple at the wedding reception is not life and death stuff. No great tragedy is taking place here. But on one of the most important days of their life they are about to be humiliated in front of their family and friends, and Mary decides Jesus can do something about it. And she puts the human need of this couple above Jesus’ sense of divine timing. She persists until he changes his mind, and even though he didn’t plan it or want it, this becomes the first miracle in his ministry according to John’s Gospel.

Persistence is an interesting trait. You can be persistent in pursuing selfish things and all it will make you is a consistently selfish person. You can be persistent in chasing foolish ideas, and all it will make you is a consistently foolish person. (A troop “surge” in Iraq may be a relevant example here.) But if you are persistent in pursuing justice or mercy or kindness, well, that will make you a consistently decent person. But more than that, such persistence in the pursuit of what is good and right does bring about change. Even if it usually takes a lot longer than it took Mary to change Jesus’ mind.

We recognize Martin Luther King, Jr. on this weekend for many reasons. He is clearly one of the greatest orators in our nation’s history, and to this day one can feel chills listening to his speeches and sermons. I would also argue that Dr. King is one of the best theologians this country has ever had, although honesty compels me to acknowledge the list of good theologians America has produced is a pretty short one. But, of course, what we remember most about King was his leadership in the civil rights movement. The success of that movement can be attributed to MLK’s leadership, and the leadership of many other courageous individuals. The movement was also a success because the strategies that propelled it and the ideas that undergirded it were wise and just. But the truth of the matter is that the civil rights movement succeeded largely because of the persistence of a people who were tired of being denied what had been guaranteed them by the Constitution. Because, quite frankly, the Declaration of Independence may have said that all people are created equal, and the Constitution may have been written in order to form a more perfect union, but for generations none of that applied to black people in this country. And if it wasn’t for the persistence of King and thousands like him who insisted that these grand ideas of our republic be applied to all people, well, we might still be living in the segregated South.

The world changes because people remain persistent in trying to change it. Our lives change because we remain persistent in trying to change them. We need good ideas, of course. And we need a lot of support. But the virtue that eventually wins the day is persistence. That’s true if you are leading a movement to change society, or if you are just trying to convince your son that the embarrassment of a couple at their wedding is worth his attention.

So what did Mary say to Jesus that shifted his whole plan? What was the persistent request that finally persuaded him to save the wedding? Who knows? But Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s words may come close to describing the situation:

When I find myself in times of trouble

Mother Mary comes to me

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

And in my hour of darkness

She is standing right in front of me

Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be.

Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

The persistence to change something may require a confrontational march. Or it might be a whisper with a recurring message as simple as “let it be.” There are many different approaches in life that can be successful as long as we don’t give up.