Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany
admin | 14 January 2018“Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it”
The story of the miracle at the wedding in Cana of Galilee where Jesus changes water into wine, indeed, the very best wine, has been read in the liturgical traditions as an Epiphany story. Something is made manifest, made known, about who Jesus is, about who he is for us and about what he seeks for us. In “this beginning of signs … he manifested forth his glory, and his disciples believed on him.” It is a most powerful, a most intriguing, and a most instructive story. Like so many of the Gospel stories it arrests our attention and demands our thoughtful consideration.
Most intriguing, perhaps, even beyond the questions about miracles which are an important feature of Epiphany, is the dialogue between Jesus and Mary. It sets the context for the miracle and provides the key to its interpretation. More than that, though, it alerts us to the sacramental nature of the Christian faith with respect to the making known of the essential divinity of Christ and to the work of human redemption. Just as his divinity is made known through his humanity, so too the work of human redemption happens through the things of the world. The Christian religion is not about fleeing the world; it is about the redemption of the world. Word and Sacrament are intimately and inseparably entwined as essential aspects of Christian faith and life.
Christ’s Incarnation is God’s intimate engagement with our humanity. God enters into the conditions of our world and day. But why? The great 14th century German mystic theologian, Meister Eckhart, astutely observes that “the greatest good God gave to man was in becoming man.” It is in these stories that we see the goodness of God towards our humanity. Christ’s essential divinity, as one of our hymns highlights, is made “manifest in Jordan’s stream,” referring to his baptism by John. As we saw last week, huddled in the cold of the Hall, that does not mean that Jesus recognises himself as a sinner which is all that John’s baptism really means – a kind of metanoia, a recognition in us about ourselves that expresses a desire to be freed from sin.
Christ’s baptism is about his entering into the conditions of our sinful world. It signals the idea of the divine purpose of the redemption of our humanity. Christian baptism builds on the baptism of John but imputes Christ’s righteousness to us so that we are freed from original sin because we are in Christ. But only through his hour, the hour of his passion and resurrection. It is not just about the recognition of sin but redemption from sin through our incorporation into Christ’s death and resurrection.
Our being incorporated into Christ – becoming members of Christ – means that God seeks our good. Our good is found in our fellowship with God and with one another. This miracle story from John’s Gospel is “the beginning of signs,” yet it points us to the essential meaning and purpose of all of the miracles. They are not just signs and wonders to entrance and amuse us (or God for that matter); they signal the healing and the restoration of our wounded and broken humanity. But even more, as this story shows, they signal the idea of the social joys of human redemption.
Think about the miracle stories of the Gospels. Most of them are about the healing of our humanity wounded and broken on account of sin whether generally or specifically speaking. The deaf hear, the blind see, the dumb speak, the lame walk, the dead are raised up, the lepers are cleansed. But what are we healed for? To enjoy fellowship with God and man.
The Westminster Shorter Confession of the Presbyterian Church, much of which complements the Anglican Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, gets it right and in a wonderful way when it says in response to the question “what is the chief end of man?” that it is “to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” I think that this Gospel story illustrates this primary and essential point.
Why? Because the story begins with Mary naming the human condition, the human predicament. “They have no wine,” she says with respect to the provisions for the wedding celebration. That expresses exquisitely and concisely the human situation. We lack the means of our true happiness, our real good. Wine here is not about drunkenness but rather the wine that delights the heart, that contributes to our joy, even our blessedness. In the background to this Gospel is, perhaps, an old Jewish saying that “without wine there is no joy.” The deeper point here is the recognition of our lack, our insufficiency, our need; something which we cannot accomplish on our own. And as the dialogue indicates, the satisfaction of our needs and desires cannot simply be at our will and demand. It can only be “according to thy word” and by “thy will be[ing] done”; in short, only through our openness to God and the good which he seeks for us in our lives. After all, it can’t even be said that we always really know what is the good for us. We have to want it, to be sure, but we can force it. It cannot be on our terms but only on God’s terms by definition. Which is why Mary’s “be it unto me according to thy word” is so potent an expression.
It is complemented here by what she says to the servants. “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” It is not about mindless obedience and thoughtless submission to authority. It is precisely about a kind of mindfulness arising out of the dialogue itself. “O woman, what is that to thee and to me?” may seem at first rather harsh, but is it? We have the same difficulty, I think, of reading emotion into emails sometimes. But it is the next statement that tells the tale. For Jesus simply but profoundly adds “mine hour has not yet come.” Everything that he does is seen in terms of the purpose of his coming ultimately accomplished on the Cross. There he will say, “it is finished,” meaning completed. Everything that he does has to be gathered into the meaning of his Passion. His Passion is our redemption.
And so all the miracles point to and participate in the Passion. In so doing, they participate in the purpose of Christ’s coming which is, as Jesus says elsewhere in John’s Gospel, “that they might have life and have it abundantly.” God seeks the very best for us in all of his dealings with our humanity. “O that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness”, as the refrain in Psalm 107 in today’s Gradual Psalm puts it, “for he satisfieth the empty soul,/ and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.” Such language speaks directly to the human predicament and to our longing for God’s goodness especially in our contemporary world. But it is necessarily according to his will and not according to ours. Therein lies our struggle, the struggle to attend and to live according to God’s word and will. To embrace that struggle is our freedom and our joy. But only if we attend to Mary’s direction to us here. Only so will we be who we are in Christ.
“Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it”
Fr. David Curry
Epiphany 2, 2018