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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
January 20, 2019
Time to Celebrate
John 2:1-11 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. 9 When 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 10 and 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.” 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
Today I am going to do a little midrash, a story about a story in the Bible. I’m pretty sure what I’m about to tell you didn’t happen this way. Nevertheless, it is true.
I love a party. I’m Miriam, widow of Eli, but everybody calls me the Party Lady. I live right outside of Capernaum by Lake Galilee, and I throw parties for a living. You see, ever since I was a girl, there was nothing I loved more than throwing a party. I took care of all my friends’ weddings. And then their younger brothers and sisters. And then their kids! Most people get flustered throwing big parties. They worry too much, making all the arrangements, trying to figure out how much food to order, keeping all the lists. I just love it! I really think God put me on this earth to help people have a good time. After my friends urged me, I put up a shingle over my front door, “Party Lady – for all your special occasions.” I’ve been running all over Galilee throwing parties ever since.
I do funerals, a few Bar Mitzvahs, but mostly weddings. I do weddings right. Now I don’t go in for those huge extravagant weddings like I’ve heard the Roman landlords do. I think spending a fortune on a wedding is cheating God’s poor, and God knows we have enough poverty around here. But even when you try to keep a wedding simple, you still want it to be special. A wedding only happens once (God willing.) And you want to have abundant food and drink. Abundance is not only good hospitality, it is a sign for the new couple, that their love will be abundant, and their life together will have abundant blessings. Providing abundance at a village wedding is a big job, because in a village wedding, the whole village expects to be invited! And there’s the six days of partying after the actual wedding day, the groom’s friends party with him every night, and the bride’s with her. That a lot of party! What, you don’t know why the six nights of partying? I’m not going to tell you about that law. Ask your rabbi![1]
Anyway, one wedding I remember really taught me about abundance. It was for Akiva. Akiva had lost his first wife in childbirth. What a tragedy. But now he was starting over with a new bride. You could see it on his face that he didn’t believe his luck was going to hold. Now you never know what will happen at a wedding. Like the time Ari’s camel got loose. I was not in charge of the parking! That camel walked right through the hall and knocked a bowl of hummus into the lap of the mother of the bride. Usually people are very understanding at weddings. But for Akiva, who had suffered so much and worried so much, I wanted to do it right, without a hitch.
Akiva lived in Kafr Kanna, about three miles east of Nazareth. Now Kanna is on the major road, but it’s a two cow town. So what did Akiva do? He invited all the neighboring towns! We went with the local bargain wine, really not bad stuff. You have something like it– two-buck Chuck. Do you know Mary from Nazareth, widow of Joseph? She was there helping. And her son Jesus was there, and his younger brothers too. Jesus had recently become a rabbi or something. He was always such a good Torah scholar. He brought a bunch of friends with him, his students I guess. Now Jesus was a good man, but those friends of his! They were fishermen from Lake Galilee, I heard. Well, I can tell you they swore like fishermen, and they drank like fish! But I plan for that kind of thing. At least I thought I did.
Now I must make a confession. At Akiva’s wedding, I messed up. You see, I ordered fifty jars of wine from Moishe the wineseller in Capernaum. But somehow, only fifteen were delivered. It was a simple misunderstanding, and I could have caught it when the wine was delivered. But I didn’t check, because Moishe was always so reliable. It could have been a nightmare for the newlyweds, running out of wine before the main toasts were made. Akiva would have been devastated. (Not to mention the blow to my reputation.) Instead, something strange and wonderful happened.
It was almost time to raise the cup of blessing and make those all-important toasts to the bride and groom, prayers for lots of children, that kind of thing. When I tasted what the servers were pouring, I couldn’t believe it! This wasn’t the inexpensive local wine I had ordered. It was divine! So smooth and rich, obviously well aged, full of all kinds of subtle flavors. I’m didn’t know old Moishe sold stuff that good! So I found Akiva and I whispered in his ear, “Where did you find this stuff? You’ve been holding out on me, old boy!” He tasted for himself and grinned from ear to ear, “It’s not my wine. It must be a gift from someone. God has smiled on us today.” And he looked over at his new bride with eyes of adoration. Ah. I was over the moon to see them so.
But then I started to wonder, had there been a mix-up in the order? Am I going to owe Moishe a fortune for this wine? I ran and found my headwaiter, and said, “Where did this wine come from?” He just grinned at me and pointed out the door, and grinned some more. I walked out into the yard and here are the servants pouring wine– not out of gallon flasks, but ladling it out of twenty-five gallon stone jars, the kind we use to hold water for cleaning.
“Where did this wine come from?” And they told me. Mary must have noticed, before any of them, that the wine was just about gone. There was some talk between her and Jesus. I won’t try to guess what that was about. Then Mary told the headwaiter, “Do whatever he tells you.” Do you know, that’s just what old Pharaoh of Egypt said long ago about our ancestor Joseph when the famine started. “Go to Joseph. Do whatever he tells you.” And everybody in Egypt had enough to eat, because of Joseph. (Genesis 41:55.) So Jesus told them to fill these six stone jars with water, and bring it to me to taste. And here it was, a hundred and fifty gallons of the best wine I had ever served.
For the rest of the party, I was in a daze. First the shock that Miriam the Party Lady had almost ruined the party by messing up an order. How could I live with myself, if I had let those newlyweds down? Instead everyone said it was the best party they could remember. At the end of the week, we still had a hundred gallons of this fine wine left over. So I split it with the family and I used my fifty gallons for the important toasts in three more weddings after that. (No charge, of course.)
You can imagine the talk that started about this transformation. The waiters were all babbling about miracles. My headwaiter and I even joked about inviting Jesus to join the party business. He clearly enjoys parties as much as I do. People kept asking me, do you believe this miracle really happened? Here’s what I told them. “I don’t understand what happened. I just think it was a sign that Jesus is more than just another Rabbi. Pay attention to him, not the wine,” that’s what I said!
For me, that day was a sign that God’s grace is abundant, and full of surprises. That grace not only covered my mistake, that could have hurt that new couple so in need of blessing, and ruined my reputation. It was so much more than we needed. It was stunning generosity. The memory of that day helps me to ask God’s generosity when I need it, and to be generous myself. If a couple can’t afford my services, I always send a few gallons of wine to their wedding anyway. Everyone should be able to raise the cup of blessing.
I listened to Jesus teach a few times myself. He was generous to let women be his students. Most rabbis don’t do that. He always challenged me to be more faithful, and more generous. I knew he would go on to do great things. But then I heard he had been crucified in Jerusalem, and I was horrified. Poor Mary, can you imagine what she went through? But the next time I saw her, she was smiling and humming. ‘What’s got you so happy?” I asked?
“You’ll think I’m crazy,” she replied.
“Go on, tell me. I’ve heard a few crazy things before.”
“Jesus is not dead. He is risen, and his Spirit is still with us, blessing us and guiding us.” Well, I didn’t know what to say to that. And then she told me that they celebrate every first day of the week. “Come to the party!” she said. A party! How could I refuse?
So I went, and I loved it. There was singing, and praying, and reading the scriptures. And then there was a wonderful meal, where everybody brought a little something. What do you people call that here? A Pot Luck? Generosity in action, I call it. And the people were all sitting together, people you wouldn’t think could eat together: rich and poor, tax collectors and religious scholars and grubby shepherds, Jews and Greeks and Samaritans, even this big Roman soldier named Leo. I was scared of him at first, but he turned out to be a really sweet guy. It was amazing that master and servant were breaking bread together, and caring about one another. It was so wonderful. It was better than a wedding banquet. It was like... like... the banquet feast in heaven! And they said they did this every First Day. Every week, a little taste of Paradise!
So now I help set up this feast, of course. I love a party. I set the table with our best woven cloths. On them I lay out the Bread of Life and the Cup of Blessing. As I do it, I pray with gratitude, for the abundant life that God has given me, and especially for the love and forgiveness Jesus showed me, at that wedding and now through his Spirit, living in his friends. And I always use the best wine I can find.
With thanks to Helen McNeil, for her play, Mr. Festival.
[1] In Jewish law, a woman who bleeds is unclean for seven days and may not have sex with her husband. So after the wedding night (where the bride was presumably a virgin), it is the custom for friends to entertain the bride and groom each night until they can be together again.
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