Sermons

“Celebrational Faith: Sign of the Wines”

Psalm 100; John 2:1-11 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – January 20, 2019

 Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that we might be glad and rejoice, giving thanks for all your many blessings.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

We are so blessed here at VLM to have a wonderful Bible study teacher in Michael Kinnamon, and also a wonderful back-up Bible study teacher, namely Tim Tiffany who taught today.  I went to class last week, since I was here early for the meeting and we had some special guests.  They’re studying Matthew now, and we spent the whole time on the Beatitudes.  But Tim, you really ought to be grateful I wasn’t there this morning, because the further you get into Matthew 5, the less able I am to keep myself to breaking out into songs from the musical “Godspell”. “You are the light of the world!” Join in if you want to!  “You are the light of the world!  But the tallest candlestick ain’t much good without a wick.  You got to stay bright to be the light of the world.” And see, here comes the part that brings us back to where we’re supposed to be now: “So let your light so shine before men; let your light so shine.  So that they might know some kindness again.  We all need help to feel fine.  Let’s have some wine!”

Yes!  Wine! Wine is where we’re beginning today. Wine and lots of it.  Extravagant amounts of really good wine, arriving after the guests had already finished all the wine that had been presumed to be of sufficient quantity for the whole evening.  There are so many things about this story that are a little inappropriate and awkward. I love it.

First of all, let’s just look at timing.  We’re only in chapter two of John, so you know that not that much could have happened yet.  John’s gospel is pretty different than the other three, but still this is early. John basically writes a short poem about “the Word” to stand in for a birth narrative, and then there’s a couple stories about John the Baptist, and then Jesus is calling his disciples, Andrew and Simon Peter and Philip and Nathanael and at least one more.  You would think Jesus would then do some vision casting or flashy miracles in a synagogue, to officially launch his ministry at that point, but instead there’s this.  “Hey guys, I know we just all got together, and stuff is still pretty unclear and all, but I’ve got this wedding this weekend.  My mom will be really mad if I don’t show, plus she wants us all to go to Capernaum with her for a few days afterward.  Oh, you were all invited too?  Great!  That makes things way less complicated.  You know how people get when you show up with more than your ‘plus one’.”

It turns out that Jesus is pretty clear that when it’s time to party, it’s time to party.  No excuses, no postponements, no regrets.  But this story shows that even he took a minute to warm up to this lesson. As we mentioned, his mom was there. And even if the disciples were pretty new and not up to speed on what was happening, Mary knew.  She was enjoying this wedding.  So when the word came that the wine was gone, she knew immediately what needed to happen.  And she knew who could make it happen.  “They have no wine,” she said to Jesus.  And here’s where you get a little glimpse into just how human Jesus’ relationship with his mother is.  “How is that my problem?  You know my cousin is a terrible planner.  Nobody is going to be surprised.  I’m just here as a wedding guest; I didn’t come to make a splash.  This really isn’t the moment for me to be stealing all the attention.”  But she didn’t say another word to him, just to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” “We all need help to feel fine.  Let’s have some wine!”

And they did.  Hundreds of gallons of wine, really good wine, wine that was better than the wine they’d run out of.  It’s not clear what the bridegroom thought when the steward came asking why he’d held the good wine back, but it’s easy to imagine Jesus winking at him from across the room, and this cousin realizing he’d made a great choice in making the extra effort to invite Jesus, even though he didn’t have a reliable address for him.

This story, with its awkward timing and extravagant booze may seem like it doesn’t fit that well into the gospel.  But we ignore it at our peril.  There is a feast at the center of our worship service; why would we think we should avoid an invitation to party?  Yes, the world is a broken, violent mess.  Yes, there is much important work we need to be doing.  Yes, we need to spend time to contemplating our weaknesses and confessing our sins.  But friends, Jesus has got this wedding he’s supposed to go to, and all the disciples are invited.  And you know how mad his mom is going to be if we skip it.  Even Messiahs have to answer to Mama.

The truth is we have a lot to celebrate. Eight short months ago, we were in a place of potential crisis, staring down some intimidating financial realities. With much prayer and conversation, we made a choice to follow God’s path into the future, committing ourselves to cultivating vitality and growth, in ministry and membership.  We acknowledged together that there is no “silver bullet” or slick, packaged program that was going to solve our problems.  We reminded ourselves again and again that this is a long-term process, more of a shift in our approach to church than a one-time activity.  We named some three-year goals, and we started praying.  We chose, together, to trust that God has good things in store for us, to believe and claim aloud that God has been and is preparing people even now to join with us in this family of faith.

And here we are, at the beginning of a new year, more financially stable than we had any reason to expect, honoring six new members and friends with a new annual “Celebration Potluck”.  But you know what else?  Even if we had needed to subsidize our budget with $5000 from our investment funds and had no new folks here to welcome, our faith would still call us to rejoice.  It’s part of following Jesus.  When it’s time to party, it’s time to party.  No excuses, no postponements, no regrets. There is a lot about Christianity that is hard and tedious and slow.  But that’s not all there is to it.  Jesus may always be surrounded by a lot of people in need of healing, and people wanting to argue, and people wanting to squash the good he’s doing. But have you noticed that he’s also always surrounded by people breaking bread and sharing in abundance together?  A hundred and eighty gallons of wine isn’t nothing.  “The first of his signs,” John calls it, and what does it point to?  Ours is a celebrational faith, a faith that calls us to rejoice.  We often forget that.

In I Peter 3:15 we can read, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.”  It could just as easily say “be ready to explain the joy that is in you” or the “compassion” or the “alleluia and amen!”  The point is that one of the markers of being a Christian, one of the things that’s supposed to be noticeably different about the way we live our lives, is a remarkable gladness.  Following Jesus means engaging in defiant fiesta, even when it seems awkwardly timed.  If we have given our hearts to the Living God, we will always be able to find something to celebrate, something for which we need to be offering thanks.  This isn’t a party that demands we feel cheery when we don’t.  It’s not about denying the terrible things that happen in our lives and our world.  It’s about taking a moment to celebrate the things that are good.  It’s about looking back and seeing how far we’ve come and giving thanks to God.  It’s about reviving our hearts with hope rooted in gratitude.  It’s about facing the future with excitement because we trust in the goodness of God.  Every once in a while, we are called to indulge in extravagant celebration, as a witness to the extravagant grace of God.

A couple weeks ago, we talked about our faith being “attractional”, that is, if we can reveal Jesus, Jesus will draw people in. Last week, we talked about our faith being “consequential”; our baptism into life in Christ has ramifications for how we live our lives.  Can you imagine telling someone that one of the consequences of baptism is a religious obligation to party once in a while?  Do you think that might attract them to our church?  I’m not saying you should promise them gallons of free wine, but in truth, we all do need help to feel fine, and coming together as a community of celebrational faith is one of the ways we help heal the world’s brokenness, within ourselves and in the wider community.  If we’re following Jesus, there’s never a bad time to have a party. Alleluia and Amen!