A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

“ya Gotta love that jesus guy”

John 2:1-11, Preached by Tom Lacey at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, January 17, 2010

An Irish priest is driving down to New York and gets stopped for speeding in Connecticut. The state trooper smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car. "Sir,” the officer asks, “Have you been drinking?" "Just water," says the priest. The trooper says, "Then why do I smell wine?" The priest looks at the bottle and says, "Good Lord! He's done it again!"

Ya gotta love a guy who turns water into wine. We often think of transformation in terms of opposites, where ugly becomes beautiful as in Beauty and the Beast, or the good becomes bad, as in the kind Dr. Jekyll transformed into the cruel Mr. Hyde. We also think of change in terms of something unrecognizable, like the caterpillar metamorphosing into a winged butterfly or the transformer toys, when a car becomes a robot. And it is true that God can and does transform people in those ways. But there is another type of transformation that is modeled at Cana. At Cana, the object of transformation is something that is already good and pure and necessary. There is nothing that needs fixing in the water. Cana is not about making the bad good, but about making the good even better. Today, the promise is to those who are pretty much on the right track, those with a basic level of faith in God, who treat their neighbor with respect and mercy, who live a life of moderation, gentleness and self-control, who already go to church, raised children well, or do their job above average. Jesus at Cana is for those whose life is like water, good, nourishing, and life-sustaining: And yet, it may take everything we have just to get the job done; and yet, for all the good we’ve done, we still have doubts about whether it is enough; and still, we feel rushed and harried and under constant scrutiny before others, and most of all, before God, who we think always demands better, better execution of plans, more things accomplished, a bigger and better life.

Let’s assume today's text is not primarily a story about a wedding, about drinking, or about who scurried around to do what for whom. The first thing to notice then is that John does not call this a miracle. In fact, John does not call anything a miracle in his Gospel. They are signs. He records seven “signs” in his Gospel and changing the water into wine is the first. None of the other Gospel writers saw the miracle at Cana as something worth recording. They were much more impressed with healings and exorcisms. But John remembered Cana. 

The story of Jesus turning water into wine may get people snagged on one of the details. The wine can do it; in fact, there are some whose only commentary on this story is an attempt to prove that Jesus turned water into grape juice. But that's to miss the truth that it actually is wine, not grape juice that comes out of the jugs. Now even if this isn’t precisely a story about wine, nor should it ever be used as support for abusing alcohol, it surely strikes some uncomfortably that when the wine ran out, instead of wagging his index finger and saying “Good, now go home and sober up,” Jesus provided about 150 gallons more of the best wine. And even if this is still only a detail, it sure is one heck of one. It certainly isn't something we ought to toss off to the side, even if it doesn't fit into our "Who God Is" program. So let it beg the question: What if God is the kind of God who says it's alright to make sure there is enough wine at a wedding feast (as long as there is a designated driver for every car or chariot)? When Jesus told the Pharisees the reason his disciples and he ate and drank a bit more than was customary for prophets and their disciples was because "when the bridegroom is with you that's when you have a good time," he obviously meant it. Jesus knew how to have a good time, by certain earthly standards. How can I put this? Let me see: Jesus was fun! He wasn't a killjoy, no matter how much you've heard this. That's right: Let go, and have fun. It's Christian, Christ-like, to have a good time.

The second thing that hangs people up in this story is the way that Jesus talks to his mother, and the way she talks to him. No matter that Jesus is 30 or so years old, most people feel like Jesus is at least a little bit rude to his mother here. So they go off on tangents about obedience, cutting apron strings, and the fact that Jesus gives in and does it anyway. Mary’s exemplary faith is examined, how even though Jesus says “No way, Mom,” she goes and puts the servants on stand-by anyway. Clearly, in this Mary, you can see the beginning of the Holy Mother Mary of significant Christian traditions. Those discussions can be helpful, but still they’re not the reason John put the story in his Gospel.

Only in the Gospel of John does Jesus say, “I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” This is what the miracle at Cana is about. Water, the basic necessity of life, is changed into wine, the symbol not just of life, but of abundant, joyous, and celebrative life. Wine in Scripture is a symbol of joy and warmth and celebration and abundance. In changing the water into wine, and remember it’s not just cheap wine, it’s the good stuff, and allowing the wedding celebration to continue, Jesus is clueing people in on his mission. Jesus has come to transform the world.

At a Christian retreat weekend a number of years ago, a man was struggling with a call to the ministry. He felt a strong sense of call.  “I’m having a hard time,” he said, “because I want it so much, I can’t tell if it’s really God calling me.” The basic problem was that he had a hard time believing God would call him to something he would actually enjoy. He was ready for resigned obedience, but not for joy. Another person in attendance at the weekend counseled him by quoting Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." At this the man broke down. Christian joy comes from serving a God whose name is not duty but Love. 

 God does take mean, ugly lives and transforms them into beautiful angels of mercy. God does take us when we are crawling along on our bellies and gives us wings to fly, when we are broken and then makes us whole. But that’s not the whole picture. This sign is not the message about the transformation of the sinner. What John is pointing to is the promise for those whose lives are really pretty good. So many times people only know the God of living water.  The problem is that those who only know the God of living water may never get beyond this to a God of real joy. If you don't think the Lord wants you to be happy, joyful, full of celebration then you don't understand Christianity. It's as unhealthy to reject joy as it is untrue to reject a God who blesses us with joy. Work does not set you free, joy sets you free. Demands ought to be fulfilled; obligations ought to be realized; but God created Adam and Eve, made us out of love and joy and desired our happiness and companionship. Ya gotta love a God who’s all about joy.

In his autobiography, Crazy for God, Frank Schaeffer describes his life growing up in the famous Evangelical/Fundamentalist family of Francis and Edith Schaeffer, of L'Abri fame. At the end of his wonderful book, he circles back around to his mom, and shows us who she had become in her old age.

Mom is ninety-two. Sometimes she talks wistfully about the time when a 'real Broadway producer' saw her dance while she was at college. 'I had talent. I could have made it,' Mom says. 'But my parents forbade it. In fact, when I asked them if I could go, they were so shocked that I had been dancing in a school production that they threatened to take me out of college.'

In my mother's second childhood, as a very old lady with memory loss, her greatest pleasure, one that literally seems to raise her up, is not Bible study but dancing. When I take her out during my visits to Switzerland ... her favorite destination is to go to the Hotel Trois Couronnes in Vevey. We head for the piano bar .... (where) the main attraction is the Italian man who plays the piano. When he sees Mom, he starts playing her favorites, tunes by Cole Porter, some Gershwin, and plenty of Duke Ellington. Then Mom dances....

I have never loved or admired Mom more than when she dances as the oldest of old ladies.... Her face lights up and she smiles at the world she can't see any more. And all the frail uncertainty leaves her body for a few minutes and she is steady on her feet again....Mom is old, radiant, at peace, and unafraid when she dances. And the paradox is that the woman who I remember no longer exists. The (mother) who rejoices that Lynette was giving up dancing to serve the Lord is gone.

I am curious about the fact that all those tunes are so familiar to Mom. She has forgotten so much, say where she had breakfast or who she just met, but she sings the old show tunes as if she had spent a lifetime on Broadway. That 'jazzy music' was banned from our home when I was young; if we were changing radio stations and hit upon any of the tunes she sings so gleefully in old age, Mom would turn off the radio with a snap and reproachful glare. In the early unreconstructed fundamentalist years, Mom always said, 'Real Christians don't dance. It isn't pleasing to the Lord.'

I never knew how sad that belief must have been making her. And she must have been so torn up inside as she expressed such fierce joy over Lynette giving up dancing, when buried deep there was the memory of the day she also gave up, or was forced to give up, her talent for God."

It doesn't seem to me that Jesus would ever say anything like, "dancing isn't pleasing to the Lord." Ya gotta love a God like that. Don't let them take away your joy. Get your heart back to its God-given happiness. Find in Christ a companion of good times. See in Jesus an inspiration for laughter, friendship, parties and feasts. I know this is not the God or Jesus you probably woke up thinking about this morning, but life is love and love is joy and joy is laughter and laughter is holy and holy is good. And Christ is Lord of them all. Amen.

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