ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET
SERMON PREACHED BY THE VICAR AT HIGH MASS ON 2ND SUNDAY OF EPIPHANY, 2010
Readings: Isaiah 62:1-5; 1 Cor. 12:1-11; John 2:1-11
A couple of months ago, we were guests at a nephew's wedding in Birmingham. The bride's family are Pentecostalists, while most of the groom's are Roman Catholics or Anglicans. Our hosts were very welcoming and we coped reasonably well with unfamiliar elements in the service. In fact, the marriage service proper was borrowed, - without acknowledgement - from the Church of England, as I pointed out to the genial Welsh pastor afterwards. "Oh yes", he replied, "yours is much better than anything we've got!"
The reception was held at the Botanic Gardens and it was here that the differences between our traditions really became apparent when it was clear that we were operating with two very different understandings of an adequate provision of wine for such an occasion. It is not that our family is particularly dipsomaniac but, Pentecostalists belong to that school of Christianity which, in reaction to the undoubted evils of alcoholism in the 19th century, came to believe that Jesus must have turned water into grape juice.
At our table, it was not long before the word went round "we have no wine". When a waiter was summoned, it became clear that this was another wedding reception that had reached the stage of "they have no wine". However, relief was at hand. The Botanic Gardens may not have had any great stone water jars but there was a bar; so enough wine was to be had to ensure that we had something in our glasses for the toasts.
The guests at Ivor's christening lunch today need not fear. When I was at his home the other evening, I noticed in the hallway, not six stone water jars holding 30 gallons, , but several large boxes from a well-known wine merchants - and this in spite of his proud father being the son of a Baptist minister. Daniel did tell me that he is working on an advertising campaign for beer just now, but today's gospel was not chosen for that reason.
As we hear in today's gospel, catering crises at weddings are nothing new. The wedding reception at which Jesus, his mother and disciples, were guests was not some one day affair. In those days when there was no jetting off to the Maldives for your honeymoon, wedding celebrations would last a week. They would be hosted by the groom's family when the bride came to live in her husband's home.
It is the Mother of Jesus who alerts him to the problem. At first he seems completely unconcerned: "O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come?" or "Woman, what concern is that to you and me? My hour has not come."
In John's Gospel what seem to be no more than accidental details often signify much more. The mother of Jesus only appears twice in John. Here, at the wedding feast and then at the foot of the cross; when Jesus' "hour" has come, when he will be lifted up to draw all people to himself. The wedding happens on the "third day" - the day of the resurrection. In the meantime, Jesus is reluctant to be used simply as miracle-working solver of human problems.
In Scripture, wine is a symbol of joy and the wedding feast is a sign of the kingdom of heaven. This "the first of his signs" which "Jesus did at Cana in Galilee", points us to God's generosity and final purpose for us.
Another feature if John's Gospel is the use of irony. People often say more than they know. Jesus' mother tells the servants, "Do whatever he tells you". John means us to understand that this is more than a one-off instruction to the servants at a wedding reception. "He" is the "Word made flesh", the one through whom the world was made, the one in whom it and we find the meaning and purpose of life. It is in obedience to him that we are to find fulfilment and joy. He is the "light of the world", the one in whose light we see light.
Jesus tells the servants to fill the great stone water jars to the brim and then to draw some out and take it to the steward of the feast. When he tastes it, he is amazed. He has clearly been at such occasions before and knows the form. Give them the best wine while they are sober enough to appreciate it. Then, when they are all a bit squiffy, supermarket plonk will do.
So, he calls the bridegroom and says. "Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the best wine until now." He too is saying more than he knows; witnessing to the fact that Jesus is the one in whom the Jewish religious rites, symbolised by those stone water jars, and indeed all human hopes and spiritual longings, have found their fulfilment in Jesus; the one in whom the world will find joy.
Later in the Gospel, when Jesus meets the woman at the well, he will speak of himself as the one who gives " living water"; then later in the Temple, will say , "if anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink". When he feeds the 5000 he will say, "I am the bread of life". In this service which combines the two principal Christian sacraments, God uses the gifts of creation, water, bread, wine, as the means of grace which enable us not simply to live and enjoy human life, but to share and rejoice in the life of God.
This morning Ivor's parents and family and godparents give thanks for the gift which he is; and we rejoice with them. But this is only a beginning. The joy which this child has brought into their lives carries with it a responsibility which endures. Like marriage, parenthood calls from us commitment to the life and well-being, the happiness and fulfilment of another. At the Last Supper, on the night before he gives himself up to death, Jesus speaks of himself as "the true vine". Wine is the symbol of the giving of self, of sacrifice, as well as of joy. It is the symbol of both. It is the sign of one as the source of the other.
God's pledge to us in the sacrament is that he gives us the strength we need for the tasks he gives us. The more we avail ourselves of his gifts, the more we will discover that the best wine is kept to the last.