The Marriage at Cana: John 2:1-11
Susan J. Barnes
St. Matthew’s Church, Austin
18 January 2004
It is an article of faith, central to Christianity, that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. That’s easy to say--rolls right off the tongue--but it’s nearly impossible to understand. It’s so mind-boggling, in fact, that most of us we really don’t believe it--that
is, we don’t believe that Jesus was fully human. With a couple of exceptions, the gospel stories don’t help us see Jesus’ humanity: they only tell us about the last couple of years of his life, when he was a master teacher, healer, and worker of miracles.
The gospel of John particularly stresses Jesus’ god-like aspects. So it’s amusing to find there the story we just heard. If there was ever a human moment in Jesus’ life, this is it. And it’s deeply endearing.
What could be more human, after all? There’s the situation. The mother, who knows what her son can do--and even more to the point, what he needs to do. The son, reluctant, believing himself not ready, resists, tries to evade. It’s a classic clash of wills between mother and child--the kind that we never seem to outgrow. Even Jesus! This
story reminds me that Richard Rohr wrote in Everything Belongs: "You have to have an ego before you can surrender it to God. Maybe that’s why we don’t hear much about Jesus until he was thirty."
Many of us have had an experience like this with our mother--right down to the nature of the dialogue, where nothing is explicit, it’s all between the lines. After all, Mary doesn’t come out and say, "Jesus, it’s time for you to perform a miracle. I know you can. Just do it." She simply remarks "They have no wine." When Jesus tries to put her off, she knows better than to confront him. She doesn’t embarrass him. Instead, she sets the stage for him to act by preparing the servants to assist him. And act he does. It’s incredibly discreet. Tenderly, Mary protected her son. Only the two of them, only she and Jesus knew what was in play. If it failed, no one would be the wiser. As a result,
this was a very private miracle. Imaging that there were crowds in the party, only Mary, Jesus, the servant, and the disciples knew what happened.
It was a masterpiece of the motherly nudge, and it worked. Jesus came into his full power, and his disciples believed.
So it’s a critical moment in Jesus’ ministry: his first miracle--or, in the language of the fourth gospel, his first sign. The passage begins "On the third day". Let me recall for us what happened in the days before it and on the days following. You see that the text is at
the beginning of John, chapter 2. The first 18 verses of John 1 are the poetic preface "In the beginning was the Word... After that, events unfold rapidly. John the Baptist prophesies the coming of the Messiah: he says he saw God’s spirit descending on Jesus at his baptism and declares Jesus is the Son of God. John points Jesus out to two of his
own disciples, including Andrew, who tells his brother Peter "We have found the Messiah". They speak to Jesus, follow him to his home. Jesus goes to Galilee with them and calls Philip and Nathanael to be his disciples. Nathanael says that Jesus is "The Son of God, the King of Israel." That all happens in three days.
Then follows our story, chapter 2. So, you see, when Jesus came with his disciples to the wedding at Cana they were relative strangers. The disciples had John’s word for who Jesus was, and they had made some bold declarations themselves. Jesus had impressed them with his persona, but Jesus hadn’t done anything. With the miracle at Cana, this gospel tells us: "his disciples believed in him."
What happened after that is stunning. Because after spending a few days at home with his mother, brothers, and his disciples. Jesus burst on the scene--going up to Jerusalem, casting the merchants and the money-lenders out of the Temple at the time of the Passover, and setting up his fatal conflict with the temple authorities. (If you remember this
episode as coming later, during Jesus’ Passion, you are right. It does in the synoptic gospels--the other three. Only in John does it come at the beginning.)
The miracle at Cana is critical because it is the moment when Jesus does come into his own. It is the moment when--believing he is not ready--he steps out in faith and lets God empower him to embrace his God-given destiny. So Jesus is human, after all. Even Jesus had to learn to trust God.
What a comfort! Even Jesus doubted he was ready to respond to his call. He had to be pushed. And who better to do so than Mary? Mary, whom God had called to bear the Messiah when she was young and unmarried--totally ill equipped. Better than anyone alive, Mary knew that God would provide. God would provide for her son, as he had for
her. God would equip the one whom God had called.
So it has been with me: when I was called to turn from twenty-five years in the arts toward ordained ministry, or when I was called to mission work in Honduras right after Hurricane Mitch. In neither case did I feel equipped. God provided in Honduras. And God continues to provide for me here. Through Merrill’s guidance, your loving patience, your friendship, through the work we all do together, God is equipping me to be a priest.
So it is with many, many of you I have heard some of your stories—and I long to hear more. And I have seen, too. In my thirty months here I have been blessed to see this miracle happen among you myself. You felt God calling you to do something you believed was beyond you--a ministry, a mission, a project, a new role, a new profession, a promotion. Like Jesus, you doubted yourself, you resisted--made excuses. Then you stepped out in faith. And God provided.
How do we know God’s will, though? How do we discern? Here are some
suggestions. Begin with those from Jesus’ own mouth: "Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it will be opened." Ask what God would have you do; seek God’s will. It actually works.
The Daughters of the King, whom we honor today, can show us how. Their
prayer/motto ends with this question: Lord, what would you have me do? "Lord, what would you have me do?" How much better our world would be if every one of us, if every Christian asked that question at every juncture, in every dilemma, in every situation of our daily lives.
More thoughts on God’s will, God’s call. God will never call you to violate one of the ten commandments. God will not call you to do anything counter to the love of God or the love of neighbor or the love of self--which we can also translate as respect for self. That’s a good, simple standard: don’t do anything that is contrary to love of God, love of another, love of self. God will not call you to hate, though God may well call you respectfully to oppose something or someone. God will not call you to hurt someone for your own sake, though every parent and teacher knows that we may be called to hurt someone for their own sake.
How do we hear God’s call? How do we know? First, we have to listen. Sometimes, if we’re very lucky, we get a two-by-four between the eyes. Some people—like Moses-- actually hear the voice of God. If we can silence our own fears and self doubts, we may sense God’s call in the still, small voice within ourselves. Mostly though, we hear God’s will, God’s call, as Jesus did at Cana, when we’re not expecting it, when we think we’re not
ready--through another person’s voice. We will hear it not in our time, but in God’s time. We will hear it in the voice of a teacher or friend, a priest, a child, a spouse. We will hear it, even our mother’s voice, maybe especially our mother’s voice.
