The Second Sunday after the Epiphany, January 17th, 2010

The Rev. Dr. Katharine C. Black
Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 36:5-10
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
John 2: 1-11

How priceless is your love, O God, your people take refuge under the shadow of your wings.  AMEN.

"Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." John's Gospel has Jesus challenge or dismiss his mother in this way, while also declaring the theological chronology that Jesus has not yet died, risen, and ascended, that the hour of his salvific work has not yet come. John's theme is more theological than narrative or historical, so even in this wedding scene with his mother, John wants to declare who Jesus is and when that epiphany is to be known to all.

The conversation and relationship between Jesus and his mother at the wedding at Cana have a genuine ring to them. This woman is not a shy girl being addressed by an archangel mysteriously and puzzlingly. This woman has been managing her son, who's oddly itinerant and somewhat unreliable. He takes off, walking with other men, all without jobs as they travel. She had some knowledge about his birth that she might well keep quiet, because she might not be sure anyone would believe her or understand what she had to say. She'd been terrified when he'd gotten separated from the group traveling home from the Temple, and had found him participating authoritatively with the rabbis there. Whatever else was true about their relationship, I imagine she'd have pondered continuously about what it meant for him, for her, and by whom or in what context. What did it all mean, she'd wonder, and how was it going to turn out?

John's Gospel begins with the great theological hymn about the Incarnation, and then continues with John the Baptist's testimony that he is not the Christ. Then the Baptist continues his baptizing until he baptizes Jesus. Then the narrative changes to Jesus, and he goes along with two disciples who stay with him, coming to understand who Jesus is. The wedding at Cana comes next and is really the first public action in John's Gospel that Jesus does to demonstrate his identity, his authority, and his strength. There isn't much of a narrative about Jesus before this wedding, so this becomes his breakout story.

There's a Rilke poem called "The Marriage at Cana." It begins with Mary's delight and pride in her son. "She had/ repressed, surely a hundred times,/the display of her delight in him./She followed him with astonishment." The poem continues:

But at that wedding feast, there when
unexpectedly the wine ran out,-
she begged him for a gesture with her look
and didn't grasp that he resisted her.

And then he did it. Later she understood
how she pressured him into his course:
for now he really was a wonder-worker,
and the whole sacrifice was now ordained,/
irrevocably. Yes, it was written.
but had it, at the time, as yet been readied?
she: she had driven it forth
in the blindness of her vanity.

That is not the Mary whom John the Evangelist described or even Luke, and why blame Mary, for vanity, for causing Jesus to act and so be lured into his own self-sacrifice. It's an unjustified attack on Mary, and I think a failure to understand both their relationship and his own choices, his choosing to act.

Some of the commentaries observe that this could sound like a kvetching Jewish mother trying to chivvy her unemployed, unmarried, stay at home, son into action. The stereotypes of Jewish mothers and their sons could well have a base in fact, and it would seem to me more reasonable to appeal to that image, than to blame Mary and ignore the theology of Jesus as fully human and fully God. Instead, it seems possible to me that Jesus and his mother did have the somewhat edgy bond that Jewish mothers have with their sons: to have enormous pride and to urge them to be superior, the greatest of them all. Jesus voices just the reluctance or even recalcitrance to being told what to do. That's the human interaction, and it sounds very real.

Then the Gospel's tone changes. Jesus comes into his own. He understands both the need and the social disaster, which would occur without wine. He has an epiphany that he could fix both. The narrative is full of theological symbolism. There is the echo of Israel's wedding and marriage from Isaiah's speaking for the Lord to praise Israel and "delight and marry her." Additionally the jars are for purification, and Jesus uses them to make wine. Either the wine would be seen to contaminate the water jars, or would have to be understood as making something in a new order, the blood of salvation. There are other theological seams, too: "my hour," the secret with the steward (like the Messianic secret of not having miracles be bruited about,) the wedding trope, the third day, the actual transformation of water to wine, and so on.

Why blame Mary in pejorative language, rather than, for example crediting her, or crediting Jesus? Something big and inexplicable happened and someone should get blamed.

In this week of complicated news, reaching out for blame is tempting. Why is the Senate campaign going so unexpectedly? Why can't we talk about the Commonwealth's inability to elect a strong woman to a high political office? There is blame instead for a bad campaign, big money, as well as Coakley's difficulty in campaigning? We want to blame, and even more, this week; we want to blame someone for all the disaster in Haiti. Apparently there is blame enough to go around, from officials, to building materials, to political graft and corruption, from the absence of solid building codes or reliable inspectors. Blame doesn't get us much or as one friend used to say, "Fix the problem, not the blame." Paul Farmer has been quoted as saying,   "God gives us humans everything we need to flourish but He's not the one who's supposed to divvy up the loot." Rilke wants to blame Mary, because Jesus accepts his role, and walks with humans to whatever extent it takes to take on their sins, but Jesus really wasn't really ever going to stay walking the roads and talking. He was walking and talking about justice and actions, and he needed to act, and could and did. He probably hadn't yet picked the occasion, but it presented itself.

People want to blame the candidates, the strategy for the confusion of the election. People want to blame the poor infrastructure, the social structure which doesn't spend time educating children, and on and on. Worse than Monday morning quarterbacking, this approach of blame isn't very helpful, and it misses the point.

In the campaign, there is adequate blame to go around, but voting is our obligation, and voting is about choice. I understand something of the paradox that strong women live out in public- if they're strong, they're unfeminine and too tough, and if they're polite and genteel, they're weak, not up to a man's job, and not ready for governing, leading, being bishop, professor, chief of surgery-pick the field, but that's the task to identify and fix. Haiti has had major problems always, but naming them is impolite-and the people are so happy and so artistic, with terrific music. There have been American NGO's, including the Sisters of Saint Margaret for 80 years, for decades, and we don't understand why conditions haven't improved. Blame obfuscates what happened and can slow fixing the problem.

Mary nudged her son before the community's family and social event was spoiled. He acknowledged that it wasn't yet his time to act definitively at his own work, pace, or scale. This wedding needed help. He understood that his action wasn't about his mother's pushiness, or his own reluctance. The wine had run out. That was the fact, and she pointed that out to him. What did she expect him to do? Who knows? Fix it? Take the guys out to the store and get more quickly? Maybe. Go home, so the shortage would be less noticeable? Maybe. There was no wine.

God provides with enormous generosity for all, but we are assigned the responsibility of divvying up the fruit of that generosity, in materiel, in know-how, in food and water, in kindness, in creativity of poetry, art, and music, in cash-there are envelopes at the back of the church for cash, checks or whatever you can give to the Sisters of Saint Margaret, and I'll see they get our gifts quickly; they've been teaching compromised children and caring for the frail for generations, and their convent and schools  (and cathedral) are gone, but they are safe and are on the job, so we need to help them and they'll use our money effectively-We need to do what we can to elect a Senator who'll be forceful, informed, and help provide healthcare and other social policies for all.

There was no wine, so Jesus provided wine. The way he did it revealed several things about him. He honored his mother, who had told the truth, and identified a genuine need, but he didn't like to be pushed. He wasn't ready to rip off his tunic and reveal a big Superman persona, so he told the stewards what and how to do, and to keep it quiet. The guests and the hosts didn't see what happened. There was enough wine, so no one had to notice except the person now pouring from full jugs, rather than worrying at the end of nearly empty ones.

Jesus understood that in God's abundance there is always enough wine. "God's love reaches to the clouds" and was present in this particular situation's need. Jesus understood that there are many gifts, but only one Lord, and his gift was immediate: provide more wine, and isn't it wonderful that the "more" wine was also better, not just enough wine, but a banquet of wine. Jesus realized that he could do God's will, purpose, and work in a direct way, unique among people. There must have been a small moment of "Oh, I can do this," and then almost instantaneously, "Where can this go? What does this mean for me, for my mother, for those around me?" There was no wine, and then there was enough.

God promises to provide enough always, but bad things happen, including devastating earthquakes. God promises to be there and provide "food for the journey." It wasn't Mary's fault that Jesus revealed himself, and went on to the cross, and it really wasn't to her credit. There was no wine, and Jesus understood that he could fix that, and would accept fully the consequences of his actions. He took on all of our lapses and misses, and forgives us all of them, taking us with him to Paradise: Good News.

© 2010 The Rev. Dr. Katharine C. Black