Come to the Feast
Reflections on John 2.1-11
The Second Sunday after Epiphany (Year C)
20 January 2019
Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral
New Westminster BC
John 2.1-11
2.1On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” 5His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. 9When 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 10and 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.” 11Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
To the northwest of Denver lies the small town of Berthoud. Forty years ago the town was surrounded by agricultural land and small ranches. As the cities of the Front Range grew and transportation routes improved, more and more folks moved to the smaller towns of the Front Range to enjoy the sense of community and the lower cost of living. The older two-lane roads gave way to four-lane highways making it easier to drive to the larger urban centres to the north, to the east and to the south.
In the summer of 1977, however, Berthoud was definitely not a place where one would expect to find a first-class restaurant. But there was one, located in a building that someone driving past might suspect was what my dad called ‘a greasy spoon café’, on the west side of the two-lane highway used mainly by truck drivers and farm vehicles.
To enter the front door was to cross the Atlantic and to walk into a proper French eating establishment. Every evening there were two sittings for dinner with a fixed menu of two entrées accompanied by three or four additional courses. There was no possibility of just dropping in for dinner; reservations were required. People drove from considerable distances along the Front Range to enjoy the cuisine. For a few hours and for less cost than flying from Denver to Paris one could be somewhere other than a dusty small town in northern Colorado. The food and the wine were what one read about in the fancier metropolitan culinary magazines. I only ate one meal there forty years ago and I have never forgotten the experience. It was more than magical. It was a revelation of what a meal could be.
Let’s travel back in time two thousand years to the village of Cana in Galilee. It was not a major centre, just another backwater collection of houses in a fertile agricultural area to the west of the Sea of Galilee. Its value lie primarily in the food produced around it. Any one who was going somewhere else probably would not have registered any significant memory of passing through the place. There was no distinguished synagogue, no learned line of rabbis, no political importance.
But it was in Cana that Jesus performed what the Evangelist John calls ‘the first of his signs . . . and revealed his glory’. Not in a larger town with a more diverse audience. Not in Jerusalem or some other centre of power. Just plain old Cana. Even the crisis that leads to this sign is a familiar one: the wedding guests have drunk their hosts out of house and home. Now that they are a bit ‘jolly’, let us say, the possibility of rowdiness is lurking on the horizon and Mary recognizes an approaching social disaster. So large quantities of ordinary water are transformed into the best vintage of wine available and this small town wedding will soon become the source of legend. For a brief moment in human history the messianic feast where poor and rich, men and women, Jew and Gentile will share in God’s promises makes itself present. In a dusty small town of no particular importance God’s extraordinary future makes an appearance.
Come back with me to the present. Every day somewhere on our planet that first sign accomplished at Cana in Galilee makes another appearance when the disciples of Jesus gather around the table. When we proclaim the Word, when we offer our intercessions, petitions and thanksgivings, when we bless and share the bread and wine, the ordinary becomes extraordinary. We become signs of that promised new world that all humanity longs not only to see but to inhabit. The water of our daily lives is transformed by the Spirit into the wine of the future --- even if only for a moment. Some of us are like the servants who know from whence this wine of the future has come. Others are as surprised at the steward to discover that something great has happened here.
What a moment this can be. Strangers can become friends. People coming from various paths of life discover a community that provides depth and meaning to a life that can often seem shallow and purposeless. God’s future, the goal towards which all of creation is straining, becomes visible and we realize that we are not pawns moved by an unseen hand but rather co-workers with the Holy One in making this future a gradually dawning reality.
Here we are in a wonderful cathedral surrounded by tall buildings. Each day many of our neighbours walk by with no idea of what is happening here. They bustle by on their way to the Columbia Station or on their way home after a long day of work. Occasionally they hear the bell and it may evoke some thought of what we are doing and who we are. Some may come through our doors for some public meeting or a concert. An even braver few will come to worship at Christmas and Easter. And like the folks driving on the highway by that restaurant in Berthoud or those passing by the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee, they do not know the extraordinary things going on within these walls.
· Here we hold the life of the world in our hands and offer it to God.
· Here we look at evil squarely with clear eyes and dare to become agents of God’s goodness.
· Here we tell the story of God’s love made known in Jesus of Nazareth and made known daily in the life of his disciples.
· Here we serve all persons because we see in the face of every human being the face of Christ.
· Here we strive for justice and peace so that all God’s children can be free.
· Here we remember that we are stewards of the precious gift of creation not its possessors.
Whether we are in a small town in Galilee or in northern Colorado, whether we worship in a venerable cathedral or a room in someone’s home, God’s promises for us and for all of creation are fulfilled. No matter where we find ourselves, we can catch a glimpse of God’s future and taste the banquet of new life. The good news is that no one needs a reservation, just a yearning and a thirst for the new wine that fills the soul with more than just a passing warmth but abundant life in the here and now. Come and drink for the best wine awaits us.
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